All Episodes
Nov. 8, 2018 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von
01:56:31
Urijah Faber | This Past Weekend #146

Theo Von sits down with mma legend Urijah Faber. This episode brought to you by… Hair Club https://www.hairclub.com/theo Free hair analysis & free hair kit - $300 value Skillshare https://www.skillshare.com/theo 2 months unlimited access for $0.99 with this link Grey Block Pizza 1811 Pico Blvd. Santa Monica, CA http://bit.ly/GreyBlock Music “Shine” - Bishop Gunn http://bit.ly/Shine_BishopGunnSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Today's episode is brought to you by Gray Block Pizza, 1811 Pico Boulevard on the way to the beach.
If you think you could do something with your life, that something could be Grey Block.
Today's guest managed to plant the seeds of an entrepreneurial business mastermind all the while becoming a champion in the world of cage fighting.
He's no longer fighting, but he's got so many things going on in the business world that his career just continues to climb.
Today's guest is Mr. Uriah Faber.
Oh my.
Shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you a story you need.
But no, I've never seen anybody.
I mean, that's really just making the most out of things.
Bro, when I was in the lobby and whatnot, I tried a napkin.
I was trying a couple different.
You really get in there.
Absolutely.
I love that.
Yeah.
It's effective.
It's a genetic thing, I think.
My dad, I remember driving around my dad's old beat up truck and he always had toothpicks or he had a little crappy toothbrush he'd keep in a center console and he was constantly digging on his teeth.
So we must have genetic teeth gaps that store food.
It might have been a survival tactic back in the day.
Yeah.
But I'm online.
Right.
Yeah, pretty much.
Just to spend money on dental floss.
Do you keep floss around?
You do?
I do usually.
Or I'll grab, if I've been in a restaurant, I'll get like a couple toothpicks and keep them for the day.
My girl's always making fun of me.
She's like, I've never seen somebody floss their teeth as much as I was.
I have to.
She makes fun of me for a couple of things.
One is being a mouth breather.
And I'm like, I was in 44 professional fights.
I've been punched in the nose.
Look, I can breathe at all.
Yeah, like I can be.
And lucky, I'm not more damaged than I already am.
Like I'm not a machine breather.
Yeah, exactly.
And then the dental floss thing, but I just can't handle having a bunch of crap stuck in my teeth.
Yeah.
Now, is it because you worry that other people see it or it's just a thing that you're doing?
No, it just gets, yeah, it just gets on my nerves.
I don't really care.
Right.
Do you feel like it's an unorganized thing?
Like, I'm just trying to wonder if it goes back to a place in you that like resonates in other areas of your life, you know?
You a psych major?
I don't know.
I just like to think about it.
I think you are.
I think, like, you know, I just think it's kind of fascinating, you know, because you like, you know, a lot of guys have, you know, gone through fighting and been and had an experience in that world, but you like kind of seem to also attack like kind of the business world and like continue to, you know, just keep whatever your motivation was or maybe to fight.
I don't know, but you keep that motivation just cruising right into whatever the next thing is.
So I guess I'm just wondering like if organization is one of your skills, I do, I think if I take it back, I do remember my mom always saying, you know, she's saying, you're really lucky.
You got, you're blessed with good teeth.
You better take care of them.
Like all that kind of stuff since I was little.
So maybe at some point that stuck in.
It just stuck in.
Your dad took care of them.
She also used to tell me if I wear too tight of underwear that my wiener wouldn't grow.
Really?
Which I don't know if that's true or not, but I think she was, you know, I was a guy that likes to keep old shit.
You know, my old shoes, they try to get me to get rid of my shoes and my favorite shoes, throw them away, and I go back and get them.
Get them.
Wow.
Yeah, just a comfort thing.
This shirt's like nine years older, something like that.
So if something works, you stick with it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Now, when you were fighting and stuff, did that change in your fighting style?
Or do you feel like the fighting style that you had when you started was kind of the same?
Because I know you've just kind of, you know, I don't ever want to say somebody's finished from something, but finished like a year ago.
I retired, yeah.
Retired.
Retired a year and a half ago.
Was your style always the same?
My intensity was always the same, but style changes.
And especially in a sport like ours.
And like you said, I don't know how much you do or don't know about the sport.
I know you love it.
Not super much.
I'm excited, though, and I admire the fact, like, you know, I've always been kind of like, I guess, afraid to defend myself, or I grew up that way without a lot of, you know, somebody teaching me how to defend myself or letting me know when it was okay to defend myself or anything like that, you know?
What do you think that comes from?
So I think it probably just comes from, you know, we grew up in like kind of a scary area and we just not having like a father, you know, like that kind of overly strong figure.
My brother moved away.
So kind of maybe some of that.
Yeah.
And being just probably afraid, you know, like, but anyway, so I admire that you guys can do that.
Like to me, it's, it's like, it's fascinating.
Yeah, when they say, they say that two of the most feared things in human beings, period, is a physical confrontation and public speaking.
Yeah.
Which you got the public speaking down.
Right, that's good.
I'm going to stay on this.
But yeah, it's a scary.
And it's weird to think about that for me for 13 years of my life and before that as a wrestler, my day was filled with fighting guys that are also some of the best guys on the planet.
So you get rid of that real quick, but it's also something that can be scary.
And that's why it's probably so intriguing to people.
Same with the reason you can get up and be funny and not afraid to introduce yourself.
For some people, that's a scary, scary thing.
But it's very individual.
So when you talk about has things changed as a fighter, especially when I first started, I was coming from a wrestling background.
I wrestled in college at UC Davis and I had to make ends meet.
I was busting tables and coaching kids wrestling and making a couple hundred bucks to win and just having fun with it really and then following my passion.
So I definitely have changed as a fighter skill-wise.
I got better with things, but the same mentality is important.
You got to just believe in yourself.
And people get knocked down on that kind of stuff.
Like you may think you're the funniest dude in the world and you get up there and you can't get anybody to laugh and they're like, oh, crap.
Maybe I'm not the funniest guy.
Maybe that shakes your confidence or else you're just like, I am the funniest guy, but blame it on something.
These guys aren't, they don't understand.
That wasn't it.
Or I need to hit another.
I need to practice my jokes better or whatever.
You got to keep that mentality that you've got something and then change it around.
So fighting style changed a lot throughout time, but same mentality.
Same mentality.
Is fighting the kind of sport where most everyone is humbled pretty often, usually?
Are there humbling moments?
There's a ton of humbling moments.
Every day, there's humbling moments, but you have to be a little bit delusional also.
I think you talked about Conor McGregor.
Yeah.
You got to be a little bit delusional.
I don't think, you know, people are like, oh, because I know him.
I was on a TV show with the guy together and all that stuff.
And they're like, is he faking it for this and that?
I'm like, no, he's a funny guy.
He's a confident guy.
He's mouthy.
He's got a little bit of a temper.
And he really, really believes all the stuff he's saying.
Right.
You know, and I've got to.
Like, he's almost delusional to a point.
Yeah, like to a next level.
Delusional of success.
delusional to a point of success, which is, you know, you gotta be that.
When you look back and see him, so like even in these clips and he's, you know, uh, in the clips when you guys were on the UFC show, um, and he's all, He looks like Pee-Wee fucking Herman right now.
Oh, it's crazy.
He looks like a pimp on Martha's Vineyard.
But do you think that he, like even at this time, he had this kind of bigger vision or he was just like maniacal?
Or do you think it was just like me or anyone else that's become a world champion on that level and had this type of success?
You envision it, you believe it, you're thinking it's going to happen.
And, you know, it's just matter of fact, like it's going to happen.
And he had that from a young age.
There's a video of him.
Maybe you guys can find it when he's a kid saying, I'm going to be a champion of the world.
I'm going to have more money than I know what to do with.
And he's just, you know, got pimples and shaved head.
And it's cool to see, you know, that kind of stuff come true.
Cause I had the same visions.
Yeah, and you fought.
I mean, dude, you fought.
I mean, you were just always fighting.
Yeah.
44-5 was a world champion at, you know, at the highest level when I was 20-something years old.
And I maintained it for a while.
I was a top contender my entire career.
Had a lot of title shots.
Even when the UFC and the WC merged, so I was the WC and the UFC.
The UFC owned the WC and all the lightweight fighters from the WC.
So when they merged, I went to the UFC.
I was 32 at the time.
And I kept going after that title and having title shots.
So, you know, 13 years I was in the top three in the world and had a lot of fun doing it.
Yeah, that's that clip.
Oh, wow.
Oh, that's Connor.
My dream is to be world champion, world lightweight champion in the UFC, have more money than I know what to do with, and have a great life for my kids, my grandkids, everyone in my family, everyone that's come up with me.
That's my dream.
My dream is to be number one, pretty much.
My goal is number one MMA.
He just basically spells out what's happening right now.
Wow.
Which is cool.
Did you, like, whenever, so if you start to look at like success like that, like really envisioning it, and I think everybody probably has like an idea of success.
Yeah.
Do you think that in your own life that you saw like a vision of success?
Do you think that success is just something you've constantly seen like come to you through effort?
Like what do you kind of feel like success is in your life?
Because you've had success not only in fighting, but now in business as well.
That's a great question.
And I talk about this if I ever give a talk, a motivational speech or talk to a big company.
I just basically have a conversation with them.
And for me, and for a lot of the successful people, the same common things come up.
And it's a thinking big process.
You can work hard.
You can be smart.
You can get up after you get knocked down and all this stuff.
That's all important.
But how big is your vision?
And I remember I was working at a wrestling camp in Tahoe.
I worked there when I was a freshman in college all the way through into my career as a champion in mixed martial arts and everything else.
And I was a freshman, or I think a freshman or no, I was my first year out of college.
So this is right after wrestling at Davis.
Right after wrestling at Davis.
And I was up there coaching, and I had traded a pair of shorts for this CD that this kid burned me.
And I had a cassette tape, put the cassette tape that hooked up to a ghetto CD player.
And I put that CD player in there.
And it was a song.
It was going, I'm going to be bigger than Jesus and bigger than wrestling and bigger than the Beatles and bigger than breast implants.
I'm going to be the biggest thing to hit these little kids, bigger than guns and bigger than cigarettes.
And I just bought a $350 car because I had an other $400 car that broke down and I left.
What kind of car was it?
It was, I think it was a Dotson B310.
It had like triangle windows and it beeped when it backed up.
That was one of them.
I can't remember.
And the car was shaking.
I had this little cassette thing with the thing and I had the CD and I was just envisioning being on TV.
And I had had like two fights in the indie casinos.
I got paid like 500 bucks to show up.
But you could feel that fire.
You started to feel the fire.
Yeah, I started to feel the fire.
And I was just envisioning like, but this is in 2004 when there was no, it wasn't that big that day.
But there wasn't even as big of a league.
Yeah, there's three fights a year with the UFC.
The lightest weight class was 170 pounds.
The biggest name guys were getting paid like 150 grand if they won the whole thing.
And what weight were you at at that time?
133 pounds.
So you would have to even, you'd have to get up to that weight to even compete.
So my first fight was I was eating everything I could to weigh 149 pounds.
And that's after I wrestled in college at 133.
And so that's big for me, 149.
And then I fought at 155 for my first fight.
And I fought this big Mexican kid.
Do you feel fat when you walked in the ring?
Honestly, obviously you were in shape, but to put on that much weight, that's like 20% of your body.
Because I was already cutting weight for 33. So we're cutting down all this weight and then putting it back on.
149, you said?
Yeah, 149.
I was eating to do that, but I was ripped.
I was a specimen at that time, especially.
And went in, and I just remember I got scared.
I didn't get scared, but I got nervous for the first time When I saw the casino, we drove up on the Indian Casino because it was illegal in California at the time.
And I remember the hair standing up on my neck.
You're from driving out of the country out of the state to do Indian casinos.
Yeah, we're doing it.
It was the only place where it was legal because it's sovereign land.
It was actually in California.
It wasn't that far from me, but we had to go where they could do whatever the hell they want on the Indian reservation.
And I'm getting paid 200 bucks to show up, 200 bucks to win.
I sold like, you know, 20 tickets.
They gave me an extra 50 bucks.
And I fight this big Mexican guy.
He's got Pride tattooed on his stomach.
And I remember I pulled him out.
Gay Prasino, just regular Pride.
Yeah, I think it was Regular Pride.
Hey, don't knock me if you had Gay Pride, too.
No, dude.
They used to have this group.
They came by us.
It was gay fist fighting that would come to the bars in Louisiana.
Oh, that must be fine.
It was a couple gay guys that would get in there.
I mean, one of them was fucking...
You ever seen the ladyboys in Thailand?
Uh-uh.
Dude, there's a whole trend of every once in a while, like every year or two, like a ladyboy just comes up and whoops people's ass.
Really?
And there's actually a movie about one ladyboy chick who like made it to the Lumpunyao Stadium, which is like the big show, and like was fucking dudes up.
She's all, you know.
It's like a super accepted thing over there in Thailand.
It's like, oh, are you, you know, like they're trying to do it here in America?
You know, make everybody like gender neutral and everything else.
Like your hair.
Yeah, like this hair.
But for some sports, I think like sometimes it's like with some of that, it's like everybody, it's like, yeah, support everything.
Like Bill Bird the other night was saying, you know, they keep making everything also for women, which is fine.
Yeah.
But some of it is just like to, it's not like he goes, but nobody goes to the WNBA games.
He's like, you've had that and nobody goes.
Title IX, Title IX is something that all college athletes know about.
That's when they decided to make it mandatory there had to be an equal amount of resources going to women and men.
Yeah, and scholarships, too, I think, actually.
Yeah, and it screwed everybody.
I mean, it screwed a lot of men's sports.
It screwed wrestling programs.
It screwed other things.
And so there's a little animosity there, but it does make sense that women should get a chance also.
But sometimes it was like, you know, the cause of programs, you know, going down and then they'd like throw in women's rugby and there'd be a couple chicks that are involved.
Yeah, and then they got big girls that are making them get out there just because they're, you know, overweight or something or bloated.
You know, I remember one girl that got stung by a bunch of bees and they made her get out there.
She's like, I'm not even jacked.
Like, you know, I just need a couple Epi pens and I'll fucking recover.
You know, I'm not playing.
We never experienced that.
I'm not playing halfback for you guys, you know?
That's funny.
What if that was part of the regiment you had to get stung by bees to be a rugby player?
I'd have a little more.
I'd go watch that.
Yeah.
But the area you grew up in, Davis, there's a lot of rugby and stuff up in that area, like Berkeley, Davis.
That's huge rugby country.
Yeah, that's a big rugby country.
And it's funny because I don't know how it is in other countries, but for here in the U.S., it's kind of a rich kid sport.
Yeah.
To be honest.
Yeah.
It's offered it like this school because I didn't have a swimming team.
We didn't have a pool in my little town.
We didn't have a rugby team.
We didn't have a water polo.
We didn't have polo.
We didn't have anything, you know?
It was like the basics and fundamentals.
So rugby, you get a lot of tough guys in there, but they're usually, you know, George Wallace.
Samples with some cash.
Yeah, George Wall, like schools like that, like GW.
Dude, I remember they had a dude, you just reminded me of this.
They would check for sinkholes because Louisiana really isn't supposed to exist.
You know, that's where I'm from.
Really?
Because, I mean, it's like New Orleans is eight feet below sea level.
So really, it's like people, you know, trying to like build a universe in the bottom of a teacup, you know, and then get pissed when tea shows up, you know?
When there's a little bit of chamomile on your shoulders and suddenly you're furious.
It's like, what fucking you built down here?
But they had a dude, they had this company would test for sinkholes and they used to pay kids, they'd hook you to a chain, put a chain on you, put the singer on your waist, and have you walk off into fields, bro.
And just pay you like five bucks an hour.
And if you fell right through the fucking earth, they yank you back up.
Yeah, they yank you back up.
Wow.
But then they're like, oh, this is dangerous land out here, you know?
Dude, that's funny.
That's some weird shit that people used to do.
It was fun.
Yeah, I think some of that was just back in like, you know, times were a little bit different.
I mean, I'm 38 now, so times were a little bit more fun.
Right.
Yeah, that does sound like fun.
Not for the kid getting sun cold, but for everybody watching, maybe.
And the people betting on it.
You know, I went to a, I did a USO tour with Carlos Condit, Michael Bisbing, and BJ Penn in like 2008.
Oh, wow.
It was badass.
We went to Afghanistan, 2000 helicopters, and we went to all these different places and whatnot.
Yeah, it was 2008.
So we were at like a fence, and there was like the civilian people that was living in the desert.
And there's about six kids that ran up, and it was like, like a flock of kids.
They come up and they're like, hey, hey, hey, trying to get our attention and this and that.
What's your name?
What's your name?
And talking to Michael Bisbing.
And Michael Bisbing said, my name is Michael.
He goes, kid goes, my name is Michael too.
Michael Jackson.
Let me get some candy.
Like that.
And then Michael's like looking to go throw him some shit and everything.
And the people were the military guys, like, I don't feed the kids and this and that.
And then the guy started telling us back when it was unregulated that they used to do all sorts of crazy shit.
Like they would tie like toys and candy bars and stuff like that to ropes and kids would go grab them.
They'd yank them and stuff.
Military guys would?
Yeah.
And then they all got in trouble because that's meathead shit to do, obviously.
But it was weird to see that fucking, that dynamic where these kids, like they came up and see visitors, they'd come up and talk.
And then a military dude would show up and they'd like run.
It was like a flock of animals.
Oh, wow.
It's like, yeah, like almost like when the zookeeper is there.
Yeah, the zookeeper.
And when it's just like people watching the animals.
Yeah, they'll hear and they see something dangerous and flock off and then run back and try to get some candy.
Let me get a Pepsi.
Let me get a Pepsi.
I'm Michael Jackson.
I'm Michael Jackson.
I wonder why they love Michael Jackson, huh?
I think they just know Michael Jackson.
Yeah.
I mean, he's got to be one of the most famous.
What do you think the most famous people on the planet are?
Jesus Christ, Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson.
Maybe Elvis Presley.
Mary, maybe that photo of Mary with like the bait or like where you kind of see the little cross over her head.
Maybe.
I'm just trying to think of, yeah, like images everybody would see.
Muhammad Ali.
Muhammad Ali, yeah.
Michael Jackson.
What about Tyson?
Tyson up there?
Tyson could be up there.
I don't know, though.
I mean, it's a good question.
Yeah, for this day and age, if you were to go over to somebody now.
The rock.
The rock.
Yeah.
The rock.
He's in movies all over the world.
Ariana Grande.
Who else maybe?
I can't tell you what Ariana Grande even looks like.
Well, it's probably good.
I think she's only 17. Okay.
That's probably why.
But yeah, hopefully I can't either.
He can't either.
So now that you've had a year and a half away from fighting, what are things that you don't miss about it?
You know, that's a great point.
There's a lot of things that you don't miss about it.
I remember having the same thing with wrestling.
It's fucking hard, dude.
I mean, the wrestling world is a grind.
Then you get in the mixed martial arts world and you're basically fighting people every day.
So your body gets jacked up.
You're cutting weight constantly.
You're constantly having to, you know, nourish injuries and things like that.
I don't miss having to do the grind, like forcing yourself to do stuff when you don't want to do it, which some people don't do anyways.
Some fighters don't do that.
And those aren't the guys that are the top guys.
But most guys that are at the highest level have to do a lot of shit that you don't want to do to accomplish some of the things that you do want out of life.
Okay, so stop me.
So I want to stop you right there and just say, so when those moments arise where it's like you don't want to do something, what were things that you used or things you did to do like that contrary action?
To motivate myself, even though I didn't want to do it.
I mean, just first off, the bigger picture, you know, looking at what I wanted.
I wanted to be a world champion or I wanted to have this house where, you know, material things or having the family that you want.
I just think about the things that motivate me and all the benefits that come to being the best at something.
Yeah, no, that's a great point.
Like if you're laying there and you think, fuck, man, my alarm just went off.
I don't want to go to the gym.
Well, of course, you don't want to go to the gym, right?
But do you want to go to the future that has you feeling achieved?
Yeah.
Achieve.
Do you want to be able to go sit by the ocean in a cool place in Mexico and drink some beers with my chick or my buddies?
Right.
Not have to be working a regular fucking job.
Right, because that might get you over that hump of, yeah, I might not want to go to the gym.
It's easy to say I don't want to go to that.
But is it easy to say that I don't want to go to that bigger picture?
Yep.
And that's for me is the part I enjoyed is, you know, I like the challenge.
Challenge is great.
I still, for my workouts, I'm still getting in and competing with the guys that are top dogs right now.
Do you still train?
I do, but just for jiu-jitsu mostly, I'm trying not to get hit in the head as much.
Yeah.
Because that's something that you have to do is you have to get your sparring in and stuff like that.
So I do a lot less sparring.
Every once in a while, I'll spar.
That means actually punching or kicking or elbowing or kneeing, that kind of stuff.
And I'll do a lot of grappling.
You go to 10th Planet where Eddie Bravo is?
I've never been there.
We just competed against him, though.
You did?
And Quintet.
Really?
Your gym competed against his?
Yeah, my team competed against his team.
To be fair, his team was like a purebred team of his guys.
And we had some outside guys, a one guy in particular, Gordon Ryan, who's like the best in the world that we recruited on our team because we didn't have a heavyweight guy.
And we won the whole thing.
Wow.
But they won the one prior to that.
So it's kind of a cool little rivalry.
I mean, a fun rivalry.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, it was a paid gig.
It was televised.
It's a big organization in Japan.
And now, you know, it was on the fight pass.
It was badass, actually.
Now, is that that, I know they just had a trade between who's the fighter?
Demetrius Johnson and Ben Askren.
Yeah, what do you think about that?
Everybody's talking about that.
It's kind of cool.
I mean, trades, the word trade has never been even muttered in our sport before.
So the fact that they're doing that is kind of interesting.
1FC is the biggest organization outside of the UFC, not here in America, but because they have so many Asian influences.
They're in like hundreds of millions of Asian homes.
And the UFC hasn't necessarily been able to hit that market.
Tap that international market.
That hasn't been their focus.
They've tapped the international market, but they didn't focus just on that.
It's like there are specialists, 1FC, over there.
They cater to a different culture.
And so actually Matt Hume, who is the trainer of Demetrius Johnson, he also runs 1FC.
So for that to have happened, it took some involvement with him.
I think Demetrius had been a little disenchanted with the UFC throughout the years.
He never was a massive draw, even though he's one of the biggest successes in the sport as far as winning.
So the opportunity for him to go have a career in the Asian market.
He's like a video game guy.
He's like an anime guy.
It's a perfect fit.
He's like a real quirky, you know, fun guy.
It's probably a better fit for him.
And I think giving enough pushback on the UFC, they've got their ducks in a row.
They're going to have to pay him a lot, even though he's not the champion, dude, because he's built himself up to that level.
So they may not see the give and the get, but it's interesting.
Yeah.
Maybe that's going to create a bigger.
Do you think it would be, are those two leagues, and you know, I don't know that much about it.
So are those two leagues, would it be a thing where every year that they have a fighter that goes against each other for like a overall, like a new belt or something?
Is that ever been?
I mean, it's a possibility.
I would say probably not unless one buys the other, which I don't see happening.
I see.
I see.
But they have in the past.
I know that Dana White went over back in the day when Pride was big.
Pride was like the big show in Japan.
It was bigger than the UFC back in the day.
And I know Dana had taken over Chuck Liddell as a UFC representative to go fight Alistar Overeem over in Japan.
So there's been stuff like that.
You know, when you're dealing with individuals that have the say, you can do whatever the hell you want.
That's like when negotiating with these guys, it's always like, well, we can't do that.
It's against policy.
I'm like, Dana, like, this is your company.
You can do it.
You can do whatever the hell you fucking want.
Wow.
You know?
And it was Lorenzo and Frank Fertida.
Well, that's not company policy.
But yet they bend the rules all the time.
They bend them.
Could it happen?
Absolutely.
Is this super rare?
Yes.
And also, Ben Askren is a guy that talked a bunch of shit on Dana White back in the day and kind of got himself banned.
They said because he was too boring, which they say, you know, because he was a wrestling, like a wrestling-based guy.
But it was really he talked a ton of shit on Dana White and Dana White owned the UFC.
Right.
It was like you go to your bot, your future boss and be like, you're a fucking idiot.
Yeah.
You fucking fuck you and your whole family.
Yeah, it doesn't.
And they'd be like, hey, can I get a job?
Like, I know, like, Nick Diaz, I know, has always been like outspoken, kind of against things.
And I think, you know, sometimes it's put him in like a tough spot, you know?
It's put him in a tough spot, but you know, it's like, you know.
I mean, he speaks from the heart, you know.
I mean, not trying to switch to Nick or get you to talk about that or anything, but I just remember being in a conversation with him one time, and he was like very outspoken about that sort of thing.
Dude, that guy wears it on the sleeve.
Oh, man.
There's no faking it with him.
And that's also the unpredictability.
It's like playing Texas Hold'em.
Yeah.
And you got your cards on the middle.
Like, my brother, you know, had a little mental illness at one point.
He was just being unpredictable.
But he's smart as hell and didn't really care.
And you don't know that he's blood.
He knows how to play the game.
But he do unorthodox shit where he'd like, sometimes he'd go all in and sometimes he'd just fold or whatever.
You don't know what the fuck he's doing.
Like it made him a great poker player.
It made him a great poker player.
You don't know what he's doing.
And that's the Diaz brothers.
Like they really are like, well, fuck you.
I'm not fighting.
Like, then everybody wants to see the fight.
They all slap someone in public.
And then it's like, everybody wants to see the fight.
And they're like, well, fuck you.
We said we're not fighting for the money.
Then they'll go nine rounds at a produce sale.
Yeah, once you're like, what is this?
One of the best fights is when Diaz fought, I forget the guy's name.
Oh my gosh, I can't let him forget the name.
They fought and Diaz lost the decision, even though, oh, it was Frank Riggs, Joe Riggs.
Joe Riggs and Nick Diaz, they fought each other in the ring in like 2006 or something.
Then they both go to the hospital after a close fight that I think Riggs got, but Diaz thought he won.
Then they fight in the hospital in the emergency room.
One of the best before and after fight stories.
And do they have the video of him in the emergency room too fighting?
I don't know, but there's probably a story if you look it up.
That's great.
I think you can see them talking shit, being held back.
Oh, yeah.
You know what's funny is about, you know, or what's unique as you're talking about this when I think about Nate Diaz, I think about him more talking shit than I do fighting when I think about him in my head.
Just like if somebody's like, oh, Nate Diaz, the picture that pops me in his head is like, almost, yeah, him fucking fl, you know, like him being him more than it is like a memory of a certain fight of his or something.
It's kind of interesting because other fighters, the same thing doesn't happen as much.
Hey, you know, when you think of cowboy, you think of a cowboy hat.
When you think of the California kid, you think of blonde hair smiling.
When you think of Nick and Nate Diaz, you think of middle fingers and heads up talking to shit.
So, you know, they're branding, whether they're trying or not.
They're doing their thing.
Yeah, it's almost pure, and it's almost pure branding.
Yeah, actually, like, that was one of the first fighter people that I ever met was Nick Diaz.
And I was fascinated by him.
Well, there's Nick and there's Nate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The brother was the one I won with.
I was friends with both of them.
Yeah.
And they're really different.
I mean, they come off, they're one as a unit when it's them against the world.
Yeah.
But as far as getting to know them, like Nate is way more mild than Nick.
Right.
And he's a little bit more like, you know, dependable as far as showing up to places and whatnot.
And then Nick is like a savant.
Like he can tell you about health food and he can tell you about jiu-jitsu and he knows fighting like that's his thing.
Yeah.
But he's kind of out there sometimes.
It's kind of a weird dynamic.
They're fascinating brothers, man.
Yeah.
They're fascinating.
Yeah.
One thing, yeah.
But when you said he wears his heart on his on his sleeve, man, it's exactly what I thought about him.
Like I could, like one minute he was like the toughest guy and one minute he was also like at the same time kind of I don't want to say the sweetest guy because I don't mean it like that, but he was like the most endearing.
Endearing.
Yeah, like emotionally right there.
Like it was, it was almost fascinating to be around that.
I've never met anybody really like that.
Yeah, no, it's a good dynamic.
I've always, you know, been rooting for those guys.
Yeah.
Yeah, you can't, yeah.
After talking to him, I've rooted for him.
So I rooted for him and almost anybody he knew so much in a weird way.
They're very endearing.
So now that you've gotten out of fighting, did you start, was there a point where you started to look at business after?
Did you start to do things preemptively?
I definitely was preemptive of business and it was more out of a means.
Like if you look back at me from a business standpoint, my first business was top of the line coaching, TLC.
And I started that when I was a struggling fighter just graduating college.
I basically was getting paid a couple hundred bucks to show up, a couple hundred bucks to win, selling tickets.
Is that in Tahoe?
Is that the place you're talking about or no?
That's in Sacramento.
Okay, Sacramento.
Yeah.
So I was coaching UC Davis Wrestling.
I was an employee for the college, making $7,000 a year.
Working 10, that's not, that's, that's way below poverty.
Damn, dude, that's sex trafficking.
Yeah, that is.
That's less than sex trafficking.
Yeah, exactly.
So I'm doing that.
Then I, then I'm busting tables at Inc., which is a little late night place, sometimes till four in the morning.
After wrestling practice, I go and I started TLC top-of-line coaching.
I'm coaching kids at two different schools, cash under the table.
And then in the summers, I'm working wrestling camps.
And the wrestling camp I was talking about, making a you know, a grand or two doing that.
But for me, I graduated college with a great degree, and I'm just like, I'm like living the fucking dream, dude.
Like, I don't have a job, but I'm just hustling.
I'm working like 17 hours a day, but I just, I'm skating by and not getting it.
I don't have a job, right?
Right.
My appointment's like, I mean, my apartment's like $250 a month.
I took a crappy little room in an apartment with two of my buddies from college.
And, you know, you must have a positive attitude during.
Oh, yeah.
That seemed like something you must have had.
Like a real, like, almost a disposition that you were born with or something.
Because, yeah, some people would look at that as like, fuck, I got to do all this work.
It seemed like you were looking at it as like, oh, this is great.
Yeah, 100%.
And, you know, I remember, and I talked about before the thinking big thing, like, how big are you thinking?
Like, the people I've met, I've met billionaires and successful movie stars and musicians and clothing moguls and all these different walks.
And that's the positive mental attitude is part of it.
And then definiteness of purpose, like knowing what you want.
Like going after that thing that you want or having your vision for yourself.
And all through high school and college, I had a late start in wrestling.
And I always write down my goals.
And I don't know what it was.
And in high school, I would write down my goals.
And I always wanted to be an all-American, top eight in the state.
That was once I got to be able to think that big.
But I never wrote down be a state champion.
I don't know why.
You know what I mean?
Which is weird.
No one else in my school had gone to the state champion.
But you're skipping a step.
All-American, you're skipping the step of state champion, right?
I didn't skip that step.
I never got that far.
Being an all-American is top eight in the nation.
Top eight in the nation.
You're top eight in the state.
Right.
Oh, top eight in the state.
And then the state champion is the winner of that.
And I wrote down to be top eight as my biggest goal.
It was first to get to the state tournament.
It's a big goal.
It's a big goal, but it's not big enough.
You know what I mean?
Like, because I was working just as hard as the state champions and I had the gifts of a state champion.
I was, you know, I had, I was doing extra shit.
I'd get up in the morning.
I'd run to school.
Ran like 13 miles to school one day.
Dude, this reminded me, they had a guy on, he was on the UFC, the fight show that you guys did.
What was it called?
Ultimate Fighter.
Ultimate Fighter.
They had a guy named Sam a long time ago.
He was like kind of this big, he was from Alaska, and he went to Louisiana State.
Sam Ogre.
Yeah.
When I went to Louisiana State, he was there.
And I remember he would, this made me think of this.
He would run across campus with his girlfriend on his back in the morning, bro.
And you would see him running across just to stay in shape.
And he was the first person I ever met in my whole life.
He was a really sweet guy that talked about UFC and MMA.
And he would, when people heard him talk about it, it was almost like listening to somebody like that had come from a mountain like talking about a rare thing they'd seen in the woods.
That's when it was so premature.
This was 2002, you know, 2001.
Yeah, I went to Sam Hoger's gym years back and had done a seminar for him.
But yeah, that's funny.
And it's true.
Like you do these extra little things and you're a gifted athlete.
I was a really gifted athlete.
I was raised up healthy.
But why did I not put down champion only top eight?
That's weird.
Then I went to college and I lost to four guys in my state tournament.
Jeez.
In my high school career.
Yeah.
And that ain't super great.
Three of the guys, three of the guys came to the same college I went to, which is crazy.
And then, you know.
So you were training.
So you were working with champs pretty much every day, really?
I was working with champs, but the point was I got there.
And when I went there, three of the guys that beat me in high school and placed better than I did came to the same school.
And I set a new set of goals, which is to beat those guys and beat the other guys and this and that on my team.
I started low, started low, started low.
And I got to a point where I beat out all those guys.
I earned myself a scholarship.
I made it to the national tournament, which was my goal.
And then I wrote a goal to be an all-American, which was top eight.
Again, why did I not put number one?
Yeah.
Isn't that bizarre?
So now looking back and what is that, because sometimes I'll think about that kind of stuff.
Like sometimes it's kind of weird.
Like, you know, I'll think about like, you know, I want to be, you know, great.
Right.
But then I almost.
It's scary to say it.
Yeah.
But it's also, I don't want, this is interesting because I'm trying to feel this and think about this at the same time.
Yeah.
Like if I say that I'm great, I don't want, or if I think that I can be great, it's almost like for some weird reason, I'm, I don't know if I'm ashamed to say that.
Yeah.
It's true.
It happens.
Like I'm trying to think of what that feeling is that would make me, you know, like admit.
Like what's the fear to admit that fuck, I want to be good.
The fear is this.
First off, the fear, it's a double-edged sword.
If you never say it, there's no accountability.
It's a lot easier not to say something because then no one's going to point and say, ha, you fucking, you, you failed.
Damn, it's just like my relationships I'm in.
It's just like, I don't want to say like I'm in this for the death.
I've been there, brother.
Because, wow, it's crazy.
It's crazy.
It's crazy that that commitment level and realizing, and that's what I realized after my fight career.
I went in and I beat a guy.
I beat two guys that were national champions the next year and all Americans and this and that.
And this is in wrestling.
It's in wrestling.
And so when I went to my next phase of life and my next thing I was going to go after, which was unrealistic as fuck, and that's what I'm talking about with thinking big.
Why the hell would I choose a career in mind?
This is 2003.
It was illegal in California at the time.
UFC fighting.
Cage fighting.
Mixed martial arts.
Yeah.
It was illegal.
It was illegal at the time.
In the biggest show, they only had a weight class of 170 pounds and I was 133 pounds.
And there was only three shows a year.
Right.
200 bucks was the prize.
In the big show, there's three shows a year at the big event, and the biggest prize is 150 grand.
And yet here I am graduating college with a degree from a great university and saying, I want to make this my career.
Now, did you think that?
How stupid is that?
Yeah, it doesn't.
Well, here's what I'm then here's my question is, did you think, though, that it was going to be an actual career at that point?
Or did it seem like this is just kind of a wild thing that's going on in the world right now?
You can't, I mean, you don't know that it's going to grow.
You know, when somebody asks you to come down to the ballpark and play a game of like unique six on six or you football or something, you don't know maybe years later it's going to be the NFL.
Well, perception is everything.
And so, mind you, 2003, 150 grand is still pretty good money.
Oh, yeah.
It's great.
Oh, my gosh.
That being said, I also got my emergency teaching credential.
In 2018, that is still extremely good money.
Yeah.
So I also had my emergency teaching credential.
I was going to start substitute teaching for like $11 an hour.
Then I took my first fight and I beat up this kid in a minute and a half.
And forget that I had trained all through high school and college as a wrestler.
In my mind, it was a minute and a half of work.
And I got paid 400 bucks to show up.
And I got paid 50 bucks.
I made 450 bucks, almost 500 bucks in a minute and a half.
That's the way I saw it.
That's how you're looking at it.
And I had all my buddies there and a bunch of hot chicks and I'm the center of attention and I got my endorphins going.
I'm like, this is fucking it.
I'm going this route.
This is it.
What?
You know, like, so is it, it's about perception.
Now, when you have money in the bank and you're looking at, what the hell was I thinking?
But at the time, it's interesting.
I was going passion, all passion, and just thinking big, you know?
If there's one thing you know about me, it's that you know I like my own hair and I'm trying to keep it.
Sometimes the devil wants to take the hair right off your head and make you just into like a shiny, just kind of skin only on your head.
But I don't want that.
I don't want that for me and I don't want that for you if you don't want it because sometimes it can affect your confidence.
Well, Hair Club knows this and they're inviting you to become part of the Hair Club family to see how getting the most out of your hair can change your life.
Hair Club understands the emotions you're feeling and knows the questions you have.
Whether you're looking to revitalize the growth and kind of perk that, you know, perk that crop a little, or whether you just, you know, want to check out the most proven methods for hair replacement or restoration.
I've had hair replacement, man.
I'm rocking a little bit of my back out there in the front.
Right now, you can go to hairclub.com slash Theo for a free hair analysis and a free take-home hair kit, all valued over $300.
That's hairclub.com slash Theo for a free hair analysis and free hair care kit.
Hairclub.com slash Theo.
If you want to be a hair bear, then get with your hair.
A lot of people don't have any skills, man.
And oh well, that doesn't have to be you.
You know, skills are something that everybody, you know, wants to have sometimes.
And Skillshare is an online learning platform with over 20,000 classes in business, design, technology, and more.
You can take classes in social media marketing, data science, mobile photography, creative writing.
You don't have to go back to college.
You don't need to, you know, go to University of Maryland or go to dang, you know, Johnston and Wales or whatever.
You could just take a class at skillshare.com and go get whatever you need in the world.
Whether you're trying to deepen your professional skill set, start a side hustle, or just explore a new passion, Skillshare is there to keep you learning and thriving.
You can get too much of Skillshare for just 99 cents.
That's right, Skillshare is offering this past weekend listeners two months of unlimited access to over 20,000 classes for just 99 screw lines.
To sign up, go to skillshare.com slash Theo.
Again, go to skillshare.com slash Theo to start your two months now and get your skills.
I'm trying to think.
Well, I'll get back on what I was saying.
Well, you ended up at perception, right?
Yeah, the perception thing.
And perception is fascinating to me because that's, I mean, that's the thing you talked about a couple times, you know?
Right.
Like looking at the big picture, you know, like and just perceiving things like that.
Because that's a thing that I even notice in myself, and it's a constant battle, is when I'm in a good mindset and I'm able to perceive the bigger picture and actually like be brave enough to even admit to myself that I want to try and like be great.
It's scary.
And then other moments where I get fallen.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like it's, it seems fascinating to be great, but it also just, yes, something seems really scary about it.
Is other people keeping you accountable?
Then also you've said it out loud.
Then you also know to be great at anything, I don't care what it is, it could be, you know, anything.
I met some of the best video gamers on the planet, and I got to talk to them about what they're doing.
You know, even you, you know, I set it up on your path to where you are now.
And it was, you know, a lot of stuff over, you know, 15 years.
Yeah.
And people get discouraged.
People get tired of the hard work.
Some people can't do that push.
And so when you do that accountability and you say it, then that changes things.
And that's what I did when I got out of college.
I realized, so now I'm coaching at the college.
Right.
And I'm seeing guys that I beat that are all-American and national champions and stuff like that.
And I know that I've worked harder than these guys.
You're realizing you're in their class.
You're realizing that you beat them and these guys are doing well.
Yeah.
And I'm like, why did I not put down the champion thing?
So I set my new goals.
I'm living in my little apartment.
I'm busing tables at Inc.
I'm coaching kids and I'm coaching wrestling, working like 17, 18 hours.
And I wrote down my goals.
It was be a world champion.
At the time, it was UFC or Pride because those were the two big organizations.
I said, own two houses in the next three years.
That's hard to do, but the rest is.
and then I said, That's a lot.
Oh, you think owning two houses is harder than being the world champion?
Well, I mean, yes, these days, this is where we talk about perception.
And then the last one was own a healthy and successful business.
This is funny.
It's funny.
See what I'm saying about perception?
It's like, well, shit, that's easy.
It's very easy to be the world champion of the hardest sport in the world.
But you want to own two houses?
Are you crazy?
Been in L.A. too long, dude.
You've been in L.A. too long.
I think that's what it is.
That's it.
I think at these LA prices, it would seem a lot more feasible.
Yes, come to Sacramento.
You got a spot.
We'll build this podcast with the gym.
I love Sacramento, man.
So we have questions that came in from some fans.
We're not aborting our conversation, but I just want to chop some in here and there.
You can put these headphones on, actually.
Cool.
And you'll be able to hear one of the ones that came in.
Gang, gang, Rat King Theo, thank you for taking the video call.
You're right.
Just as much thank you to you.
Hey, by the way, I'm liking Andre Feely.
He's got them hands, boy.
You got them relaxed cobras on the end of his fucking arms, his little nubs.
By the way, I'm sorry.
Anyway, two questions, guys, real quickly.
Do you have any books or conditioning tips or anything that you would recommend that I can read and take in for my first fight?
I'm trying to get it by mid-January.
Thank you in advance.
As well, any tips on real estate investing?
You know, anything that you know, you wish you knew when you started getting into your guys's monetary endeavors.
You know what I mean?
That could go for both of you.
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much for everything that you guys do.
Huge fan again.
Gang, gang, baby.
Rat King to the day I die.
Damn, bro.
Wow.
That's your boy.
It is my boy.
I hope everything's doing okay.
No, I'm excited.
He's more fired up about my life than I am.
But those questions are almost, it's almost crazy.
That's the questions that came in because we just stopped right here on real estate.
And I know that that's part of the world that you're in.
Right.
And so what were his questions again?
One was if you had any real estate investing advice that you wish you had known earlier.
Right.
And then he said also any good books or things that you should do to prepare for a fight.
And fitness nutrition type.
And he also said, what's up to Andre Touchy Feely?
Yeah.
You'll love Andre Feely.
We'll get him on the show at some point.
He's a unique character.
Is he?
Unique mofo.
He's got an Outcast and Underdogs music label and his clothing.
That guy looks like an Outcast and Underdog.
Oh, that's perfect.
Yeah, he must be a fan.
He said that he was.
Yeah, he's a fan of his.
But there's a lot of good books.
I mean, I like Napoleon Hill.
You know, he wrote Think and Go Bridge.
Thinking Bridge, but he has also the laws.
I forget the rules of success.
That's what he talks about, positive mental attitude.
And yeah, there's Touchy Feels right there.
Yeah, Touchy Feels.
I just produced a movie and we put Feely in it.
He kills.
I'll show you guys the trailer of this movie.
What is it?
Is that the movie?
No.
No, it's called Green.
It's called Green Fever.
It's not out yet.
Okay.
Yeah, I got him.
I was just in the Rocks movie.
You were?
Yeah, that was sick.
But let me get back to this one.
Okay, yeah, get back to this.
So even outside of books, though, what are practices I think?
Because anybody can know a book.
I want to know what you know.
I would say for a guy like that, he seems like he's passionate and happy, dude.
You got to understand about commitment levels.
And I talked to there's coach Lee Kemp.
He has a book.
It's called, I think, Winning Gold.
He's a three-time world champion.
That's a good one.
Anything you can read on Dan Gable, that's another guy who's one of the best wrestlers of the time.
Both Lee Kemp and Dan Gable were both two of the best wrestlers of all time.
And the commitment level these guys had is what set them apart.
Just deciding they're going to do something and then just going after it.
So those are two things.
And then I would say, you know, you got to put yourself in uncomfortable positions.
Some people hate to run.
I like to run.
I mean, I hate to run the way I run because I run until I'm fatigued in a short period of time.
And I would do some hard pushes where your lungs are blown out.
Do five minute rounds as fast as you can for as long as you can.
Five minute rounds of what?
Running?
Three rounds, yeah.
Yeah.
Of five because he's probably fighting.
He's probably going to fight three minute rounds.
That's that fear running, bro.
Or you could give somebody a fucking hatchet in your neighborhood a dude that's trouble, you know?
And fucking run from that dude, bro.
Yeah, you get that one.
If you wanted to get old school with it, you know, do that, do those hatchet runs.
So those are some of the things you say physically that the guy could do to start to challenge himself.
Yeah.
And I would say, you know, I just watched a TED talk when I got over here.
Look for as many of these motivational things as you can get because it all ties in together, like we're talking about.
You know, you got to believe that you're going to win.
You really got to believe it in your heart.
And then, you know, you have to go out there and do it.
So I would say, you know, get on some of these subjects on the internet and start, you know, book on tapes.
Stay motivated.
Stay motivated.
Find motivators.
Find motivators and then get yourself out of your comfort zone when it comes to fitness and whatnot.
When you got into business and stuff, did you start to realize, like, here's one thing that I've learned, like, or started to question and see, that there's things that I'm not good at, and to let some of those get help with some of those, let somebody else do some of those.
Because I come from this thing where it's like, I'm afraid to let anything go.
You know, like, it's just not in nature.
Yeah.
How did you, did you have moments where you came to that?
Or were you, did you always kind of, was that always just part of your flow?
I've always been pretty good at delegating just because I feel like I'm real self-aware and I understand my strengths pretty well and I know some of my weaknesses.
And I'm also not afraid to share in things.
So which is sometimes it comes back to bite you.
But as a general rule for me, it's worked out.
You know, I'm okay to give.
Inclusive.
Give something to someone to help motivate them as long as they're pulling their weight and they're like-minded and I trust them and stuff like that.
Yeah, we just gave Nick two raises this year.
Nice.
That's not bad.
Yeah, we told him he can't ask for one for another year.
So that was the best part of the second one.
Well, that's a good answer.
But the workload keeps increasing, so we may have to talk about that.
You give, you get, right?
Yeah, there we go.
But yeah, so for that, delegating is a good thing.
And then, on top of that, just always, just like the fight game, you're just always trying to improve, you know?
And I've been learning that.
I've taken some hard knocks in the business world, just like in the fight world.
Really?
And it's been, you know, having conversations like this.
I'm part of something called EO.
It's an entrepreneurial organization.
And I'm like the low man in the totem pool.
We meet like once a month.
There's, I believe, 11 of us in the group, all from different walks of business.
And we share information.
There's like a gestalt way of communicating, which means we talk about our experiences, not like giving advice necessarily.
You have to like speak from your own experiences.
Oh, wow.
What you've done.
Like, oh, like I had this happening.
Like, oh, I had an experience that I can relate to where I was doing this and someone tried to sue me.
And you have to share your experiences.
I learn a lot from other people.
But the truth is, like, you know, a business is 90% of the time just a group of people.
And I mean, there's products and there's this and there's that, but you have to, you know, work with managing people and be able to delegate and be realistic what you're good at and what you're not.
Have you ever heard of the shoestring millionaire?
The guy that, you know, the guy that made the business.
It's not a rapist, is it?
I don't think so.
We could Google that, though.
Sorry.
And no offense if anybody's a rapist.
Sorry, but no, I don't know what I'm talking about, but I feel like murders and rapists always get some of the craziest niggas.
Some of the coolest names.
That'd be a good one.
The shoestring millionaire?
The shoestring millionaire rapist.
Crazy, yeah.
The whole backstory to that is great.
Well, maybe we'll make a friend of me movie about it.
You could be the shoestring movie.
That'd be good.
I got that.
Yeah.
I'll be the guy that catches you in.
I could see that.
Yeah.
The Eagle.
Weird Twist at the End.
I rape you.
Yeah.
And this is where Nick's salary goes up because this is where he comes in.
Yeah.
So have you found that you enjoy one more than the other, being a businessman or being a fighter?
Or do you find that really they were the same thing and you're just doing two different actions?
I think it's kind of the same thing as long as you're passionate about both.
You know, I've been passionate about the business side of things.
And again, I started out my business through necessity.
I needed to start coaching kids, TLC.
Then I ended up doing alpha male shirts while I was selling tickets and shirts to raise money when I was fighting.
Right, you're already selling a ticket.
Let me sell you this shirt as well.
Then I started a gym where I brought in a guy that wanted to start a gym.
He put up the funds.
I put in all the sweat equity.
My dad did the construction for a cheap price.
I helped dig holes and build stuff in addition.
Then I started a management company before anyone knew who I was.
And then it spurred into more and more things and just learning out of necessity how to survive on my own terms.
And for me, being a businessman is the same as the fight game.
It just allows me to live the life that I want to live on my terms.
When I want to do things, who I want to be with.
It's nice, huh?
You know, that kind of thing.
And that's what I'm always fighting for.
And that's what I'm always pushing for is the ability to do that for the rest of my life.
And of course, you have to do stuff like we talked about that you don't want to do in order to do the things that you want to do, but you want to try to get those down as minimal as possible over time.
I feel like Joe Rogan's a good example of that.
I mean, that's a guy that he loves fucking fighting.
He loves making people laugh.
He loves interesting, weird shit and likes talking about it.
It's like weed and do martial arts and whatever.
And that's how he gets paid.
And time travel.
I have a feeling he also gets paid.
Yeah, he might travel.
I bet low-key.
He has a dude in his warehouse fucking tinkering with clocks right now.
There is no doubt that a rogue in one day is just going to fucking set a watch.
He might be your dad.
What if he already went back and he's your dad?
What if one day he just shows up with a tattoo of his family on his arm and I'm in one of the pictures?
Yeah, he is a fascinating man.
One of the gifts I noticed he has is the constant ability to stay curious about things.
He's curious about everything, you know?
Yeah.
And he genuinely is.
I don't know if that's a gift or something that he nurtured over the years, but he has the ability to stay curious about everything.
But also, yes, he's created a life that fits the life that he wants.
Like he doesn't take on like television shows and that kind of shit.
They're always throwing that stuff towards him, you know?
But he's like, this is what I want.
This is what he wants.
And that's through a lot of hard work and dedication and probably doing some things he didn't love to do at points here and there and finding his way.
I had a conversation with him one time.
It was about, I think he's talked about it where he was talking about getting involved in buying our team.
And we had a conversation, this, and then I got mad at him for something he said on one of my fights.
And it was a stupid, immature conversation we were having.
And it was just me and him.
And at the end of the day, he goes, man, I don't care about money.
He goes, the whole reason, he goes, I don't do things for money.
He goes, the whole reason you have fuck you money is so you can say fuck you.
I don't want to do it.
Which is awesome, man.
I like him a lot.
And he's been a big part of the mixed martial arts world for a long time.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.
We were just talking about this earlier that if there was ever like if the world was going to end and everybody was going to listen to one guy, like, where are we all going to meet up at?
I feel like it would be Joe Rogan.
Yeah.
Like if Joe Rogan's like, hey, I'll see you guys in Denver in six days.
Well, you at least, well, I don't know about that.
Like, I would say I would count that he wasn't trying to hoax us and like say go there and he really has to go somewhere else to say.
I count that I trust that he wouldn't do that.
But do I know that I believe that his idea is the best?
I don't know.
Yeah.
That's true.
Because he gets on some fucking tangents sometimes where I'm like, are you serious?
Like, what's this?
Where's this coming from?
Yeah.
I remember he asked me one time, man.
The hardest thing sometimes is to keep up with what's going on when I go on his podcast.
Like, it's hard to like, yeah, he just likes to think.
He's like, you think you're the only Theo Vaughn out there?
I'll tell you what, you're not the only Theo, though.
my dad's Theo.
Is he really?
That's my dad's name.
Oh, wow.
Theodore Faber.
He's a first-generation American from Holland.
Yeah, it sounds very that's Dutch.
You guys are Dutch?
Yeah.
Oh, dude, the Dutch, I'll say this, most aerodynamic people in the world, bro.
Yeah.
Usually.
Kind people.
Really kind people, too.
Oh, the decent Dutch, they call it.
Yeah, the decent Dutch.
And very cheap from my understanding.
Yeah, going Dutch.
Going Dutch.
Going Dutch.
So you make the chicks pay your share.
Yeah, making ladies pay for half of it.
And they're also the tallest group of people on the planet.
And I ironically got my short side from my 4'10 great-great-grandmother or great-grandmother on the Dutch side.
And my Italian grandfather was nearly seven foot tall.
Dang.
You still grow, though.
You could still grow.
I just got lucky.
You never know.
I never have to hit my head on anything tall.
I'm limber.
I'm quick.
Yeah, that's true.
You can also, you can be Halloween things.
You can be things at Halloween that other people can't be.
Exactly.
You know?
Jump out of weird stuff.
Yeah, tumble.
You can hide beat.
You could hide on somebody's.
Yeah.
You could hide on.
Let's go to a call, actually.
Actually, we have a call I think is going to fit.
Hey, Uriah, this is Noah up here in Cleveland.
I'm huge fans of you both, and I have a question for Uriah.
I'm particularly not a very tall guy, and I know you're not either.
And I was just curious if growing up, if you ever had like little man syndrome or if your size or stature ever affected you in any way.
All right, gang, gang, Theo.
See you, Uriah.
Peace.
All right, brother.
Nice guy.
You know what?
I never really had that.
And I think it's because I'm delusional.
You know what I mean?
And I've been known for that.
My guys make fun of me and this and that.
Think I did a great practice when I got my ass kicked or something like that.
But, you know, my brother's 5'11.
My sister's 5'9.
She's hogging inches.
Yeah.
Come on.
You can be 5'6, babe, and help your freaking sibling out.
But you didn't never have it.
I didn't really have it.
No.
And I think it was because I always got treated with a lot of respect.
I never really was the guy that got picked on.
I had the gift of gab.
I also was a good athlete.
When I was young, I used to do a lot of, like, I used to do commercials and runway monitoring and that kind of stuff.
So I always had a lot of confidence.
But I will say, you know, I have experienced just other people thinking that way.
Like, it would be shocking to me when someone would be like, oh, well, how is it, you know, like mention it.
And I'm like, I just, it doesn't factor to me.
I remember I had a training camp back in 2005.
There was Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture was out there.
Frank Trigg, Quentin Rampage Jackson, James Sandman Irvin, Scott Smith.
Oh, we got you right here, actually.
I'm going to interrupt you.
Yeah, all these guys.
All these individuals that were there at this event.
And Frank Trigg was the smallest one, but he's a 70-pounder in the UFC, which means he walks in a way.
70 pounds?
170.
He was 170 pounds.
I'm like, where is this?
That'd be like your cousin guy.
Oh, Daddy Longneck?
Daddy Longneck.
Dude, he's coming in.
He actually, he just hit like 90 pounds.
But 70 pounds?
I'm like, who's the pound?
170 pounds.
I remember all the other guys were big guys, right?
Like heavyweights and light heavyweights.
And he was a 170-pounder.
And I told him, I said, hey, bro, tomorrow I got a bunch of guys our size coming.
And remember, I was 133 pounds.
And he goes, would you stop saying that?
You and I are not the same size.
That's what Frank Trigg told me.
I'm like, damn, I guess you're right.
And then I'll see pictures and I'll be like, oh, that guy's about my size.
Like, I thought that with Tom Hardy.
Tom Hardy, I'm like, Tom Hardy's about my size and Dan Bilzerian.
I'm like, dude, Dan Bilzerian is my size.
And then I'll see a picture next to him.
I'm like, oh, fuck.
Never mind.
This is so crazy because this all is like, it's perception, man.
Like your perception is this bigger picture perception, even of yourself.
Yeah, even unrealistically like that.
I mean, I literally, I was like, dude, I met Bilzerian.
This is years ago.
And I'm like, dude, Bilzerian's short, but he's my size.
And then I told someone, I go, yeah, he's just a little guy.
He looks bigger in videos and everything.
And then I later took a picture to send to my buddy of me and Dan.
And I'm like, oh, wait, never mind.
He's got me.
How much different in height is there between the two?
Do you know?
I can look it up.
Probably about it.
It's kind of fascinating though.
Yeah, it's almost like a D, like just having that ability, that bigger purse, but not only having a bigger idea, but having that bigger idea infiltrate your perception.
So the bigger idea almost, it's not just a thought, it's like this more rounded thing that lives in you.
Right.
What's the book?
one flew over the Cocos net.
What's the book?
With Jack Nicholson.
Yeah.
One flew over the cuckoo's nest.
Yeah, one flew over the cuckoo's nest.
And the Indian guy never talks.
We had to read that book in school.
And the Indian guy saw Jack Nicholson's character as so much bigger than he was just because it was just, he had a presence about him, you know?
I think maybe I have that going for me.
I don't know.
But I mean, there's definitely been moments where I've been in some fights before where you're from different, I mean, street fights I'm talking about, where you're from different, like when I got to college, I come from a small town and I've also been, I went to the same elementary school for, from kindergarten to sixth grade.
Everybody knows who you are.
You know, there's like, there's an awareness of who you are.
No one really messed with me.
I wasn't a big fighter growing up, but no one would mess with me.
I mean, if they would, they'd be in a fight probably, but it didn't happen.
But you weren't out picking fights.
You weren't that kind of person.
I was like, you know.
Just a person.
Yeah, just nice guy.
We live in a small town.
And I remember getting to college, getting in the bar scene, and everybody has different rules of engagement, too.
There's a kid from the rich area in San Fran.
There's a guy from the ghetto.
There's a guy from the small town.
But for me, I'm not used to somebody getting my face and trying to punk me for no reason.
I've gotten a couple of great fights with guys that just were playing with different rules and had no clue who the fuck I was.
Like, too little, too late.
in somebody's neighborhood, you can sit right in front of someone and dangle your face and talk shit and like touch noses.
In other people's neighborhood, as soon as you step into a certain area, you're getting hit.
That's true.
That's interesting.
It's interesting that it's like the mesh pot of people that come together.
You add alcohol to that, and egos and chicks around and whatnot.
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, that's SEC football.
Yeah, basically.
But no, that's interesting that different people have different rules of engagement.
And also, you used a term that I've never thought of, great fight, was a term they used of.
I can't even imagine putting those two words together.
So when some, the first time you, like, if you get hit, it doesn't, I mean, I can imagine at a certain point, like, if I get hit in my face, bro, like, I would be, you know, first of all, I have a big nose, so like, that's definitely going to get hit no matter where they hit me.
I'm fucking getting grilled in the fucking beak, you know, no matter.
But it's like that would, like, I feel like just really want, make me want to shut down.
Does that kind of go away a little bit?
Were you able to stomach that a little bit more?
Well, yeah, because you know how to take a punch.
I mean, there's a lot of things to think about, but first off, pain is a different thing for you because you've experienced probably, I've experienced a lot more pain than you have physically just through my career.
The other thing is understanding how to position my body, how to mitigate the actual damage done, whether I'm getting hit hard or barely slipping a punch or whatever.
That changes.
The ability to be aware of what's actually happening.
They say that's not the punch that you see coming.
It's the one that you don't see coming.
That's because your brain doesn't know what the hell is happening.
When your brain sees it coming and it goes, okay, I just got hit and it can function that.
But if you just get hit, your body's not as accustomed.
So I see what you're saying.
So when I'm more used to that, I know how to body use my position.
My instincts will allow me to deflect the blow a little bit in the correct way, not just follow instincts that are human, actually train instincts by professionals.
And then it's not as big of a deal, right?
And I actually know where to hit somebody.
If you guys are curious where to hit somebody, if you want to knock them out or hurt him, you hit him in the chin, in the upper lip, in the jaw right here.
You can sometimes do damage if you can get a guy in the temple or the back of the head, but you don't want to hit him around here.
This is where you're going to get your hands broken by hitting somebody, which I've done before.
And so, you know, that's like I just had Bradley Martin.
You know who Bradley Martin is?
Do you know Nick?
He's a YouTube guy.
He was on your podcast.
He came out and was on our podcast and he came out to the gym.
He's got like 300 million views on YouTube.
Wow.
He can do some crazy stuff.
He's an athlete.
He's a 260-pound guy.
He's like a real athlete on top of being a bodybuilder, but he's a real character too and a business guy.
Fascinating.
You know, we're talking about the fitness stuff.
And it's like, he's like, I think I want to learn how to do this and do that.
And he's like, do you think you can beat me up?
And I'm like, dang.
I'm like, I mean, there's only one way to find out, you know?
And then just guess.
And I'm like, I'm like, I said, you ever train anything?
He goes, no.
And then, so we had like a little bit of a debate of like, well, I would just pick you up and I'd slam you down and elbow you.
And I'm like, all right.
Well, I had that experience where I had this conversation with a 300-pound guy before who played football at Davis.
We were both washing the courts for work on the tennis courts in college.
And we're out there and we're talking about this subject.
And he's saying, I'd just grab you by your neck.
And I would just grab you by your neck, pick you up and slam you.
And I'm a Division I wrestler at this time.
And he's a star football player, like a defensive lineman or offensive lineman.
And this ain't Tom and Jerry either.
His name's Eric Trollia.
Trollia, if you're out there, what's up, buddy?
And so we're out on the courts washing, and I've got my shoes off and my shirt off.
I'm just wearing shorts, and he's in there, and he's got his shoes on, whatever.
And we're talking.
He goes, I go, what makes you think I'm going to let you grab me by the neck and throw me on the ground?
He goes, I'll just grab you by the neck and throw you on the ground.
So this culminates into me and him getting into it on the cement.
And he's 300 pounds and I'm 140 pounds.
And I get behind him like this and he goes and he and he does like a barrel roll and I slam my hip and I end up choking the guy out.
Wow.
At the end, I didn't choke him unconscious, made him tap.
And then my hip was all hurt and we both felt like idiots afterwards and everything else.
But now I was telling Bradley this and he's like, I guarantee you I can pick you up and slam you within a minute.
And I go, I go, all right.
And he's injured at this time.
Bradley is.
And so.
So you guys hit the mat?
So he's like, I can't because I'm injured.
This and that, but we're going to do it.
We're buddies.
We're going to do it at some point.
So I'm like, well, let me just get up.
And I go, let's just feel.
I want to feel what you feel like.
Like, you know, grab each other, you know, move around a little bit.
This and that.
And he's like, he gets the ice pack off his knee and he stands up and we start grabbing each other like this.
And I did something that set him off.
Wow.
And he goes in for a double and then he goes in and grabs me and we almost go into the mirror and then he slams me on the ground and squeezes me.
And I'm just like, like just chilling at this point.
And he gets up and goes, oh, my God, I want my 5,000 bucks.
And I go, what?
That wasn't the competition.
Like, we were getting up.
He thought that was it.
He didn't think that was it.
But he was into it.
Was he showing it?
Was he flexing a little, trying to show his worth, you think?
We were just having fun.
And I got him.
I convinced him to get up so I could feel him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Even though he was injured.
And he said that I set him off by doing something.
Oh, yeah.
And so he went full mode.
And I wasn't going full mode at the time.
And next thing you know, I'm slammed on my back.
This 260-pound dude just flexing on me.
It was the funniest thing.
Could you have made him tap?
At that moment?
Yeah.
Not at that moment, no.
But we're going to find out.
That's all.
We're going to maybe televise it.
Yeah, I was going to say, you got to lifestyle.
And he asked, dude, Bradley's the coolest guy.
It was so funny.
And I go, bro, you just won a race that no one else knew was a race.
He's like, well, you set me off.
And I go, he's like, you set me off.
And I'm like, all right, well, whatever.
Whatever.
No, it was hilarious.
Dude, after you beat him, I'll beat him, dude.
This guy, I don't know.
We have a one-minute set where he's going to try to take me down and whatnot, and we're going to do it.
And this guy's impressive, man.
I mean, he can jump.
He can do pull-ups.
He's flexible, but he's 260 pounds and all that.
Where does he train?
He has his own gym out here.
That's not that boxing burn, is it?
No.
It's not boxing.
His is more about.
Wait, listen, it's like an 8,000.
I think it's pretty close to here.
I'll get you the information before I got to start getting in shape, man.
I'm starting to feel ashamed of myself.
Yeah, I don't like when Theo gets all fired up after we have a fighter and he starts trying to fight me.
It's weird because you guys leave.
You paid for that.
Get that in your contract.
You guys leave and it's just me and Nick.
And Nick was a premature baby.
He was born probably six weeks early.
Nice.
So, you know, you never know what's going to happen.
You talked about a hip.
You talked about hip injury a few minutes ago.
We had Dustin Poirier in the other day, you know.
Oh, yeah.
And I'm a big fan of Dustin's.
He's a nice guy, and he just wants to be the champ.
He loves to fight.
And he took out of the Diaz fight because of hips.
He got stem cells put into his hip.
Is that like a normal thing?
How is that kind of veered in the fight world?
Is that the same choice that you think you would make if you're not in top shape?
Do you step back from a fight and wait till you are?
That seems to be the choice that's most likely to be made.
Yeah, depending on how bad your injury, I've gone into fight.
I mean, the truth is, and Dustin knows this, you're never going to go into any fight 100%.
But you're going to always have nicks and bruises and maybe little injuries and stuff like that.
And I've had fights in the past.
I mean, after I lost my first fight in the smaller shows, I fought seven times in one year on these little reservations, making $1,000 here, $500 here.
You know, that was part of how I was making a living at the time.
And it was more of a necessity.
But when there's a lot at stake, you want to give yourself the best chance and the best chance of recovery and everything else.
I would say if the injury was bad enough, absolutely step out and try to nourish it back because it's higher stakes now.
It's a big deal.
Every single fight's the most important one in your life.
When you look back on your career, was there a fight?
If you could go back and redo one fight, is there one or even a moment in a fight that plays in your head sometimes?
Even as a comedian, I have some moments in my head that like, oh man, I taped a Netflix special that I really didn't like.
It was just the pieces didn't come together right.
And I wish I could go back and do that over.
Do you have moments like that?
Yeah, quite a few actually.
And I know, you know, 44 fights I've had some where you're more inspired than others, especially me at a time when I was the pioneer for the lightweight fighters and my name was the biggest in the sport for my weight class.
It's like every single fight, I had everything to lose.
Like everybody wanted to fight me, et cetera.
And it was sometimes hard to get up for these fights that no one knew who it was and everything else.
So I've had some lackluster performances at times.
And then I've also had some performances where I've had some bad injuries.
Like I hit Mike Brown on the top of the head in the first round.
And I shattered one bone and I snapped the other one in a five-round title fight.
And I remember going back to my corner and telling my trainer who didn't speak any English, hey, my hand's no good.
And he told me to shut up, champion, hit me in the heart.
And I go and fight five more rounds like that.
Third round, I dislocated my thumb.
The first fight against Mike Brown, I did like a jumping back fist and overhand right.
Like, I mean, there's been a lot of moments where you're like, oh, man, I wish I could do that again, you know?
Yeah.
A ton of those.
But at the end of the day, it was always Max effort was exhausted.
And that's comforting at least.
Yeah.
Do you, you know, I was talking with Dustin about this, about the fact that I was looking at some photos of him after some fights, and I didn't know what fights they were that he'd been in, you know?
And I was just, he looked no matter what, he looked like he'd gone through, it's almost like it seems like to a guy who doesn't fight or can't fight that you go through like a win or lose.
It's like you win.
Yeah.
In a weird way.
Like win or lose, just that you test yourself, that you test your mettle to that point against another man, that that is enough of a win in the end that it over it outweighs the actual fact if you win or lose in the game.
And there's guys who make whole careers like that.
I think Donald Cerrone, Clay Guida, you know, those guys in particular have made careers like that where they're in it and become staples in the sport because every single time they lay it all out there and they put on a great fight and they walk away, you know, exciting.
Joe Lauzon's another guy like that.
Eddie Alvarez, would he be a guy like that?
Eddie Alvarez.
Diego Sanchez?
Diego Sanchez.
Those are guys that you know exactly when you're going to get when you watch those guys fight.
They're going to let it all hang out.
They're going to get their head blown up.
I mean, Nick and Nate Diaz.
Yeah.
I mean, those guys, and there's a lot of scenarios.
I mean, you can make a case for every fight being like that, but obviously there's fights that stand out.
I mean, it's a tough, tough way to make a living once you've even made it to the highest level.
Yeah.
Then staying there and then actually getting paid and then being smart enough not to spend all your money and do dumb things and go broke.
I mean, there's a lot of different ways you can screw up in this sport.
Do you have younger guys reach out to you now since you've had a success after, you know, not only success in the cage, sorry, but success actually afterwards in business?
Do you have young guys that reach out to you now?
Yeah, we have a ton of guys, especially on my team.
I mean, I have guys that talk to me all the time about business that are peers in the fight game and ask advice and stuff like that.
You know, I've helped manage guys in the past.
I help guide people.
On our team, we have a lot of guys that have started their own businesses.
Chad Mendez, for example, he has his Fins and Feathers hunting business.
He spends all his time when he's not training to fight as an athlete.
He spends all his time doing awesome hunts, which he loves to do.
And he's created a business around that.
Andre Touchy Feely just got him in his first movie that I produced, the Green Fever movie.
He could play Machine Gun Kelly in any movie, it looks like.
Yeah, no, and he's got his own music label, and he's got his own clothing industry, his own clothing stuff.
Danny Castillo has P2O Hot Pilates business, and we have a lot of guys that have been following in the footsteps and thinking like that.
Yeah, yeah.
Do you think that that's more of a like I look at some athletes now, like I look at LeBron James, and it's like, ah, he's kind of too much of a business for me.
He's not, it doesn't seem like as much of a basketball player to me.
And this is just my perception.
I just look at him.
It's like, ah, it's like watching something else go on.
It's like watching an advertisement sometimes every time I see him touch the ball.
Whereas some players, it feels like when they get the ball, oh, that's a player with the ball, a basketball player.
Do you feel like that as the business side of it becomes bigger, that it starts to take away from the fighting side of it?
It can.
I mean, it can.
I mean, it just depends.
It depends on the individual.
Here's a guy, Conor McGregor.
I mean, his whiskey company is probably going to be friggin huge.
Was it Proper 12?
Yeah, Proper 12. I mean, that was just a massive paid advertisement.
It really was.
Whiskey company, if you look at guys that have exited, you know, the vitamin water was, what, 50 Cent?
Yeah, 50 Cent.
And then we have, was it Robert Downing Jr.?
Not Robert Downey Jr. who did.
The Sirock was P. Diddy or somebody?
P. Diddy.
There was, what's the name of the actor who sold his alcohol brand?
Oh, the Tequila Company?
Tequila Company won a billion dollar program.
Oh, yeah, Robert.
Oh, no.
The guy who was a doctor in Crazy Anatomy or whatever.
Ocean's 11. Yeah, that guy.
George.
No.
Yeah.
This is the best game.
You and me trying to guess something.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
You've been punched a bunch of things.
Yeah, exactly.
We can't figure it out.
We sold the tequila company that made a ton of money, the actor.
Actor.
George.
Clooney.
Clooney.
Gang.
There you go.
Dude, that's bro.
Fighters against people that are like people that have been hit a bunch and then people who are just not that smart trying to guess.
We should do our own trivia show.
Sounds like bad show.
Oh, you have a podcast too, right?
I want to get the name of that out there.
Yeah, that's CaliCast.
I was kind of stockpiling some interviews that I've done over the last year.
We just recently launched.
Oh, sweet.
And we talk about business stuff, fighting entertainment.
I've really been getting into doing the movie stuff lately.
I was in the Rocks movie, just a small part called Rampage.
And then I've got a slate of movies that I've been pushing for, some producing, some in.
Wow.
And what's that about?
Is it just, do you see, is it a cool business thing?
Is it something you've just always been intrigued by?
Where does that start?
Both.
I'm an artist.
I'm a martial artist.
Any real estate stuff I've done, and I have to still answer that guy's question about the real estate.
I skipped that.
It has been, they're all projects.
My dad's a contractor and he's worked on five different projects for me where I rip a place apart and rebuild it with my vision.
The Dutch are hard workers.
Yeah, hard workers, absolutely.
And so I like creating things and I've always kind of been interested in that.
And I've been learning the business over the last nine years.
My manager, Mark Schulman, he's a three arts here.
I started learning from him years ago by him trying to get opportunities for me.
And I'm like, oh, that's how it works.
Like you don't get funding unless you have something that's worth some cash, either a director or producer or somebody attached.
It's all about the script.
And then you don't get the, you know, the distribution.
You can sell international sales and fund a movie before it's even made.
Like there's all this stuff that you learn.
And you're like, oh, there's a real recipe for that.
Like when I started in fighting, there was no real recipe.
It was, you know, Indian reservation, sell t-shirts, do this, do that.
The road hadn't been paved.
But entertainment, you can actually learn it and kind of conquer it.
If you understand, you know, bankable stars and you understand, you know, the distribution and not every movie is going to be a major hit, but you can get a base hit off one and build a kind of a repertoire of things until you really master things.
So I've been real close on finishing a couple of projects.
We've worked on stuff that I'd be in and people and scripts that I've come up with and had other people write and that kind of stuff.
But it's just a passion for me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I could see you in, what's that movie where they escape from prison a long time ago?
Man of Constant Sorrow.
I am a man of constant sorrow.
Oh, brother, where art thou?
Oh, brother, where art thou?
Clooney.
That wasn't that old of a movie.
Oh, and that's George Clooney.
I thought you were thinking of The Great Escape with Paul.
Clint Eastwood.
Is Clint Eastwood in Great Escape?
Or it's the guy who's Paul Newman?
No, Paul Newman's in, that's another one.
He tries to escape for Cool Hand Luke.
Yeah, cool.
And everyone.
That's my favorite movie.
And then McQueen.
McQueen is The Great Escape.
Those are all my guys.
So like McQueen, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, that's my kind of shit.
McQueen Jr. is a friend of mine.
Oh, is he?
Yeah.
Really, really nice kid.
Escape from Elka Chaff.
Alkacha.
Clint Eastwood.
Yeah.
Escape from Alkacha.
You have a film, right?
Say you're financing a film and it's like it's four guys.
It's Shawshank Redemption 2. Four guys are escaping from prison.
Right.
And they're all former MMA fighters.
Who's going to be in there, you think?
The guys right now that are actually acting or just that would be fun?
No, it just would be fun, you think.
Okay.
Well, Michael Bisming is a smart ass, and he's actually a good guy.
He likes to hack you, and he likes to.
And he's a talented guy.
He's a frigging cracker.
He's funny.
He'd be a good guy to have in there.
I'd like probably Nick Diaz would be good for the wild card guy.
He might like, you know, you could pop off and get him.
You might have to mess someone up.
He might be like, hey, we're going back into the president.
And people are like, what the fuck?
He's the quiet guy in the van who doesn't say anything and then all of a sudden goes crazy at the end.
Yeah, he'd be a good one.
So we've got four guys.
That's two down.
Why don't we throw Brock Lesnar in there?
He could be like the alpha male guy, and then I could pop off, or he could make someone wear lipsticks and be his girl, something like that.
Then we could get Brock in there, and then maybe a little guy.
He'd be a little guy.
Cody Garbrandt.
He might be a guy that would be a good look.
He's got the tattoos all over the place.
That's not the guy with the glasses.
That's Colby Covington I'm thinking of, right?
Who's the guy that wears the...
Yeah.
Kobe Garbrandt.
Not Colby.
Yeah, I never heard that.
Cody Garbrandt.
Cody Garbrandt.
Yeah, and I don't want to be disrespectful to him yet.
Definitely not if I've seen his pictures.
Yeah, Cody's a bad dude.
That's awesome.
I've seen some of his fights.
The first fight I ever saw was when Diaz fought McGregor the second or third time, whatever the last time.
That's the first time you ever watched a fight.
First time I've watched a fight, yeah.
And then now I've been going back.
That's because you've been championing it.
Notes to the Grindstone.
That's like me.
I was out here in L.A. and somebody just texted me, are you going to the Dodgers in it?
Oh, the World Series.
The World Series.
And I said, I didn't know there's a World Series going on.
Oh, you mean the fights?
That's exactly it.
I'm like, I had no idea.
I really didn't.
I didn't know the World Series was going on.
What if there's some things, you know what, as you say that, man, I think about like holidays that I sacrificed, like fun parties, staying in college, even like with my friends.
I remember moving out to LA before college was even done.
You know, constant like people's birthday parties, family members, births of, you know, sibling, you know, nieces and nephews' births, just things like that that over the years I've given up because I had to stay and do comedy comedy.
Yeah, I think, I mean, it's important.
I mean, here's the fine line.
You know, I've kept some of my friends from like old, old friends, 20, 30 plus years friends, but you don't always get to see them, but you always have that kinship and camaraderie.
And then there's people that can come into your life that are brand new that you can also build some great friendships with.
So for me, it's been like a sit, walk, run, bike.
If somebody wants to, like right now, you and I are on the same level.
We're sitting here and walking.
If I want to continue this conversation with you and you get up and start and you start walking, I got to walk up next to you.
And then if you start running and I want to continue that conversation, I got to run up beside you.
And you get on a bike, I got to get on the bike.
That idea right there, it can't take over your world, but there's some level of that.
And then, you know, hopefully you bring your friends with you or you take the time where you get to a place where you can make time to go be go hang out with them.
But when you're going and you're going and you're going, like you got to be traveling with the wolf pack.
Yeah.
You know, you have to.
Yeah, it's interesting, man.
It really is.
Like, yeah.
And suddenly the wolf pack, you just become like one of the wolves.
Yeah.
And you don't even, it's, I don't know.
It's kind of crazy.
It's like one day somebody's an idol and the next day they're kind of like an amigo.
Right.
Yeah.
It's kind of a trip.
You know, they're always a bit of an idol, but, you know, and they're always respected.
But it's like, yeah, it's like crazy.
Like people that even a year ago were like idols to me are like some of them are like buddies.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's, I've been that way.
Roy Jones Jr.
I used to carry Roy Jones Jr.'s CD.
He used to have his CD.
He was a rapper, but no, his DVD of his fights, his highlights, I would carry that around with me and I'd watch it all the time because I'd watch it on my computer or whatever else because I just love the way he fought.
Everybody's at a party right over in the distance at a television.
Just watching the royal joys.
No, I'd bring it to my fights.
I didn't mean I'd bring it with me to the club.
Right.
It would just get you, but no, it would get you amped up.
You amped up and then I'd become friends with him.
I mean, I was just, before I came here, I was just with Mike Tyson.
We were eating Chinese food at his office, you know.
And meeting MC Hammer.
MC Hammer was the guy that was ice.
MC Hammer's an amazing guy.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, and he's, well, he learned through hard knocks.
Yes.
Talk about a guy that had it all and just had to learn the hard way that, you know, how to be smart.
He's fascinating.
I sat next to him on a plane one time and we talked the whole time.
Yeah.
And it was a great conversation.
Do you know what they say?
All the rappers, you know, MC Hammer, Hammer Time and the pants and everything.
He seems like the fun-loving rapper, like almost like a fresh pins kind of guy.
But they said out of everybody, like Hammer would throw down at a drop of a dime.
Oh, fighter.
Yeah, he was like a fighter.
Like you don't cross the guy, he'd throw down.
Hammer time.
Yeah.
And you never know.
And that's the way it is with a lot of fighters.
You wouldn't know who you should and should not mess with until it's too late sometimes.
Yeah, I get even nervous about interviewing guys in you guys' world because it's like, I don't even know that much about it.
For me, it's definitely more of a perspective.
Like it's the thing in my life I was always afraid to do for myself.
So it's fascinating that people can do it, that it's part of their just chemical makeup at some point to be able to do that.
Yeah, it's a trip.
It's a trip.
Let's go to a couple more questions and then we'll wrap it up, man.
This has been awesome.
And thank you so much for joining us, bro.
Yeah, bro.
I had another one.
You mentioned how your trainer in that Mike Brown fight, he was like, get out there, even though you got a broken hand.
And we just saw recently in the Khabib Connor fight, Duke Rufus told Anthony Pettis not to go out for the third round because he had a broken hand.
Do you think your trainer should have?
Obviously, you won, so it worked out.
I didn't win.
Oh, you didn't win the Mike Brown fight.
Oh, my mind.
I didn't win the fight, but it was one of my favorite fights looking back on because it was just people became aware because I started throwing elbows only.
And I just, I lost both hands.
I dislocated my thumb on this one and I broke that one.
And that's like a fight that I go back on.
And people still ask me.
I mean, that was like a long time ago.
People are like, hey, how are your hands?
And I'm like, they're fine.
I had 20-something fights afterwards, but they're fine, you know.
But that's a defining thing.
And they remember that.
Absolutely.
There were multiple questions you guys touched on at first, but there were multiple questions about that from our listeners, too.
But do you think the coroner has a responsibility?
Do you think they should stop it?
Or I don't know.
What's the responsibility there?
It's very individual.
And Duke Rufus is a good friend of mine.
Anthony Pettis is a good friend of mine.
And Duke knows Anthony really, really well.
So they have their own communication style.
Master Tong didn't speak a leak of English, and I could have a whole couple hour conversation with the guy without speaking the same language just by I could understand the stuff he was saying and his points and everything.
And I got some great life lessons from the guy without speaking the same language, which is crazy because I could get what he was saying, etc.
But, You know, he has a good relationship with Anthony, and I think when you have a relationship like that, they know what to do.
And I know that Brian Bowles, shortly after I had my experience, he lost his world title because he thought he broke his hand against Dominic Cruz and didn't come out to the thing.
And it's just an individual thing.
I just, I didn't think about it at all.
I just, I was like, I wasn't telling him, hey, I'm done with the fight.
I was letting him know.
And he said, shut up.
Shut up.
You know, hit me in the heart.
Wow.
You champion.
So, and I could have won that fight.
I was very close in the fifth round.
I had a deep choke in, and I just couldn't hold on.
Well, yeah, once you get in that choke, it's like a rodeo on somebody.
Yeah, but it also starts to get slippery.
Oh, yeah.
My hand, like we hit, we were standing.
We were standing, and I had it like this, and when we hit the ground, it was like crushing my broken hand.
Does a choke start to become slippery after a while when you have it on someone?
Does that become an element of a choke?
It depends on the choke.
There's a lot.
We should choke you out.
You want to get choked out?
I definitely will.
Really?
Yeah.
I don't want to choke anyone out.
We could, though.
Paige Van Zant.
John Cruz Tuck did it to me.
What's that?
John Cruz Tuck did it to me.
No, I'm not going to be second.
I don't take Sloppy second to do it.
Paige Van Zant let you choke her out?
No, she choked out.
She was on a military tour.
And she choked out.
She's like, okay, just tap when you're ready and put the dude out.
She was with Max Holloway on a tour.
That's awesome.
I used to follow her on Instagram until she got married.
I was like, I don't know.
Yeah, you're like, let's take a couple more, then we're going to get out of here.
What up, Theo?
This is Cody calling from Michigan.
I got a question for Uriah.
I was just wondering what he thinks about this fucking Muppet, Logan Paul, thinking that he can fight Sage Northcott.
I just want to get a little bit of insight.
See what kind of fucking joke this is.
Thanks, man.
Have a good one.
That guy should be a promoter, I'm Dylan.
Is that Tyler?
We're going to have to have him out on the promotional tour on Sage's side.
Dude, that, ironically, and I hate to, you know, because that guy is obviously on my side of that, Sage would win the fight.
Yeah.
Logan Paul was a high-level wrestler.
A lot of people don't know that.
He's also a big athletic guy.
He's 185-pound in high school.
Wow.
185-pounder in high school.
And then he took six in the state of Ohio, which is one of the toughest states.
Sage, on the other hand, has been fighting as a career.
Logan's been doing the social media influencer thing and everything else.
But the mindset, man, that is the most important thing.
Sage has it.
Logan has it.
Logan would be a big disadvantage, obviously, in the stand-up and everything else, but they always want to see Sage go against wrestlers because he's not from a wrestling background.
They think that's his weakness, et cetera.
And Logan Paul has been boxing for fun against other social media guys and everything else, but he believes in himself.
And I actually know Logan Paul, and I text him after his fight, and then I text him when him and Sage started talking crap to each other.
And I think it could happen.
I don't think it'll happen in the UFC.
Sage is now a free agent, but unless Logan doesn't want to fight him, but I think he believes in himself.
I mean, he comes off as a guy that believes in himself.
He told me I'm a skull crusher.
Dana said he should be put in jail if he lets Logan Paul fight in the UFC.
I told Logan that, and Logan was like, I'm a skull crusher.
Dana doesn't know what he's talking about.
So he really believes in himself.
He might earn it.
He believes in himself.
He's only 23. Sage is 21. I was 23, 24 when I started training for fighting with just a wrestling background.
Just wrestling.
Yeah, and who are we if we knock somebody that believes in themselves?
Yeah, you know?
So, I mean, I know that he has a lot of haters, and I appreciate this guy honoring the fact that UFC is real, and it is real, and it's a very difficult thing to get to.
But the fact that he's got 17 million followers, and he really believes in himself, and he's willing to put it out there.
That's bright.
If he really is willing to put it out there, because there's one thing to say it, there's another thing to actually step in the ring with a Sage North cut and say, all right, let's throw fisticuffs.
But I think it could happen.
What do you think the odds would be?
Like, what odds would it?
Like, what would Vegas have to do?
Well, the Vegas odds would start highly in Sage's favor.
Logan Paul would talk himself up, and he has 17 million followers, and odds are changing all the time, depending on who's betting what money.
So he might be the favorite at the end of it if he can convince enough people he's going to win.
You could be the one to promote that.
Yeah, we've been talking to him a little bit.
There you go.
I mean, I have to talk about everyone in the picture.
I think getting Logan to actually want to fight.
Right.
Saying you want to fight is one thing.
Actually doing it is another.
But you know what's interesting is that it's funny, like, how having one, I could see, I could really, now I could see this.
You have one career as a social media influencer, right?
And you've had this, you've kind of grown up in this YouTube space and have millions and millions of fans.
And now you want to prove yourself in a different area of your life.
We would all go to a skill set we already have some.
You know, like if I didn't do stand-up, maybe I would try to get into something else that I could, you know, I would probably, I would pick a skill set that I have and work on that.
So one of his obviously good skill sets is wrestling.
And I would say I don't know Logan to this level, and I'm sure he's worked very hard to build his following now, doing whatever he's been doing.
Yeah.
Pissing people off a lot of times.
He's been consistent.
Yeah, growing up and being wild.
Yeah, being wild.
But I guarantee you, if you ask him what the things he's worked on hardest on his life have been, it's probably most focus and dedication has probably gone towards wrestling.
Just because I know the wrestling world, and I know guys like that that believe in themselves.
And I know about a state like Ohio, which takes wrestling very, very serious.
So I think Sage and Logan could happen.
Yeah.
Wow.
I'd watch it.
I bet it would start out at 7-1, and I bet it would maybe break.
I would bet it could be even at some point.
Yeah.
7-1, I take Logan.
Dude, yeah.
Well, but I'll tell you what.
And Nick's lost a lot of money, gambling.
Yeah.
It's very comforting.
I'm going to ask all your leaders.
But no, it's interesting.
Look, it's interesting because where would you go?
You've already done something to it to it, height.
Yeah.
You know?
And also, the thing about the world he's in is you have no way of defending yourself from haters.
You either like me or I don't.
And there's no, like, well, I, I mean, I think that's why Logan really enjoyed the process of having that fight because he got to like defend himself, really.
Because he is just a kid growing up in a world that's really judgmental and he's done some things that have pissed some people off.
But at the end of the day, he's a human being who works really, really hard, who has some talents.
Agreed.
And he got to go out there and it didn't matter what anybody thought.
He's going to go punch someone in the face.
It's pretty admirable.
And it is admirable.
You know what's admirable?
Even if you want, whether you win or lose, it's admirable.
Yeah.
I think what needs to happen is that fight needs to happen with Sage and Logan.
And Logan, I mentioned this, raising some awareness for a charity.
Yeah.
That would be a cool thing.
Yeah.
If you can do it, yeah, he's going to have so much power.
And we could have Theo and Dahlia versus each other on the same card.
Yeah.
You guys, what'll happen to you?
Delia and Logan got into it before.
Delia and Logan got into it a while.
Did they really?
Yeah, they got into just like a Twitter beef or something.
Chris Dahlia had the most favorited tweet ever slamming Logan Paul in his response.
What did he say?
I'd have to bring it up.
You got to pull that out.
Because you know, Chris DeLee and I are friends from like 14 years ago?
No.
Yes.
No.
What was Chris DeLia like 14 years ago?
And Chris DeLee also lost the Fighter and the Kids trap to me by 1% of votes.
But this was absolutely one of the best things ever.
I don't know what Chris DeLia said first, but Logan Paul said, I'm laughing because now I know why your comedy career took a dive.
Did it take a dive?
No.
Sorry, right?
Yeah, that was part of Chris DeLia's.
He was like, he started off with the wrong premise.
And then Chris Delia responded, at least when my career dies, you can film and then put it on YouTube.
Because he had had the Japanese thing in the forest with the body, right?
Which I thought, who cares?
But that was a great clap by Chris.
And it blew up.
And it blew up.
And because I think also people were at that moment where they were also looking to burn him.
And Chris lives in his own universe where he likes to do his own, you know.
It was perfect.
Chris is too good at that kind of stuff.
So, yeah.
But in a real fight, though, Chris would be in trouble against Logan.
Against Logan, yeah.
But so Chris and I go way back because there was a TV show pitched in 2004 about my block of houses where I was building my team.
And Delia was buddies with all the guys that were doing it.
And they brought him along for like as a comical piece of the director directing thing.
He was part of the like the unit that was there to film us to create a sizzle reel to go sell.
And so I met Delia back in the day.
That's so cool.
And, you know, their whole crew was just there.
We had a bunch of chicks around and they were trying to pick off their own chicks at the time and everything else.
And it was just a bunch of guys that were young.
Yeah.
They were trying to do something cool.
And it was before anybody knew him.
I had met his father.
His father's a producer.
Yeah, Bill DeLeah.
Yeah, Bill DeLeah.
And it was Bill DeLia and some of Chris's friends that were kind of going on a reality because they're more scripted based.
And they're trying to do a different thing.
And we ended up pitching a show.
I didn't get taken up.
I think the UFC was kind of snuffing us at the time.
But Chris and I knew each other from that time.
And I've gone and watched his career grow.
Yeah, he's so been awesome, man.
He's hilarious.
He's very funny.
You know, one thing that he has more than a lot of people is he just has extreme confidence.
And it really comes from having a great family.
And you talked about not wanting to get in a fist fight.
Yeah.
You know, because, hey, maybe your father figure was missing or this or this person took off, whatever.
Like that guy comes from a very stable, like healthy, awesome family.
His dad and his brothers and everyone are super cool.
He's got like a solid foundation.
That's a lot of times where the confidence comes from.
Yeah, that's interesting, man.
Would you let your child fight one day?
I'll let my kid do whatever I want.
I'm not necessarily going to encourage it.
It's not going to like I'm going to like push them in that direction.
It's a tough life.
Not even, I mean, everyone who wrestles, like, I want my kid to wrestle because it teaches them life skills and this and that.
I think soccer.
I'll put my kid in soccer.
You can make a ton of money.
You can make so much money.
Everyone sees your face.
Yes.
You know, the worst that happens usually is you do a header and hit the ball or you fake some of those flailing soccer players that look you could go anywhere in the world and play soccer and be super famous and make a ton of money.
Yeah.
And it's healthy.
You're running all the time.
Yeah.
You're in the sun, the grass, soccer.
Yeah, for a Cali boy to be indoors in a cage all the time, that's a really...
I say the training, yeah.
Yeah.
Forget about that.
Was there anything else, Nick?
We had one from an old friend of Theo's.
Okay.
Hey, Theo, what's up, my man?
I have a question for Uriah Faber.
Uriah, huge UFC fan here.
I wanted to know who would be the perfect opponent for you to dust off the gloves and come back and fight in the UFC?
If money wasn't the issue, if it was just strictly who do you want right now in this moment, who would that fighter be for you to get off the couch and fight again?
Thank you, buddy.
And he sent this in a while ago.
I cut it out, but he wished you luck before your Sakura fight as well.
He knew all about it.
That's awesome.
Thank you.
You know, I go back and forth.
There's always the talk of the TJ fight.
I mean, he's the current world champion, best in the world.
And the reason why I fought was to be the best in the world.
You know, it'd have to be one of the champions.
It'd have to be one of the champions that I can make weight.
35 sounds like a lot.
A big fight against Connor.
Connor's my buddy, but that's how you get really paid.
You know, That would have been cool.
At this point, I've never been like an animosity type of fighter.
I'm always kind of trying to enjoy the process.
So for me, it'd be whoever is holding the belt at the time.
You want the strap?
the strap and but for just joy of going and be able to fight someone and not from an animosity or even for like not even if it was a championship who's just somebody Yeah.
You know what?
I think it'd be cool to fight a guy like Khabib.
Yeah.
Yeah, because Khabib's just a savage beast.
And I like what he's all about.
He's all about pushing the pace and mental toughness and conditioning and willpower.
And that was my style always as well.
I could push and push and push.
And I don't mind if I get taken down.
I've never been ground and pounded and that kind of stuff.
So I think that would be a fun challenge because he's proven himself to be the best.
Yeah, and that's so, you know, it's amazing just to even think of that part of fighting someone out of admiration almost.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
And there's a lot of guys like that.
That's my grappling competition.
You don't know who Sakuraba is, but Sakuraba and I were inducted in the Hall of Fame, the UFC Hall of Fame at the same time.
And he is a legend of the sport.
I had a video, like a cassette tape of him that was like two hours long, him doing all sorts of crazy stuff.
You know who Hoist Gracie is?
Hoist Gracie is like the founder, the first guy to win the UFC.
And he was 165 pounds and he fought in a gi.
And he was, Soccer Rob was known as the Gracie killer.
He beat like six of them or something like that and submitted a bunch of the guys.
And so he would do stuff like flying karate chops and like spin around and like try to drop his butt on someone's head.
And he would like, he did a special no time limit match with it and let Gracie wear the gi after they had taken all that away.
And he'd basically try to take his pants off and undress him during the thing.
So he has this kind of wild style.
He sounds like one of the Marx brothers or something.
It's hilarious.
Is that pretty wild to be inducted in the same time as him?
Somebody like that you see.
Is it interesting when you, because you admire somebody so much, you look at them a certain way, and then you can't really feel yourself right next, like on a tandem, can you?
Right.
It seems totally different, doesn't it?
Yeah, like I'm sitting there watching this guy, and he was a 185-pounder.
He was fighting these heavyweight killers and like taking out legends and having fun doing it.
And then, you know, I'm stopping my career and getting acknowledged the same time he is.
And yet he was one of the guys that was like, you know, pumped me up.
And then we got to compete against each other.
So we just competed in a grappling match to a draw, eight-minute draw, but that was a lot of fun.
Is that the weed thing that they do with Matt?
No.
Okay.
If I did the weed thing, I would probably be sleeping during the thing.
If I were to smoke weed, I would smoke a little bit of weed, laugh for a couple minutes, eat something, and fall asleep all in about 10 minutes.
I'm not a functional guy when it comes to that.
They have an underground thing where those guys are smoke and they go get on the mat and roll.
There's a guy Felony, I know, that everybody always mentions.
It gets in it.
Awesome, man.
I appreciate so much of your time, man.
We've got to get you on the Cali cast, too.
I'd love to come and do it.
Where do you guys tape at?
We tape in Sacramento.
Yeah.
But we'll have you come down there.
maybe you can check out the gym, maybe make a, uh, maybe, This thing satellite or no?
Yeah.
We could take it.
Yeah, we're just going to start taking it on the road doing some gaslight in Washington, D.C. this year.
Maybe we do something like that, and you could get some of the other fighters in the gym.
I've got a Sage Northcut.
You could ask him about the logo, Paul.
He's a crackup.
I mean, he is the closest thing we have to leave it to beaver in the UFC, but he's 190 pounds ripped and can do a backflip and kick you in the chin.
Jesus Christ.
If you ever see Sage's stuff, it's pretty incredible.
He'll like a backflip and land in the same spot.
It's really weird.
That's cool, man.
What a neat camaraderie that you saw.
It's like a lot of it's about the camaraderie as well.
The fighting is great, but it seems like there's a ton of camaraderie in these gyms and different groups.
Yes.
It's pretty impressive.
Well, you got to watch Sage's Nuts.
So yeah, the camaraderie is important because at the end of the day, you're doing something that's very difficult and very tough.
Watch this.
Watch this slip.
Some weird slow motion video, but.
He lands in the same spot.
That's kind of crazy.
That's fascinating, huh?
There it is.
What?
He's the craziest handshake ever.
You talk about exuding good energy.
Like, he can walk into any gym and he's like, hey, someone could be trying to, you know, talk crap to him.
Hey, that's a good one.
Like, he's so funny.
What's up, Mr. Faber?
Yeah, he calls me Mr. Faber.
Yeah, he's aging me way too fast.
I'm like, I got kids all over the place now calling me Mr. Faber.
I'm like, really, Sage?
He's got my neighbor.
I had him, when he first moved to Sacramento, I had him live in like two houses down with one of my good friends.
They had a house in the back.
And my buddy Pete is just a regular dude, like successful developer guy, and kind of took Sage in.
But he's like, does not want to be called Mr. Jeremiah.
And so he's like, Sage, would you please stop calling me Mr. Jeremiah?
And Pete's like, I mean, Sage is like, yeah, okay.
No problem, Mr. Pete.
So now we got Mr. Pete t-shirts.
And we got everybody calls him Mr. Pete now.
It's pretty good.
I love that, man.
And that's that prize cul-de-sac where you guys, you have your own, it's kind of a whole squad.
We had that before.
That was how the team started.
You know, since moved on, that was like fraternity living, basically.
We had five houses right next to each other and had probably over 50 fighters throughout the years that lived in that little area.
Guys like Chad Mendez and TJ Dillashaw and Lance Palmer.
And the list goes on of fighters that had lived on that block.
Yeah, that's fascinating, man.
That's pretty cool.
Wow, man.
I never gave the real estate advice.
Here's my real estate advice.
This is it.
My real estate advice is this.
If you're looking for an investment property, you find the worst house in the best Neighborhood, and then you have to really truly understand what it takes to do something on a budget because it doesn't mean anything if you're getting to buy something for too much or if you don't know how to budget and fix something up.
So, do your research, become an expert before you do anything.
Don't just buy a house because it sounds cool.
Also, don't be afraid to finance and get into debt.
You know, that's how I make big moves is not being afraid of debt.
And, you know, guys like Theo and myself and a lot of people I've met, you'll find a way.
I found a way by buying a house when I was making $7,000 a year back before the economy crashed.
And I moved in a bunch of my buddies.
I started to have more success, bought the house next door, bought the house next door, and ended up creating a little real estate portfolio.
And, you know, you also create, and I'll comment on that, you also create a, you're also, as you're developing real estate, you're developing something inside of yourself whenever you buy something and you put your, because it's not you, you're also putting money on the line, but you're putting your, what you think on the line.
You're putting yourself on the line.
You're mortgaging against yourself.
And the same thing happened to me.
A buddy of mine and I split a property.
It was a friend that I really, really trusted financially, a good business guy.
We split a property we got in on about 15 years ago, and we still have it.
I still have to do some landlording stuff every now and then.
But we still have it, and we'll be able to sell it now for a profit here, you know, 15 years later.
But also in the years since then, I've gotten involved in other projects because then friends start to hear, oh, he owns something.
I'm going to ask him.
And then you're part of, you just become part of different conversations.
And that's been kind of interesting.
Right.
And then there's two different ways.
If you're going to flip, flip is dangerous because it's constantly a cash flow thing.
If you're going to flip, then you have to really know your numbers, know the market, know how long it's going to take you, know your budget, which I've messed up on plenty of times.
If you're going to flip, if you're going to buy, fix up, sell.
If you're going to hold, that's a different story.
There's a lot more leeway in that.
You just have to make sure that the thing cash flows.
That means if it's paying for itself or it's making $100, that's good because you're playing on the long haul.
And then commercial real estate is all about the tenants that are in it.
If there's a national tenant, meaning like a big box store, like a Dollar Tree, it's better than a mom and pop store.
Like a yogurt land.
In a yogurt land or something like that.
So that's a whole nother animal.
So you just got to be smart and educate yourself.
Don't just buy a house because it sounds cool.
Yeah.
And you'll start to meet friends who can do other stuff.
Like I don't know anything about commercial real estate, but now I could maybe reach out to Uran and ask him if I had some questions, you know?
And so that's another thing you'll start to learn.
It's like, and people most of the time want to share the advice that they have or suggestions.
And that's one thing that's kind of fascinating is how much people want to give away what they learn.
Yeah, absolutely.
People take it.
They say everything, you know, all originality is borrowed.
And I talk about this in my book.
You know, a lot of times people will love talking about their knowledge.
It's kind of like an honor to say, yeah, I know something.
I'd like to tell you about it.
So don't be afraid to ask and don't be afraid to tell.
Yeah.
Awesome, man.
Sage advice, Sage Northcut, Uriah Faber.
I think we covered everything.
Thank you so much for being here, man.
You got it, bro.
Thanks for having me.
A big fan.
Yeah, I'm looking, dude.
I'll come up to SAC, bro.
I'll be there.
I'll be there probably in the spring.
Okay, we'll get you working out, too.
And you do shows out there.
Yeah.
You let me know.
We'll bring the whole gym out, man.
Wow.
We got a bunch of influencers on that team that would love to.
Whenever we have Craig Robinson or Rogan or anybody that comes up, we'll always go support.
Dude, that's awesome, man.
I want to get choked out by somebody, too.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
We'll maybe have a girl do that to you.
Come on, bro.
Yeah, that'd be cool.
I mean, if she's cute.
Yeah, exactly.
Actually, even if she's not, bro.
Actually, yeah, maybe not that cute.
Yeah, okay.
All right.
We got a little bit of everything.
Okay.
Now, I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone.
Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind I found.
I can feel it in my bones.
But it's gonna take a little time for me to set that parking break and let myself unwind shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you my stories.
Shine on me.
And I will find a song I will sing it just for you.
I'll see you next time.
And I will wait for you.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite, and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner.
The answer may shock you.
Sometimes I'll interview my friends.
Sometimes I won't.
And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.
You have three new voice messages.
A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.
I've been talking about Kite Club for so long, longer than anybody else.
So great.
Hi, Sweet.
Easy to you.
Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.
John Main.
I'll take a quarter pottle of cheese out of the quarry.
Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.
I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me.
Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kai Club.
Second rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kai Club.
Third rule, like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts or watch us on YouTube, yeah?
Export Selection