JRE MMA Show #176 with Dustin Poirier

The Joe, Rogan, experience.

Train my day, Joe Rogan, podcast, my night, our day. [MUSIC PLAYING] What's happening with my friend? You're going to be back, Ron. Dustin Poe, the light heavyweight.

[LAUGHTER] It's thick boy summer. He look at healthy sun. Yeah, like 190, man. He look good, man.

I feel good. Dude, it feels good to eat a nut, counter carbohydrates and calories. Yeah, we were talking about that. Were you like still, like, a little part of you, like, looks at meals and goes, uh-huh.

Well, I mean, for the last 20 years, I've been macro. And, you know, I knew I had a fight coming up. Even if I didn't have a fight, I had to be in striking range from 155. Right.

So I was always looking at the back of every label, being real cautious.

What I eat is, like, ingrained in my daughter now. When we go to Whole Foods, she'll grab something off the counter and say, "Dad, it only has three ingredients." Like, she knows what's up. Well, it's good to think that way anyway.

For sure. Especially with the ingredients. Yeah, that's the first thing she goes to. Like, she wants some chips. It only has five ingredients.

That's like a thing for her when we're shopping. Yeah, well, that's smart, man. That's cool. You're raising them right. Trying to, but I'm trying to put the stuff I learned in fighting, you know, all the years.

Yeah, it's a good use. It's, uh, it is kind of crazy.

“I think it's the worst thing about fighting is the way cutting.”

Do you imagine if everybody just, first of all, uh, tell me if you agree, but I think the UFC needs way more weight. I do too. Because the gaps are so big, I mean, just if you look at boxing compared to mixed martial arts,

the jumps in weight are so big for me to weight class. But also, all the shows that put on they'd have more titles and more belt, more big fights. But also, man, with that, there's going to be a lot of people trying to cut a little bit extra, trying to be double champion every weight class. I think it does cause more confusion.

Yeah, but that's better than the extreme weight cuts. The extreme weight cuts are, you saw that dude a few times. The extreme weight cuts are, you saw that dude a few, um, like, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what about three events ago? Who face planted and got removed off the card?

Yeah. That is crazy. You're getting someone to the brink of death 24 hours before they have an MMA fight, which is the most, if not the most dangerous sport, one of the most dangerous sports in the world. And you're, and you're doing something to your body to extremely weaken it 24 hours before you fight. It's bananas.

Dude, I didn't make so many times. You're preaching to the glare. I know. But there's been so many times I felt like that, like, stand up too quick after a weight cut and I'm like, you know, I might go down.

Oh, dude. I mean, I can only imagine, when you see someone like Pereira, that's cutting like 25 pounds, and more, when he was 185, I mean, that guy was fighting inside the octagon at 225 and weighing in at 185, 24 hours before. Right. That's crazy. And even when he's big, he's lean, you know, it's not like he's fluffy.

Well, they say that when you're muscular, it's easier to cut weight. More water's water's water. Yeah. Yeah, which is counterintuitive. You see a fat guy, you're like, oh, that guy can cut weight. But you really can't, because you can't to planish to planish your fat. Right. Not in a training camp's time eight weeks, 10 weeks.

You can't lose like 30 pounds of fat, but I don't think you can finish. I said to planish, like it was a real word. You can dehydrate yourself. I don't think it is a word to planish. Well, if you got to replenish, right, but no one says to planish.

No, you say to pleat, but I've just threw it out there like it was real.

“I don't think to planish is a word. Is that a word?”

Yeah. It is? I don't think I've ever used it that way. Oh, okay. Nice, man. Nice. I got lucky. That was just luck. Um, but I talked to Hunter about it, Hunter Campbell.

And we're trying to figure out a way, um, without it has to be more weight classes. I mean, California instituted a bunch of different weight classes. I think, um, I think they were doing it every 10 pounds. I think California also did like a percentage of your body weight.

Mm-hmm. I don't know what was at 15, 20 percent.

You couldn't dehydrate more than that. That guy had any fosters on the ball. And I think that's good, you know? Yeah. 20 percent or whatever. Some kind of rule where guys aren't cutting 50 pounds.

40 pounds, still crazy. Yeah, still crazy. I mean, if you're talking about weight, yeah, you're right. 200 pounds, 40 pounds. I mean, it's a lot of weight. Well, that's another thing that freaks boxers out.

When I tell them that there's a weight limit and heavy weight. 265? That doesn't make any sense. I go, I agree. Why is there a weight limit for heavy weight?

That's crazy. Dude, that gap, too. Like 205, anything over that, you can be 210 to 265. That's crazy. A 50 pounds gap, you know?

But, well, heavy weight in boxing, like look, Mike Tyson when he was in his prime was only like 220, 215, 220. You know, that's where he, when he was dominating, that's where he kind of fell in that weight limit.

“I wouldn't, I think it would be a good idea.”

Anything passed like 235, super heavy weight. Yeah, you know? Well, the difference between boxing, though, is the grappling.

Yeah. If you got a, like, in Ghana when he was in his prime, was weighing over, like, 300 pounds and then cutting down to 265. He was a 300 pound natural. He's a guy who's, like, a knockdown power for sure, but grapple in, like, if you get a big guy who's 265 and knows how to grapple very well, Russell does whole life.

They can cycle control or half guard, you're not getting up. That's the end of the round. Yeah. Yeah. Also, if they did do a super heavy, the fights might be either, awesome or it's completely suck.

“Well, I think it should be heavyweight should be unlimited.”

And then you like add down. Yeah, because, like, came Velasquez, no one's holding that dude down in his prime. Yeah. Even when he was too forwarding, when he was too forwarding, he fought Lesnar. Lesnar was gigantic, but it didn't matter because the cardio that Kane had and the speed and his technique sort of, he was ahead of his time.

Yeah, he was ahead of his time. He was like a hybrid, can do everything, ring cardio, good athlete before MMA got to where it's at now.

Yeah, the one fight that I always say that we missed is Kane and Fedor in their prime.

Yeah. Because they were both in their prime at the same time and they never made that happen. When you have seen, absorbed the pride roster and stuff, I was crazy. It's crazy that Fedor never fought the UFC at all, man. Well, they tried the UFC tried, but Fedor's management were a bunch of very dangerous dudes. Yeah, you don't mess around with that guy.

Fucking, yeah, man. There was like tense negotiations and they wanted a percentage of the promotion. They wanted a lot more than just a big purse. Yeah, UFC's not playing that game. No, they were like, look, we'll give you a very healthy purse, we'll bring Fedor over here. But the problem was when they purchased pride, they thought they were getting everyone's contracts, but the contracts were all bullshit.

“Well, some guys came over on crazy, crazy money contracts, you know?”

I think Dan Henderson might have been one. I was a young fighter one time and I was making this might have been 2013 or some 2014, I don't know. And they came to give me my check. This is back in the day before they wired. They used to give us checks on fight night. And they had gone through the checks and I saw Dan's and I saw the number and I couldn't believe it. This is before like people posting online, fighter pay and all that and I saw the numbers.

He was making, I was like, no way, guys rich. This is a make angry. No, no, because the future myself looking back or looking forward when guys are going to be fighting for belts and stuff, the money they're going to make in five years, I'm going to be, I'm going to be that guy like damn, you know, I got out too early or you know how it is, the next generation

always gets more right. Mike Brown tells me that all the time, do you, I was fighting for the

belt and WC defending it, making this? You guys on the pre-lines are making more than I was making, you know? Yeah, there's a weird, that's sort of discussion about fighter pay. You know, if I've always been of the opinion that fighter should be making more money period because like the same way I feel about like the way I run my comedy club, the comedians make 80% of the money because I feel like that's who's you're paying to see, you're paying to see them.

We make plenty of money like with drinks and 20% of the tickets, it's like it's enough. Like it should be the, if we had a comedy club and there's no comedians, no one's coming, right? No one's gonna pay just to sit there and buy drinks. Like the whole idea is they're paying to see

“someone's work. If you fight, that's what people are paying to see. They're paying to see fighters.”

Without the fighters, there's no show, without the media, there's no show, I understand. But I think the big thing with the discussion of fighter pay is the, is the percentages. Yeah. When you look at other major organizations like NFL NBA, the percentages are so so different. Yeah, that's not good. But I do that at the end of the day, I'm all for fighter pay too. I've been fighting my whole life. But you sign the contract, you agree.

This is how business is done. Push for, try to get more of what you worth, you know, you can't sign the contract and complain. Right. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building a website that actually looks legit and helps you stand out online. And I should know, my site, JoeRogan.com is powered by Squarespace. They make it easy to lock down the right domain for your business or project. And they've got built-in privacy and security tools

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That's true too, but also it's like the reality of MMA is if you're not in the UFC, people are not paying attention. That's unfortunate, but it's reality. You know, and I think there's some really good fighters at fight in the PFL and really good fighters at fight in one. But they don't no one knows who they are other than the hard core dudes. All right. That's, yeah, I got a buddy, Johnny Eblon, who was the Bellator Champion. Awesome. I've been training with him since he started

MMA when he got out of college resting and stuff like, right now he can go to the UFC and give

Yeah. Just because you find the UFC, that's a great organization of fight for the biggest, the most known worldwide, but dude, there's great fighters everywhere. You know, like on the

mats at American top team, there's a dozen guys you've never heard of that can make a run in the

“UFC right now. That's what I heard is a nightmare about training at American top team. Because”

it's a revolving door, man. There's like a hundred professional fighters on the mats at all times. Yeah. Different camps, they have dorms, so guys from Russia, guys from all over the world are just in. You never know who's going to be there and it's tough rounds, you know, every practice is tough. Well, not only that, but I've heard there's like guys coming in from Russia and they'll throw bleak kicks at your knees and you're like, hey, man. Like, what are we doing here? We're getting ready

for fights. We're not in a fight. Right. Yeah. Like, somebody's guys are trying to make their name off of a name guy and so you have to be very selective and who you're spar with. For sure. And that's any, not just American top team, especially guys who are established, like if I go to any gym here and Austin and it's open matter, something I have a target on my back. Of course. You know, that's everywhere. Of course. But those guys, man, like I had a big gym like American top team

with a knowledge and the good coaches, those guys get weeded out. You know, you won't stay there

long if you're doing that stuff. The problem is if you're one of the guys that has to weed them out.

Like, you've find out early on, this dude's, you know, throwing wheel kicks full blast and it happens all the time. Oh, yeah. Well, just, you know, make sense. I mean, you're from Dagestan or Chechnya or whatever. You come to America. Yeah. This is your big chance. And I do like to train hard to prepare for a fight. You got to fight. But you know, you got to take care of each other. We're professionals. We're feeding our family with this. Yeah. And injury can ruin everything.

Well, there's so many fighters that get concussions in training. And then, you know, they get chaining when they get into the fight. It happens all the time. Yeah. And especially the early days. There was a lot of guys who got hit me. Yeah. Like the early days, we didn't really have classes that were organized. Man, it was just sparring and choking each other out. And with four ounce gloves sparring, like we didn't know. We didn't know. And that crazy. Like 2006, dude, we used

to beat each other up every day. That was MMA training. And then it wasn't these super gyms where everything was under one roof. I would drive to a boxing gym, drive another 45 minutes to a geetsuit gym. You know, it was put everything together on fight night. But you would train everywhere else because there wasn't mixed martial arts gyms back then, really. I would drive to a kickboxing gym, boxing gym, wrestling, jujitsu. It was all separate. Well, also, you were in a place that

didn't have like a high volume of MMA fighters in your state. Right. Back then, like Rich Climany, Melvin Gallard, were the big guys from Louisiana. Right. Then Tim Crater came, got crazy, Tim, crazy, Tim got on the ultimate fighter. And then I went to his gym once he got out of the TV show. And now me and him trained for years and years. He still has a gym in life at Louisiana. I love Tim. I'm known Tim since I first worked out with him in like 98 at Machados. Well, he was in maybe

“the Navy. So he was in California station there. And I think that's when he started jiu-jitsu. He was”

Louisiana's first black belt. Oh, wow. Yeah. I knew him from that. And then he was fighting and he's

fighting in the UFC. And it was always around the MMA scene. Him and Eve Edwards were good friends.

They opened the gym. Maybe in Houston or something. He was cornering even pride. And then I met Eve through Tim. And it's just, it's a big family man. Eve is a guy that I always say there was a time where he was the best 155 pounder on earth. When he'd be Josh Thompson. Yes. He's the uncrown champion. He should have been the uncrown champion. There wasn't a belt. I know. And that nuts. And that nuts. That's so hard for people to understand. Like how crazy it is. Like being

through the lineage of Doug Jitsu, man. It sucks to say like that he can't say he was a champion. But I know he was. He was. He was. He was the best. And one point in time. He was the best. He lived out here before he moved to LA. So before I moved to South Florida to training American top team, I used to drive six hours here and stay with Eve. He always had wrestlers down here. This was like beginning of my WEC days. I would drive down here and train with Eve, man. He's

he was another guy who was ahead back in the day because he comes from NHB, like hook and shoot. The crazy days. Yeah. Yeah. And he was doing it all. Good Jitsu, good kickboxing. He fell in love

“with wrestling. I was such a big fan of Eve, man. He invented some moves too. You remember that one”

thing that he would do, where guys want to sing on? He had to do with a flying knee, a jumping knee. That was a dude. I'm a in May historian bro. That was Elite XC I believe, maybe. Was it? Um, and you know, that was Edson Berto. Was it? I think Andre Berto's brother. The robots. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But that, he had a single leg. He was hopping and then jumped up and neat and out. Cool. Yeah. It was crazy. It is Elite XC. Look at you bro. I mean,

pray that again. Look at this. This move is brilliant. That's brilliant. That's Edson Berto.

That's such a slick move. Yeah. He's so crafty, man. Oh, yeah. Well, that head kicked that he landed on Josh Thompson from the middle of that wild, crazy scrambled jumping roundhouse kick to that. Dude, and they still play it every opener. Yeah. Do you see? Yeah. They still play it. As

they shit, I mean, it was incredible. Absolutely. Yeah. I got it. He's got to give credit to Eve. He's

he was one of the real pioneers. For sure. And way before this was cool. Yeah, way before. Yeah. But to be stuck, it like 155, like that was his weight class. And then there's no title. Yeah. They were the two best guys in the world at that time. Him and Josh Thompson. Yeah. Josh Thompson is another one. Doesn't get the credit he deserves. That's it. Boom. Like what a slick move, man. But that was Eve. Very creative. You know? Yeah. Man, Josh Thompson, like peak Josh Thompson from me,

well, it was a strike force when him and Gilbert, Melinda as maybe we're going back before. Didn't have like a goodness. Yeah. They might have had a trilogy. He might have been two two or three fights, but every fight was amazing. Gilbert, Melinda. Yeah, God. Doesn't get the credit. Dude, legend. Legend. Legend. All those guys, they were the ground breakers. And a lot of

“these young kids coming up, you bring up Gilbert, Melinda as they're like, who? Like, bro, you need to”

know your history. You know how this thing got started. Go watch new or stuff. Go watch him in Diego. Yeah. Sanchez, right? Slug it out. Diego Sanchez is another guy that I say is a tweener. Right? Because, well, to wait. Yeah. I mean, he really wasn't really well to wait. And he, you know, and lightweight, and he tried to get down to 45 for a while, but that was just brutal. He was

killing himself getting down to 45. I've never seen him making wait for 45. Like, oh, this ain't good.

This ain't gonna last long. No. Yeah. But if like, there was a 165 pound weight class. Diego Sanchez might have been the champion of the world. Right. Honestly, man, like when I was competing, if they had a 65, I might have entertained it. 70's just too big of a gap, because I trained with 70's in the UFC, and I know that 200 something pounds. And my heaviest, I was like 182, 183, maybe, that just too big, man. Well, he got guys like Rumble Johnson when Rumble was alive. Yeah.

Rumble got up to 230 pounds in between. No, he was huge, man. Huge. I can't believe he made one seven. He was, he was living in South Florida, so I'll see him every now and then he was huge. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. March is here and Uber Eats is delivering deals all

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like weight cutter. He cut more weight than anybody. When he was fighting at 170, it was bananas. I was like, how are you doing this? I remember running into him at a hotel. I was like, bro, how big are you? And he was laughing. He's like, I'm 230 right now. And muscle. Yeah, muscle. Yeah, muscle. Yeah, heavyweight. And he went up to heavyweight. He did it in our loft ski. Yep. Which is crazy. He was a legit heavyweight. Yeah.

Dude, Andre still fighting. I know. And winning. The bear nuckle champion, winning. He's the bear nuckle champion. How durable is that motherfucker? For the years and the miles that that guy has, I have to say, like, taking shots receiving damage. I don't know if he takes it like he, obviously he doesn't take it like he used to, but his mobility and his movement for all the wars he's had in the years. He's been fighting. When I watch him in the gym, dude, he's light on

his feet flexible. Yeah. He moves so well. And enthusiasm. Still doesn't enthusiasm for the game. Yeah. Which is crazy. He's like, he loves it. He clearly loves it. I mean, he was, what? You

“have see every weight champion in 2005? Yeah. Was it like 2005? 2005 or 2006? I think he beat”

him. Tim Sylvia, maybe. When he was the champ, first ball, that motherfucker had a

piston for a right hand. I remember when he caled Paul Blintello. Oh, my god. That's that Texas guy. Paul Blintello. Another another dude. I believe he's from Galveston area or Corpus Christie or something. He's from Texas. Well, if you think our last ski from 2005, and he was a top 10 heavyweight as recently as like 2023. Well, when he came back to the UFC after that long gap, he went on a streak. He had a bunch of great fire. I think he knocked out Travis Brown.

Pete Travis Brown. Which is crazy. Did he fight Bigfoot? Did him in Bigfoot? Yes. The 51 is 25. 25. 25. February 55, 2005. That is bananas, man. That really is bananas. Man, back in the day, Tim Sylvia used to train at ATT when I first got there. He was the most

goofy, pigeon-toed, but down to fight. Oh, down to fight. Yeah, for short pigeon-toed, his knees were weird. Yeah, they went in. I don't, I tried to talk to a trainer about that. He was that's learned. Like, you can correct that. What the neat, the knee? Yeah. The knees bowed in like that was,

“he said, that's a learn. You could, you could correct that. I was like, really? How do you?”

What? I never heard of that. Oh, yeah. I didn't understand how he

seems like something they would do, maybe when you're born surgery. Like, reposition the bones or something, huh? Well, I don't know if it is, I don't know. I mean, I don't want to speak out of turn. I have to bring in that guy and I haven't explained to me how you could correct that. Yeah. But he's like, that's something that can be corrected. That's like, learned behavior. It's just from being so big. But dude, watching him with his toes pointed out,

doing the ladder drills and stuff, you know, the ladder's in and out. Like, it was some big guys have their toes pointed out like that. Like, jelly roll went from 500 pounds and he's downed it, the, he's in the low 200s now, which is crazy. Yeah. I saw pictures of him looks completely different. But he's lost like 300 pounds and he did it the right way. Yeah. No old zempick, just like diet, exercise, runs all the time. But he has a problem when he walks his toes are pointed out

and he's trying to correct it. He's trying to be aware of it. Yeah. When he runs, he runs the right way. Like feet pointed forward. You see it too on the, on the bigger guys shoes. The corners of the shoes

are always flat. Like flat tires on the outside. Yeah. They just walk that way, man. Well, you got to

think you have so much weight. You got to, you kind of kind of stretch out to kind of balance yourself. Yeah. But I always point to Tim Silvia when he knocked out Rico. Rico Rodriguez that, oh, that Tim Silvia was a beast dude. That was back when all the Mexican supplements were allowed. There was a lot of dudes who are a very juicy. Oh, yeah. And Tim, giant traps and huge fucking shoulders. Yeah. I remember he struggled to get down to 265 for that fight. Yeah, back in the

day with the juice was just free flowing. I just looked at the UFC desk with bisming in Vegas when Max and Charles fought. And we started talking about the same thing we're talking about now and he was like, oh, I thought veto, I thought I'm all in the height of T RT. Right. You know, he's thought of that was legal juice, which was bananas. I mean, Alistair. Oh, yeah. That was the juiciest fight of all time. Just versus versus Brock was the juiciest fight in all time. Yeah. I recently watched the

Mark Hunt documentary. And he's trying to like push back and do a lawsuit against the UFC for all the juicing and stuff like that. I mean, such a, yeah. That's a tough, that's a tough road because how much can the UFC do? And it's on the athletic commission as well. Right.

“Wouldn't the lawsuit be against the state, not the UFC? I think his position is that the UFC knew”

that, um, but how would they know that Brock was juicing? I don't know. This is before random drugs. I believe. Yes. It was before. So that was, I feel like that would fall on the state athletic commission. Maybe it wasn't before because he did get popped. You know, but it wasn't random. They weren't, you know, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, that the back in the day you would get tested on fight night. Right. You know, they would knock at your door. What was super clear

that Brock was doing something? It was super clear. Like, he was like in his late 30s. It's built like a fucking like the side of a barn. I mean, there was a bunch of guys back then. Yeah, bunch of guys. Yeah. But it wasn't frown. It was okay. Everybody was doing it. Why wasn't it wasn't, right? Because it was illegal. But it was like, when you have fight day drug tests, that's an intelligent test. That's all that is. Right. That's whether or not you have good people

in your corner. Right. And whether or not you have a, a camera. It's going to take this amount of weeks to get out of this many days to get out of your system. Well, there was certain camps that would

employ scientists. And these scientists are always going to be ahead, you know, they're always going

to be coming up with something new trying to stay ahead of the curve and get away with stuff. And I still think they're probably doing it, man. Yeah. There's probably something that we don't

“know right now. And it's going to come out in the future. That's why they hold on to the drug”

tests for a prolonged period of time. Yeah. They ask you, you're consent. You have to do an extra signature if you let them test it or use it for what do you say now? I don't know. I never said no, you always give it to them. Well, it's good for you because you're clean. Yeah, I competed my whole career clean, man. Nothing. Nothing. I was even scared of certain creatine. Like, I got the trusted by sport on everything because I was so scared to be one of those guys. Because every time I see

it, tainted supplement, yeah, sure buddy. But you know, sure tainted supplement, but it could be, you know, I don't want to be one of those guys. Well, for sure, there are tainted supplements. That's a real thing. And, you know, I know that for a fact because as one of the owners of on it, when we were

there that's not supposed to be in there. And so we'd have to contact the distributor, the manufacturer,

and the people that like mixed our stuff. So the way like on it would work is like, alpha brain has a bunch of different ingredients that enhance your, you know, your mental focus and clarity. And we would give them the very specific numbers of what's supposed to be in each batch. Yeah. And then we would third party test. We find a bunch of shit and it's not supposed to be in there. And it's because, you know, if you're getting it done overseas, they have these vats where they mix

all the stuff in and they don't even clean the vats. Right. Right. They dump it out and then they dump the new stuff in there without cleaning it. There's residue in there and then also the level of drug testing how high these things can sense anything. Right. Even if there's a tiny bit they'll find it. Right. With John Jones, right, was pico grams. We got introduced to the term pico. Pico's like a grain of salt and the swimming pool they can find. Yeah. So the testing is legit. And I'm glad,

you know, we're fighting. We're needing each other in the face. If we were running track or something,

I would exactly. But we're fighting. You can get seriously injured, man. So I've always been against

the doping. But I'm retired now, Joe. I'm retired now. Now you can get through. Yeah. I love what you guys get. Well, cowboy got real jack too afterwards. But then he talks about coming back and then he got off of it. That's the thing. No. Like always back in the day all the TRT guys, like if you change your body's natural production of testosterone with the exogenous testosterone,

“you have to be on it for the rest of your life. Well, you don't have to because there's things”

called HCG and HCG and cloma-themed can restart your body's production of testosterone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I know your testicles will stop producing what exactly. You introduced fluorine testosterone, right? Well, for a period of time, especially when you're a young man, you can restart it. But, you know, my production, I've been on TRT since I was like late 30s.

Like it's not coming back. Yeah. I'm shooting blanks on a pop-out. But you're good. But two

my daughters were born while I was on TRT. So it does work. I just had a limited amount. I had soldiers, just one fucking special ops guy. The fun only one was margin. But he got through black ops. Yeah. So if you think about like all of the time where people were allowed to dope, it is a giant percentage of the history of MMA. Like pride. The further you go back for sure. For sure. For sure. Pride. It was juicy as juice. Yeah. Like, like,

and so anyway, when he was on the podcast, told me that in the contract, it said in all capital letters, we do not test forced steroids. We aren't looking. I've heard of other people say that as well. We aren't looking. Comes up. Green light. Let's go. Shoot up the juice. Come fight. We'll pay you cash. Get out of here. They wanted you to juice. They wanted you to fight better. Which is like, it becomes a spectacle. But man, people can get seriously injured. You can.

Especially. But then also, the thing is, like, does it make you more durable? I think it does. Prevent you. I think it does, man. Because just one that right off the top of my head, when Bigfoot Silva was TRT or whatever he was on, he was so durable, so durable. Him and Mark Hunt had those crazy fights. But when he got off, he started getting knocked out. Right. You know? But there's also the switch. There's something that happens when you've had a

“certain amount of concussions. We're another guy that comes to mind. Remember Eric Sova?”

Yeah. Well, to wait. It's huge. Dude, whenever they started doing the use of stuff, he was getting knocked out and just wasn't himself. He didn't look the same. He helped it. I wonder what the, like, medical reason for that is. But I think it has something to do with confidence in, like, self-belief with the testosterone. They just, I think that's a big part of it. I really do. A part of it. But also there's a part of it. You're vitality. You're just

more durable. I mean, you're jacked up on testosterone. You're just more fucking durable. Yeah. Everything about is more to Alistair's a great example of that. Like, animal mode, man. You just have a man. Dude. I think Alistair over him when he was ubering. I think that is the best argument for TRT ever. It's like a superhero. Bro, when he was in K1, and he was shelling up how you getting through that?

How you getting through that? You know how small he was though, back in K1? He was like a 205 or something. Well, when he was in pride, pride when he was fighting at light everyone. Chuck knocked him out. The Dell knocked him out when he was a legit light heavyweight. And he was skinny. Yeah. And the young and skinny. He just decided time to get big. Yeah. Looking back then when he fought Shogun, still pretty jacked though. Oh, yeah, man.

He was shredded. He was shredded. But he was a shredded light heavyweight. You know, I think he's a vegan now. That's good. Look at that. Come on, son. Come on. That's a rib eyes. That ain't vegan.

“Go back to that other one. That's what you're talking about. I mean, that's what a UFC heavyweight”

champion supposed to look like. Hell yeah. Come on, son. I mean, I don't know what to put that on the White Houseguard. Not just that, but highly skilled. For sure. He wasn't just jacked. He was highly.

He was the cream of the crop in MMA. And he even won the Abu Dhabi European trials as a pure

grappler. Yeah. People don't know about that about Adis Alistair. His grappling is, it's high level. Very, he had one of the best guillotine in the game. Like, Alster in his prime when he went over and he fought a Brett Cooper over in, was it Burke Cooper? Who? Who? No. Who do you fucking fight in strike force? Like, Brad Rogers. That's right. Sorry. I'm thinking of the heavyweight boxer. Burke Cooper. Burke Cooper. Who fought? He had some crazy wars with, um, with the Evander,

“Evander Holyfield. I think Evander's down in South Florida too now. I don't remember a Cooper.”

He was a really, he was a tank. He was a tank. He was a, a super jack guy. But Brett Rogers, when he fought Alster, Alster, like immediately hit him with a low kick and he could tell he was like, what is this? Yeah. Like, it was a different kind of low kick. Because you're dealing with the tree trunks of Alster with perfect technique and, you know, that guy was as good a kick boxer as has ever entered into MMA. And when he was saucy, he was a problem. Yeah. He was a real fucking

problem. Speaking of kickboxers from that era coming to MMA, didn't go Kansaki come over? Oh, yeah. I thought he was going to do, you know, so much better. But he was, he was older. He was older and he was at a time where it's like, you know, he had had so many fights on K-1. You know, he had, had so many wars. And he fought Khalil when Khalil's fast. Yeah. And I mean, good kickbox and real good kickbox. High style. Khalil are cracked him in the first round and knocked him out. Yeah.

“Yeah. Which was a big fight for Khalil because, you know, Go Com was the Turkish Tyson was coming”

over here. You know, he was one of those guys. Like, Marco Crocoff was like an elite kickboxer who's

entering into MMA and everybody always gets excited about that. Obviously, Pereira is the best example

of that guy. Yeah. But he was a guy. I knew. I told everybody. I was like, that guy is going to be a nightmare for everybody because there's something about him. I don't know what the hell is going on with his bone structure, his DNA and his intelligence. Like, he figures shit out that other people didn't, like, the way he threw that low kick, like the way throws that calf kick with zero towel, no turning of the hips. Like, he fucks up guys, calves better than anybody on the planet.

We had like a huge rush of the calf kick. I saw it for like a year and a half, two years. Everybody was doing it. Now it's kind of fading away. I've noticed that it is, but not with him. It's not with the lead guys. Guys are really good at it. That's so much damage, man. So quickly. Great. And it's so much, it's less commitment. So you're not given. You don't have to turn your

“hips over as much. So wrestlers aren't grabbing singles as easy. Well, I remember your fight”

with Jim Miller. It's just, oh, dude, tore me up. Yeah, that was, I was one of the first

examples of calf kicks being really fucking dangerous. And I've never felt it before. And I'm a South

Paul. So they land good calf kicks. You'd have to fight another South Paul, right? And that doesn't happen too often, especially with one who's throwing those. So I didn't know what kind of black magic he was doing, bro. I was like, I got a flat tire. What is going on? What is this? I know. Isn't it crazy that it took that long for people to figure that out? Ben Henderson was a guy doing it early, but it wasn't that effective for some reason. Yeah. He was doing it, but it wasn't

having the devastating damage. I'm trying to think of who's the first guy to really, and some Barbosa would do it every now and then, hmm, trying to think of somebody who really brought it over. But it's made its way in the kickboxing now. It's because they were saying like the Moitai guys are not susceptible to calf kicks. And I, everybody was saying that. And I was like, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. They are light on their front foot, so that front foot is, they are

but there's times where they have to plant like when they're throwing a right kick. This is a guy named Yukiyoza, Yukiyoza who fights for one. He's a Kilcushin guy. And he's fucking everybody up with calf kicks. Yeah. He fights, like high guard tight inside. And again, no pivot of the hips. He's essentially throwing his calf kick almost like he's kicking a soccer ball straight up the middle. That's the way I like to do it as well. Just clip the top of the calf. It's no commitment. You don't have

to pivot your hips or plant to turn. You can just snap it out like a jab. Yeah. Well, a great example of the changing of technique was you in that corner fight. Yeah, calf. Yes. And it was also Southpuff versus Southpuff. Same thing. You just destroyed that calf. Yeah. And you could tell he didn't know what to do, because as good as he was and as many fights as he had, two division world champion, he hadn't been calf kick. Right. Which is a crazy transition. When you see like the history of the

sport, that is one of the clear difference, the differentiation. That's another word that's fake. That's the clear line in the sand where the techniques changed. Yeah. And it's one of those things

happens, then you have a different respect for it. So Connor probably learned a lot that fight, man. Like, oh, this is for real. The calf kicks are for real. What's the fuck that it's just one shot?

“That's what's crazy about it. Because a thigh kick, like you can get a hard thigh kick and your”

leg goes dead for a couple seconds. But it comes back. Yeah. We have calves don't really come back that quick. They explained it to me at the hospital after the similar thing. Apparently your calf doesn't have the chambers for the fluid to drain. So that's why it gets compartment. Oh, compartment. That's why it's so painful because it you can't like go out through this one and can't go out through your whole legs. So it sits in one pocket and it fills up and it's just uncomfortable

it can stop nerves. Do you ever see what happened to Austin Hubbard? Do that's what they want it to do. After the Gemini fight, they wanted to cut me at the, uh, like, no way. No way. For lay you to release the pressure. Well, another guy, your, your right, favor. When he fought Jose Aldo, his thigh, blew up like a balloon. Yeah. Apparently if it gets that bad compartment syndrome and the swelling is bad enough for long enough, you can lose function of your ankle and foot.

Yeah. It's just crazy, right? Right. Well, you're right. Uh, was one of the first guys to implement,

“going into, um, what, why can't I think about the fucking chamber, oxygen chamber?”

I have a better hyperbaric. It's wrong with me today. I'm making up fake words. Can't come up with things that I know. But he was, uh, using the hyperbaric, like exclusively to recover from that and document it. And I was like, you know, that's interesting. A lot of good brain benefits

for hyperbaric. Oh, I don't have one. I've done it before, but it's never been like a routine thing.

Well, you have to have access to it. And also the total lot. The tents, the zip-up tents at home, not a strong. Yeah. You need to solid, you know, you need like one of those propane tank ones. Those big thick, you know, ones. The glass, like it's really good high pressure. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, you got to be careful in those things. You can't know sparks. Yeah, dude, I saw a story that a kid was in one and you saw that. That was a couple years horrible. Yeah, horrible story.

Yeah. Um, but hyperbaric is awesome for recovery. It's also, it lengthens, there's a protocol that developed, uh, one of the universities in Israel developed it where you do, uh, 60 sessions over 90 days. And it lengthens your telomeres that's commensurate with, I think it's like a 20 year difference in your biological age. Wow. It's nuts. It's super effective. Like when you get a lot of oxygen into your system like that, it just helps everything recover. For sure. Like if you have an aura ring

or a woop strap and you go into one of those things, it shows you. Yeah. It's like, oh, you have an

amazing recovery day. Yeah. Man, the metrics we can track now with all the wearable devices is

pretty awesome, dude. Well, it gets you to understand, like, I think you can get a little addicted to those things. For sure. I, so when I was competing, I stopped using them because every day wasn't ready. Need to rest. Red, red, red, every day. So when I retired, I got back to it. Now, I'm using them. But like when you're training for a fight, you can't. Isn't it interesting? Not taking two days off. I need a train and the fight's coming up. Like if I'm in the red zone,

I still need a train. I know. Is that interesting? Like there's wearable device would tell you you're not supposed to train, but yet you know in order to reach MMA peak physical condition,

“you have to push when you're not ready. So the your body's forced to recover quicker. I know”

this guy's training. That's why I got rid of it during camp. I don't use it. We didn't use it. Well, it's weird because like, what if you listen to it? Like some people say, like Terence Crawford was talking about like, there's times where he wanted to push, where his coaches told him not to, and then he realized they were right. Yeah, maturing through fighting men, pulling back, got easier as I got older. When I was a younger fighter, I didn't want to take any time off.

I needed to be as many reps as much time on the match as possible. But as I got to like mid 30s, 36, I was like, you know, this is, I got to take days off complete days, complete days. Not just a easy day or a technique day. I just need to be out of the gym. Just relax. Yeah, reset my mind. To where I want to be there. Just hard for fighters because you operate on momentum of the conditioning and a training in the discipline. It's like, yeah, you're in there. And then to have a

day where you're not, you feel like you're slipping backwards. Right. And you show up to fight week with that momentum. Like I did everything I could. I bus him as every day. Like you just gives you so much energy and so much confidence going into fight week turned over every stone. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the worst thing though is seeing a fighter fight flat because you know the overtrained. And the

one thing that I always point to is when Tim Kennedy fought Calvin Gasselum and he had gone through

two solid camps in a row. So he went through one camp, peaked, got ready for the fight and then the fight got canceled and then went right back into camp for to train for Gasselum and didn't give himself the chance to recover. And you know, he's too tough. Yeah, too tough, too disciplined and his body broke down. You're redlining that engine over and over and over. I mean, we just saw it in Mirab. I think, you know, not that taken into anything away from Yon, but you know, you

makes things like John Jones could be so impressive to me, man. Mm-hmm. To get on top and stay on top that long. You know, yeah, I know. It's not. There's so few guys have been able to do that. Especially in him and me. Too many variables. Too many ways to slip on up an antipel. I can call it something,

you know. And I kind of love that could be went out on top and never came back respect. That's awesome.

And they offered him a lot of fucking money to come back. He's like, you know, nope. Go for him, man. Yeah, good for him. Yeah. That's the way to do it. And then you go out all your faculties, everything's fine, undefeated, go down a legend, right? Yeah. Like, I think Floyd should have did it, you know, like that. Now he's fucking fighting Mike Tyson. He'll come on, man. I know. There was some rumors around that Floyd was going to have a rematch with Connor, which is crazy.

But I think Connor would probably do it, especially when he drug testing involved. I wonder if he's going to come back it for sure. Yeah. But, man, to heal from an injury like you had, you probably need a bunch of stuff to, I don't know the ins and outs of that, but you probably need some help to heal. He definitely need some help to heal. The problem is once you get used to that

“help. And you enjoy it. Yeah. I'm getting used to the help. Yeah. Now that's what I thought about Cowboy.”

When he got Jack, then he was like, he's going to, in the, he's slimmed back down again. He said he was going to fight again. But I think you might have abandoned that. I got hooked up with Brigham in ways to well. They did all my blood when I retired and got me, I turned down no test hospital for me. So I'm not on any test hospital and I just don't want to mess up my natural production. Because mine wasn't high, but it wasn't low. I'm just scared to mess with it, you know.

Yeah, you don't need it. And it's peptide. I'm 37. Can do a lot for you. Yeah, I'm going to bunch of peptides. Yeah, peptides are the way to go. And I feel great. Honestly, I wish I could have been on this shit when I was fighting, man. I know, you know, especially like the growth hormone releasing stuff like Tessa Moral and exactly like I could have pushed hard every day, man. As I got older, it got harder, man. I know, and all it does is help your body recover. It's not

like it gives you some sort of a performance enhancing boost. I know it definitely helps with like fat mobilization and stuff like that, but just being able to push hard every day is huge and fighting. But just BPC-157, which offers no performance enhancing, but would help you heal soft tissue injuries. Because you're getting injured, you're just getting small injuries every day training. Every time you get like kicked, every time you get punched in the stomach, arm bar, show everything,

everything. Your joints are always messed up. Oh, ways. Yeah. Oh, ways. And if you wanted fighters

to perform better, something that would allow them to heal better is only good. And it's not, it's not going to make you run faster, it's not going to make you jump fire. It's not going to make you a new barim. We're not talking about that. And I'm not even sure if that's band. I haven't checked with it. It is. Could be BPC-157. Wow. Yeah, I mean, fortunate. Yeah, creatine protein powders. That's the same stuff you just recover better. Well, I don't understand

what creatine's not band. Thank God. But creatine in the 1990s were thought of the same way steroids. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I remember people thought like creatine's cheating. Oh, my God. You're taking creatine. They literally put it in the same category of start. And then they realize, oh, it's actually a part of food. Great for you. So I've seen good for you. Great for everything. Yeah. You know, just talk, I just talk my wife into the starting creatine.

Women need it more than men. I was reading. Right. You know, and that's the most wife's just.

“Yeah. I think the key is to like make sure you're hydrated too and to make sure you're not”

taking too much of it and make sure you get your blood checked. And so you're not putting a lot of pressure in your kidneys. Yeah. But like dehydration and kidneys. That like that is one of the big things that happens to a lot of fighters that cut a lot of weight. They start getting kidney stones. I mean, Josée Aldo dealt with that DC famously got pulled out of the Olympics. Oh, yeah. Because yeah, it was having kidney failure. Yeah. Yeah. Your kidneys, man. They don't like you being

drained out like that. I've had a few wakeups where I felt pain in my back. And I think that's kidneys a hundred percent kidney shots. Didn't happen often, but I've definitely had it.

Tightness feels kind of like cramping in a weird place you never had before in your back.

That's spooky. You're drying out your organs and then fighting for your life. Crazy 24 hours. It was nice though when I started making it to the top of the cards, co-man event main event because then you have like 30 something hours to rehydrate. If you're fighting early prelimbs in Vegas, two or three in the afternoon. Right. You know, it's right. Not too long. Especially back in the day when weigh-ins were at five or six p.m. There wasn't a

morning in ceremonial. The real weigh-ins were at five and you were gonna fight it two to the next day. Yeah, those were nuts. That was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy when guys would like shuffle to the scale for the real weigh-in. You'd see them all like like a skeleton. And you're facing off with your opponent trying to be tough. Like, I don't know. Both

“Dianne. Well, I always remember Josie Aldo versus Connor. Connor looked like we just”

wanted a walking dead. Yeah. He looked like a zombie. He was so skinny. His face bones. Yeah. See if you find that. And he was also crazy. Like like flex. He's always crazy.

The eyes, eyes sunk in there. That is nuts. That guy weighed 145 and he probably weighed 170

or at least 165 when he got into the actual octagon that day. I want if he does come back,

“I wonder what he's gonna come back at. Lightweight or welter? Well, the real key is if.”

Yeah. I mean, he's had a lot of opportunities. And I don't know. I thought the channel fight was a lay-up for him. That's the fight. A great matchup for him. Great fight technically. It's a great fight stylistically. It's a great fight. Hwise. Chandler's got to be what? 39 now. He's up there. 38. I mean, and then he's the hype of the ultimate fighter. True. But it's just a lay-up for Connor. Chandler's hit-able

covers distance. Not that technically huge movements. Right. You jump in, you get carried out. Connor's a sniper man. I just think that's a great matchup for him. It's also a great matchup for Chandler. Because he gets engaged. He gets engaged. And he gets that, you know, because he sat out for two years. Wait, no Connor. It's also like, remember him with Olivera, even in the fucking third round. That dude is carrying Olivera up there. Yeah. And throwing him to the air and body slam

and him all he's on his back. Yeah. Like, the dude's has, he has incredible endurance and

incredible discipline. He's always fit. Yeah. And that's been Connor's Achilles heel. It's

that Connor, he's so explosive and so fast that if you're sprinting in that first round, guaranteed you're not going to have that same kind of energy in the fifth round. Yeah. But some guys are just designed like that. You know, you saw Taren Woodley's a guy who has huge explosion. But they don't necessarily keep that for 25 minutes. But on the opposite side of that, you got to got like an idea as who keep that same pace from round one to five. Round 30. Yeah.

That dude could. Or a heck of a lot more. Right. Out of a cannon, you know, and then slow down. Just the way muscles and fibers are put, you know, connected. I don't know what does that to. Well, the only guys that figured out how to fight with all that bulk and just is like, Joelle Romero. He fought very smart. It was just like, he's still fighting. Still fighting. Dude, still fighting. Yeah. Fifty years old. Jack, more Jack than ever. Yeah. 48 years old,

“49 years old with abs looking like a fucking super athlete. I think he's doing bare knuckle maybe.”

Yeah. He did bare knuckle. He did dirty boxing. There's a fight where he had a dirty boxing where he's touching the dude up and then out of nowhere. He just leaps up into the air. He does like a vertical. He's like his five foot vertical lands on his feet. Just starts putting on a dude. Like, I'm tired of this. Let me show you what I can really do. I've had fun. No play with the food. I've had fun. He's a crazy. He's been on the mat so much at American top team as well.

And just a freak athlete man. For a week. He's the freak of all freak. Just a freak athlete. Yeah. I mean, he came out of that cube and they build him different. Yeah. They build him with science. Yeah. But he also figured out how to pace himself. You know, he figured out how to like explode out of nowhere, but not explode the entire time. Like he had this casual almost, he would low you into a fall sense of security and then just pounce on you. Right. Which that knee he had with widening with.

Yeah. That was a perfect example. Perfect example because you get used to this kind of pace. And you get into the rhythm and then you just break up. But also he didn't fight like obviously he's a wrestler. He didn't wrestle too too hard and really guess himself out. He fought smart to do what he's good at. Explore. He rarely used his wrestling in MMA, which is so crazy. Yeah. It's really crazy if you think about how good of a wrestler he was. Right. Because he's one of the best wrestlers to ever compete in MMA. And that dude was elite as a wrestler.

And in MMA, he's just starching people. Yeah. When Luke rock hold and he starts Luke like that was crazy.

“Luke's another guy is still fighting. I think I think he might be done now. You know when he got knocked out by”

Daryntill in the boxing. I think that might be a Daryntill has got a resurgence man as a boxer. He looks fucking fantastic. That's all the highlights of that. But I haven't seen a whole lot.

Oh, he looks real good. He looks because he's always been a good striker. Very good striker

in his Achilles heels been his knees. You know, he's had some serious knee problems and it really impede him from being able to train hard. He wasn't the best grappler in the world. And so that was always his problem. But as a striker, I mean that guy was like very, very good. And you're seeing him now in boxing. Like he's making a real run. I think it's very interesting because if you watch him box rock hold and you realize like rock holds a really good striker. But against Daryntill, he would probably

had no business in there. That's something I would like to do, man. Box. Still? I always wanted to have a couple before I, you know, but I'm still in the contract, even though I'm retired, I still have a contract with the UFC. Do you think the UFC would let you out? Or they have Zufa Box. So they trust me.

170, whatever. 168 super middleweight. Let's do it. They don't want any crossover. Why?

“I think Zufa wants to be taken to zero. They must hate money. Do they hate money?”

Why do they hate money? I don't know. They want to be taken by the boxing world series. And I think if you open that door of an MMA guy fighting under Zufa Boxing every guy on the roster, every girl on the roster is going to want to do the same. It just becomes a mess. I think I don't know about that. Yeah. I don't think it's a mess. I think there are some really fun MMA boxing matches you can make. Yes. Fuck yes. Especially when guys get older and, you know,

you don't want to go through the training camp with wrestling and leg kicks and all that shit. That's the thing. Like thinking about a boxing training camp. Dude, with no grappling, no wrestling. Just run condition and box. It would be like, you don't want it. Yeah, funny. I'm on the beach. It's tough as boxing is. Like, feel like, oh, this is going to be something. I only have the box. That's great. Yeah. Honestly, man, a training camp. Those are my favorite days.

Striking, sparring is my favorite days. Like, the wrestling class is two hour

macho on Monday. It's like brutal, bro. Well, be great for you because you've always had great hands.

Like, for you, that's a perfect, well, I started boxing before it makes martial arts. Mm-hmm. That would be a perfect way for you to get some other fights in. I don't understand Zufa. Yeah. I would just love to lay some up and box professionally once. I don't even want to like redo boxing and I know they want to like, and I think there's probably some real merit there. Obviously what the Saudis have done with Riyadh season has been

amazing, you know, making matchups and no one can make. I'm a big counter-bent fan too, man. I'm excited to see him fight in Zufa. And the guy he's fighting is from New Orleans. Like, I know the guy, like, you know, it's fun. It is exciting. And it will definitely, I think they will elevate boxing. And Dana is throwing all of his cards into that. So I'm sure it's going to work. Yeah. I'm glad we're seeing more boxing, Zufa boxing and less power slap on my feet.

Whenever I go to online stuff, you know, I'm not a big fan. I've never been the one but

man. It's just not my, not my jam. Yeah. When we, when I fought my retirement into New Orleans, Mike Brown went to the power slap they had there. And he said it was awesome in person. Oh, sure. It's awesome to watch someone get slapped. But like, I'm not interested. I watch it on my fucking phone every now and then. I'll see. I mean, the highlights are good enough. You see the knockouts and the craziest stuff. But it's great TikTok content.

For sure. You know, it was something gets slapped and they go forward and their head hits the desk and they fall backwards. But it's like, it's a concussion. And you can't, there's no defense. There's no, like, you can't crunch it. You get, it's penalty if you do. That's crazy. That's how I'm making sense to me. I don't, I don't get it.

“But I think they've missed out on the opportunity to have a moly Thai league. That's what I think.”

I just, America just doesn't buy into it that big. I don't think that's true. No. No. No, I just think that. Well, I mean, one is doing it on Amazon and, you know, but it's like, who's watching Amazon? That's the problem. Yeah. You have a show on Amazon. Like, I know guys who've released comedy, specials on Amazon. Like, good luck finding it. It would be cares. That's just the reality of this platform.

Whatever, I mean, look, Amazon is a phenomenal platform for buying stuff. I love it for buying things. I use it all the time. Every week. It's great for buying books, audio books, it's great for buying products. But for watching content, it's kind of a mess. That a couple big shows, like the marvelous Mrs. Mayzel and the terminal list. Those are great shows. And those brought a lot of people over there.

But I mean, you know, a big determinalist would have been if it was on Netflix. It's big as it was on Amazon. More people watch Netflix. For sure.

“Then we're ever going to watch anything on this show. That's why I would, what Jake's doing with”

the Netflix and bringing boxing and we made there, like it's, it's big, man. It's big. So many people are going to be watching this. 100%. But I think that if one was somewhere else, I think it would have been there. There you go. On the way here today. What? Yeah.

Yeah, they got announced this morning. And MMA fight? That's what, yeah, it's the third fight on that card.

That's the Rousy card. Wow. Interesting. That's a very interesting. That's a very interesting. That's a good fight. Dude, you said a lot of people don't go to Amazon to watch TV. Not just, I just went down a rabbit hole for weeks because I have a newborn at home. So I did the night shift and I ran out of shit to watch on Netflix and with it. Oh, you run out of shit to watch on Netflix. You stay up to 4 a.m. every night with a baby boy

is like hours of documentaries, hours of stuff. I switched over to Amazon and it was like a whole new world, man. Well, there's a lot on there. It's just, they don't have the same viewers. Like our podcast is on Amazon. The numbers that we get from Amazon compared to everywhere else, it's so small. Yeah. It's just the reality of the way they've sort of marketed it. And Amazon Prime video just doesn't have the audience that everything else does. Right. And it's such a

big platform. You think it would be crossover from I think it's a mistake on their part because the the the product side is so big and like Amazon for buying stuff is so big that it's almost

interface, what I've gone to it is a little weird. It's hard to find things. It's not as simple.

“Like the interface on Netflix is like the algorithms great. It's really good at recommend”

new things. It knows what you like. It shows you things. It's easy to find things. Amazon's like a little tricky. You go there and you're like what? But see the one F.C. thing faces the same problem the PFL has. Like look, PFL is on ESPN+ so you'd imagine PFL would get the same sort of audience that the UFC got but it doesn't. No, of course not. Because the UFC brand is like

NFL. Like the machine is just yeah they own that space but the fights on one F.C. are fucking amazing.

Like especially the moi tie fights with the small gloves. Oh my god man and I was trying to pitch this to Dana. So I started sending Dana. He goes send me some. So I started sending him all these like high level moi tie fights and high level kickboxing fights and they're fucking phenomenal. Look he didn't like the Charles Olivera. This, excuse me, this Max Holloway Charles Olivera fight. He didn't like it. He liked it. He liked the BMF fight. The fight wasn't that good. I thought it was great fight.

It was impressive if you were a fan of technique and a fan of how hard it is to do that to somebody like Max. Like super impressive. And I was a fan of Max's defense. I mean Olivera was on his back in the first round. A lot of people were just finished. First minute and a half. Yes, you know dry.

“All right, right. I got finished there. Yeah, I mean, I think Olivera is one of the greatest”

submission artists that ever competed in the sport. Yeah, not the best. Numbers, I mean numbers prove it. Yeah. And against elite guys like you and like Justin and like he's. And then Gamrott

did Gamrott is, I train with him for years. He's a wrestler but his grappling is incredible. He got tied

up and knots with Olivera. Yeah. Olivera is a nightmare. I knew it could happen but I didn't think it would be that. I was stunned too. I was like, God, he's good. He's so good on the ground. So like props to Max for surviving. But if data didn't like it, so I started sending him, first for the, I mean, when you have the title, the BMF, like you want to see some violence. I understand, but it's still just a fight. You can't fight outside of your, just because of BMF belts on the line. You can't

go out swinging for the fans. But I get it. I get what you're saying. Yeah. But I mean, on the feet, I think Olivera was winning on the feet. Did he hurt Max in the first? I think he hurt him in the fifth. Well, he definitely hurt him in the fifth when they did the point down the ground. Yeah. And then he cracked him and rocked him. Olivera is fucking cool. He is man. He is. He's just known. We put the label on the grapple because he's finished so many guys and so many bonuses. But he can strike man.

He's good everywhere. Like with a Chandler fight. He almost gets finished in the first round comes back and hits with a clean left hook in the second. Yeah. He was fucking good man. Yeah, knocked him out. Even when I fought him, like he did a good job of picking where the fight happened. He wouldn't fight me in boxing range. It was either all the way in clinch or out where he was keeping my body staying along. Kicking range or clinching range is kind of where he fought

me. The times I did have success was in the boxing range. But he didn't let that happen. Well, it just shows you how fucking good Iliya deporia is. Fuck god. Damn that dude. I love Justin. I love I'm a fan. I don't like this matchup for him. Well, you know what? I mean, Justin knows what he's getting into and it's hard to count that dude out. He's such an animal. Yeah, he can land the shot. But it's on the White House who knows who knows what's going to happen.

But that dude has the touch of death. He has the touch of death. And he's not a big guy. I've never

seen him in person, but I was talking to somebody recently and they said, no, he's five seven, you know, he's small man. He's not big. Yeah. There's a photo of me standing next to him when we did the podcast. We're standing next to you. He's much smaller than me. And bro, he puts people into the shadow round. Yeah. It's just technique and confidence is confident. It's crazy. He had a, he had a victory party for the all of verified the night before drinking wine. I saw. I don't think he was drinking

“one. I think he was drinking a war the night before, but he has drank wine in weighons when he's”

getting ready to weigh in. Or what is the wake cut? He only did that for two camps. He told me though. He said this too much. It's like fucking hung over the next day. Like what am I doing? Right. And you're about to get your brain beat up, you're dehydrating your drink. Come on. Well, I think he's dehydrating himself and he's said the wine actually helps you get dehydrated. Yeah, alcohol definitely does. Yeah, which is, but it's nobody does that. That we drink wine

for the weighons. That's crazy. No, I'd like, I'm so, I'm not drinking anything. I'm so depleted by that time. I know. And he's getting hammered. I like it. And when in world championships, well, it was only two fights he did that for. So it became like something where people were pretending he does it every way in. He's got all these young fighters out there in the world drinking on the other day. I'm going to be like the champ, man. Yeah. But he's, he's, he's crazy talented.

For sure. For sure. Whatever it is, he has it. Yeah. He's got it in his mind. He's got it in his

And that's crazy. That's what they say. His grapple is just as good. It's not better than his stand-up.

That's where he started. I've never seen him grapple. I've never seen him grapple though.

Well, he finished Bryce Mitchell on the ground. And he's finished a few people on the ground.

“He's, like, he does clearly have phenomenal submission ability. What do you show me here?”

What is this him? He says he's done it for a long time. Yeah, he can see his face is already sucked in a little bit. He said that when he was on the podcast, though, that he only did it twice. That's hilarious. Like he's all tipsy and drunk. Look, I tell this to young fight. There's no right. I mean, obviously, don't smoke crack before fight. There's no right or wrong way. Everybody's different. Whatever makes you feel comfortable to perform and compete.

Like everybody's different. If there was a cookie cutter, perfect the way to work, everybody would do it. Well, he calls protest. Yeah, exactly. Smoking. Yeah, cigarettes. Like the day of the fight. He said, they're smoking Marab Reds. Darts. Who was the boss or fucking everybody up? Back in the day. Oh, yeah. My orga. My orga. My orga. Yes. Yes. He was a slow cigarette. Yeah, drinking, it's fucking, Carlos, drinking whiskey. I can say he's like, he's like,

going out there in a party and always going to fuck people up. Respect. Yeah, I mean,

he's going to fight. Is he fighting Jacque de la Madalena? Is that the fight? I'm not believed that's the fight in Perth. That is a very good fight. Yeah. A tough one for Jacque to come back to man. I was in MSG when Islam took the belt from him to complete domination. Well, that's another guy. Complete domination. And Elia was talking about fighting him too. You know, the size difference would be so big. So big. Islam is huge. He's huge. He's huge.

He's too big for 55 and then you see him at 170. Like, how did you ever make 55? Right. Yes. Because he's so dominant at 170. Yeah, Hunter from the UFC, I was in his office not too long. Go and they keep record of all the weights fight night. They don't release them all, but they keep it. And we were talking about the Islam fight when I fought Islam and he was telling me his weight. I was like,

“that's what he was. When 92 or something, I think the day of the fight. I think so. Yeah.”

That's something up on 91 91 something around there. That's great. I was 176. That's great. But it looks like it in the cage. Like whenever I look across and under those spotlights and they had veins and his shoulders and he said, I'm like, fuck, this guy's huge. The ones that were I'm like, how? Gregory Rodriguez is the one around like, how? Yeah. How? How? How are you 185? How? Mm-hmm. You're 63. You're built like a Greek god. How? How do you ever weigh 185?

Yeah. How is that even possible? Whenever I interview him, I'm like, how? Right. Because I'm standing next to you. And I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, this doesn't, you're not 185 pound guy. You're huge. Like in his prime when Luke Rocco was a champion, he's huge. Huge. Huge. Huge. One over a arrow. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever, Maros, the best example. Like how? How are you 185? Build like an end-vild. It's solid all the way through. When he came in to do the podcast

and Joey Diaz translated for him, he was like 230. Yeah. Just like his neck starts at the top of his head.

Just a tank and shred it always. No, no jiggle. Dude, shred it always. Vains and his abs.

“Like crazy. Yeah. He was talking about the Cuban program. I'll never forget. It was like talking”

about like how they have the lower level guys only twice a day. But the top level guys eat three times a day. And so everybody is competing literally for food. Crazy. You say that in Angola, prison in Louisiana, there's a boxing league. If you're on the boxing league and get accepted into it, you get more mills and stuff. So the same thing, these prisoners are like trying their best to stay on this boxing league. You get more meals, more time, more free time. Wow. They actually fight

other prisons, man. Whoa. I was thinking this would be a great documentary to come out with. That would be a great documentary. And it's CCTV to the other prisons. So other prisons can watch in their cells. Wow. They bust them to Angola. Other prisons in Louisiana, they box. They put out a schedule every year. If you ever want to go to one, it's invite only. But I 'd rather watch at home. It feels illegal, dude. It feels illegal. Well, it might not be legal in

other states. Yeah, it might not be legal in Louisiana. I might be getting a chance to say the same this. Has anybody any good? Hell yeah. I think Bernard Hawkins came out of jail. I mean, the guy obviously Tyson beat him, but the black rhino was an Angola boxing prisoner who got out or pardoned to fight Mike Tyson. Really? Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. I did not know that. So did they have a program where they have coaches and they have to. Did they have equipment and everything? Wow. And different

according to this schedule, they'll bust them to the other prisons to fight and it's played through all the prisons in Louisiana. Man, you find a highly skilled guy who's in that program. And they

nutrition are they getting? No, they get prison food. Yeah. Are they getting better food?

“Oh, I think prison food, but they get more meals. They get to eat extra. Still terrible food, right?”

Yeah. Yeah. Angola is a crazy, crazy prison man. Grow all the food there. Make all the clothes there. They grow their food there? Yeah. Well, some people have self-sustaining, self-sustaining. I'm sure they ship a bunch of stuff in, but they do have crops. And it's such a big operation that the guards and the staff live on the prison grounds. There's a elementary school? Really? Yeah. There's the worker, the guards, kids, and stuff. Go to school on the grounds. It's,

it's wow, man. Oh, that can't be good. It's wow. Every October they have the rodeo there. Oracle, about that boxing association from 2011. Wow. That was an interview with some people. I think that we're a part of it. Well, you want to focus. You know, women we can legs and the women in their dog. Hell, no. That's crazy. Yeah, serious business, man. I didn't know that. That's nuts, man. Yeah, how come no one's in a documentary on this or how? Well, be hop was a prison boxer in

Philly, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This would be a great documentary, man. Interesting. Yeah, Bernard

learned, I mean, I mean, learned like real discipline in prison and also learned that he never

“wants to go back, you know, which is as important. And I think Angola is like maximum security.”

So you don't go there if you have less than like 25 years or something. So these guys are in there for a long time just trying to find things to do and boxing, eating extra, getting more free time. Why wouldn't you do it? Also get in shape. Keeps you focused. You have something that concentrate on other than the fact that you're in jail. Yeah. Yeah. It was wild, bro. They set up a ring like in a cafeteria. I went there once to watch it. It was insane. It felt like I was doing

something wrong. And you felt like I was doing something wrong with a guy's good. Fuck yeah, some of them were good, man. Wow. Really good. Wow, fuck. Oh, what? That's interesting. They

pardon that guy to vote. There's titles too. They have belts. The black right on Cliff Clifford,

maybe? Uh, 18. Yes. Yes. That's right. That's so he was in prison boxing in Angola and he fought Tyson. Wow. No shit. Yeah. I mean why not, man? At least he gives him something to focus on. The idea is like, oh, you're going to make a more dangerous felon, bro. They're dangerous. Yeah. They're dangerous. They're in there for murder. What do you think? We think they're in there for armed robbery murder. Like let them fight. Right. Doing life. Like right. Exactly. Like also,

we try to pretend that that's not going to improve the quality of their life and improve them as a human being. Like doing something difficult, even if it's difficult and violent like fighting, will make you a better human being. For sure. Make you tougher smarter, more disciplined, more focused. Also, release all the aggression there. So you don't have aggression in, like, regular altercations nearly as much. Yeah. That's where I'm at right now. Like,

leaving fighting in the rear views. Like, what do I do with my life? No, they still stay still long. Dude, I've been traveling so much twice a week. Maybe, you know, if I'm a home on Friday, I do open magic into a couple of kickboxing classes, if I can make it. But I've just been traveling so much, man. Why have you been traveling so much? Sponsors, appearances, cornering buddies, like, just saying yes to everything that I couldn't before. Right. Right. I'm more busy now,

“I think, because before I would shut everything down, like, I got to get ready for this fight.”

I have to focus on this. No, I can't do anything. Black out these dates. Now it's like, you're really good on the desk, man. I enjoy, man. I really do it. You tell. Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the best things that the UFC does with former fighters is they given this opportunity to do stuff on the desk. I think that's huge. I hope they keep bringing me. I just signed a contract for the year. When it was ESPN, I was kind of doing, like,

independence, contract or stuff. They would ask me, I would say, yes, but I'm on contract with UFC for a year. So hopefully they keep bringing me, man. I, all the people behind the scenes just being around the event that I've, you know, I've fought at for so long. It just makes me feel good. Yeah. And I get nervous because it's live TV. You can't fuck up. You know, live TV is different. Well, I would like to see they allow more of you guys to take the spots doing fights in commentary.

Oh, like color? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, right now it's just dominant cruise, Paul Felder, Michael Bisping, and DC. That's essentially it. Yeah. I mean, those are only former fighters from the UFC that are doing it. And I, I really think there's room for more guys. Yeah. Dan Hardy was great. Yeah, for sure. He was awesome at it. He was, I don't know what the fuck happened with him in the UFC. They had some sort of a squabble

and he left, but he's fantastic over at PFL. He's still with them. Yeah. Yeah. He does that. He's really good, man. He's, he breaks stuff down. He's very good. Yeah. Very good. And he's a great guy. I have known him forever. He was a 10th planet, you just see guys. So I've known him. It's like, fuck, I must have met him 20 years ago. Wow. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. Before he was

to train in America. He was such a knockout artist. We never really get to see him. Right. Doge Jitsu.

Yeah. No. He was good at Jitsu too, man. I mean, he trained hard. And this is just a very smart dude. It knows a lot about the sport. Yeah. It seems like when he's breaking down stuff, you can tell he's studied. He's also just like a very skillful commentator because he's very intelligent in his, in the way he describes things. It's exciting. I mean, I think he's, they, I don't know what happened with them. And when I won the desk with those guys, I try my best to not

break things down too much like on the stats side. I try to make it seem like a conversation sitting on the couch watching fights with your boys where I talk about experiences that I've had

“and stuff because they explained to me like, that's what fans want to see. If they want to look”

up stats, they'll go look it up. They don't want to hear you talk about submission attempts and exact stats. They want to know your experience. Yeah. So like each rep, I'm think I'm getting better. You know, open it up and be in more of myself. I'm trying to do a good job. And I really, really enjoy it. I think stats are interesting sometimes, but what's really more important than that is like a technical breakdown of abilities. Right. Because stats, it's,

you know, it's variable depending on who you're fighting. Like, like, you take Charles Olivera stats and then you say his fight with Islam Machiav and you say, okay, what was the stats? Like, it's like, it's, like, it's really dependent upon skill sets, who's your level of competition, who you're competing with? You know what I mean? That was a quick submission though. The stats are one submission to tip, one submission. Bro, he's got a crushing squeeze.

“It's different from that. Yeah. Yeah. He strangled me. And the way he did it, I think he, uh,”

Moecano filled in last minute to fight Islam and got caught with the same choke. It's kind of like a, a Dars choke, but he locks it on his forearm. He doesn't go to the bicep and the squeeze is different. He's pulling to his chest. It's not like an angle, it's, it's different. So the defense is different. When I got my legs out and tried to walk around, he, he hooked my leg, but like, the squeeze was completely different, completely different. You know, you belly down and kind of

get some space to breathe, you can't, the way he does it. Craig Jones broke it down. It's like a front choke almost like a, mm-hmm. Like a squeeze to your chest. It's not a angle that you use for a normal

Dars choke. I know, I was shocked the first time I saw him do it. I was like, maybe he just like

couldn't cinch up the bicep. Then I saw him do it a second time. I was like, no, then let's guys try and do it that way. He grabs right here. Yeah. Yeah. And Craig Jones pulled to his chest, breakdown of it on YouTube. We're explains why it's effective and what's so good about it. And it, when he gets the grip locked in, like it's complete, a media blood shut down. You know, usually you fill it slowly, fading away, it was like, right away. Wow. So that dude's got a back.

Like, let's go home and start it through movie on the darkness started coming in, like as soon as he got the grip. Really. Yeah. He's so fucking strong. There's like something about those Dagestan guys, man. Like the discipline those motherfuckers have. Yeah. You know, there's Dagestan guys that are making their way into more time now, too. This is dude. I said, Dula, Imangaza, Leave. I talk about them all the time, but I can't talk about them enough. He's one of those

one FC guys that is fighting in Moitai from Dagestan. And this fucking kid is 22 years old and he's

knocking out like multiple time world tie champions. I've never seen him grow. This dude is a freak.

I mean, he's a, he's just putting people into the shadow realm every fight. Dude, it's so wild to fight four ounce gloves in Moitai. I know. But I mean, you could throw elbows and stuff and knee. So it's perfect. It's like four ounce gloves. I mean, look, you're throwing elbows, knees, everything else in the clench. It allows you to grapple better. It just makes it so much more dangerous for the blocking. You know, you don't have the gloves covering all the space around your ears. But this cat is special, man.

He's special. And he's from Dagestan. It's like, okay, imagine this motherfucker gets into MMA, everybody's fucked. If this guy can wrestle at all, which you know he can if he's from fucking Dagestan. Well, they do a lot of kickboxing sambal, right? Yeah. This dude's something though. He's something new. Because he's 22 years old and he's like world Moitai champions. He's sleeping them all. Yeah.

“It's nuts, man. Well, wait, is that one forty five. I think he's one forty five or thirty five.”

One forty five. I told you. One thirty two. Is that what it says? This thing right here says on screen. Wait, limit one thirty two point seven. Interesting. Five ten. Interesting. Twenty two years old man. Well, at that weight, well, and then you think about one has some crazy thing. Look at this win knockout. Win knockout. Win knockout. He's a freak man. And that one dude that made it to the unanimous decision is just as kid from Morocco who's just tough as shit. But God damn,

he took a beating. They have such a great product man. I wonder how many like viewers and how the ratings are.

because I don't know enough, but there's a lot of talk. I know they wanted to start doing shows in America. They've done a few. Yeah. I know they did one in Colorado. They maybe have done multiple. I'm not aware. But it's a great product. That's the thing. It's like, I love watching their kickbox and fights on YouTube. And that kid, Yuki Yosa, that I was telling you about the throws calf kicks. He's fucking everybody up with calf kicks. And there's another guy from a lot of these k yoko shing guys,

especially in kickboxing. So like, they have different rule sets over there in one. You can fight kickboxing where they use big gloves, or you could fight moi tie, where they use little gloves. And I think they've had moi tie fights where they have big gloves too. So in the kickboxing, you're not a lot of clenched, not a lot of throw elbows. But in the, but you can't throw knees, but you can't clench and just continue to throw knees. And you can't sweep and can't take

guys down. It's a little confusing. I think moi ties the way to go. But the thing about

“kickboxing and Japan is like, they just wanted to, that's what K1 was. They're like,”

let's just take out all the clenching and make this as exciting as possible. What's the best way to do that? And the elbows, elbows are very effective, obviously, and knock a lot of guys out, but also cut a lot of people open and stop fights prematurely, which is why pride didn't allow elbows, which is really crazy when you think about that, because yeah, what? Soccer kicks and stomps, but you were fighting multiple times. True. Cuts, you know, if you get cut in the first fight,

it could change everything. I think that makes sense. I kind of, but I mean, soccer kicks, stomps and soccer kicks, I know. Yeah, it's hard to say, because for me, knees to a grounded guy. Yeah, yeah. Scround and proud elbows are so effective. It's so important. I mean, it really like guys that think they're comfortable and safe in the guard, you're not, you're not when a guy can still bust you up with elbows from a short distance. It's a very effective technique. Yeah,

very damaging. Yeah, but yeah, it's a very, very damaging technique. Well, there's a real

problem with the cage. And the problem is the wall, like the, the fence is an artificial structure

that keeps you from being able to move. And I've always said this, that I think it should be

“an open mat. It should be a large mat. And you should, you should not, like a wrestling mat? Yeah,”

like a big wrestling mat. Like think about a basketball game. Like thinking about how much space is on a basketball court. And you still get 16,000 people in there to watch a basketball game. Guys would be, I would think running running around a lot of, you know, maybe you get penalty. Penalty from moving too much. Maybe you have a red. Yeah, you have a red yellow card or well, you have a, you have a center that you're supposed to stay in and then you have a red zone

outside of it and then you have a black zone outside the red zone where you get points taken away. Yeah. The enter into the red zone too many times. You get a warning for the first time. Another

warning for the second time, third time you get a point taken away. So you can use it once or twice

to evade, but then you gotta go back into the area we're supposed to fight. I think that would be, that would be cool. How big of a, of an area you talk about basketball court? That's too big. That's too big. How about football? How about football? If I can field. That's too big. That's too big. They're doing that with no rules fights. Yeah. Yeah, I watch a lot of no rules fights. They're hard. They're Russian, they're Russian. They're so scary because guys just

mount guys and gouge their eyes out. Yeah. The mounting people and just shoving their fingers. And the guys are screaming and tapping and saying oh, I run across them pretty crazy stuff on IG. Sometimes from those, but they're fighting parking lots. They're fighting a phone booths. Yeah. Cars upside down on the wall. They're fighting everywhere. I saw them on a cargo container floating on the on top of water where you get knocked off and that's crazy. It's so ridiculous.

Yeah, we're getting glad it came out and you fall into the water. You breathe water and then rest a year in time. Just fight with those kid floaties. If you get knocked out, you just float to the top. Instead of those moy tie things. Yeah. Yeah, blow them up. Your corners of your corner

“is blowing them up. Yeah. But I think the cage, I like like, you know how like the UFC”

BJJ? Yeah. That sloped surface. Perfect economy combat. karate combat. Does that slop surface? That's a good one. And that's a big space they fight in. Right on that? Yeah. Something like that, I think would be good. It would be better. There's something about

the, but the problem is then you're backing up and you hit that ramp and you fall down.

Or what was the old karate? It was like, I don't think it was Chuck Norris. Yeah, Chuck Norris. His league, something like that. Yeah. I think it was World Combat League or something. I went to see that. WCF? Yeah. Something like that. World Combat Federation? Yeah. I think the first guy to do a slanted thing though was Frank Shamrock. You know, a lot of people don't realize that Frank Shamrock had an organization for a while and they thought in like this sloped

sort of thing. I can come with you. I think he might have been the first guy. Frank was way ahead of his time. Way ahead of his time. And he's another guy that got a raced from, because he had

the past fighting older and strike force like still bodied up and I know he was a student of

martial arts. Yes. But by the time he got the strike force, his kind of best days were behind him like when Nick Diaz beat him up. Yeah. It was, it wasn't the same guy. When he fought Phil Barroni, it wasn't the same guy. He had a lot of knee problems and it's like just not after a while. It's like he might have been like 40s in strike force or I don't know how old he was. Late 30s, 40s. Late 30s for sure. But when you go back to his fights in the UFC, I mean he was a pioneer man.

When he fought TD Ortiz, he was nowhere near TDOs eyes. And he just beat TDO with cardio, just cardio and defense. And then eventually war is asked down and beat him up and changed TDOs entire strategy for fighting after that. He was one of the guys early. It was like super fit, super. Really focused on his health and nutrition and supplementation and everything. Back then, you didn't see a whole lot of that, but he was one of the guys for sure. Well, the lion's den,

Ken Shamrock's, the thing that they put guys through, this gauntlet that they put guys through in order to make the team, to make the fight team as hell, it was just hell. They wanted guys to break. And so extreme conditioning, extreme mental toughness. Like all that was emphasized. And so Frank was the best example of that though because he was, he was elite everywhere. For sure, taking guys down, he had great submissions, he had great striking. And, you know,

“he fought some wild fights man. He fought, I don't remember where that was. Was that K1?”

But he beat ends in with knees. He'd fought in multiple organizations. Obviously, he started out in pancreas. But he had only been training for like a year or something like that when he fought boss root in pancreas. He was super fucking talented man. Why? They let him wear boots, right? Or should kind of lay. Yeah, you have some weird shin pad deal with, well, you had wrestling shoes with shin pads and you open hand slaps.

You know, yeah, it was always poem. Uh-huh. Yeah. So what is this in? Does it say what it's in?

I don't know. I'm 2011. This says UFC. It's not UFC. Oh, it's Valley 2, Doge Pan. Yeah, this was before 2011. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this is Valley 2, Doge Pan. So Valley 2, Doge Pan. I wonder if it's the same Valley 2, Doge that Hickson fought in. So Hickson was, you know, the champion of Valley 2, Doge Pan early on. Well, that was like the in the documentary choke. You've seen that, right? Uh-huh.

“That long time ago. Yeah, documentary rules. That documentary rules. So that's how Hickson became”

a legend back in the row in H. B. No. Yeah. Yeah. No rules. Right. Right. Well, the first UFC that I went to was UFC 12 in Doath and Alabama. And you could wear wrestling shoes. You could punch guys in the nuts. Yeah. Hair pulling. Yeah. Grabbed their clothes. No way. There was two eight classes back then. Um, like because Vitor won the heavyweight tournament back then. I think they had two weight classes back then. So they still recognize that there's some smaller

guys and some big guys and small guys are really talented. But then I'm going to beat the big giant guys. Let's have a weight class for them. Yeah. I remember written VHS tapes with my dad of the old UFC's dude. What guy you in the spoiler? How old were you when you first started martial arts training period? 17. 17. That's late. Well, if you think about it. Right. Well, I mean,

“if you want to call wrestling, I wrestled for two years when I was 10 and 11 for a private club”

and did like traveling Texas a lot. Louisiana small club meets. But other than that, no combat sports. No martial arts experience. How'd you get into it? Boxing when I was 17, I wanted to box.

Always wanted to box. Started going to a boxing gym. Met some MMA guys there. Didn't know

they had MMA where I was from. Then went to the MMA gym and never went back to the boxing gym. So what year were we talking? 2006, maybe. Oh, okay. So this was right when the UFC first started. This is like I remember when Stefan and Forest did the big thing. That was like beginning around the time I was training boxing and it makes martial arts so that wave like I just never stopped. Wow. Yeah, man. What was it? The world combat. Like Chris Hordecky was over there,

been around those over there. Remember what was the team organization? That was big at the time. Right. I have fell. I have fell. Yes. Everybody had teams and stuff. That was weird. That was real big around that time. Yeah, I didn't know being out swear Dan Miller, Jim's brother landed the grossest guillotine I've ever seen in my life. Have you ever seen this? Oh my god. It's the worst

So his head is connected to his own chest sideways. So like this, his head went all the way down and touched his chest. I don't even know how he stayed alive. Yeah. Watch this. Watch this. Watch this. Watch this guillotine. There it is. Check this out. Now watch this guillotine. Look at that. Look at that.

“Bro, Jesus. Bro, how's that guy alive? He's not. Look at that. Look at that. How is he alive?”

Have you ever seen that before? Ever? Like that's crazy. Yeah, this is the craziest guillotine I've ever seen in my life. That's so crazy. Looks like it's next broken, bro. How's he alive? Yeah. First of all, why did he take so long for the referee to stop? Who's the referee? I see him on the guy. I don't know who it is, but you can probably stop that a couple of seconds earlier. But I mean, it's just hard to imagine that a neck and go in that direction. Like it's so, that doesn't show

it. The other angle that you showed is really what showed it. Yeah. The other angle where you see it from the side, where you see his head. Like when he when he cinches it up here, that is crazy.

That you're not supposed to bend like. You know, your ears never supposed to touch your chest. No.

I don't know how it does. I don't know. I mean, it just seems like everything would break. It seems like you would never walk again. He's not dancing on fighting anymore. No. Jim still fit. Jim still roll a man. Jim still finds Dale Roller. It's crazy. Most fights in UFC history. And and still fine. No surgeries? No nothing. Yeah. Still durable. Did you get beat up? Was his last fight Bobby Green? That was the last time I

think I saw him fight. I don't know if that was his last fight. He definitely got beat up. That was one. He's definitely lost a step. I mean, he's 40 years old. Yeah. But man, dude still loves it. It still loves it. Respect to him, dude. Yeah. I mean, he sent me a cookbook. He came out a cookbook. He's a big cook in Hunter and stuff. He sent me a cookbook in a spatula. Oh, that's hilarious. Captain Redbeard or Jimmy Redbeard on the spatula. It's like engraved into it.

He's quite a character. Yeah. I like him. I like him. I like him a lot too. He's a very fun dude. And also complete with about him. Doesn't have any problems mentally. You know,

it's like, it's like hard work. He's always on his farm doing stuff. Like you would never think

you was a fighter. If you didn't know. I know, right? Yeah. Yeah. He's a fascinating character. Well, the thing about this sport is that it like exceptional humans are exceptional at fighting.

“Like to be an exceptional fighter. You have to be an exceptional person. There's really no way around”

it. There's like it's too hard to do. You have to be a very unique kind of human being that can get through those camps, that can perform on the big lights, that can figure out how to keep getting better and evolve for sure. And that type of stuff is like the last time I was going to show, well, it's talking about it's like a gift and a curse man. It's like you have to be all in at something. Those kind of people who are built like that, whether it's fighting or

drinking or whether it's good or bad, you're going all in. It's dangerous. The problem is like we see with Connor when they don't have the fighting, then they go all in with the other things.

Fighting was always, for me always pulled everything together. That's why like retiring is

scary, man. Days are long. I have a lot of time. I don't have to get ready for a fight. I don't you know. You're still a young man, too. You still have a whole lot of life ahead of you. 37, man. Yeah. So it makes you think like, what do I do now? What do I do with my future? What do I do it? What do you want to do? Dude, I kind of got like for a week or so, I would say depressed, but I kind of got into a funk like what the hell am I going to do in my life? Every day I would

wake up for the last 20 years. How can I be better fighter? How can I what's new in fitness? How can I push myself? I want to be the champion and then boom, you lay the gloves on and you wake up and you're a fucking civilian. It feels crazy. It's like I'm re-learning who I am. I got always new fighting was just something I did. It wasn't who I was, but after 20 years of doing it, even though you know that and you think that, like it, it's fuck. I don't know who I am without fighting.

How long did it take? I'm a father. I'm a lot of things, but like fighting was a cloud in my mind that never went away for 20 years. Right. And now I wake up and it's gone. Like, what do I do? I'm still trying to find out, Joe. I don't know. Did you still get an nervous when you would go to events? You know, that feeling that you get like you. When I competed? No, no, no. Yeah, dude. When you go to other events for other people, I just feeling like

you might have to compete. Dude, my hands are sweaty. Yeah. Yeah. That's weird, right? For sure. I mean, obviously. It just happened to me last, a couple of weeks when Max fought Charles. I was nervous. I had armpits and my hands are sweating. I'm like, dude, I hope those people don't see this. Right? Because you feel like you're still there. I can connect it to both of these guys

“for some reason. Well, you are forever. Yeah. That's the thing. That's what's so interesting about”

watching old fighters. Even old boxes when they go to like Hall of Fame ceremonies and they see each other and hug and like, those guys are connected in time forever. Yeah, Max came up to the desk and I was like, we spent an hour of our lives fighting each other. You know, it's hard as we

two five round decisions. And we went. The first fight was a one or two rounds. So it's an hour of fight. Yeah. We spent an hour as a beating each other up. That is crazy when you think about it. And hours a long time. And hours a long time to fight another man, especially bearing your soul in front of the world. It's not a regular hour. Right. Yeah. At the beach. It's the biggest hour. Yeah. Yeah. And it's an hour you're prepared for for months each time. But because of that,

like you were saying with the boxes, like we know, we have an unwritten thing. We know about each other.

Yeah. You know, something we never spoke about, but we know each other better than a lot of people do.

Yeah. You know, when a person breaks and who doesn't break. Max doesn't break. He doesn't break. I mean, you see it in that fight. I mean, how's he? How does he go through that whole round and not get submitted? Yeah. Dry with all of our honest back and cut close a few times. Like first cross. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like that old Shinya Oki where you go to angle. You can choke through the jaw. Oh, yeah. Guys go to sleep. Next crank. It'll choke you to sleep. Yeah. Well, even just a

“rear naked across your face. I've seen guys go to sleep. Yeah. Did you just go to sleep?”

Are you trying not to tap and just wake up and you're like, how did he choke me out over my face? This is like a, you get enough of a torch and crank. It'll cut off the vein or whatever. You know, it'll, it'll put you out. It's enough. It's, which is nuts. And it's so much pain on the jaw too. Oh, it's horrible. Choke and getting lack of oxygen to the brain is one thing. Like the jaw binding up against the bones. Like, you know, that sharp pain you get with somebody's face cranking

you and your jaw. Yeah. It feels like it's going to dislocate. Yeah. Well, that was the thing with could be even Connor. We did that torque that torque crank where he got his neck and he's he cinched it up with the forearm behind the neck and pulls back like this. Like, that is hell. And those guys squeeze this differently. Those guys squeeze this different. What is something about life long grappers? There's like a density to them. That's different. The density, the strength

and just like the knowing of where to put the pressure and what angle to turn your hips to make

a big difference, you know, people outside don't even see it. But it's so, so crucial in the moment.

“Yeah. That's why it's on your back. And they just turn a little bit to the elbow, you know,”

rather than to squeeze straight on small things like that or, you know, what wind fights? I'll tell you the fight that I'm really looking forward to. Really looking forward to because I don't know what's going to happen. It's hams up versus strickland. I'm very interested now, fight. Strickland is a fucking nightmare standing up for sure. For sure. For sure. What he did to fluffy her nandas, I was like, holy shit, man. The body shot the finish. But he made fluffy fight.

You know, he fights at a slower pace. He has his own pace in there and he kind of forces the other guy to fight his opponent has to fight this pace with him. I think the best, the best chance is to to blitz him, do unorthodox things because he wants to jab circle, throw kick, jab circle. He keeps a very slow pace. He's not sprinting or trying to blast you out of there. He just, well, he just chips a way high guard, good show. Very good show. Yeah. He's defense is extraordinary.

He, you know, one of the things he was telling me is like, I spar more than anybody and I get hit less than anybody. And that is true. Like, if you think about how much that guy spars, it's a giant part of what's training. Look at James Tony. He was hard. He was hard to hit and all you did was spar. Yeah, you know, right, perfect example. There's something taught in that in those hundreds of percent, understanding of distance, timing, pattern recognition, you're constantly in there,

moving around. Right. It's like, and then there's also the cardio that comes from sparring. Yeah. It's different. Yeah. Like, he, because his cardio is almost entirely based on sparring. And then by the fucker doesn't get tired and right. And the fluffy fight was like, I thought fluffy was going to be a problem. I'm like, fluffy is really good, man. He think he submitted a dollful of Yara. He's got all this fucking crazy cardio. He puts a pace on guys and

strictly made a liver. He just did not belong in there. He's so heavy on that front foot though. I can't believe guys aren't smashing that calf, man. I know. Well, he's hard to hit, man. And he also knows how to do that, that fucking, the, the hacky sack thing, or, you know, like you're bending your knee upwards. You don't know me to check it? Yeah. Well, you don't even

“check it. You just kind of like, relax your leg and lift it up. You know who showed me that?”

Is Alex Pereira. He's like, instead of checking it. It's like, if you check it, it still hurts you. For sure. But he just lifts his leg up. He just goes heel to knee on the opposite side. And so like a hacky sack. Right. Right. Right. I've seen guys take thigh leg kicks like that. Yeah. Kind of let it swing a little. But he doesn't with the calf. So it's like, he sees it coming. Instead of doing that, stepping out and checking it. He just like, like, look at this. Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

Well, that I think in this instance, I think that was probably the, I don't know if that was the

first fight of the second fight. But is he's calf was already done? He was really happy. He told me

It wasn't that because I couldn't move because my calf was cut. It doesn't, it doesn't go away. Yeah. That was crazy. That's hard to do. That's, that's kind of silly. That's hard. That's kind of silly. I don't think he really does that. Block it with the bottom of your foot. He could though. I'm very interested in that fight, too. Him versus Ciro gone. That's very interesting. For sure. For sure. And I know the power is going to translate over to heavyweight. Oh, that's not one percent. He'll be out of flat line

heavyweight. 100 percent, especially with zero weight cut. Yeah. He's probably 23240 walking on. He's 230 something maybe. He's 240. Yeah. Did come on. He's 240 walking around. That's a legit heavyweight. He's a legit heavyweight. He's a legit heavyweight. It is a crime in the sport that that fight with Aspenal got stopped the way that he I poked him. It's a crime. Yeah. Because that fight was playing out in a very interesting direction because Aspenal was having a really hard time touching that.

He was bleeding. He was getting busted up. He was getting touched up a lot.

“Ciro's job is legit. And that's what I was most excited for. I wanted to see Tom”

have to come back, lose around and come up. I've never seen him. Obviously, I've seen him fight,

but I've never seen him in a real fight where you have to fight your way back into it or how many times he's even been in the second round. Twice, maybe? Something crazy like that. Nots. And that's why the fan base kind of blew me away. I was like, these guys are so high on Aspenal right now. Like, for a few months, everybody was talking about Aspenal. How good he is. I've never seen it. Not that he's not. He has to be good to be where he's at. Yeah. But I haven't seen it. Well, my thought was the

real problem that Aspenal is going to present is in the grappling. He's a Brazilian judicial black belt. He's a big fucker. He's fast. He's got a power double. He explodes. But when he's standing there and trying to stand with Ciro gone, this is the first time that he was ever in front of a guy who was agile and quick and very technical. Right. Ciro gone was doing a lot of sneaky shit. One thing

“he does is he keeps his hand low and they pops that jab out. So you don't know where it's coming”

from? Up jab. He does a lot of weird shit. He has his front leg too. He has pretty quick for his size. Real quick. Real quick. He's a good mobility good hips. Yeah, man. Ciro's a great athlete. Like, it's not just that. I've seen him dunk basketballs and shit. Like, he's he can move. Right. But it's just the fluidity of his striking is so efficient. Like, that's his world. If you just want to strike with him. Yeah. Me, John Jones is so smart. John's like, fuck all this. Again. Even Francis.

Francis, well, he had a brawl out knee in that fight. But Francis just like took him down. That would be round and beat him up. Yeah, man. But that's a different Ciro. That's a Ciro that

wasn't concentrating enough on his grappling and probably never thought that Francis was going to

employ that tactic. Right. And then really worked with a lot of wrestlers and tried to evolve his game and, you know, Francis is on that Nate J. Card as well. Right. He's fighting Philip Lins. Yeah. As a A to T guy. Yeah. Yeah. How good is he? I've never really watched him training that much. I know he made it to the UFC for a stand. Then he went PFL. I'm not sure how good he is. Yeah. I've seen him at the gym, but I've never watched him try to fortune it that there's not

another big name for him to fight. Like, I was hoping they could get a big name pops up. I mean, who would be the big name? Like, who's heavyweight? Yeah, heavyweight. That's still talented. No one. Yeah. Heavyweight is the most shallow division in the sport. Peer. Cains out of jail. Get him in shape. No. Cains got crazy back surgeries, knee surgery, and shoulder surgery. And chain came with like two tough for his own body. And all the years

a wrestling man. Mm-hmm. Wearing tear. Wearing tear. Also just never given his body a break.

“Just constantly grinding and pushing. And that's why he was so good. I was like, he's”

I think in his prime the best. I think he was the best heavyweight. Well, he was certainly in the argument. In my mind, it's him and Fedor. But honorable mention, always I give to Fabriceo for Doom. Yeah. It's Fabriceo for Doom. People want to think about losses. Think about peak performances. Fabriceo for Doom tapped everybody. He tapped all the legends. Great. He tapped Minotaro. He tapped Fedor. And he tapped Kane. Like just that. Just that alone.

He tapped all the legends. I don't know why he's named it. Like when I was thinking about heavyweight. Well, his name doesn't always want to give him respect. I always put it out there because the same way I do with BJ Penn. Because people for they only want to think about BJ Penn. Maybe when he fought Frankie Edgar or when he fought. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here he goes. Go back to BJ Penn when he fought Sean Schur. Go back to BJ Penn when he fought Diego Sanchez. That BJ Penn was a mother fucker.

Joe Stevenson. Yes. Joe Daddy Stevenson. You got to think about the guys when they're in their prime. When they're at when they're redlining for X amount of years at peak performance. When you're talking about like all time greats.

They stayed flawless their entire career. You're right. But for peak performance when they're at their best. How good were they? I put prime time BJ Penn at 155 against almost anybody. Yeah. You're right, man. Bro. He was so good. And his jujitsu was so good. And he could knock you out. And he was an animal. Just an when he was training with Marba and a bitch when he went over there and was like really learning how to get an insane shape.

“And he would come there and rock down the water and all that shit. I think the Karen rocks was him.”

Marinovich had him doing a lot like crazy plyometric stuff. And the Marinovich's strategy was you already know how to fight. Fuck all this fighting. You know how to fight. What we're going to do is just give you the most insane gas tank. So your fight training is like secondary. What's really important is just having the most spectacular gas tanks.

So you never get tired, you know. But he hated those camps, man. He hated it. And he only did it. Even in the peak of his shape. He was still a little soft.

He was never shredded like his pretty shredded when he fought Joe Stevenson. What's he looking? Yeah. He had a six pack. He looked good. I mean he was it was different. But at 55 it was different. And everybody's body types different. Well at 70 he was never really a 170. You know, he was never. I mean he's much smaller than you. Yeah. He's never really a 170. He was just so tough that he went up to 170 and beat a prime time man. Yeah. I mean, I just stuck around longer than he should have. He definitely did. He definitely fought without training.

Well, sometimes. And that's the thing people remember. Yes. I hate that though.

“They're remember that one fight we fought on as tippy toes. Remember that. Yeah. Yeah.”

Like crazy. We're cheating. But you got to think about him in his pro. That's what I always say. Don't look at it. Like for a reason over doom. Don't look at all the fights. Look at the fights when he was in his prime when he was putting it all together. He was a nightmare. He was a nightmare. He's going to hit their stride. That's what I was scared about staying around the fighting too long. Like I retired at 36. I'm like

perfect. How much more athletic am I going to get? How much faster am I going to get? How much you know, power is the last thing to go. But durability speed, reaction time, everything that I need. Like, and if I'm not right in line for a title shot or knocking on the door of it. Like, what am I doing? Right. I'm fighting just a fight for H.A. Crazy. That's when I had to look myself in the mirror. You know, like, okay, this is it. I'm going to

you did the right thing. Be healthy. Please look at my faculties for the most part. The age that you retired was the age that you'll overmarrow entered into the UFC. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that nuts? Yeah. It really is crazy if you think about it. Because that's really without it. And there's a few outliers out there in the sport. Like embossing, Oosik is the great outlier. Terrence Crawford is another great outlier. Do you want about Oosik and Rico

crazy? Rico's a super nice guy. I love Rico man. Super nice guy. He's a nice guy, but without leg kicks, the fact that he's going to just box and he's going to box maybe the best technical heavyweight that's ever lived. I don't know. I learned my lesson. Dude, I bet $5,000 on fury.

Did you? Yeah. The second fight? Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. If anybody could beat him, it's Tyson Fury.

If anybody can beat Oosik, it's Tyson Fury. Because Tyson Fury was beating him in the first fight.

“He just got clipped. He got clipped and then I think it was the ninth. He got really badly hurt.”

I don't remember what round it was. He got really badly hurt and dropped. But Oosik is just so slick. Yeah man. His footwork is movement. He's in the fact that he's essentially a blown up cruiserweight and he's beaten all these giant heavyweights like Du Bois. Like Daniel Du Bois, terrifying. What he did to Joshua? Yeah, he's just charged forward and just put fucking leather on his face. Yeah. Rico's a real heavyweight, but he's not a pure boxer. No. I mean, he can hit hard.

I mean, there's that. But he's such a great kicker. You're taking a weapon away. It's interesting. It's a spectacle. I'm watching for sure, but I'm sure he's boxed with a lot of like really elite boxers in the gym. I mean, but over the years for sure, for sure. The payday's probably bananas. I'm sure they're fucking visa in front of the pyramid. No, it's crazy. He's putting this together. I have no idea. Aliens. That's where they're going to land. Do they need to do a

order of the Colosseum fight, MMA or boxing, where they set it up, either in the Colosseum or right in front, you know, they'll be crazy. Well, they were talking about doing that with Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. They were talking about the Colosseum fighting in the Colosseum fight.

I know that's so crazy. Dude, that would be so crazy. I have those guys be the first fight.

Do that one in Meta headquarters or something. Don't do that at the Colosseum. Don't disrespect the don't disrespect the Colosseum. No, no. I know. That's silly. So who's live at the parents of Giza? WBC World Heavyweight Championship, Dizzone. But like, I wonder who the promoter is? Sella, WBC. I don't. Is that their faces? That's a ridiculous. Look at their

I'm excited about it. I wonder who's going to buy that. How much is that going to call? I'm going to

buy it. I mean, how many people are going to buy that? You know what I mean? I got to buy it because

“it's, I love Rico. I've had Rico on the show. I mean, I think he's the greatest heavyweight”

kick boxer of all time. For sure. I feel like the way combat sports has kind of intertwined all different stuff boxing MMA, how big mixed martial arts is now. You're going to get a lot of cross crossover before you'd get a lot of hardcore boxing fans buying this paper view. But now you're kind of going to get a little bit of everything. Kick boxing MMA boxing fans. Glory has such a small audience, unfortunately. And this was the, you know, this is the argument that Dana said to me

because kick boxing in America that they tried with glory. I just don't think they got the right promotion. I think if the UFC... I mean, it's non-stop action. It's highlights the whole time. Why would you say that? Why wouldn't you? I feel like if the UFC got behind kick boxing in America, it could be gigantic, especially kick boxing with MMA gloves. Like that, it got a leave guy was fighting in the octagon. No fucking gigantic that would be. Or you can use uh, there's another guy

“I'm a Masata anori. It's a bunch of guys. There's a bunch of guys that are like really elite”

that are fighting. Yeah. Oh, up a bunch, man. Yeah. A lot, a lot, a lot. Yeah, Masaki anori. Ucik opened a fighting John Jones and crossed over MMA fight. What? Wait, okay, now you got me interested in it. Dude, if the UFC comes up with the cheddar, he better start. I must be chilling now. Yeah, you better start wrestling now. Is that real? Did he say that? Rico is first, second, he's whoever wins between Wardley and Dubois. And the third fight is my fed

greedy belly Tyson Fury. So he's not every match with Dubois, a tough sell. He just starched him. The Tyson Fury fight is the big fight. Because Tyson Fury is the only guy in my eyes. Makes sense.

Says a fight with Jake Paul and MMA at this stage is not being considered. But we're always

open to creative and interesting collaborations in the future. If we were talking about crossword fights, a very interesting matchup could be against John Jones in the United States. Whoa, I don't know what John's going to do, man. With all the stuff going on with the UFC, he might be done. He doesn't want to be done. I know he got stem cells on his hip. I know because I helped him get it. He got it over at he's talked about it. I wouldn't have talked about it, but he talked about it. He got it at ways to

well. And so he's feeling a lot better. He does have arthritis in his hip, but bothers him, but it doesn't bother him enough where he can't fight. And, you know, he's a greatest fall time period. I did stem cells and PRP in my hip. I didn't notice anything from that. Well, it really depends on where you're getting the stem cells. What technology they're using, there's a bunch of different kinds of stem cells. Yeah. Talk to Brigham about that. He can explain it to you. I got it. Maybe you had a

labrum tear, right? It was pretty significant. Yeah. And I had to get the head of my female reshaped, like a resurfacing. It was kind of egg-shaped and it needs to be rounded. So it tore everything off the inside of my hip. So how do they do that? They take your leg out of socket. They shave the top rounded, and then they micro, they put like a bunch of small holes in it to where it cracks. And then stem cells leak out of your body to create a new surface. Out of your bone. How long does that take to

recover? I couldn't put pressure on for eight weeks. Wow. Yeah. Because it's like, so you're just walking around like one leg to one side and then once you start walking and how weird was it? Very weird, because I had to sleep in like a motion machine where my leg wouldn't stop moving at night. Oh my god. Because your hip capsule is like tricky. If it heals up too tight,

“you know your leg won't have any range of motion at all. So while it's healing, you need to be in”

perpetual motion, I guess. That's crazy. And every week they would send a new code for my wife to type in the machine and it would be a little bit different angle. Wow. Yeah. So my, what a nightmare. For those eight weeks, I was sleeping in this metal brace that moved my leg all night. How did you sleep? It was horrible because it went up till like your your junk and inside your leg and yeah, outside your legs. So it's like, you had a wedgie by this machine

and you legs this motion all night. Oh my god. It's like, man. That's terrifying. But he'll find out. He'll do good. That's crazy that it worked. Yeah. Wow. resurfacing. The guy actually who did it in Vel Colorado invented the surgery. GSP's had hip surgery there. Really? Yeah. He invented the surgery. And GSP had do the same bullshit. I don't know if he had exactly what I had, but he, he had surgery there on his head. God, that sounds like two months of no sleeping.

How'd you sleep? Did you get used to it? Well, the first week pain medicine and stuff you're

on all that stuff. It was after like when I stopped taking all that pain medicine must have been fun.

where it makes sense to take that shit. Like you're in a fucking crazy bracelet party. Yeah, for sure. Watch Netflix and to not give a shit about my life. Yeah. I'm sleeping in this machine after wheel for real. Over the hell's happening. I was on one of those, my knee reconstructed. You had a bunch of knee surgeries. Yeah, but my left knee, uh, they put, I had, um, patella, tendon graft and they put me on one of them things where it does this like when I was in the hospital.

“So that's that's how we're doing drip. So you could press the button to get more morphine. I was like”

point, point, point, point, dude. That's a lie. I have the same thing on my hip. They they put it up a door and then they had a nerve block through my stomach. So I was like completely paralyzed from the waist down, but I had the button thing. I don't think it was working anymore because I, I wrapped it up. It was, it was, you've read life. It was shooting blanks, man. That's hilarious. It is weird though to see your like knee constantly moving forward, but I only had to do it like

a couple of nights. I can't imagine. I can't imagine that it must have been so hard to sleep, man. Yeah, the motion wasn't so bad because it's kind of slow. Oh, okay. It was the metal in my groin. Oh, yeah. It probably, yeah, rubbed it raw. Yeah. Oh, god. Yeah, Mark. But I, like I said, I was on the pain medicine. So it's crazy that it all worked though. Yeah, shout out to that doctor. Shout out to all these doctors. I say that all the time. Like both my knees would be fucking completely

useless if it wasn't for amazing doctors. Right. Shout out to these guys. I was just talking

to figure and shit out. I worked with Paul Felder at that Vegas show and he just had a hip replacement. Yeah, he had the real deal. But I, so yeah, I know he had a replacement replacement. Why did he have to do that versus what you did? I'm not sure exactly. It's something to do with

“the spacing. I think inside your hip, how much spacing you have? Because my spacing was good. I wasn't”

a candidate for a replacement. Well, Paul went full nutty after he's top fighting and started doing iron man's. Yeah, dude. He was telling me he travels with a bicycle. He does like still does that cycling for five hours like in a hotel room like crazy. That's not good. Crazy. Crazy man. That's unhealthy. Yeah. Why are you doing that, Paul? Five hours. He told me. Well, the same kind drive that made him a great MMA fighter, made him want to like be the best iron man dude in

the world. You need something like that, man. Way before the surges, a couple of years ago when you first got diagnosed, I guess, with some injury. Yeah. So range motion, my right hip reached out to the other doctor Dave from the UFC, helping them MRI, long story short, how the hips and

80 year old man, no soft tissue left grinding bone on bone. Lee. The problem is, once they put

of artificial joint in you, you have that artificial joint forever. It's never going back. Yeah. And as biologics get better and stem cells get better, they're better and better at re-healing. Or healing that actual tissue. And if you could just hang in there, this is the kind of the conversation that I have with John because if you could just hang in there, they're so close. They're injecting stuff into discs now and making the discs larger. Right. So like people

with back problems where the doctors like look, we got to take some of your disc out and hang in there. Hang and also look into other therapies, decompression. There's a lot of different things that you could do that can create space where your disc is pushing against your nerves. You can alleviate a lot of that. Surgery is the absolute last special step. Absolutely back. Absolutely back. Look if you have a bone. Of course, they're going to cut you up. No, do it any time. You know,

it's good business. Cut you open and then the medicine's the hardware or everything. It's a it's a racket. That's the last step. That's the problem. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And when doctors get paid for doing surgery, they want to do surgery because that's where they make their living. It's a real problem with stuff like the back because I don't know anybody that's had a back surgery and been better. That was a big one I could think of. I remember

Nate Corey was a big advocate for some company. Remember he had a bad artificial spacer. Yeah,

“he had artificial discs put in his back way back in the day. Yeah, he's the guy I think about”

back surgery. But he also got, it was an intense pain because of that. And I think it wound up like becoming a problem later on. Like I know guys that initially had some relief because of back surgery and then it started getting way worse after that. It does the same follow-ups.

Always the same story. Same thing with next. Like you lose strength. It's always bothering

you for the rest of your life. Like Mike Brown has a fusion where they went through the front fusions are rough. My buddy, Allen Showman had a next surgery where the Kayla Harris and just had one. Like once you have that, somebody in Kayla have done. I don't know exactly. I don't think they're telling anybody. I know that. Then pretty sure they went through the front. Right, but I don't think she's telling anybody what exactly happened because like Alchemy had a discreplaced

and he came back and beat Piotary on and the rematch and looked fucking great and fought really

Yeah, I think that the new artificial discs that they're putting in the next, a lot of them

it works out really well. I know quite a few people have had those. I've been fortunate man. I haven't

“had any neck. She had a repair, repair her needed discs in her neck. Right. So I think is what they usually”

do is just take some of the the disc out and then you have less disc. So it's not bulging anymore but you have less disc now. So now you have more degenerative disc issues. I just think there's other options. And one of the options is decompression. I don't know if anybody ran that by her, but I have a fucking hang harness. It's attached to a chin up bar and I put it around my neck. It straps under my chin and I put my weight on it. I just like stretch my neck out. It works.

Or relieve it. I hear a pop. Yeah, pop. Oh, she had a replace. Okay, so she got that thing that Algebraan got done. Yeah, how's she got to fight that quickly? Oh yeah, look at that. Oh yeah, I wonder what her turnaround time is. I mean, international fight week, maybe her her Amanda? What she's fighting isn't she was supposed to be fighting in the white heart. Yeah, but they're not supposed to. They decide not to do that. Yeah. So maybe the summer? Maybe.

Because it's going to be, I mean, that's a big fight. Her Amanda. It's a big fight. But I mean,

there's a possibility that you do something like that and you never the same again. So she might

know the surgery. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, when are you dealing with your spine? It's very tricky. Yeah, you know, just one of those things. It's like her shoulders, knees, there's some things, man. You don't want to injure. I don't think anybody's going to come back from a knee replacement in front of him. I've never heard of that. They're at a discreplacence. I've heard of a lot of knee

“surgeries. Guys come back. Yeah. But death's as buccoccus was the worst. Remember that. Me,”

fought Khalil and Cleal side kicked his knee sideways and it hyper extended it all went sideways. John does that knee stump thing too. I don't, I don't know how I feel about that, man. Well, Ian Gary did it to the shopcott. I don't know how to fuck shopcot's knee up. I know it's kind of fucked because look, yes, it's a little bit so as I post. I feel like it's that's what I was about to say. I feel like it's kind of dirty. Like a legalized eye post. It is dirty. It means

sore nutshots. Like nutshots are effective too. Are we going to allow those? No. I mean, why are we allowing someone to do a technique that we do have 12 to 6 elbows now? So that's at least we're getting someone. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. But I'd rather have knees to a grounded opponent than kicking the knee sideways. It just seems like it takes a year off of your career. It's at least soaking a knee bar, soaking a arm bar like you can tap. True, true, true, true. You get a knee bar,

you can tap right inside he looks as scariest because you only got a couple of like micro seconds to tap. When you get that one, that one's so nasty, the knee across. You have no time. You just got a tap. Yeah. You just got a no one you're done. You got a no one you got, yeah, and not let it.

“Did you ever see when Mike Emusamichi fought some cat in? I think I think I know what you're talking”

and the dude would not tap. Yeah. He was just ripping his knee apart and Mike he was talking about it afterwards. He was so gross. I was like, why did you make me do that to you? Why didn't you just tap? He mangled that guy's leg. I think I saw a highlight of that. It was horrible. It's so horrible to watch. You got it? Yeah, show me. Yeah, let's see this. Here it is. Like, look at this. Look at his leg. Bro, bro. That is almost as nasty as watching that arm bar or that a guillotine.

From Dan Miller. Look at this. This dude won't tap. It's so crazy. And Mikey is just a minister at destroying your knees. And he normal human being would have tapped. Yeah, for sure. And he does this like seven times in this match where he rips his guys like sideways, left ways, right ways. The guy's knees destroyed. Look how nasty this is, man. This is so nasty. Look how sat that angle to that angle. So awful. The fact that this dude is just tolerating it. Like right there.

That's destroyed. Yeah. That is destroyed. I don't know if that dude ever competed again afterwards.

He might never be the same. No, you know, the same. He won't be the same. He won't be the same. He won't be

it'll never be 100%. Like you get your shit ripped apart like that for sure. There's some minutes to see how this gets MCL. Everything. Fuck that. He looks that changed. I've been fortunate man with my knees. I have a torn miniscus in my right knee, but never need a surgery. You know, had a partial tear on my aco when I fought Islam. He pulled me off against the fence and my knee slid and I felt it tear felt like fire and my knee, you know. And when you feel pain and a fight,

you know it's bad because you usually don't. Right. But I felt it burning like fire. But you didn't need surgery. Didn't need surgery. Did it much of physical therapy?

your ACL is. Every time you tear your ACL, the ligamentum is completely torn. Always and

“mine had a partial tear in that. So I must have took the weight off or we switched to position right”

before it tore my ACL. But I had like bruising, you know, back on my leg was all bruised up. Couldn't bend it for a little bit. But now it's 100%. Yeah. Feel great. Yeah. That's interesting. Like Arnold out? No. Who was it that was telling me that? Like there's different people that have had different levels of tears. And then in those levels of tears, like some of them you can come back from 100%. But some of them, okay, this dude, a broken ankle too. Oh my god. So this

dude that try saying his name. How do you say his name? Gantimer by endurance. So this is the guy Mikey Musimichi. He was torn ACL, torn MCL, torn Maniscus and a broken ankle. That's crazy. That's crazy. He did like a toe holder, something. How do you break his ankle? So it was, oh, was it Brendan Allen? Was Brendan Allen was in the podcast. He was telling me this. He tore his ACL

completely and never got a fix and it reattached. Wow. Yeah. Well, I got a slightly different

angle, but reattached. Like a tore off, but it was still hanging in there and it rehealed. I was like, that's not, I never had heard of that before. But I know some people that have had like a three quarter tear and the heels, but it's not really the same. Right. It's still a little funky. You know Brad Pickett fought his whole career with the torn no ACL and one of his legs.

“I think Justin has that situation. Yeah. Like Brad would sit on the ground on the mat and then”

grab his shin and slide it forward. You can see like the the movement. How does I not chew your meniscus. He fought so many fights like that. Oh my god. Well, Ricoh Rodriguez did too. Rico has had a blown out ACL and he fought. Rico is down in Louisiana for a while, man. Ricoh Rodriguez was, well, he was one of the first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Blackpaltz. I trained with him at Tim's gym before. Yeah, he was really good on the ground, man. Rico was really good on the ground and he was UFC

heavyweight. I know. Point time. I know. People forget did I didn't even know who he was. I was sparn him. Tim was like that's crazy. Was it heavyweight champion to you? It was like no way. I know enough fun. He was out of shape. You know, I was like, who's this big tattooed guy? Let's go. There's a lot of guys that people forgot. They slept on. It's interesting when you think about that. He was running a gym in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I don't know if he's still here. He's doing it. Yeah,

he had partnered with the Baton Rouge in Baton Rouge Louisiana. He took over an LA boxing. They turned it into a UFC gym now, but he was part owner or something. He was running it. Wow. Yeah, that's a hard road when guys retire and people don't even remember them.

Like, at least you have a giant name. You're always going to be able to do seminars. You're always

people are always going to want to bring you into events. You have a career no matter what. Yeah, I've been doing a lot of watch parties where I get with the fans and watch the fights. It's fun. Man, I enjoy it. That's cool. Sometimes a little awkward because the fans will stick around too long. Like, I'm watching the fights. You can sit in my booth and like we run out of things to talk about. It's like, okay, man, let me get your number. Like, hey, bro. All right, my buddy's on FaceTime.

Can you talk to someone? So I like to just chill. I know. Some people just can't hang. Dude, but I thought like I said 19 years. I say 20, but it's 19 years that I fought until they

“con her fight. Like, that's what things changed for me. Recognition. Yeah. Wow. That's interesting.”

That's crazy because like the door opened for seminars for appearances. That's that changed. That's so weird. And I had been in so many UFC main events. I had fought for the belt. I'll done all this stuff. But that guy's name, Jan. Isn't it nuts? I'll just personality got him so obviously very skilled. For Joe. The Alvarist fight. That's to Connor in his prime form. When he was in Aldo. Yes, Eddie. The Aldo fight was great, but it because it was one shot.

And and nobody's done that to Aldo ever ever. Ever. And since that was amazing. But the Alvarist fight was him in the matrix. When the punch is moving up in the way touching his nose and he's firing back those combinations. He was just in the zone. He was at that was. And Eddie's coast Connor walking the park. No, Eddie's good man. It's tough as fuck. When Eddie beat um uh dosandros, I was like holy shit, man. I was always a big Eddie fan. Oh, he was always

bro. His dream fights with Chandler. You want to talk about taking advantage of your life. Yeah. Those fights that those two had that nobody was watching other than the hardcore guys, those were to this day. I tell people, you want to watch some chaos watch Eddie Alvarist and Michael Chandler in Bellator. There's some of the best fights of all. Not down drag out. Both guys. You're fan of chaos watch those fights. Those fights were fucking bananas. And so that's

I was like, oh shit, he's here. Same card, same card as me Connor. But I think that it was too late.

“I think we had already suffered so much punishment and then so. If we got to hold the Michael”

Chandler like six, seven years before that when he was fighting in Bellator, this is the problem with PFL. This is the problem with Bellator. And I don't think it's a problem because I think these guys are prize fighters. I think Francis and God who said it best when he was talking about this Netflix card. They're saying someone said to him, do you think this is this sucks with your legacy? He goes legacy. Who's legacy for you? He goes fucking keep your legacy. Give me my money.

Right. Give me my pay. This is what I'm supposed to be getting. I'm Francis and Godna. I think he's right. But he's Francis and Godna. He's already the UFC Heavyweight Champion

left as the UFC Heavyweight Champion. But for a lot of these guys that are starting their

career, their best years are in these other organizations and not enough people know. Like Johnny Eblatt, perfect example you were talking about before. He knocked out Leon Edwards brother. I mean he's fucking beat him. I cornered him when he beat Musasee. Yeah Musasee. Musasee is a legend. Group watching him, legend. Yeah. There's a guy and I don't know what good guy the people forgot about.

Gagar Musasee was a father. By the time he made it to the UFC, I was already such a big fan, but like the casuals didn't know he was. Oh, he was so good dude. Gagar was so good.

“And so smart. Right. Just so smart. And unassuming. Was it him who upkick Jocca Rafe?”

Yeah. Yeah. Trying to do a triangle. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was in Dream. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gagar was a beast man. He was a beast. Eddie, Eddie Alvarez and Dream was bunch of good fights. And Gagar had stopped a wide man in the UFC. Can really good fundamental boxing. Great job. Yeah. Great everywhere. Yeah. Good wrestling. Good defense. He's super smart too. Just a very, very intelligent guy. But he got put on the shelf

with the bellotaur deal. He got put on the shelf. And I don't know what's going on with him. Most live. I don't know how to gain my life in Sasi last fall. He might not even still be on the contract with PFL or whatever. Well, I think he's 40 now. He was old in the UFC. Yeah. He's got to be close to 40 if not for older. Where's Gagar Musasee these days? He got drafted in the global fight. Oh, that thing. I knew that was going to fall apart

from the jump. Whatever. We were talking to coaches at American top team. And they were telling me like all these X UFC fighters, what their contracts were with this company. I was like, dude, they haven't even put on one show in their signing guys. So these kind of contracts? I mean, the money was crazy. So 2023 was his last fight. How old is he now? So he lost a Fabian Edwards the same guy that Evelyn knocked out. 40. Yeah, cornered Evelyn. In that fight,

dude, he got cut so bad with an elbow like I can see the vein in his pocket. I have it in my phone. It was crazy. I have it in my phone. The vein still intact. He didn't cut the vein, but you can see it. Oh, boy. It's pretty, pretty normally. And then he stopped him. Yeah, elbow. Yeah. We were in Ireland. Yeah. Evelyn's a tough guy, man. And I think he's like one of those kinds. It's like at the very top of the heap at 185. But again, I know about him. But how many people

do? That's unfortunate. Yeah. You know, because he's been fighting. He's got another fight for how many years? Well, he was Bellator and then they found him. Yeah. For how many years now? A long time. I mean, he had I think he might have had one or two fights when Bellator signed him. He got in early at Bellator. But he's a student man. He's going to keep getting better. He's pretty young. Young still. So many more kinds of crazy. That's crazy. Right? And you think

how small he is. He's fought at 185 in the UFC. And he submitted two hundred sixty-pound mark hunt. Yeah, you got him. Musashi was a fucking beast. He was just technique. Yep. Just technique, toughness and intelligence. Just so crafty, just so good everywhere. Good on the brown,

good standing up and super patient, man. A lot of. Yeah. Yeah. He's always been a fan of him.

There's a lot of those guys that just got people forget about. They've forgotten. You know, yeah, a bunch. I always say people one guy that people underestimate it because they didn't get to see him when he was in his prime or they just forgot is Mazvedal. Oh, people forgot how good Mazvedal is. Mazvedal knocked out Eve Edwards through the head kick. Yeah. Yeah. Bow dog. Yep. Yeah. Bro, Mazvedal in his prime was a mother fucker. He was good. When he knocked out

“Darren Till, remember that shit? That switch step or oh my god. Yeah. Of course. Switch step. I think”

he caught him with left hook knocked him out and cold. Cold. And he was a dog. When he started focused on his wrestling, he was at the hook and strike force, man. At 55. Like, yep. Oh, yeah. He was a dog back then. No, Mazvedal was a beast man. And he's good everywhere, man. He's good everywhere. He has good Gigiitsu, good wrestling. Uh-huh. Kickboxing. Yeah. He's good everywhere. I mean, when he went out of the 170, the hot really is way class. His real way class was 55. Yeah,

a little bit taller. He's taller than me for sure, man. But like, when he was really competitive, I feel like it was at 55. Yeah. But I mean, like he gave guys problems at 70. Like the Darren Till fight was at 70. He fucked a lot of guys up at 10. Cowboy. Yep. Cowboy was at a 7. Body shot 170. Damn. Yeah. No, Mazvedal. People forgot. There's people. And then, you know, he was having those backyard fights in the Kimbo slice days, which is crazy. The bare knuckle Kimbo slice fights.

Yeah, man. Kimbo used to come to the American top team. He used to bring his kids and stuff.

It was crazy talking to him because I grew up watching his fights, you know. But he was like the first

guy to become a legend on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody knows who he is. Pussy looks so cool. The bald head and the beard and the hair on the back. Yeah. Everything was crazy. The braids and the bad super jacked and just fucking people up in the backyard. Yeah. Like they were moving around I think he was a shit a bodyguard or a driver for a guy in Miami who started a porn company

“and that's how it started. Exactly. Yeah. And they organized these fights. Yeah.”

Whether it was just no warm up. All right. Let's go. No, you get out the car in the front. Yeah. Front driveway and walk to the back and just start scrapping. I know. It's crazy. But as a kid, like when that stuff came out as a kid, there was such a big thing to watch. You know, that we had to download it illegally and like lime wire or something back then. Yeah. You know, that was tough a while times. And then to see him in the UFC and the ultimate fighter

do what a journey that guy has. I know what balls it took for him to do that to enter into the UFC with like basically zero grappling. Yeah. And he like really just kind of learning the sport. But you know, so good boxing. But I don't think like gym not train boxing, just natural ability. And well, you definitely had some training, right? The way he moved was even in the bare knuckle the way he moved was like a boxer or shell, you know. Yeah. Like a Mike Tyson movement. Yeah, but it was like

kind of rudimentary. Remember when he fought Seth Petra Zellie? Yeah. Yeah. Like last minute Petra Zellie comes in last minute like Ken Shamrock had some sort of a dispute with them and maybe got cut backstage or something instead of how to cut. And so like last minute, they swapped out Seth Petra Zellie and he knocked him out. Yeah. I called that one. What I called that one.

“Elite X camera. No, I wasn't doing it. The commentary. I think it was Elite X. I think that”

bankrupt them or something. I don't know how like they that fight bankrupt them? I don't know if it'd bankrupt them. But after that happened, they didn't have many more shows after that. Why think they were going under anyway? Unfortunately. I don't know how that fight would have bankrupt them. Well, they had some guy who was a boxing guy who was running the whole thing. Was the name Gary Shaw? I don't know if I can't remember either. But you know, like it's hard

to make money in these things, man. Like those things are hard. Like the UFC doesn't get the credit deserves in terms of the promotional machine. Like that's a smooth running machine. Oh, yeah. That machine's been around for a long time. It's so polished. Between the production, all the guys in the truck that directors, the producers, the best of the best. Yeah, that's the best. It's hard. And then you got all the best fighters. And it's like the product. So when they have

a fight like Holloway and all of a era and like, oh, this fight wasn't good. Like that's a great fight, man. It's just you can't be a casual. People are just bloodthirsty. Yeah. You know, like this listen to do that to Max Holloway is crazy. Do you know how to appreciate that? Go watch baseball.

Wrestlers, great grapplers have never done that to him. I know. It's nuts. It's nuts if you think about it.

Yeah. It's exciting, man. The UFC's definitely the best at it with this whole paramount thing. I was kind of, we'll see how it turns out. I was kind of worried. Like if you take paper view off the table,

“how much is UFC going to put the biggest fights together? Do they don't need to sell paper views?”

They're guaranteed money. You know, I was just wondering if that would not water it down, but then we'd get a bunch of weaker cards and I'm still waiting to find out. What is weird, right? Because with paper view, you're always building it up so that people buy it. And then it also points like the fighters get paid points. So how are fighters getting paid now? I've been asking every show I work. I ask everybody, I want to know because I've, you know, my last few years in the UFC,

I was telling you. Nobody's telling me anything. But keeping you in the dark. Keep it in the dark. Keep it in the dark. Keep it in the dark. Because, you know, I was a paper view partner,

multiple fights with UFC. If there's, and that was always the thing, they kind of

in discussion about contracts and about future fights, that they kind of held over you. Like, right, you win this fight. One day, you're going to fight for the belt. You're going to get paper view. Your life's going to change. That was always a carrot. They hung like to make, you know, to do anything. That was the goal to one day fight for the belt and get the paper view money. But now that that's gone, I mean, Conner's not going to fight, even Justin at the White House. There's

no way these guys are fighting with that back door money. So they must be just guaranteeing them a bigger pair. I don't know. Well, I think Justin would fight no matter what, because it's for the title. This is last fight. Well, that, yeah, the title, the title. But any particular, that's the White House. He's a patriot. It's the last fight. You know, I think he would fight no matter what. But

you saw what she said, but she has a big long speech about the UFC selling for $7 billion and these

fighters aren't making enough money. And, you know, look, she made some good points. And the most important thing is that she gets the conversation out there and it puts pressure on the UFC to pay people more. You know, and if Netflix can become successful at MMA, if they can become successful putting cars together and pulling fighters away, like right now they're doing a one-off. Right. It's one-off and it's kind of a gimmicky thing. And listen, this payroll is going to be crazy.

It's going to be crazy. You got Rhonda Francis. Oh, Nate, these, everybody's getting lazy money. The payroll is going to be nuts. But if anybody's got that kind of money, it's not flexing. They throw around a lot of ridiculous money. They make so much money. So they can kind of do that. The question is, are they going to do that more than once? So if they do that more than once, then what happens is it's all about the name of the fighters just like boxing.

Like if boxing, no one cares if it's gold and boy, of course. No, of course. No one cares about that. What they care about is who's fighting who? Is it benefit as who's he fighting? He's fighting baseball? Let's go. That's a great fight. So if if Netflix can kind of do the boxing thing on Netflix with like big name stars, they can be a major player. And that will elevate everybody's pay scale.

So as a lot of people like, oh Rhonda, how could you turn her back on the UFC and talk shit like that? If she's what she's saying doesn't make any sense, she can't say it. Right? So if what she's

“saying makes sense, then you have to go, she's got a point. She's got a point. She's got a point.”

They sold it for $7 billion or whatever it is. They got this billion, $7 billion deal. Whatever the fucking deal was with Paramount. Not even selling it. So it writes to it. That makes sense. She's making sense. And so if she's saying this and Netflix listens and if someone comes along and they're a shrewd business man, they go, look, and a lot of people, their contracts are coming up. And when these people's contracts are coming up, let's get in

negotiations. And then also, some people start drifting over. So I've like, you get like an Islam market show starts leaving and they leave and go fight in Netflix. And then they can talk four or five top major contenders into doing it. Look, it's a big ask. Look, I love the UFC. Spend my most of my professional career there. But I love seeing these other organizations come up and people making money. Like you said, it rises everything. It's more places for people to work.

You know, it's great. It's only good. Olivier Alba and Mercy. It's only a million dollars

“in the PFL. Yeah. And I think he made me did it more than once, right? Did anyone”

the tournament twice or something like that? I'm not sure. Do you definitely want it at least once? So the Canadian gangster. Right. A guy who's not in the top 10 of the UFC goes over to another organization to make some million dollars. Right. Okay. I don't know if that's sustainable for them. I don't know how they came up with that money. They got to be bleeding money out, have to be bleeding, you know. Nobody's wild. Or even guys like Pettis who was a former world champion,

who you know his contract was good in the UFC. Right. Didn't choose not to resound with the UFC and he went to PFL. They had to be paying him big money. They have to be, you know. So

it's all competition ultimately is good for the most important thing which is paying the fighters.

Yeah. So I'm happy. And places to work. Like if the UFC cuts you or something, you back, you know, 10 years ago, there's only place to make money. Right. They cut you. Now you got to get a job, maybe fight, try to get back in part time fighting. Like try to get, you know, now you can pivot and still have a career. Well, this is the thing with Francis when Francis left the PFL. Everybody's like, well, now he's fucked because he can't fight in the UFC. He can't, like, I wanted him

to come back to the UFC. Yeah. I was like, come on. Can we figure out a way to do this? I do, to happen. But Dana just does not want everything to do with them. Like apparently they did not

“get along very well. Which is like, I'm like, come on. Yeah. I don't know. Can I help?”

Can I fucking? Media isn't a room together. And fucking calm everybody down.

But at the most important thing is he's still like, I want to watch. Oh, yeah. You know,

possibly. I don't watch. I mean, he's still the jet heavyweight champion. If you think about it, it never got beat in MMA as a heavyweight champion. You know, and then he fought Henan Ferra in PFL. Yeah. It's another 82 guy. But it's another one where it's like, who's watching that? I mean, and if you're watching it, you're just watching it for Francis. Me and you. Yeah. Like, I mean, I want to know, like, what were the numbers for that fight? It's probably the biggest fight

they ever put on. I don't think I've ever seen any numbers from PFL. And I think, like, the, if he was like getting 20 million of fine and he wanted his opponents to get a huge amount too. I forget what the he like a minimum amount of opponents would get in his contract to respect. That's not that. Yeah. That's awesome. That's part of his contract. I forget what the number was, but it was substantial. So Henan Ferra got a giant payday for that fight, too. Good. It's like, how

shows because they went to Saudi to, to do some shows. But I don't know if they're back in them to hold the whole company. You, you, you're going to need something like Netflix. And Netflix can kind of pull it off because Netflix has a massive promotional machine, but they, they need big names. So like now that they have Nate and Mike Perry on the car, too. Like, okay, okay. So you got Nate, Mike Perry. You got Francis Phillip Lens. You have Ronda and Gina. Okay. Now you have

three interesting fights. Yeah. You got to need a few more. And it's on Netflix. So it's going to be free, but even if Nate and Mike Perry was the headliner. Yeah. I would have bought that pay if you 100% when you don't have to buy it. Exactly. Yeah. So this is what gets interesting. So if this fight

goes on Netflix and gets a 50 million views, it's going to get a lot. Yeah. It could get more views than

any fight ever. Yeah. It could. It's very possible that that, because Netflix is bigger than anything, if they got more views than anybody ever, that would be fucking, but then YouTube might come along. Most of you have a mixed muscle arts event. Hey guys, we're YouTube. We're even bigger than Netflix. YouTube is bigger than fucking Netflix. Yeah. YouTube is everywhere. And if they come up with some crazy case, if more players get involved in this and more people become free agents, it could get very

interesting. It is crazy to see how far the sport has come, because like back all these big companies wouldn't want to touch this human cockfighting back in the day. Now everybody wants to piece of the fly. It's cool now. They know. Yeah. It's cool now. That cage fighting became something that like corporate America wants to get involved. I mean the airport, I mean the grocery store, grandmothers, old, you know, ladies are walking up to me, talking about fights, which is insane. It's insane.

15 years ago, it was loves it. Bearded guys with tattoos with being the grocery store. We'd whisper about it, you know? It was frowned upon. We'd talk about fight club, you know? Yeah. Now it's like

“soccer moms. Did you see the fight last week in the arm bar? I'm like, what are you talking about?”

Well, that's all that you have seen. You have seen with that one deal. The fatitas have such huge balls,

because they were down $40 million when they made that deal for Spike TV to do the ultimate fighter.

And they were like, we're fucking hemorrhaging money. And they were talking about selling it. And it's just a perfect storm step in and for us. The world was watching, man. And it felt special. I remember being at my mother's house. I knew I was watching some special. Like this is special. I know. It was crazy being there alive too. It was so nuts. It was so nuts to watch it evolve and watch it burst out. And by then, by 2005, I'd already been working for them for like four

years. Because I, well, I started in '97 with the old owners and I did like the backstage and post-fight interviews. And then I did it for a little bit. Then I had a quit. I was like, this is costing me money. Yeah. I made more money going to a comedy club for a weekend than I would flying to Dotha, Alabama. But I was happy I did it because it was fun and is

“exciting. And I remember me and Eddie Bravo back then. We were like, man, you know what the UFC needs.”

This is like literally a conversation we had in like '98. They need some crazy billionaires that love the sport. Just dump a bunch of money in it because we know it's exciting. It's just the rest of the world doesn't know. And along came the fratitas. And they did it. Did they saw it and rode that vision out and it paid off? It's nuts. You know. Literally look exactly what we said needed to happen. And then for that fight to happen in the ultimate fighter, which between Stefan Bonner

and Forest Griffith. Because it was a perfect kind of fight. It was so evenly matched. It was so chaotic. And they knew each other so well being in the house together that just went after it. For three solid rounds at the end, both guys were like, uh, but do that. Nothing. How could the idea of the actual Kumite idea of putting the best fighters from all over the world, whatever discipline they trained in, let's find out was the bet that's, I mean, it's of course

it's going to succeed. It's chaos. Yeah. It's everything you want to see. And the crazy thing it was really kind of invented as a showcase for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Because the olhorian was like, you

know, like, look, Jiu-Jitsu is going to prevail. And he was kind of right. No, I mean at first,

dude, hoist was in there against giants, dance havern. Dude, come on, chemo, what do you weigh? 180 pounds, 180 pounds, not even, I think he was 176, fighting these body builders. And I asked him why they pick chemicals. Look at this face. He looked a beautiful ass. So good looking.

“That's why they picked me wearing pajamas. We even know what a ghee was.”

I had no idea Jiu-Jitsu was that, that effective. I was so confused. Yeah, I was like, someone's going to kick him. He's fucked. Someone got punch him. Oh, no. Like, he's just taking dues to the ground. That's stomp. And I'm like, no, I can't do anything that they're doing. Just let him pass guard. Let him do it. Yeah. Do anything. You don't know anything. He's choking guys with the ghee, too. He's grabbing his own balls. I'm like, oh, this is wild.

I competed IBJGA. If every tournament I could would do my way class would do absolute, get the reps. I love Jiu-Jitsu. But I could probably around 2011, 2012. I stopped putting the ghee on. You know, it was all at mixed martial arts training. Because I was getting before I would use Jiu-Jitsu to prepare for fights at a small school. I was at, but when I went to American top team, I didn't need any more because I had such high level guys on the mats at all

times. I was doing Jiu-Jitsu no ghee every day. But it's been so many years since I've put on a ghee and had like a Jiu-Jitsu practice, man. Even the practices I do now are all no ghee. It's fun. I want to get back into ghee. Geese fun. But Eddie Bravo said it best. He goes, if you were a professional tennis player, would you practice for tennis by playing rock ball? No, you wouldn't. You would play

“tennis. You would do the thing that you do. If you want to get really good at MMA Jiu-Jitsu, you”

need to do no ghee. And he's right. I mean, ghee definitely helps as well, but you got to do no ghee. What ghee does is it teaches you that you have to be technical with your defense because you can't

muscle out of things. But the reality is like you should just be technical with no ghee.

For sure. That's the thing. Like get out of things. Like, I always say that the best Jiu-Jitsu is to learn Jiu-Jitsu from a small guy. Like all techniques. Yeah, like like a bar, you know, she'd a wheyler, Gracie, Eddie Bravo. Like learn Jiu-Jitsu from small people because they're all technique. They can't muscle out of things. Exactly. You learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from some big giant motherfucker. Like their their game is going to be so different because they're so strong.

But like, look at like the sumbo guys. Look at the machachaves and kebabs. Like that. That's the game of no ghee. That's no ghee. It's like their their no ghee game is finally polished. Yeah. Finally, that's it's not going to help them to wear a ghee. They're their game wouldn't be

better. Like kebabs game wouldn't have been better. It's all top. You never see this guy's

on their back in the yard. It's a different. It's a different speed. It's Jiu-Jitsu. It's a different different game. Yeah. What they do. Small, small changes on the locks like we were saying with a large choke grab your forearm. They do things a little bit different. Even their wrestling like is different. It's not collegiate fundamental wrestling that you would teach at a wrestling camp. It's just chain wrestling that they kind of develop and have their own style. Man, it's different.

It really is interesting. And then, you know, when I've talked to Daniel, he's like dude, I've seen could be put it on like high level amateur wrestlers in the gym. Put it on them.

“And I believe it too. I mean, he's just his discipline when he was in his prime and his discipline”

was just above and beyond. His discipline, his drive is focused. And there's something to be said for those guys too because they're super religious. So there's no party in, there's no drink in, there's no chasing women, there's no bullshit. It's just drive, drive, drive, drive, drive. You know, in that collecting the legs that he does with the triangle underneath the legs when he's in Mount against the fence. So hard to get out of everybody's doing it now. You know,

the wrist ride, the handcuff he's doing, everybody's doing it. Yeah. I mean, it's been really interesting to watch like these dominant forces come along and like sort of remap the landscape of the game, you know, and we've seen it with them. Especially in such a high stakes game, how do you do with that many times without catching a heel to the face without catching a knee? The guys he's fought so many dangerous guys. He's just drowned them, you know. I know. Well,

you know, Islam got caught and that one fight got knocked out. Adriana Martinez. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. But it just shows you as a human being. Yeah, it can happen to anyone can happen anybody. And the Glacin T-Bow fight with, uh, with Kabib. I feel like Glacin, oh, man. I know a lot of

people always talk about that. I feel like Glacin won that fight. Me and T-Bow had been training partners

for so we beat each other up so much. He's such a fun guy, man. Glacin, such a good dude. He's another guy like how the fuck are you 150? So much energy dude never complains about anything. He could have the 50 pound weight cut smiling in the sauna. Just happy to be here. Just hope he just hope both teams have fun. That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. Just a happy go guy, man. Just I watch that fight again because I was like, am I talking out of school? Should I shut the fuck up?

“And I watch it again. I go now. I think he won. Was it a split? I don't remember. I don't remember”

a split. But he was stopping takedowns. Yeah. And he was a tank. That guy was a tank. He was big. He was big and jacked. Dude, probably 5-8, 0-5-7. Little sausage. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know either. I don't know. Skillful. Super skillful. You know, solid striking, solid jujitsu. Oh, great jujitsu. Very good. Everywhere. Black belt and jujitsu. Strongest buck. And just, you know, they knew from an early age because I think his middle name is Herculino. I'm serious.

names, you know. I bet. Yeah. Gleason T-Bah, Alvez, Herculino. A few other things that I'm missing. I'm sure. Yeah. I'm serious though. Johnny Gleason, maybe. T-Bah. I don't know. He has a few names that that's fine. I'm serious. Really? Yeah. A bunch of names that nobody knows. Mm-hmm. That's hilarious, man. Well, an American top team, man. You probably have seen more elite talent come through those doors. Shout out to Dan Lambert. Well, Dan's a man. That motherfucker put the money in,

put the time in when there was no money to be made. There was none. That guy was just loved it. It was a passion thing. And just think it's just like what we said with the UFC, we need a rich guy to come along and just throw the money out of it. Yeah. Like that's what Dan did with American top team. I remember when he was putting together the new American top team facilities and he showed me that we're going to have dorms, we're going to have this one.

I was like, this dude's trying to go broke. Like what are you doing? Dude, it's huge. And that area's crazy expensive. It's on a huge piece of land. I need to get Dan in here. I know for sure. I talked to him about it before, but he deserves, he deserves a credit because that guy.

“And dude, honestly, like him built in the gym and asking fighters for 5% which is, you know,”

crazy on herd of other gyms are taken crazy amounts. You know, he's given you all these amenities, he's given you a place to stay. Yeah. At one point he had houses as well, fighter houses that he bought and he would put fighters up in the houses for camps and stuff. Dude, I've heard of him

paying covering medical bills that fighters didn't have money for. Never getting paid back. Yeah.

Like, like, all types, he's done so much stuff, man. Yeah. Yeah. A good, good for the sport. So amazing for the sport. And if he didn't put together that super gym, who knows how many of these super gyms would have ever evolved because he kind of set the blueprint for what what a gym could be to this day that's still the best gym in the world in terms of like super gym so much knowledge, man. Right. And so many odd so much equipment. It's so big. It's so well-made.

And you never know who's going to be on the mat. At any time you walk in and do an MMA class, there's literally thousands of mixed martial arts about experience on the mat. What's Robbie his first World Champion? I was there for every camp when Robbie came over. Uh, I feel like it might have been like it. Well, there was like, everybody was like, Dan Lambert deserves a World Champion. Someone's got to be a World Champion. Robbie might have been

the first dude. Thank you. Might have been the-- Well, I mean, Mike Brown was WC. Yeah. There's been

but UFC Champion. UFC Champion. UFC Champion. Robbie Lawler was number one. I remember when he came over, man. Hey, how was Pan Toja? Do you know how was Elf? I don't know how the injury is, but it has to be bad if they're skipping him and going with this. Uh, I know. Other title fight. I know. I was there like two weeks ago. I went down to help some buddies. I spent a week there. I didn't see Pan Toja at all. So it was so nasty. But it was really weird. Was like when Megan

“Olivia was talking to us, they were saying that he dislocated his shoulder. And I was like, what?”

What? Like what are you talking about? Is Elba went out? Like I'm watching his elbow. Yeah, look like the elbow. And they said, no, but I think they, the doctor had mispoke. And I'm 99% sure that it was actually the elbow that went out. Because the elbow clearly moves and it caves in and gives out. Right. And when that happens, ligaments, muscles, and everything gets damaged, but I just don't know the extent. Well, it's too bad because also Pan Toja's older and he's older and dominant in

flyweight, which is very hard to do. It sucks at any time to see a fight in like that terrible, but especially a title fight, especially a title fight, especially on the streak he was on, defending the belt. Like it just, not just that. And he's such a hard worker, it's such a quiet guy, just a good dude. You know, he's a fucking savage too. I think he's one of the greatest of all time. The postfight data said something about the shoulder also. They popped his shoulder back in.

I thought it was the elbow. Well, it was the elbow. It says it's not the elbow. It was his shoulder. It says elbow as well though. It's got him. That's weird. I follow a post that there was no ligament damage. But I was trying to find them updated. So even if there's no ligament damage, there could be cartilage damage. Oh, yeah. Yeah. A lot of others. Any time something bends the way it's not supposed to and soft tissue damage. His weight and Joshua Vans weight all on one

“arm posted and that arm gives out. But damn, dude, when he fought that Japanese cat, who is that guy?”

Brand through him. When Pantoshita? Yeah. Like he's just see how good he is. When he fought Kai, Car, France ran through him. I was like, this dude is on fire, right? No, he's good, man. He's on fire. I think Pantosh is one of the best of all time. And dude, not loud, not flash. You're quiet.

You're walking the gym. Go, be in practice. You won't notice him. Just work and always does his work.

Just work and just fucking focus. Just a soldier. I love to see that though, man, because like a few years before he was the flyway champion, he was driving Uber or Uber eats, like just trying to make him, you know, scrap into to get bills paid. And you see a guy because that's what makes fighting so special though. You know, like Teddy Atlas has a speech about it.

background and call yourself the world, the champion of the world. Like true. So powerful.

“In any given night, you can go against the odds and be a busted Douglas or be a Uber East”

driver and be the world champion, you know, a couple years later. Like, it's just special, man. Fighting combat is special. It is special and it is the end all of all sports. Like if someone shoots a basket and they make a three-pointer on you, you're like, okay, but I can still fuck you up. You know, no one says after you fucked them up, yeah, but I could score a basket on you. No one cares. Dude, it's the end of all sports. The end of all everything, the middle of the

best middle school come back. Yeah. How do you can beat me though? Yeah. Can't beat me though. That was like they come back for anything. Can't beat me though. Like that's the top of the line. That's the top challenge. Exactly. The top challenge. Doesn't matter if you're better at backgammon. Right. To say you don't tell me, but I'll beat you. Yeah, beating someone's ass is the, that's the end goal that's where all sports aspire to be. Yeah, it's combat sports. So do you have plans for stuff you want to

do outside of fighting now? Like now that you're retired and now you're settling in.

“Be a good dad, be a good husband. That's my, that's my goals. Always. But I have a few other businesses,”

you know, I've had for years. I got a documentary. You got a great hot sauce. Got a great hot sauce. That hot sauce is a good job. Well, let's that. Thank you, man. It's legit. Poor years, the we're going to start hot sauce. It's not white label. We made this. We developed good, dude. I agree. Thank you. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of it. Yeah. When you send it to me, I was like, okay, I'll try it. I'm like, oh, shit. It's legit. Vinegar based. Vinegar based kind of very good. Yeah. Very good hot sauce.

Thank you. Yeah. I put it with celery in there. Can tell you put some work into that. Yeah. I didn't want it to. There's so many vinegar based hot sauce is on a shelf. You know, you get lost in that and the shelf space is so hard to get. I learned I'm learning all this business stuff as I'm moving forward, you know. And now that I'm done fighting, I get to really see where the hot sauce is

because every fight, every promotion, I got to talk about it and sales always around every fight

we're great. But now we're going to level off and see what kind of stride we have. Well,

“it's legit, man. I recommend it highly. Thank you, man. It's very good. Besides that,”

I have a few businesses in Lafayette and I'm really getting excited to have a documentary coming out this year. The same guys who made my first documentary, Fightville. I don't know if you've seen it. It came out in 2011. It was on Netflix. I actually did a premiere here. It's all by Southwest. Showtime picked it up. But the same company that did that pepper and bones is doing my retirement documentary. So they did the whole last training camp filmed. They were

living Germany. So they would fly down, stay with in camp. They did the whole fight weekend New Orleans then they came back down for Thanksgiving, this recent Thanksgiving and finished up the documentary. And they have hundreds of hours of footage on release from when I was 17, 18 years old. Wow. So they got the big, they got the whole journey. Wow. Just randomly, this guy was filming a war veteran who turned, he was doing a, him and his wife are documentary makers. And they were

following this guy who just got back from the Middle East and he happened to be a fighter. And I met the guy at a fight show. I fought on. He was filming the other guy for a war film started talking and then he just, man, I'm interested in you. Let me start, start filming me and then do now I have all this hundreds of hours of footage of a me fighting amateur, small shows, behind the scenes at my house, like as a kid. Oh, that's incredible. Yeah. So we're going to

put it all into this documentary. Dude, that's awesome. That's amazing. Well, listen brother, whatever you do, you know, if you put the same energy that you put into becoming a great fighter, you'd be great at anything you do. That's just the beautiful thing about doing the most difficult thing is everything else is definitely going to be easier. I want to go back to the difficult thing. I don't want the ace. It's hard to let it go, right? It's hard to be as like,

like I tell my wife. I say this a lot. If I can be a civilian to go from fight life every day for for so long to be a civilian, it's like I'm relearning who I am. Maybe a couple boxing matches. Maybe the UFC let you out. I would love to. Do you think the UFC let you out of contract do you some boxing matches? No, I don't think so. Unless the power was big enough to wear, I don't think so. Oh, they should. But I'm not fucking fighting Floyd,

me whether the pot ain't going to be big enough. Right. You know, because there was a Russian company that wanted me a Nate to box. Yeah, you see, he said no. I didn't even bring it to him. Ariel Hoani hit me up and said, hey, any interest in this? I have interest, but I didn't want to bring it to Hunter and Dana. I didn't want to ask him. Do you have a job? Yeah. Do you have us after this? I tried to do the benefit. I tried to let's do it in Zufu boxing. Yeah, that's silly

that they don't want to do any crossovers, but I get it. Dude, I don't know if I want any more head trauma either, Joe. Yeah. Yeah, I want to raise my son and that's true too. That's true, too. I have 50 something fights. Right. That's true, too. Maybe just let it go.

It'll never be gone. Keep it in the back of your head. Just work out. It'll never be gone.

tonight. Yeah, he'll be there tonight. I hope so. I didn't, I didn't message him. Oh,

“he was there. William Montgomery shout out to William. Dude, I didn't even catch the you were saying that”

and when you were jumping, he hit me. I never got to stop. I didn't realize that and then everybody

online told me, oh, he's doing William Montgomery. I was like, oh my god, I don't miss that. I was 100% doing William Montgomery, but also, I can't give you the benefit of the doubt. Do my delivery

“was kind of bad. It wasn't the exact, I was just so focused when I'm doing postfight interviews.”

I'm just always so focused and trying to get everything out of the fighter that they want to say.

That's all I'm thinking of is, what can I ask him that can help them better express themselves after this big victory? Yeah. You know, so it's like, I was the underdog and Mike, every time I went

“to the corners, like, stop jumping guilty. You're giving up, take down. You're not going to get cut it out.”

Don't do it. I'm like, was that the Ben Walsh hand that he never got to stop? Yeah. Yeah, that was

a great victory too, man. That was a good one. Yeah, with the streaky zone, this age and ageing will age well. Very well. Listen, brother, you're an all-time great. It's an honor. So cool to have you here again. Thank you for having me. And congratulations on an amazing career. Thanks for doing me. And I guess I said, you're going to kill it with whatever you do, whatever you're doing life. Try to be cut. I'm going to try to do the desk work and see where

that goes. Yes. And by his hot sauce. It's the jet. You heard? All right. Thank you, sir. Bye, buddy. But what I want to do is not to be a champion of the whole studio. The master of the club, Leapt, her soft hand, the internet. So master, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry. You can say that you're a hero. Yeah, you're a player. But you don't believe me. No. You're a hero. You're a hero. You're a hero. You're a hero. You're a hero. And when you then work, you're a catcher. That's right.

Save. You're a hero. You're a hero. Now you're a hero. Let's go. Let's go.