JRE MMA Show #178 with Dan Hardy

The Joe Rogan experience.

>> Join my day Joe Rogan podcast by night, our day. [MUSIC] >> We have the wrong moment. >> Okay, see you, brother. >> Great to see you, man.

>> What is this? >> Well, man, what is that? >> Oh, this is mold of it. Have you heard a mold of it before? >> No.

>> So a meteorite hit in the Czech Republic millions of years ago. And the particular tech type that was created from the Earth matter falling back down to the ground, became mold of it. And it's, most tech types are like a black or a brown, but mold of it's green.

Let me show you. >> It's really interesting. >> It's just, hold it. >> It's got some on the screen, right? >> There we go, hold it up to the light.

>> Oh, that's fucking dope.

So it's basically like nuclear glass.

>> Exactly, that's the same type of it. >> Wow. And then that's the case my wife had made for me. And it's wrapped in an old chain that belonged to my dad. >> Oh, that's dope.

>> Yeah, keep with me all the time. >> Yeah, that's fucking cool, man. >> I used to have a piece in, you know, the old triambulots with the little little bronze. I used to have one in that, took it out, put it, I put the,

took the Buddha out, I put a piece of mold of it and it wrapped in a piece of UFC canvas. And I wore it just all the time, but then my wife upgraded me as she tries to do all the time. So the UFC gave you a chunk of canvas.

>> I have a whole canvas. >> Woo. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, nice. >> Which fight?

>> It was Vadim Volkov from UFC London. >> And it's just, it's covered in Vadim's blood. It was supposed to be pretty badly. So, but it had to be in quarantine for like 12 months until they gave it to me, really?

>> Yeah, yeah. >> 'Cause not a lot, it's a biohazard. >> So it's an old die after 12 months. >> I guess so, I mean, I guess so, it was kept in a warehouse. And then they, yeah, they dropped it off for me.

>> Did it? >> The jacket? >> I think she was not. >> I don't know. >> I mean, I wouldn't lick it, but it looks fine to me.

>> What could possibly be in the blood? I mean, doesn't everybody get tested? >> That's a good point. >> That's a good point. >> Maybe there's just some kind of rule.

“I think they incinerate them all now, don't they?”

>> I don't really. >> I mean, they keep the, they've got the pieces with the names, but I think the rest of it gets disposed of now. >> Huh. >> Yeah.

>> I wonder if there's any logic to that. >> I don't know. >> Or if it's just people being scared. >> Yeah, maybe, maybe. It's a cool thing.

I've actually gotten the wall of my house, believe it or not. >> I hope really? >> Yeah, I had it in the gym, but then it's on the wall of my house now. >> Oh, that's nice. >> That's pretty cool.

>> Yeah. >> It's just a nice thing to have, you know. >> Dude, what happened with you in the UFC? >> Like, I don't know the story. I don't know.

>> I know you got into it with Herb Dean. >> Yeah. >> About a stoppage, a late stoppage. >> Yeah. >> And you, you were upset.

This was during COVID, right?

“>> Yeah, this was, I think it was Fight Island 3.”

And it was, it was the second fight of the night where it happened.

There was a heavy weight that had gone down. And just take, just took a bunch too many shots before the fight was stopped. But the, the J. Herbert, Francisco Trinado, one was the, the one where you heard me shout up and y'all stopped the fight. And it was just that it was a weird circumstance.

And look, you know, caveat, herbs are great referees, referee me a lot. But every now and then people do make mistakes. And in Fight Island, everyone was tired. It was quiet in the arena as well. So you can, I mean, you can hear me yelling.

It wasn't the first time I'd done it though. I yelled at him in Moscow for a $CB dollar way fight. And it's, the thing is, there's a point where I'm there for the knockouts, I'm there for the blood. But I'm also there to make sure that once it's done,

it's done, the most fight is a protected. >> Right, you know. >> And the way that, the, the J. Herbert fell. It was just, you, you get the reason, you know it. >> You see him falling, you're like, man, there's something

not right about the way that he's falling. And then as he landed, he was looking up at the lighting rig. But his arms were kind of stretched out. >> So he was gone. >> He was gone, he was out of it.

“And then there was this, and I think, of course,”

because it was quarantine times, it was silent in there. The time, it was like you could hear a heartbeat in the air. And there was just this moment where Trinardo stood over him and looked at Herb, and J is still on the floor kind of not fully conscious. And Trinardo just, just started cracking in with more shots.

And that was the point where I stood up straight away. And I'm yelling and Paul Felder was doing the same thing next to me. You actually see Herb look at me through the cage and point at me and tell me to shut up. The thing that annoyed me about it was the miscommunication about what had happened.

Because the message that got back to Dana, and everybody at the top, was that I left my commentary desk and went over and I was stood outside the cage. And I wasn't, Herb came to me. So like, I'm at my desk, we've got this piece of plexiglass, because it's all COVID-19, right?

>> Right. >> That stopped everything, didn't it? And then we had another desk in front of that.

He's a big old boy, but he was moving at pace towards me.

“So I stood up, took my headset off and put them down or had them in my hand.”

And he came over and he started yelling at me and you know, you stay out of it, can't be shouting in this and that.

And that's where you see me go, that was two times, it's the second time of the night.

Um, after the, I mean, as it's going on, and this was when we're not doing interviews in the cages, well, right? So I'm standing there, also a little bit. >> Yeah, kind of just breathing out each other, sweating and bleeding on each other. >> And we shaking hands in the hotel and everything, and it was kind of odd.

But because I'm not going into the cage, I'm now turning around and my interview camera's behind me. So basically, what the U.S. he wanted me to do when Herb's marching over to me, it was to stand up, turn my back on him and put my headset on. And me as a martial artist, I'm not gonna turn my back on someone when they're moving out

me with the kind of pace that he was. So I, everything got a bit delayed because I was having an interact with interaction with Herb. As soon as the event was over, and I was on my way over to the ESPN desk, Herb and I bumped into each other. And we had just had a brief minute conversation. Everything was cool. I said, look, I respect you as a referee.

You left that one to late. There was no doubt, and it was the second one the night.

“And there are other instances where it's happened, right?”

Nobody's perfect. I would make mistakes as well, of course, very difficult job. Very, very difficult job. The thing annoyed me though, and for me it was done then. When I got backstage someone from the production team confronted me about approaching Herb, I tried to make sure that the narrative was set correctly that he actually came over to me.

But that never got escalated up the chain.

So it was always, you know, you approach it, official, etc., etc., etc. And it just so happened to coincide with where someone had approached Mark Goddard and pushed him under the event UAE Warriors. So the whole thing kind of got convoluted and bundled into the same thing. Was that the corner situation? No, that was in Belittor, but there was another one.

It was UAE Warriors, and I think someone kept hold of a choke too long and then Goddard separated the fight and then he came over to Mark and he's trying to push Mark and stuff. And when Dana actually made the statement about, if you approach an official, you'll be gone. That was actually reference to the other thing that happened. But it was linked him with me as well.

The thing that pissed me off is when I got to the back to the hotel or to the airport or whatever. Herbert posted this video and he was like sitting at the airport, you know, trying to just defy what had happened. But it was just like, it was saying things like, if you think you're the smartest guy in the room and just like poking at me, just constantly. And I'm like, I've got a bunch of hours sitting on a plane and we're back to the UK now.

And you know what I'm like? I'm pulling this apart and I'm like, did I step out of line? Did I see something I shouldn't have said? And I'm assessing it. And then I'm going, no hang on a minute. Like my intention is to protect that fighter that needed protecting, right? His family at home sitting watching that. They don't want to see him getting smashed in the face unnecessarily. They know the risks of the job already. So I kind of sat on the plane on the way home

and I'm like, how am I going to deal with this? So I dealt with it the way that I would always do.

I get all the facts on the table. I try and organize my response. And what I did was I created a video that I put up on YouTube, which the UFC actually contacted YouTube and had them delete off the back end. Oh, and it was about, it was about an hour and a quarter long. It was a decent chunk of chunk of information. But I went through what had happened on the night. Other circumstances where Herbert maybe not pulled the trigger quick enough, or times when he'd been in decisive,

“like Calboy Mazvedal, not sure whether you remember that one. Calboy went down at the end of the”

first round and they actually helped him back to his stool and sat him on the stool and Greg Jackson's going, hey, Calboy, you're okay. Everything's fine. Then he went out and got TKOed at the start the second round. But if you remember that, Herbert jumps in and waves the fight off at the end of the round and then decides to restart it in the second. So I pointed out a bunch of things where he could have maybe done a better job. I also gave him the benefit of the doubt in like the

Robby Lawler Ben Askroom fight where to me, that wasn't stopped early. You could see Robby Lawler's arm fall for a second. I think he went out for a split second and then came back. Yeah, and then complained about it. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Once you've got a great name for your business, you need a great domain and Squarespace makes it easy to lock in a domain. You just search the name you want by it and then you're ready to build. No hidden fees,

no weird upsells. Go to Squarespace.com/rogan for a free trial and when you are ready to launch, use the code Rogan to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So in that moment, and you're hard to tell. It's very hard to tell, but you can see

things are going to happen. I would always rather fight to be protected than just kind of leave it

“for the benefit of the down. Just let them take a, it's different with a submission, of course.”

But the point is I was trying to create something that was quite balanced. And the other thing as well was, you know, it was fight island. Like we're getting tested every other day. Like we're quarantined in our room. Sometimes we were doing it fights at weird hours of the day. So people were kind of foggy and fatigued and it was just a weird environment. So I gave her and the all the officials, the benefit of the doubt that, you know, you're not going to be at 100% at four o'clock

in the morning. But it was the way they responded to me, which pissed me off. And then the way that the UFC kind of pulled all their support for me. You know, and they contacted me and they said, hey, we're going to organize a conversation with you and whoever. And I said, I just want to let you know, I've got this video ready to go. And I am going to post it because it, it to it vindicates what I did in my opinion. But it also, it also offers some understanding of what herb was trying

to do and the job that he has and how difficult it is. And unfortunately, I mean, it got a couple hundred thousand views before it was taken down. But it's just, it's still on the channel now. If you look at it, it's just a little grace, grace square with three dots. And it's just nothing on the back. They literally went into my channel and took it away. That's so weird that they could take down something that doesn't violate any laws or rules. I mean, no, that's kind of weird.

I don't know whether they contacted YouTube and said, hey, you know, he's used some UFC footage. But did you? Yeah, I did. But time I had permission to use UFC footage. They were allowed me to make war rooms and all kinds of stuff because it only helped them. That's it. I mean, I was an ambassador for Europe as well as being a commentator. So my job in my mind was to spread the word of MMA, right? I'm trying to educate everybody as much as I can. And I could make a

lot more content through my channel than I could rely on the UFC to make content. So I was just trying to turn extra stuff out to keep drawing attention to it. So they'd given me permission to use footage on my channel. And I built a company off the back of this. I'd employed my raptors.

“I think you remember meeting those guys. And all that was gone. And the thing is it was like,”

I understand that the UFC are not going to fire me for shouting up to protect a fighter. But I knew on that day my card was marked. You know, and I knew that my card was marked on that day. Because I was kind of, I was too stubborn. I didn't wait for the UFC to tell me what I should have said. And this and that, I posted my video. I wanted to clear my name. And I wanted to back up the

reason why I'd said that because it wasn't the first time I'd done it. You know, it was the first

time I'd done it in a quiet empty arena. But if you go back to, I think it was Moscow with CB Dollar way. And he was fighting a guy called Murtiser's leave. And for about a minute, 15, he was just killed up in a ball on the floor. And he was just getting pounded. He went from fetal position to completely belly down to fetal position on the other side in the space of that minute. And at the end of the round, herbs just stood over him. And he's lying there like a corpse on the floor.

I'm like, this fight should have been stopped. Easy 30 seconds ago. Even CB Dollar came out and said that you didn't feel protected by it. But the difference was that we've got 25,000 people in the arena. So you can't really hear me shouting, stop the fight. In that scenario. It's just an

awkward situation because I like herb. I would never have been referee my wife. I always make a

request to make sure that he doesn't. But that's more because of the history between me and him. I don't want to put him in a position where I'm going to get angry at him again for doing his job. Right, you know. But I was just, I was disappointed that the UFC kind of pulled all support for me. And backed herb in that situation. Was there a situation backstage where you got into it with

“someone else from the staff? Because that's what I had heard that someone said something to you”

and you yelled at someone backstage. I did, yeah, I did. But in the scenario, I just left the ESPN desk. And this is like five o'clock in the morning or something now after the broadcast. And I walked backstage. I went and mentioned his name. I love it. He's a lovely guy. But everyone's kind of ragged and tired in fight Island. You know what I mean? And as I'm walking back to my dressing room, he came flying at me. And he's like, hey, you can't ever approach an official and probably I'm like,

whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a fucking minute. And like, just the intensity that he came me with, just spike my adrenaline again. Right. And I'm already kind of like, I'm heightened because the fights have just ended. You know what it's like with adrenaline. I'm like three days. I'm like excitedly shaking after a good event. And it was just the energy that he came out came at me with, just push my energy up. So then we had this back and forth where I'm like, hey, you need to get

you facts right? He approached me and blah, blah, blah. And I don't know whether that information had already been passed on to people above him to say, Dan Hardy's just approach herb Dean after

the guys in the in the truck had got like, I've, I or automatically felt like I'm going to get

“in trouble here. Like, I've done something really wrong. Right. You know? And I mean, the thing is,”

it's like, I've been working with with with that man for for a long time, the guy, the guy

backstage I'm talking about. I love him. He's a lovely guy. We've always got on. If I saw him now,

we'd have a good conversation. It was just, you know, you know, it looks like heightened experience. And just the energy that he came at me with, especially with the misinformation of me, now, you know, being the guy that took my head set off and marched over to the door to wait for herb as he walked out. Right. Right. I just didn't do that. Like, I'm there to do my job, but ultimately above my job and above everything, you have seen everything included. I'm there,

I'm there to make sure that MMA is stable and the fighters are safe. Because that's, that's my instinct. You know, everybody that gets in that cage is someone's son or daughter or father or

“brother. You know what I mean? And, and in those moments, the people in the cage that go from being”

the best fight is in the world to a very, very human victim that is not being protected by the referee.

And, and from a fighter's perspective, I want to feel that warlike feeling when I step in the cage. I want to feel like I can throw everything at my opponent. And I also want to feel safe that they can throw everything at me. Right. I don't want to have in my mind all hang on, don't need to pull this wrench because the referee's not going to jump in. Like, there are three people in there. One person's got the job to protect both of us. Neither of us have a, have a

responsibility to protect each other. We don't have a responsibility to pull a punch after a knock down. We don't have a responsibility to stop when the bell rings. Right. Who was the referee with Anderson Silva and Michael Bisping? Oh, that's a good question. Because that was a weird one. Right. That fight should have been over. Yeah. Now, Anderson hits him with a flying knee and then hops on top of the cage and they didn't stop the fight. Was that her? It might have been. It might have

been. Look, the thing is, I think that I'll change my place. Herb's referee made a bunch of times. And I like herb. But that obviously was Anderson's right. That was Anderson's issue. Anderson should have followed up until the referee stops. Absolutely. But you could have easily said this fight's over. I mean, yep. That's a crazy situation. So Michael, I think, had lost his mouthpiece.

“Yes. And this is also when Michael was blind in his right eye. Right. So you have to take”

this into consideration. So Michael loses his mouthpiece. And at some point in time, he points like that he wants his mouthpiece back. And look at the time. Where's the last 20 seconds? Right. And he's a beautiful knee that Anderson lands as well. So he's the master's mouthpiece. That's you, buddy. Uh-huh. One of my favorite fights to have called bang. Right on the bell.

Okay, the fight's not over. You see, in the fight's not over. But in this situation, that's that actually makes sense because he was still conscious and he was still up and he had his hand down. Yeah. But I was Anderson's fault. For sure, it was. For sure, it was. And unfortunately, if Anderson, he had the adrenaline dump of thinking it won the fight. Got up on the cage start, celebrate right now to another 10 minutes. And this is where Michael Bisping is. I just think

he's pointing, he's pointing to his mouthpiece. And he's communicating with her. But her didn't stop the fight. I mean, the thing is, this, like, this second's left. Anderson Silver's got no responsibility. He's a, no, pull any punches, right? Fuck it. It was me, too. He was a master in his prime. And this is post-leg break, too. Yeah. This wasn't even prime Anderson, you know. This episode is brought to you by Zipra Kruter. It's good to be passionate about something,

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fights I've ever called. It was a privilege to be sat cageside for it. But like bispings, you know,

coming out now with ten minutes left and stamps his authority on this fight, which was very, very impressive. But it was just, this was just a messy situation. And I kind of didn't really mind this because of the circumstance that had played out. I mean, her was very clear in him saying I didn't stop the fight. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. But then if like if you remember the, um,

“the cowboy Soroni Mazvedal fight, I do remember that one. Right. That was just bad. Yeah.”

And herbs bad habit at the end of the round. If there's an engagement, he steps in the waves he's on. Like that's a signal of the fights off. Right. Right. You don't wave off the round. You wave off the fight. Right. So at the end of the round, the referee's job is to get in between the fights. Right. Right. So cowboy was on the floor. Mazvedal is already wandering off. I mean, this is like, that's, um, and watch this. So, so this is the problem. Right. You have to leave the

fighter to get back to their stall. You can't touch him. Herbs holding him up there. Right. And then they come out, they come over, they put the seat down. The, the stall down. He sits down and then

Greg Jackson's saying, hey cowboy, it's okay. This always happens to us, he's just not conscious

for this whole minute. He goes back out and gets T. K would almost immediately afterwards. But herb has a habit of waving the fight off. Yeah, but that didn't look like he was waving the fight off. That looked like he was signaling the end of the round. He didn't do this. Potentially. But then if you got one arm in between and you're waving with the other one, you know, I just don't,

“you don't need to, you know, waving at the end of the round. I think by his hand movements there,”

I don't think they're qualify. So I think he's saying stop, stop, stop. I think he's putting his hands out. He's got a hand on in the hand. No, the other hand's waving. That right, hands waving. Yeah, but I think he's, well, I just, it's just, it's an unnecessary motion. And I'm, I'm okay with the debate about it. Like, doing the breakdown of the J. Herbert finish, I learned something really important, which I don't know is, I've asked a lot of referees and most of them have not heard about it.

Fencing response, right? Have you heard of this? No. It's a concussion symptom. And it's, it's a weird thing in a newborn baby when you turn their head to the side, their arms come up like a boxer. Really? Right. It's a weird, I don't know exactly where it comes from, but it, but it's something that happens when people get concussed. Like, you will have seen this before in K-1. There was a really famous one where a guy gets kicked in their head. And as he's going

down, you see it in football. Oh, yeah, you see it in football a lot. So there's one with Marlon and Marlon. Yeah. Yeah. Look. See, I'm still actually seeing that. Yeah. You've seen a lot of that. You want, you want the judges, you want the referees to know about Fencing response, to be able to recognize all of the different, um, uh, tells of a concussion, right? So, and I didn't know about Fencing response until after the J. Herbert fight. But I had, in my video that was taken down,

I had lots and lots of different versions of Fencing response from K-1 to football, to rugby, all kinds of stuff. It's a tell of concussion, right? Like, consciousness is not removed immediately with every punch, is it? Like, you've got everything's on a spectrum. You're either completely conscious or completely unconscious, but the window in which the fight needs to be stopped is probably five or ten percent towards the end of that spectrum, right? The point where someone's

unable to defend himself or no intelligent to defend themselves. It's very subjective. It's very,

very subjective. The problem is, like, when a referee stops too early, it's very frustrating,

and we have seen many instances, and then we've also seen some instances where it looked like a fight could easily be stopped, and the fight comes back and wins. Frankie Edgar Gray Manard. What if, well, I mean, fights, what great fights, crazy fights, crazy fights, but in the one where Frankie won, where he KO'd him, that it looked like he was out before three times in the first time. Oh, my goodness. I mean, Gray Manard was a beast. He was a big, strong, powerful wrestler,

really big from 155, and Frankie famously did not cut weight. Frankie was one of the rare guys that fought at 155, and essentially weighed, like, maybe 160. If that, you know, and he was just fast, and because of that, he was very durable. And this is a thing that we need, I mean,

“I fucking hate weight cutting. I hate it so bad. I really do. I think it's, I think it's sanctioned”

cheating. I think we should have figured out a way to eliminate it a long time ago, but, you know, honestly, when I watch one FC, I don't think they figured out a way to do it either. Like, it's not, it's almost like it's ingrained in the culture to the point where I don't know other than, like, random, you saw to style weigh-ins. You know what I mean? Instead of a drug test, like, hey, Dan, get on the scale. Oh, but I've been eating it. I don't give a fuck, get on the scale.

Like, what do you weigh? You're fighting 155. You weigh 190. This is crazy. Oh, no, I'm just four weeks

You're huge. Yeah. You're way too big for 155. Yeah. I mean, look, look at Anthony Johnson. You know, one of the, I've rested rumble. Like, he was 214 on the night when we fought. We both weighed in at 171. He was 214. And that was before the days of IVs. Yeah. But like, that's crazy. That's the wonder what it does to people. You know, it destroys you. It probably had some sort of an impact on his health problems that he had because he was an enormous guy. I ran into him once, one time at a lobby

of the hotel. And I go, how much do you weigh? And he goes 230. I'm like, bro, get the fuck at that's crazy. Why? You're going to lose 60 pounds. Six zero is nuts. That's, and he was, he was 230, built like a house. I mean, he was a fucking stacked dude. It was crazy. And unfortunately, those big muscular guys can cut more weight because muscle is more water. Yeah. But it's horrible. Like, I mean, look, Izzy landed a perfect punch on Pereira, but I feel like Pereira at middleweight

just could not take the same kind of shot that Pereira can take at light heavyweight. It's just, you're dehydrating the shit out of yourself. He would weigh in 40 pounds more than he weighed

“than, like, on fight night, fight night, he would be 40 pounds heavier. That's crazy. I think it was 41.”

I think he was 26, which is bananas. That's just bananas. I mean, it even if I think about it, I was getting up to like, like 186, 188. And that felt like a lot for me, cutting down to 170. And yeah. I mean, out at the time, I was fairly big for the weight class. You know what I mean, compared to some of the other guys around, but it just didn't work for me, you know what I mean? Like, I invested too much in getting bigger and stronger. And because when I was fighting before the UFC,

I mean, I was fighting, you know, 10, 12 times a year. And I needed to stay close to weight. So I was always,

I was always within about 10 pounds. There were very few fights before the UFC that I cut a lot of weight. And even then when I was fighting out in Japan, because I couldn't use sauna. Like, I just didn't want to, you know, put myself in a position where I was off into trash bag and, you know, sweat out in the streets of Tokyo. So my weight, why don't we just sauna in Japan?

“As my tattoos. Isn't that crazy? I got kicked out of a gym in Japan. Did you really?”

Yeah. I had to go back up and keep my room and put a long sleeve shirt on. That's crazy. That's nuts. The gym in the hotel. I'm like, I'm staying here. Yeah. They said, no, you cannot have exposed tattoos. I'm like, oh my god, that's so wild. Do you have a your cozy gym that I could go to? Yeah. I've got so many things to do with that. It's all about your cozy tattoos.

Yeah. Like, look at me. Do you think I'm in your cozy? I don't know. It's crazy. I mean, I think it's changed a bit now, but I don't know, man. This was not that long ago. I mean, I guess it was. Maybe it was 15 years ago. What was the last time the UFC was in Tokyo? I'm not sure. I think it was more than 15 years ago. I believe. I want to say it was like,

shit, it might have been like 2009, something like that. Almost 2,000, 7 hours out there. I find the cage force. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. I mean, that was back when they didn't have those options. Like, those small portable sauna options that they have now. Like, there's some of them. They have these hot boxes where they're like, they're a little tiny heater in there and you zip it up and you're in this little thing and you can kind of carry it

with you in the road and you can check it with your bags. Yeah. The blankets are really good. Veronica used that for a last couple of cuts. They were really good. But people use hot baths now. No one was hot baths in my day. Right. Like, if you were sweating, you were working out, you were running, you were in a sauna. They were the only ways people were

“cutting weight. Hot baths came in kind of towards the end of my career. What's better?”

I don't know. I mean, for me, I never used the hot baths. I tried it one time. I didn't really like it.

And that's partly a psychological thing, I think, because for me, the hot bath was the reward after the fight. I didn't want to feel like I was relaxing the day before the fight. I was cold shower. I wanted to feel like a fairer animal to be honest. Right. So I would cut weight on my own. It was a process of me preparing for the fight. I always imagined it's like, you grab your shot and you spear and it's the march to the battlefield. You don't

walk out of your tent and you're on the battlefield. There's a process of getting there and the weight cut for me was a part of that. It was the suffering to get to the fight. So for me, it was hot sauna, cold shower, treadmill pads if I needed it. I mean, Tokyo, I didn't even have a treadmill. I just put trash bags on, cut the corners off. The old school tie box in way. How much did you weigh before that? I cut seven pounds. And that was one of the reasons

why I changed the way that I was doing it, because like I should have stopped that guy in the first

round and I didn't have the power to it. And that was his last fight. Like he went, he passed out after the fight, went to the hospital, he had a bleed on his brain. And he retired completely after

pancreas. He was like 20. He was the favorite to win the cage force tournament. And I poured him

in the first round. And I went out there just with the intention of doing a normal weight cut,

you know, six or seven pounds. Exactly what I would normally do. I had a little bit more to cut because of the flight. But I honestly hand on heart believes that if I'd either not cut the weight or I'd cut the weight in a better way and rehydrated, I would have been able to stop him. And he wouldn't have had the brain damage that he ended up with. You know, because like I look back to that third round. And I just I just didn't have the power. It was like a bad dream where I'm just

punching him and he just bouncing around and he's a bloody man. He just took repeated sub-concussive blows way more than he needed to. You know, and I don't know whether he cut weight as well, but certainly the thing that played into the damage that was done to him was my weight cut. You know, and after crazing, I just had crazes to think of. I just didn't want to, I mean, and it, but again, like, I have no guilt associated with that because we knew what we were doing

when we got in there. And I would not hold it against him if that had happened to me. You know what I mean? But in, but in hindsight, pulling the whole thing apart, like I could have been a better version of myself as a martial artist, and it would have actually probably saved him some of the damage that he ended up taking in the third. My position is that the UFC, and I think MMA in general, PFL, all of them, we need more weight classes. I don't think there's nearly enough weight classes.

I think the gaps are enormous. I think the names are stupid. It's very stupid to have well-to-weight won 70 when well-to-weight has been with boxing at 147 forever for a hundred years, and also the UFC comes along and decides well-to-weight is won 70. Like, why is it called well-to-weight then? You know, imagine if you go to another country and you buy a hammer and it's a sandwich, no, I wanted a hammer. I need to build a house. The fuck is this? It's like a totally different thing.

“Like, why is it won 70 well-to-weight? Why not just call it the won 70 pound division? That's what”

wrestling does. They have divisions. It doesn't need to be like a name. The name seems silly. That's a good point actually. I had not thought about that. I've actually developed a system of introducing weight classes over the next several years for the PFL. I mean, obviously, the problem that we have is that some weight classes are just not filling out because the fighters are just not there unfortunately. Right. But I also think that's a bit of a result of the monopolization

and the kind of killing off of the grassroots of the sport because the sport's not growing like it was in my day. You know what I mean? It's very very different now. What do you think's the cause of that? I think I think the control and the monopolization of the sport by the UFC unfortunately. How does that stop small organizations? Well, because anything that starts to gather some momentum, they buy them out and they got rid of them. What they certainly did buy out a bunch of organizations

back in the day, right? They bought out strike force. They bought out pride. But they sort of bought out pride. They got fucked. Yeah. Like they thought they were buying out pride. Do you know the whole deal about that? They all the contracts are bad. Is that right? They got a fucking DVD library. Look, over time, I'm sure it's been worth it, right? But I believe they paid 60 million for pride.

“I might be wrong about that number, but that's what I recall and they didn't have any contracts.”

Like, you know, the contracts were all fucked up. So like they thought they were going to get paid or they thought they were going to get everybody. And so they got a lot of the guys to come over and sign new contracts with the UFC, like Krokop and Nogera and a bunch of other people. But I don't think they got nearly what they thought they were getting. Yeah. That's that's interesting.

I mean, obviously, you know, I love the UFC and I've always held Dana and the UFC and what

they've created for us in very, very high regard. But the has in my opinion, with past a tip in point now, where now we're starting to see some of the negative effects of them kind of locking down everything. Because like there are certain organizations that are, they are connected with the UFC and they're enabled by the UFC through fight pass. And then they become almost like the feeder like they were for exactly. But then a lot of these, a lot of those shows are now starting to get dropped

off of fight pass, right? And the reason for that is because contender series is replacing them.

“So what shows have been dropped off by pass? I think LFA has just been dropped, doesn't it?”

It has, I think so. I mean, in Victor was on there a long time ago. I think they moved away themselves. But like, there are areas who has dropped a period, you know, my wife's commentate on areas. They, they would drop to while ago. What was areas? It's the French promotion.

And the RS, I always say it wrong, RS is there. And they would drop from bypass. Yeah.

Yeah. I think they've been picked up again now. But, you know, but this is the, this is my, my thinking behind it, right? And I remember back in the day when I was fighting on cage worries and in the UK and the UFC were coming over once or twice. Like, it started to kill off all the other shows because everyone was like, I'll just save my money. I'll wait for the UFC to come. Before the UFC came over and started and like, state to claim in the UK, we had a lot of

Europe all the time. But then when we started having two or three UFC events a year, a lot of the

“smaller shows just just dropped off, died off. Do you think you, so you think say your money”

meaning as the audience member? Yeah. Yeah, but you can't fault the UFC for that. Oh no, absolutely not. And what they did when when the UFC landed in Europe, they legitimized the sport. And then, you know, so so the perspective started to change very quickly. Like, when I was doing, when I had my title fight in 2010, I would say at least half of the interviews that I did was trying to justify the sport and why I was allowed to do what I did. Right? That was 2010.

So this is back when everybody thought it was human cockfighting still. And I was getting into debates with journalists about the human cockfighting thing and trying to, yeah, I know, it was just a beta so ill. But like, and imagine trying to like attach power slap onto the side of the UFC when it was then, it was just buried us, you know. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I do not like it. And the thing is, and I'm very much, you know, as long as you're not as long as

you're not hurt in anybody else or you're, you're, I'm not too sure your ability to power slap each other. And I want to bunch of clips. I've watched a bunch of people get flatlined and bounce their head off the podium and fall backwards. And yeah, I don't like it. My whole thing about martial arts is it's human chess. It's high level problem solving. It's, you're, you know, you're working up to a moment. And you're doing your very best to not get hit and hit them. And a flawless

performance, like, it's one of the things that was most impressive about Homsat during his first

“few UFC fights. I think he fought like three or four fights where he took like three punches.”

Yeah, Reese McKee, jump Phillips. I can't remember the other one. I called a couple of those. Joe Meshardy took nothing. That was one punch. I was flatlined a whirl punch. I mean, it was that was the craziest thing about him. It was like, look at this guy. He's not even getting hit. Like, this is nuts. And when you've grabbed guys, they'd be helpless. I like skill. There's no skill in having a big hand and a fat face and putting, and I don't even understand why you

have chalk on your face. Why do you, or your hand? Why? I don't know. It's out what it is. Is it just to like the power that flies to the air? And, you know, I don't get it. Maybe dunk your head in water. I don't know. Hey, they used to it in the kung fu movies. Didn't they used to put talc on people? So when you hit them, you get a cloud of, do they do that? Yeah, yeah. And hitting the watermelons with the mallets to make the noises. But again, like power slap can

be. It's thing and exist. It just away from MMA. You know, and what I hate to see is the likes of Herzog and Mark Smith and forest like catching these unconscious guys as they're falling. It just, it attaches the sport that we've worked so hard to develop to something that is going to, it doesn't injustice to the MMA fighters and how hard they work and how much of a human chess MMA is. Yeah, it's, it's literally like taking, what are those fucking smash them up Derby

racing events? Well, they crash and demolish and derby. Yeah, it's like a formula one driver being involved in demolition derby. Like that's fucking crazy. There's actually reason for the chalk. Oh, so that they can see where the hit was made. Oh, indication of where the positions strike lands. Well, can you see that though? They're not like moving at the speed of water. So not allowed to have excessive chalk and they can't use water. There's no excessive water.

I said, put your head in water. The fiatia. That's a lot to do it. They have rules. The idea they are rules. Yeah. So crazy. Yeah. It's so crazy. But it is a reflection of how solid the UFC is right now, right? Because you go at 2010 they couldn't have done that without having a real negative effect

“on the sport. I think it has a negative effect on the sport now. I agree with you. I just,”

I just think it's not the UFC so powerful and so strong now that they can even take a liberty and

advertise power slip off the back of it. Well, and get away with it. It's that and then it's also we're in the TikTok era where it's just really all about clips. I mean, this power slip does it air anywhere? Because it aired on television for a while. Then they fall into the paramount deal in some way. Did they? I don't know. I don't know. I think it's much more digestible in these very short clips. You know, I don't think there's a person like there's some fucking hardcore MMA fans

who can tell you about guys that are competing in the amateurs and tough enough and they're making their way to the UFC and they're fighting in the LFA. This guys are coming in their debuts and you can watch YouTube videos. The guys breaking down these guys' skill sets and you

never even heard of these cats. Guys you're fighting in Russia. Guys you're fighting in Brazil and

there's no power slip. Hardcore fans. There's no, this guy fucking. You got to see him slap. You got to see him take a slap. You got to see the way she stares down her opponent.

I don't have a problem with it. This is America. I believe in freedom. Don't do it.

“That's what I say. I don't do it. He comes to me. I don't do it.”

That's a recommendation. Whatever you would recommend. Why I'd also say don't do jackass. I have those guys on my show all the time. Every time I talk to Steve, I'm fucking doing that. He's doing that special type, man. He's a special type. Johnny Knoxville told me he's been knocked out 16 times. Out cold. That's way too many. That's way too many. That's nuts. You have zero fights on your record. You've been KOed 16 times. That's real bad. He's got well paid

out of it. You find someone else that got knocked out 16 times. That's good point. That's a good point. That's the other thing with these powers. They're making pocket money. How much did they make?

I know three and three, five and five. Three? I was chatting to someone in Vegas and she didn't

want to do it, but I don't have a choice. I can't get MMA fights. One. She just couldn't get MMA fights. She was too big for most of the weight classes. That's a problem. Look at poor Kayla.

“I've got to make 135 every time I see her in between fights. I'm like, how? How do you get to 135?”

Here's big as me. This is crazy. Crazy. Yeah, I saw her the other week in Pittsburgh and she's huge. She's gigantic. She's got phenomenal genetics. Yeah, she's got that next guard. Yeah, she got an artificial disc. It's really interesting that they could do that now. And guys, go look, Alchemy did it and came back better than ever. I mean, everybody was so upset at him the way he won the title appeal to Yon, but he had a legitimate neck issue going into that fight,

and that that illegal knee that he took to the head really did fucking up. Yeah. And then he went and got an artificial disc, putting his neck, and then came back and dominated in the rematch. And then did you see him in his last fight? Yeah. Fucking dude, man. That guy is the best

back control in the game. His back control is so elite. It's it's really incredible because he gets a

hold of your back man. It's like my god. Yeah, absolutely. See that and I don't mean to keep picking on officials, but that is that's another situation where I actually feel quite bad for Aljo that he had to put on that performance and damage his brand in such a way because he didn't want to continue fighting. Right. Right. And the officials are putting a circumstance where they don't have the confidence to just go, "No, hang on a minute, that was bad." Fights over. Fights

don't. Right. Right. Right. Well, you want to give a guy the opportunity to fight still. So you don't, this is the thing about damage. You don't know looking. Some guys can take a shot like that and then they bounce back and they're fine. Look, this thing, this thing came back and won that fight after that flying knee. You know, and you really got kind of like let the fighter, if the fighter's conscious, you got to let them decide whether or not they can, because you don't know.

It's not possible to tell by looking at someone, what kind of damage they've got, especially Aljo, with the neck. neck situations are so bad, man. But what the crazy thing is that with these artificial disks now, like Wydeman got one, there's quite a few guys who have gotten artificial disks in their neck now and then they go back to finding, which is crazy. I wonder how that changes the way the head twists. Well, one thing I noticed on yellow Romero, who said that

just doesn't twist, but he's got, he's next fused, right? His neck is fused to the base of his skull. So how do you, how do you turn his head to cause concussion? I don't know. Well, there's a good argument that it makes him more durable. The American Derek Bronson head kicked him? Yeah. He hit him with a neck kick. Like right here, he didn't even budge, because you're hitting a steel bar. So then think didn't Tiger Woods have some kind of eye surgery. So he's eye with

it's 2010. So he has better edge and better depth perception for golf. I'm pretty sure he did. Really? Yeah. I'm sure he had something done to his eye. Put that into our sponsor,

“perplexity, James. What did they do? He got laser. So did he have bad eyes and he got him better?”

Or did he have good eyes and said, what can you do? Can you make him have fucking superhuman eyes? Uh, it's a correct near side of this that I improved him to 2015 vision. 2015. Okay. So he was improved to 2020. The problem with that is with these surgeries, if you have macular degeneration, it continues to progress. You are going to need it again. Mm-hmm. Or it's going to get worse. Like, are you sure fear got

a laser and he's like, oh, it's a measuring of 2020 vision. Because he had terrible vision before. And then it started going to shit after a while, because it just kept deteriorating. And now is eye suck. The thing is that you know athletes. Like, I mean, I think it was a

live to 30 or 35, would you take the gold medal? And a good portion of them said, yes, they absolutely would. Most athletes in order to achieve their goals would do absolutely anything. Right. So if I, if I all of a sudden discovered that having your neck fuse like your Romero means that you've got a 13% chance of, you know, less chance of getting knocked out. How many fighters do you think without their neck fuse just to be on the advantage, right? How about that

Tommy John surgery that people get electively? So they got a pitch better. Before surgery, he was extremely near-sided. He had an 11 prescription, I don't know what that is. Minus 11. It's actually legally blind without glasses or contacts. Whoa. And one of the greatest

golfers of all time, if not the greatest. First, LASIC was done after his 1999 P.J. Championship win.

Yeah, here you go. Results and impact on his golf, which reportedly achieved about 2015 vision better than the standard 2020, meaning he could see more detail at distance than the average person. Interesting. He described the cup and ball as looking larger and said as ability to read greens improved and he went on a notable win streak, winning five P.J. Tour of into the row right up to the surgery. Wow. That links into the stone-dapes theory, though, if

we're going in a massive circle, right? Because microdose in mushrooms gives you better edge and depth perception. Yes. So then the theory was that you would have better chance of surviving. Yes. He's a, you know, not become in prey or find in prey. Yes, right? Yeah, better vision who'd make you horny or so would make you more likely to breed and it also makes you more creative. And, you know, parents McKenna and Dennis McKenna link it to the creation of language.

Fascinating. We are. It's very fascinating. Well, I used to remember when I was in Vegas, I had a

“room in my house, which I think we talked about it before, which was the mushroom. And I would like”

once a week. I would like clear the day and I would have ceremony on the Saturday in the evening that get up on Sunday morning and go out into red rock and I'd do trail running. But like at the point where, you know, I took six or seven grams the night before, so now I've probably got the equivalent of two or three grams in my system. But I'm, I'm running in V-brims down hill. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm like, like a cat. I can, I can see the ground in a much different way to

how I would if I was completely straight. So, you know, and I'm amazing. There are some fights

that have been micro dosing through fights as well. I went through one of the bosses. Oh, I know of you. Yeah. Yeah. Joe Shilling talked pretty openly about it. He's got a fight coming up. Does he? Joe's back fighting in Brussels. Is he doing PFL? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. How old's John now? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I spoke with him at the Frank Meers gym in Vegas a few years ago. So far, obviously I knew Joe Shilling, who he was and, you know, the gym that he

created in LA had a real reputation and all that kind of stuff. 42. But he was just, he was standing outside the back, just smoking a cigarette, came in, put his gloves on and just beat us, not out at me. You know what I mean? Such a good fighter. Yeah, he's a beast kickboxer. I was at the last man standing event in LA when he fought. Like that was really crazy because you had to fight multiple kickboxing fights in a day. And, you know, this was glory. This was like, who used to run

Bellator? Was the guy who ran Bellator? Not Scott Coco. No. Yeah, no, it is Scott Coco. There was a guy before Scott, right? Yeah. Is it beyond? Right. So he left and then Scott took and Scott was also involved in Bellator. Yeah. Or excuse me. Elite glory. Right. Is it strike force? Scott Coco ran strike force? Founded strike force. So who ran Bellator? You know, you're in founded it and then Scott Coco. Right. Okay. Right. So that is correct. Okay. I think he was involved

“in glory, too. Right. And, uh, I think I remember, I went up to him and I said, this is awesome,”

but don't do this. Don't have people fight multiple times at the night. Yeah. It's just like, because you can get a concussion and no one even knows about it. Like, there's been a lot of fights where guys got concussions and they didn't get knocked out. And then you have to fight again in an hour and then you fight again 45 minutes after that. Like, man, that's a rest of people. People getting fucked up. I know they did it back in the old days and hardcore and all that stuff.

It's all great, but man, don't do that. But you look at some of those first round matchups

when they were doing that. You're like, hmm, okay. I can see what you're doing here. You know, I mean, like, give people easier fights in the beginning. So they're, there will sometimes, but it's, I think it's kind of random, you know, sometimes you have you eight K one. I mean, you know, you like to wear those guys. You fight Hongman Choyle or Bub Satton, I'm like, how confident you are in your skillset. Just the sheer size of them is a problem. Yes. Those

head, the fucking K one tournaments were bananas. That was so good. Oh, there was so good. Especially

“the life of mine in Canada that used to get me VHS tapes back in the day. I don't, I think he had,”

like, a satellite dish or some shit. I forget how he was getting them, but he was getting them, and he was sending them to me K one heroes. All these, like, real obscure events. He was sending

in my LA house, but I had a giant box filled VHS tapes. There were all kinds of old school fights. I used to have a, I used to have a like a CD, like a zip CD thing that used to take with me. And I had a guy at my gym, and he would five pounds. He would burn me pride or K one heroes or whatever. And he was finding them online and just ripping it and, you know, selling them in the gym, but I had a whole database of stuff. I FL and all those old shows, K one heroes. I loved it.

You know, that's kind of partially how I got the job with the UFC. When I first met Dana, like, he just, he got me tickets because it was the, I was on fear factor. And the UFC, they just purchased it. So this is 2001. This is right post 9/11 when T2RTs fought Vladimir Matushenko came out with the American flag, everybody went crazy. And I started talking to him about like Japan Valley Tudo and do you know about this guy? Do you know about that guy? And I was just like rattling

off all these fighters that he had never heard of before. When I was talking to all these guys that

are fighting out of Russia, all these guys in Japan. And then we started talking and then next thing you know, he's like, do you want to do commentariums? Like, oh, I just want to just want to watch. Did you never thought about it before a commentary? No. No. Now, while I worked with the UFC before that, as the postfight interviewer, but that was in '97, UFC 12. And so I did it for '97 and '98, and then it was costing me money because I would make way more money if I'd go work out a comedy club

for the weekend that I would doing this. But it was fun. So I did it for a little while, but then

“it was like, I think it was UFC Japan. They wanted me to fly to Japan. And Frank Shamrock was fighting”

Kevin Jackson. Is that who it was? Um, I think he won by first round Armbar. And I was like, I'm not going to fucking Japan, man. I can't know. I'm done. So I just quit. I was like, I love you guys. It was fun. Good time while I lasted. Did you feel like it was going to go where it went? No, I thought what they were fucked. Really? It was funny because, you know, Eddie Bravo and I were backstage at one of these events. Like, wait, you know, I met Eddie way back in the day. So it was like,

this was like '97, '98, Eddie and I were backstage. Like, we were like, you know what this fucking support needs? Some crazy billionaires with a ton of money who love the sport. Who just, because we know it's so exciting. And we know people would think it's so exciting. It just needs to be in everybody's face. And then who comes along for Titus? It's like we manifested them. Yeah. It was

crazy because like, you know, one of the first events that I did for the UFC, I did for free. I did

like the first 15 events for free. And I just said, just get my friends tickets. So it was like, Eddie and I would go and, you know, we were like, bro, it's hardly fucking happening. It's actually happening. But even back then, it wasn't famous. It was just, it was in Vegas and it was, you know, it was kind of getting a little bit of attention. It wasn't until 2005 that that Forest Whitaker that the main event of rather, excuse me, Forest Griffin and Stefan Bonner, main event of

the ultimate fighter. That one fight changed everything. It's really crazy where like the stars align with one fight. The whole sport takes off. Yeah. Because it really was that. I can't believe I called them Forest Whitaker. But yeah, I did the commentary. I called Robert Whitaker Forest Whitaker. I called people. I fucked up Juliana Pena's name once. I fucked

“people's names up. It's like, you have so many names in your head. That's what people in our stand.”

Like, we, you and I between you and I, we probably have 500 fighters names in our head. And then plus, due to guys, plus wrestlers, plus boxers. Like, oh my god, there's so many names in your head. Yeah. And then project that into the history of the sport. Right. Because we've got the history of the sport and the history of books and on top of that as well. The way I describe my memory, it's like I have a whole bunch of boxes of folders. And if I find that box, I can open that

bitch up and talk to you about Marvin Hagler versus Juan Roldan. And I'll tell you, like, the doc down was fake, and this is that, and remember, Hagler went on to stop him. Oh, I'll tell you details. But if I don't have that folder in front of me, I'm like, I don't know why. I don't know why. I can't like immediately remember sometimes. But sometimes, I could pull that box out and

it's right there. And I can just get that folder out and boom. Do you remember the first time

he sat down at the commentary booth and pulled a headset? Yes. Yes. That was UFC 37 and a half. London. No. Oh, no, it was. It was just after that there, right? UFC 28 was London. Well, it was 37 and a half because it was like a fit. It was an event they put together for best-damn sports show.

“Right. So, remember best-damn sports show? Which was on Fox Sports. I think”

the Fox Sports net. And so, what it was was they had this opportunity to do a show. And this

you did it because it was the fear factor days. And it was Chuck Ladell versus Vitor Belfort. And I'm

“said, oh, fuck yeah, I'll do it. And I think, I don't remember who else. I think Robby Lawler”

might have made his debut. Robby Lawler. That's right. Thank you, sir. Yeah. So, it was fun. And I did it once. And then they asked me, would you do it again? Oh, okay, I'll do it again. But it was really just, I just kept doing it. It wasn't a job. Like I said, I didn't even ask for money.

Yeah. I did like 15 of them. And then finally, Dana says, look, I want to sign you to a contract.

I want to pay you. It was like, okay. All right. It was like reluctantly. It got dragged into being a commentator. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by visible. Spring is in the air, which means time for some spring cleaning. We're cleaning out the garage and finally tossing those mystery cords. But while you're cleaning out your junk drawer, take a look at your wireless bill. Don't fall for wireless traps, tacked on fees,

confusing bills and empty promises. Join visible and cut out the nonsense with visible. You get unlimited 5G data and hotspot on Verizon's network for one flat cost. Just $25 a month, taxes and fees included. It's everything you need and nothing you don't.

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using code fresh start. Refresh your wireless with visible, head to visible.com to get started. Terms apply, limited time offer, subject to change, see visible.com for plan features and network management details. That's kind of cool. Yeah. It's similar to me, though, really. I mean, I was, because I've been sideline because, you know, because of my heart situation and they wouldn't claim me in California. So then the UFC just wouldn't match me anywhere.

And I had a, like, a month or two of just kind of wallowing and being depressed and, you know, avoided MMA gyms and Lorenzo invited me into the offices on Sahara and I, I got on sat with him and we were chatting through and he said, "Hey, you know, I'm going to send you out to California.

I want you to go and see my specialist, you know, my family specialist and get a second opinion

and et cetera." But he said, "It also, we've got another plan for you." He said, "I won't spoil it, at some point you'll see Dana and Dana will tell you what the plan is." And as I was, it was like a movie. As I was walking out of the offices, a stretch monster humma pulled up. Literally. I'm like, "It's going on here." And Dana got out and, and he was like, "Oh, just a fucking blah, blah, I was wanted to see." He was like, "I want you to go to the UK,

I want you to be an ambassador, I want you to do commentary." And I said, "That's great. You know, let me know what, I need media training." And he's like, "No, none of that. I just want you to be

“you sitting cageside." And I remember getting to the first UFC London event sat down at the desk,”

just fighting in post-ac Syndrome, bad, and seeing all the fans starting to trickle into the arena. And then someone on the, on the, from the truck came through and he said, "Oh, I've just realized we've not practiced any post-fight interviews." I said, "Oh, I've not really thought about it, but it's just talking to fighters, I'll be fine." He said, "No, no, no, I'd feel better if we practiced." I said, "Okay." He said, "Okay, uh, Brad Pickett wins by knockout. Go."

Like, how did you knock him out? We're not birds question. And it was weird because it was like, I'd not even thought about it up until that point. But when they raised the, when they, when they, they asked me to do the kind of practice rehearsal with not any scenario that was realistic, then all of a sudden that started to panic. Because I, I remember sitting there feeling like a, like a 14-year-old, like someone's gonna tap me on the shoulder in a minute and throw me out.

Really? That's so weird, yeah. That's funny. So, really weird. That's interesting.

“I don't remember if I felt imposter syndrome. I think because I wasn't getting paid,”

I probably thought it was just fun. Yeah. I probably didn't think it was a job. So, I probably thought, like, "Oh, they just want me to do this because I'm famous and it would be good for the sport. If the fear factor guy isn't enthusiastic about this sport." So, that's how I thought about it. And so, like, I would go on like the Howard Stern Show and stuff and we wind up just talking about the UFC. And this was, again, I wasn't even working for the UFC. I was there to promote fear factor.

But I was talking about how much I loved UFC. And I just, I think it's awesome. And back when I was competing, no one knew what the best sport. It's so hard for people to recognize that today, because it's not that long ago. When I was, last time I thought it was like 88 or 89, you would think, like, we kind of had it sorted out back then. But you didn't, no one knew.

A friend of mine was teaching at this university and I would go and train with him in a student sometime.

And I would go there and they had a judo program there. And I'd like to really suckers, practicing the stupid judo. Like, this is useless. You can't even kick anybody. Well, those guys would have killed me. They would have just grabbed me and fucking thrown me on my head. But I didn't think that. I was totally delusional. I thought I was going to kick them into the fucking shadow realm. And no one knew what the right thing to study was. If you took kung fu,

you thought kung fu was the shit. Bruce Lee, right, Martin Bruce Lee shirt. He was really the only guy that was wise enough to realize you just got to take a little bit from everything. And having one style, whether it was his initial style, which was Wing Chun or, you know, whatever it is, karate, that's not the way. The way is the right way to win. In close quarter combat,

“you need to learn how to grapple. You need to learn boxing. You need to learn how to block correctly.”

You need to learn how to kick correctly. Back then, we didn't know. And we always wondered,

like, what happened if they did like a fucking, but a bunch of guys together. And I knew many the jet had competed in some weird stuff and why, but no one really knew. So when it was finally happening to me, I was like a little kid. I was like, oh my god, it's happening. It's really happening. Yeah. And I was like, please let this work. Please let this work. And then to watch the evolution of it from the beginning, which is just voice going there, dominating everybody, because no one knew

jujitsu. And he had the gui on. So he had all his friction. It was amazing. And then everybody took jujitsu, including me. I'm like, I got to learn jujitsu. And then to watch the evolution, like these giant juiced up fucking wrestlers come along, like, Mark Coleman, smatten Marker, smashing

everybody. You're like, oh my god, you've got to get on the sauce. And so everybody, you know,

beat to our got up like 240 pounds and his fucking next turn in the top of his head. Oh, yeah, bro, I was training the same gym as him when he made his UFC debut. So I was training it Carlson Gracie's gym. So you kind of knew what was coming then. Why didn't I knew he was awesome.

“But I didn't know how good his hands were, because I only saw him doing jujitsu, right?”

Why knew he was a beast. Like, and he was a black belt in jujitsu at the time, and, you know, a phenomenal athlete just so fast. But then I saw a video of him. He fought John Hess in Hawaii. Do you remember John Hess after fighting? Yeah. So John Hess was this giant guy. He's like six seven or something like that. And B-toe just fucking took him to the crowding. Hit him with like 30 fucking unanswered punches in a row, like in three seconds. Like,

and put him away. And then there's screaming, jujitsu, jujitsu. And I was like, what did he do? This is not, I mean, I get it. You know, jujitsu with that was boxing. You used, you used striking. But it was like, to be there at the very beginning and watch this evolution, there it is. There's Vita. Look at this. P little, little, little, little. I mean, my god. And look how thin Vita was back then. That was Vita, like, you know, 199 pounds. Maybe, every 190. Oh, he was so fast. And so that was

there for his UFC debut. So that was UFC 12. So he fought trade telekman and trade telekman, like, had no idea that this guy could box that way. Like, no one did. They thought he's a cross and greasy jujitsu black belt. It was like, okay, you know, boy, they take down. This guy's really going on the ground. And he just starts toning people up with his hands. And telekman was lions then, wasn't he? Yeah. I want to catch him. He's going to have a missing pack. Yes. He was in a car accident. I believe

when he was a child. Oh, is that right? Yeah. And his pack was not attached on one side. He was fucking jackdood. And then he fought Scott Farozo after that. Who was like, giant fact guy. Who was also, like, a tank, you know, like a huge fucking knockout artist. And Vita were tuned him up to just the speed he had. So this is like, you know, 1997. And it was wild. And that was in like a high school auditorium in Doath and Alabama, who was like, really weird, crazy. It was like,

this is so strange. These events were so bizarre. You know, was hanging out with the lions and guys, we could drink it together and stuff. And it was fun. But it was just weird. It was like,

“what is this thing that we're doing? This is it. The Doath and Civic Center. That's what it was.”

Look how small it is. Look how little that place is. 97. Yeah. So that would have been the time when I was, I was at art college. Yeah. And I went to, I went to Virgin Megastor. There you are. Look Jeff Blattnik. There's the fucking man. Oh, it's Virgin Megastor. And, uh, look how, you're beautiful. Oh, my God. Oh, I'm so pretty. Yeah. And no one taught me, no one told me what to do. No one gave me any instruction. Nothing. They gave me a microphone. And then said, we're going to come to you

probably knew better than everybody else though. Well, luckily. Yeah. I was a huge fan. So it was

“pretty easy. I got the job because, um, they had a guy that was doing it before. And they got rid of him.”

And Campbell McLaren, who was one of the producers, was good friends with my comedy manager. And they were, he was just casually talking. It's like, we're looking for someone to do post-fight interviews. And he's like, Joe loves the UFC. And he's like, you think you do it? And so they call me up. I was like, fuck yeah, let's go. I was like, this is, and this is, I was like 97. I guess I was 30. Yeah. This is how the judges used to announce their picks. They just held the board.

I guess so. There's a bunch of those at the beginning that seemed very strange. It's interesting. I saw that over time rules. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. They called them laws of the octagon. Valegi. Valegi. Valegi. It was a lunatic. Oh, it was a massive intense. Mad dog. Yes. No biting. No eye gouging. No fishhooking. That was it. You could hit people in nuts. It was. That's it. I'm going to, I tell you what, I've got a piece of my gummiss in from someone trying to fishhook me. Oh,

it took, they took a piece of the gum away with their fingernail. I have to get something done. I've got some teeth that need fixing it. Oh, my Jesus Christ. Not nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fishhook and dangerous. Yes, nasty. If if someone's fishhooks, you should bite their

“fucking fingers. Oh, I think so. You should be able to bite them like fuck you. Get your fucking fingers out of my mouth.”

Motherfucker. Is that this? That's interesting about commentary. I've always wondered because

everybody came after you, right? When it comes to MMA commentary. So like, in the early days, when I was first doing the job, no one knows what a colour commentary or a play by play commentary is back in the day. I think it's more of an understanding now. So my response to everybody is I'm I'm going to try and do Joe's job. You know what I mean? But you'd set the bar so high. I think partly that's what fed into my imposter syndrome. I'm sitting there and the podcast that you did

with, with Dustin, I appreciate all the kind words you did. I want to throw it back to you, though, because you were the person that raised the bar for everybody else to reach. You know, so and I didn't realize because I'd never had an intention of being a commentator. Like, it just came after the back of my career because my career was ended abruptly. So then anyone that ever says, "Oh, you're actually pretty good at this." The reason why is just because I listened to you

religiously. Like, a lot of people watch the fights don't pay attention to the commentary. Like, I tuned in. I was paying attention to everything that you said. So even the delivery and the cadence and stuff, what you did laid the foundation for me to learn. So I'm very, very much appreciate that. Oh, thank you. Thank you. It was accidental. Same for me. But it can't have been accidental,

“because I had somebody to learn from, you know, that's why I asked you because you didn't have”

anybody that kind of, you know, well, it was weird because I think I was one of the first people

to do it that I had a real understanding of jujitsu. So when the fights would go to the ground, the play by play guy would have, you know, like, gober, great guy. Didn't train. Didn't know what the fuck was happening. So I would have to, and also people at home, what's going on? So I'd have to walk them through exactly when someone's in danger and why they're in danger and how they can get out of it and when they're free. Okay. See his elbow. He's free now. He's good.

And so my mind is spinning like a hundred miles an hour. I'm like, now I don't have to do that as much because people kind of understand things much more. But there's certain situations in certain positions where I would have to say, no, this is a submission. Like he's, he's very close here. Like, okay, now he's got to sninch it up, he's got to put his ankle behind. He's like, that's got it. And you'd have to like talk people through it. So it was, it was different than any

of their sport because it was, you kind of like educating people on what's happening. Like I couldn't use obscure, even though I used obscure term, like, you know, crackhead control or something like weird stuff like that that Eddie comes up with these fucking ridiculous names for submissions and positions. But I would have to explain why this works and what's happening and what's going on and what's what's in danger. You know, and it was weird because I felt like this obligation to

jiu-jitsu that that was the one thing. Like you could, someone kicks you in the head you get it. Someone needs someone in the head. Oh, you didn't want to find it, you get it. But explaining to someone like what, like, you know, a calf crusher is. Like that's a weird fucking position. Like what is going on there, you know, explaining to someone, you know, why a triangle works and why it doesn't work and why someone's safe, you know, with a head and arm choke, why, okay,

he's okay, he's got his hand over his ear. There's, it was all this weird stuff where it was partially trying to be entertaining, but also trying to educate. And I had to kind of figure it out as I did it, you know, as I called, I don't know how many fights are called. Oh, thousands.

do as many now? You know, I only do North American paper views and I already do, I don't even

“go to Canada anymore. So fuck them. I love Canadian. It's the government, the fucking creeps me out.”

But the, the amount I was doing back then, I was doing like 20 shows plus a year, 22 shows a year. Yeah. So I was doing a show almost every other weekend. I was flying somewhere. Yeah. And it was exhausting. It was a really, it was a problem. But it was, in one point, time it became really my main job after Fairfactor was over. And I loved it, but the traveling was brutal. You'd go to Australia, you come back from Australia and now you go to Dallas,

you're going to Dallas, you're going to New York. I was in the first time I went to Australia with

the UFC. It was a 56-hour round trip. And I was on the ground for 30 hours. You feel like you're on drugs? You feel like somebody gave me a drug. I don't even know where I am. I loved it though. I loved being there. I'm like, wow, what a crazy country. You guys run the other side of the planet. And you're all cool and the food's great. Yeah, fun. And I got all the, I got all the all the gigs that most people didn't want to do. It's like, I was, I was, I was being sent to

all of the farthest reaches. You know what I mean? Like, I did, I mean Singapore, I loved Japan, I loved, you know, going out to Australia to do those events. I did a lot of the Russian events. You know, I was even back at one time in case Bruce Buffett didn't make it. I was going to be the reality as well. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's crazy. That's a hard job. Absolutely. That guy set the bar. He almost dies every event. Really. We're looking at him like one day. He's going to be like,

'cause he, you know, Bruce has got to be like 70 years old now, right? Yeah. It's like one day, that motherfucker's going to stroke out in the middle. Oh, no, it's fun. Yeah. And just fucking pop. Blood starts leaking. That's it. And if you ask Bruce, that's the way we would like to go.

“Yeah. That's how you want to go. One of our craziest experiences. I remember, I remember coming”

down a slide, I'm like a metal slide from the Great Wall of China with Bruce Buffer in front of me and you're right, a favor behind me. And we're going down on these like rugs on the way down from just

weird experiences that you have on the road with your wife. Oh, wow. Yeah. That was good. I've always

always loved Bruce. Yeah. He's great. You know, that's another thing as well. He's like, and you'll remember this from, but you know, back when I made my debut, like, I would get into it with Bruce, like, I'd be like calling Bruce on and yeah, he always used love to me and love to it. Because it was just the idea of of of Harry and Bruce Buffer say my name was just why would two. He got no hardy. I'll get goosebumps. We always talk about like whether or not it's a jinx to fist bump

buffer. You know, like me and Annette were talking about it, but I was like, no, could be fist bump to every time. So it can't be a jinx. Yeah. Because you look for jinxes. You look for things that are a bad home and are a bad sign. You know, yeah. Weirdly superstitious on the way. We like to like hang stuff on things that on our responsibilities. In that weird, it is special with fighters,

fighters are super superstitious. They get real weird about the the things they do, their rituals,

before fights, what they what they eat, where they like, what they wear, yeah. And like some of the things that they do like, I mean, like Ben Henderson with the toothpick. Like crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I was interviewing him and post fire and I'm like, you're a toothpick in your mouth. And he got trouble for that. Yeah. Dangerous though, especially if you know, you get knocked out. That toothpick's going down your throat. I just didn't understand why he did. Like, was it like

a bit of a bit of a safety blanket almost? It's like a familiarity that is there. Still weird as one of all times. Yeah. A toothpick in your mouth? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Very strange. I like a toothpick, but not during a fight. I did still add it. Yeah.

“Crazy. It's got a fight coming up in Brussels. Wow. It's a rough fight as well. How old is he now?”

44? Wow. Yeah. Final kick called Patrick Haberora. Good Belgian fighter. Yeah. It's interesting though. I mean, you know, you got a former champ with all that experience. Oh, yeah. I mean, he's still in great shape. Yeah. He's still can compete at a high level. It's just, wow, these guys when they're they're competing for that long. It's so nuts. Yeah. You know what I, what I've, and I suggested,

as well as a thousand other things that I've suggested to the PFL, but a master's division. Right. You know, the likes of cowboy and Tony Ferguson, you know, the guys that you, you want to keep fighting, but you don't want to see him just get smashed by chairman. Sure. Sure. I would love to see some of those fairly matched fights. You know, like when we had, it was Nate Diaz against Chemaia, wasn't it? And then then Chemaia was taken out the fight

and Tony Ferguson was put in the place and Nate won the fight. That to me was the perfect matchup. Like the Chemaia one would have made me feel really uncomfortable. Yes. I would love to see a master's division, especially now we could accommodate it with some of the older fighters around. Yeah. Because most of them, they're just kind of bounced over onto, you know, Ben or Colore, whatever else, he's out there as options. Whereas like, there's still got so much to offer.

Yeah. That it is a problem when you see those old veterans that still have something to offer

and then you see them getting thrown in there with some 27-year-old assassin. And you're like, "Good Lord, don't do this." I mean, I'm what 43, I'd fight someone this weekend. I'd love it. It's still in me. But I know I'm physically like, I mean, even if I was at my athletic peak, I won't be competing with these guys now. They're terrifying. But, you know, like, to know that I'm getting into a fight with someone that's as game as me, but has also had the experience

as well as the wear and tear, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, evenly matched. Like, look at packing out's about to fight me with her. Make sense. Right? You know, like, fighting Terrence Crawford, you be like, "Yeah, don't do that." Exactly. Yeah. Like, "I don't want to say you get stretched." You know what I mean? But like, you guys are bolting your late 40s. Like, okay? Yeah. All right. I'll pay for that. Yeah, it's as long as they're not gone. You know,

there's some guys that they get to a certain point and they're like, "Why? Why is their family

“letting them compete? Why is it anybody stepped in? Does anybody recognize their skills are gone?”

Does anybody recognize they get knocked out way too easily now? There's a bunch of fighters like that that I just really wish would not be doing it anymore." Yeah. And the thing is it's sad about it as well is, and this is where I feel like the community around MMA has probably changed in the last decade or two, is like the old the veteran fighters were just carried in such high regard, whereas now you're the highlight of somebody else's, the start of somebody else's career.

Right. And a lot of the fans, I mean, certainly what I see online, they're very dismissive of fighters that at one point were great and are now not quite where they used to be and, you know, they start throwing around words like wash and stuff. You've got to respect where these guys came from. No one lives forever. No one is that they're athletic peak forever. But we also should still be celebrating what people have achieved, you know. And I feel like that's something that

we don't get as much in the sport. And that's partly because the young fighters get matched with the veterans to, you know, like, you know, bring Ken Shamrock back out of retirement, dust him off for Rich Franklin to fight him because no one knew who Rich was and he was so close to a title shot. You know what I mean? And that was one of those moments where I'm like, that's kind of a, I don't like that fight, you know what I mean? Because because I can see what

what's being done there. Right. And I mean, not that you might have needed it, but the boost that he would have got from smashing the hell out of knee-dears, you know, that, that was kind of part of the benefit of throwing knee into that fight, you know. And that there, there the fights that I would

“like to not see anymore. Because I think we get more fights out of some of these guys towards”

the end of their career where they, maybe their athleticism is not where it was, but their knowledge is way ahead of where it used to be. Right. We go back, you know, we were talking

about about the old days and when we first get into it. And when MMA first became a thing,

like me as a 17-year-old sitting, I, I wield the TV in with the VHS and I put the tape in and I watch UFC 2 and 3 and I had this feeling of, I'm like, now I'm questioning myself and everything that everything about me as a martial artist. Like, I have to do this. And if I don't do this, I'm going to be questioning myself my whole life. But at the same time, I'm looking at this going, well, I know one martial art really well. Take one, though. And I know probably four or five

other martial arts. All right, you know, Wing Chun, I've done some traditional jujitsu at Boxed quite a lot, you know what I mean? So like, I had a decent handle, but I also have a library of martial arts books. And I would sit in front of that library and think to myself, like, how am I going to consume all of this information? And it wasn't like, okay, I need this bit of information and this. And it wasn't a case of absorbing what is useful and rejecting what's useless. I had

to absorb everything in order to go through that shedding process. And it just felt so overwhelming. Like, I remember going into fights, feeling like, I have no idea how this is going to play out. Like, I don't, I don't know half of this guy's skill set, just purely because I am at the time to learn all of this stuff. And it's like the more you pick at it, the more, you know, it's like, it's like you're hitting a rock and all of a sudden it falls in and it's a massive cave inside.

“And it's just full of information. And I'm like, how am I going to consume all of this knowledge?”

You know what I mean? I remember feeling very, very overwhelmed by all. And that fed into a lot

of anxiety during fight week, which was, you know, something that everybody always manages. But

if I look back, that was where my anxiety came from. It was the, it was the over in Alice's of the sport and the feeling like I was never going to be able to learn all of this information. Whereas now in actuality, I feel very, very opposite. I feel like now if I was going back, my training would be very, very focused and very, very streamlined. But that's because I've had years and years of experience of watching the sport and knowing what works and what doesn't

and pulling things apart, you know what I mean? So it was almost like, and I said this, I've said

months out or a year out, just to be a student and just to learn and absorb, that would have been a

“real benefit for me. When I stopped fighting, I was doing commentary and doing inside the”

Octagon and stuff. Like, my knowledge was growing on a daily basis. I felt it. And I just, I thought to myself, man, I could have done this when I was in my career. But I didn't, because I was, I was partly scared of the over in Alice's of it. You know, and partly concerned that I was going to show myself so much that I didn't know that I was just going to feel like it was endless. It was a bottomless pit of knowledge. You know, whereas when I started doing inside the Octagon and I was,

I was watching fights in chronological order from the beginnings of people's careers all the way through. And then I was going back and I was watching prelimbs of fights that I wouldn't have

watched in my career, because I only want to watch this guy and this guy, because I don't want

all of this, sometimes I watch somebody and feel like I'm getting worse when I'm watching them. You know what I mean? So I'd be very, very specific about who I would watch, whereas in actuality, if you watch the whole card start to finish, the fight IQ increases generally as the card goes on. So the guys at the top make far less mistakes and they're the guys that I'm watching. So I'm watching people that are, you know, way closer to flawless than I am.

But if I watch the prelimbs, I can see the same people, the same mistakes that people are making, they're just making them far more regularly on the prelimbs. So it was almost like watching the prelimbs was uncovering problems and bad decisions much quicker than it was when I was watching the few specific guys that I was trying to learn from. So there was a real benefit in just absorbed in all of it. And then the next stage was, and it was specifically Robby Lawler against

Rory McDonald. It was the first time I realized I was watching a fight without putting myself in the cage. And it was like an epiphany. I was like, I'm just watching these two guys as a fan. I'm not comparing Robby Lawler to me. I'm very McDonald to me. My process of preparing for an opponent was very similar to what I would do for an analysis. I would get into them. I would watch it as much as I could of that person. But then I would go back and watch my fights that I knew were available

to them. So I'm now watching my fights with their skillset in mind. So now I'm almost pretending to be that person to watch me and go, okay, well, I can do this to him. And I can do this to him. But

there's always a bit of ego involved there. So like, say with Carlos Condit, an incredible fighter.

Right? He's great at everything. But he's not built to take me down. And there's no way in hell, he's going to be doesn't knock me out. You know, Mohawk Fleppin and the Wind. You know? And it was like, and that was, that was my ego getting in the way. Because if I was looking at Carlos Condit versus Robby Lawler or Carlos Condit versus GSP, I would have respected his counter-punching. Right? But my ego was a block in that scenario. So by watching two fighters and being able to

remove myself entirely, I just saw things differently. And it took my, my shit out of it. It took my drama out of the way. That's interesting. Your ego really can get in the way. And it really makes you make terrible decisions. Like how many people have taken fights they shouldn't have taken just because of their ego. There you go. Just gave them a distorted perception. Absolutely. There was this guy that was training with us. It was really good at your Jiu Jitsu and he had no

“striking and he was going to take an MMA fight. And I remember saying to him, you, you have to”

understand that like what you can do to people on the ground. Right? You could make a person feel help us, right? Someone could do that to you standing up. And it's waste carrier. It's waste carrier. Like you have no idea. Like you have no, you think it's this weird, stunning Kruger effect. Right? Like you think you're really good. So you think you're good at that. Like you've this distorted you don't know anything about striking. Like it's striking was like pop, like rudimentary. Like nothing.

I'm like someone's going to set you up and boom. Right? And head kick you. They're going to and he got TKOed. He got beat up badly. And I think it really fucked him up too early. Yeah. Well, it's almost like you pull the curtain back and you realize there's a whole of the world behind the curtain that you'd not anticipate it was there. But the scariest world to not be good at is the striking world. Absolutely. That's the scariest world. And I've tried to quantify this

myself because it is an interesting thing because often I find myself I'm explaining the nuances of faints and movements that are opening doors for other things to land. I mean, I had to sign you as a master at this. Connor McGregor was a master at this service. And the way that they deliver their techniques, this such an elite level of intelligence to it that it's easy to just think that

“it's chance what they're doing. Right? Like take Connor McGregor cowboy, for example. Right?”

And the beauty of inside the Otken is I would download all the angles of the fight. I would

And there's a moment in that fight. And this is this is the benefit of say Connor McGregor, say

his brand is the left hand. Right? Connor McGregor's left hand brand was a very, very powerful

weapon from taking to fight against cowboy because cowboy was so focused on it. And there's an angle from from cowboys back to against the fence. And he sees Connor close his left hand and straight away cowboy goes left hands coming and he moves onto the head kick. It was that it was the threat of the left hand coming, the force cowboy to make that mistake, Anderson silver veto a bill for, when he looked at his leg and kicked him in the face. Like the idea of him being able to sell

and you look at that fight, veto has check in the inside low kick while the, why he's got Anderson's toes in his mouth. You know what I mean? It's like he was able to sell a technique purely with his eye line, purely with a faint and add a sandwich as another master at it as well. And that's to me then shows that there are, we've got ranges in MMA, but in each one of those ranges, these dimensions as well. Right? These dimensions of understanding. Like you could be a button

machine fighter and a lot of people have success with button machine. Right? They throw the technique that they work in the changing room warming up on the pads. But then there are people that understand that each one of these techniques and each thing that they do or piece that they have in their

“arsenal is a setup for something else. Right. You know? But that's what's interesting about people”

that have a real system. Yeah. Do you have any other trained with them? I haven't, but we've we've fought, didn't we, so I was, yeah. I mean, I was a huge fan of him back in the day. I remember him TKO in somebody in King of the Cage up against the fence. Oh, he actually did that and loved with him. Yeah. That was King King Sudeau, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Great, great system of footwork.

That isn't it. Oh, he has an amazing system and his system is like he has a giant notebook

filled with like techniques where everything, his system is like very well thought out and it's really interesting because he didn't fight the way he teaches. No. That's what's really interesting. Like TJ Dillashows probably is a great student and TJ fought completely different than Dwayne. He had constantly switched dances, constantly. He was like, he was giving you so many looks and you know, it's, it's wild watching when, you know, you watch like Dwayne style versus what he

would teach because it was just like, oh, if I had only known this while I was fighting, if I had only known this while I was coming up, if I only known this early early on in my career. Yeah. And this is why I don't think we get enough people crossing over to coaching afterwards. Like whenever I see former fighter in the corner, Mike Brown, Robbie Lawler, whoever it is, like I'm filled with confidence that the sport is moving on because they're going to pass on

information that they've taken on from somebody else and refined. You know, like, my take one to teach you told me when I was a kid, if, if you're not better than me at my age, I've failed

as a teacher. Right. And like, and he always make Rowley's name is. He always gave me everything.

There was never any restriction because he wanted to see what I would do with it and where I would take it because then same with Eddie Bravo, he was right. We were just chatting on about backstage. Remember Sean Bollinger. Sure. You used to be able to heal hook himself and he created the double bagger and there's a few different things. But I remember being on the maths and watching Eddie Bravo listen to one of his 16, 17 year old students to see what he could

learn from him. And that's such an unusual thing. And a lot of martial arts schools is the teacher being a student. Right. And that's something that always stood out to me about particular people. Like, I would never want to train a fighter and hold anything back from them because I always want to be just a little bit better. You know, I want to give you everything, throw everything I've got on the table and then see what you pick up, see what you run with and see what you can

teach me from it. Yeah, it'll make you better too. And that's the thing.

“Absolutely. But you have to have an honest ego. Yes. Like, you have to be able to really say,”

okay, this is how good I am. I can't pretend I'm better than I am for these people. This is how good I am. And you have to be able to show it. Yeah. And that's one of the beautiful things about jujitsu. It's like you have to roll. Like, if you're a teacher, you're rolling with people. But if Eddie gets caught in something, he'll tell people. Yeah. And we'll show you. Show me what you did. And everybody look what he did.

And he'll bring people around. He's like, he's like, you know, I'm just a human being. I just happen to be really good at this. And even if I'm really good at this, there's openings, there's holes, there's things that I don't know. And this is a constantly changing and evolving game where people are bringing in new things. And some of these new things, you know, you analyze it and you go, well, here's a simple way to stop this. And as soon as someone knows this,

that that submission's gone. And so then you kill it and you put it aside. Well, we tried that one,

“didn't work. Sometimes you're like, try to stop this. And you're like, I don't, I think that's”

legit. And then guys would get down and they would go, what if you do this? What if you do that?

solutions to these problems and say, okay, get him in it and put him in it. All right. Now,

how do you finish it? And you grab here? Okay. What would you do here? And then like you have guys like break things down and that's that honest approach. Someone told me that, remember when voice greasy tap dance ever and with a triangle, they were training at one of the greasy schools, friend of mine, and he saw that and he said, can you show us that? He said, you're not ready for that. Yeah, I can't show you that. And he's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like the cat,

it's just technique. Like show me the technique. Like he just did it and he's like, no, we're not going to hit it. Like they were holding back. Yeah. So in the early days,

“there was a lot of holding back. You know, this is like, what was that? What year was that?”

That had to be like 94. So that's like, you know, but then like everyone's reputation as a coach back in those days couldn't really be questioned too much. You know what I mean? Right. Because there was no way of them proving it. I just I can't it's too deadly. Right. You know what I mean? Whereas, you know, like the people that's and those those people stand out in my mind, you know, Eddie was one of those people we stood out in my mind because because of how he

he approached the sessions, he was always a student even when he was the teacher. Yeah. And the other

thing as well that, you know, everybody wanted to name something in the 10th planet system. Right. So everyone was trying to create something and make it stick. So it like it created this really, like it was a it was a a thriving environment to be in. I loved being at legends back in the day and the other. And I, you know, obviously bomb squad as well before that. Yeah, what year did you start training with us? It was legends. It was after the bomb squad

“are closed. I went back to the bomb squad. Well, what was the bomb squad to train with Paolo”

torture? I'm of blood sport fame. Yeah. But yeah, legends it was any just opened when I arrived. So what year was that? 2005? Six. Probably 2006. Yeah. Yeah. Because before that I've been training for those 20 years ago and they're crazy. I know two decades. That's when we met 20

fucking years ago. Yeah. And a lot's changed. Not. Yeah. It's not how time just fucking waits for

no one. I was I was just saying to the guys the guys here like it's funny like the Joe Rogan experience. If you'd have asked me what the Joe Rogan experience was 20 years ago it was getting crushed inside control. That was my experience of Joe Rogan being on the match during the class and watching you smash the bag with your back kick and then stepping onto the match and just and you had you almost had like the opposite game to most of the guys on the map. Because all the 10 planet guys will

like pulling you into half guard or into guard and trying to wrap you up whereas you were very much a top game player. Yeah. That's at least how it felt to me. It was like you were the different role on the map to everybody else. Well, I got obsessed with head and arm chops. Yeah. You

“know. I felt it. You know, I fuck my neck up I think. I wonder having bulging disc in my neck”

because either that or not tapping the guillotine. But I got a head and arm chart. It developed it where it was like if I locked it on you were pretty much done. You know and when I started tapping like brown belts and higher level guys that and then I just really concentrated on it and it's one of those things where it's like you know how it is just like with a kick like everyone has strong legs. You know, you can lift weights for your legs but like how come some people can kick harder than

other people. Well, the the coordination, the technique, the refinement of it. We're just and there's something like that in a squeeze like Marcelo like Marcelo would get your back and his rear naked choke. Marcelo Garcia was just like a master. He's not a big strong guy like so what is it? And so I that was like my number one go to was the head and arm choke. If I could get that shit I was pretty sure I could lock it up. So I just developed this style of just crushing where I would just

have my whole body which is like a pet ball. Yeah. Yeah. But that's interesting the difference between striking and grappling and going back to what we're talking about a minute ago. Like there's something mechanical about grappling, right? If you pull on somebody's head the head's going to come down or they're going to force back and the head's going to go back and there's a there's a a cause and reaction in grappling almost all the time that even a person that doesn't

fight can see the basics of. Yes. Right. We have a pick one leg up and I throw you around it. You're going to lose your balance. Right. Even something as simple as that. But with striking there's so many, so many things that happen with striking where no one touches anybody. Right. Especially when you've gotten, and then this is where the dimensions come in. You know you've got the button mashes at the bottom. You've got the guys that have refined their button mash in skill sets.

And now they've got two or three combos that work well for them or they've got a particular technique that they're refined to a point where they can deliver it in ten different ways. But then you've got people that understand that each one of their weapons is a different thing at a different time and serves a different purpose at a different time. You know? Yeah. Like with a jab for example, everybody in their game has got a jab. But if you strip that jab down into its core component,

there are going to be differences. Right. If I throw my right hand straight and I throw it

“over your jab or I throw it when I split your cross, that to me is three different techniques.”

Yes. Right. It's the same weapon that you use in, but the delivery system is different. Right. But then on top of that complexity, you've got all of the the the the the damage that you can inflict that draws responses to people. Right. Like the calf kick, now you can faint a calf kick and get someone to pick their leg up. And like that's a very, very basic example, or when someone

you know, been hit with a body shot, you faint a body shot and their heads are most always open.

There are certain things. I mean head shot dead is a good another good example. Yeah. How often do you see someone throw a punch followed by a kick and and not the opponent. Just group was used to teach that. Is that right? Yeah. He taught me that. That was that was this thing. He really liked the shield, the vision with a punch. Okay. Have the kick come behind it. See that's that for me is that's one delivery mechanism of one particular technique. Mm-hmm. Right. And there are lots

“and lots of those. Lots of lots of them. But that's where it's fine. I find it really interesting”

is and how I sat one day and I thought to myself, I'm going to, I'm going to now down the jab. I'm going to start with that because I have intended on writing a book or to about this at some point. And I started with the jab and I got to like 20,000 words and I thought to myself, no one's going to read this shit. Like I'm going to sell one copy and it's going to

sell myself so I can criticize it. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, what you've always been a

very thorough guy in the way you analyze things which makes you a perfect candidate for someone who's a commentator because you really have a very complex understanding of the mechanics of movement. You're going to have all the different things that are happening. You're not just like, you know, I always hit them hard. Like you're looking at all the different layers and you analyze things on multi levels which I always find fascinating like you have a great commentary style. It's really

excellent. You're absolutely one of the best out there. That means a lot to me. Thank you. Yeah, you're great. Unfortunately enough to have a bit of the tism you see. So it's like I see the patterns. That's a good thing. Yeah, I'm touching the tism as good. Oh my god. Yeah. I don't think I have that. No. I don't know. What if you had ADHD? Yeah. I was going to say yeah. My dad's ADHD. My mom's mom's tism for sure. You know the main way. Yeah. I don't have the tism. I have this weird ability

to lock in on things where the world goes away and I don't need food. Yeah. I can just like to do something like 12 hours in a row. 100% I forget to eat all the time. Yeah. In fact, Tom Hardy's just an answer that he's autistic. He's just collaborated with a brand and they've created a whole line of, you know, no eye contact. How cute. How convenient. He's autistic. Come on. You know what was really interesting? Like unless you're coding and you're sleep shut the

fuck up. You know what was really interesting is I have a friend called Scroobius Pepp. He's a rapper in the, in the, oh, no, no, no, Scroobius. Yeah. So he was in, he was in to boo with Tom Hardy. And he told me a story when they were driving from L.A. to Vegas and Scroobius Pepp. His record labels called speech development records. He has a stammer. He has a speech impediment. And on this drive between L.A. and Vegas, he's driving Tom Hardy's in the passenger seat.

And Tom started to mimic his stammer, but apologised for it. He's like, I can't, I can't help it. Like he's like absorbing parts of his character, and he's very similar to, like, it happened to his, with Johnny Depp and Bill Murray when they played Hunter Thompson, right? Like, like, you watch Jack Spiro and Jack Spiro's got a Hunter Thompson kind of move to him. And even Johnny Depp said himself, he doesn't think he was ever the same after he played Hunter Thompson in Fair

“and Loathen. Well, he was such a giant hundred Thompson fan. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's interesting”

about like, like, certainly method actors. People that, that can play a role to, like, Jim Carries, another good example Christian Bale, right? Daniel Day Lewis, oh my goodness, maybe the best. Like, their ability to, like, almost like Shang Tsung out of Mortal Kombat, they can absorb a bit of the person's character. Yeah. And then kind of become that character. Yeah. Like, I met Tom a couple of times in at Hanzo's in New York. And he's a, I mean, he's a lovely guy, but he's like,

kind of hunched over, no, I contact and, you know, oh, yeah, well, I think a little bit of that is famous. Well, I think so. There's a little bit of fame that just weirds you out. Like, if I go places, I try not to make eye contact sometimes. Yes, it's just too odd. I just like, hi, you know, you might think I'm artistic, but I'm just fucking weirded out by too many people. And I totally get that. You know, one of my favorite shows that you ever did was with Henry

Rollins, the first one. And he said something that always stuck in my mind. He said, I'm very good

being the party. I'm not really good being at the party. Yeah. Stuck in my mind. I feel like that all

I, and I find it exhausting. I was walking through the park. The next, the hotel last night.

And I'm, I'm like, having a conversation in my head, like, stop looking at people, stop looking people in the, like, stop making eye contact. I don't know all the time. I like looking. But I'm even doing it now, like, we're talking. I'm kind of locked into you. And I, even in your conversation, you, you're like, have a look away. I struggle to do that. I'm actually trying to kind of have to do sometimes. I have to do sometimes if I'm thinking of an idea. Yeah, I look away.

My wife said that I wonder if that's autism. Because it's just like, one of my daughters has my recall, my ability to, like, she'll talk about, like, you know, whatever it is, like, she, she can rattle off, like, information about the Titanic. Like, it's, it's like, you have your fucking dad's brain. Like, that's nuts. But I do, when I do it, I look away sometimes. Like, I look

up. Like, I'm talking about things where I really want to be clear about what I'm saying. I look

up. And it's because I want to, I think it's because I want to take out the element of eye to eye and communicate with someone. Looking away while thinking, known as gaze-aversion, a common cognitive behavior that helps people process information by reducing external strategies.

“Yeah, that's what I'm doing. But looking at an empty space or upward, the brain shifts from”

environmental input to internal cognitive tasks, such as memory retrieval or complex thinking. Yeah, that's what I do. I don't even, I didn't know it was a similar, like, when people turned on the radio when you're trying to find where you're going, you know, yeah, you have to, like, block you, whatever it is. Right. You still see, but you have to, like, you know, all right, or if someone's yapping at you or are you trying to figure out where you're going

and they're telling you, and I told her and they're like, we shut the fuck up, I don't know where

I am. Yeah, we have to figure out where we're going. You know, I'm talking about self-divided when I'm walking through airports. When I'm traveling, I've got my wife with my Veronica. Like, I notice I, I can't actually don't make eye contact with her when we're traveling. I don't know why that is. It's like, I feel a little bit like, there's enough to be dealing with, right? If I then open a conversation with you by looking at you, that's another layer of, yes, let me just deal with

the Apple. Yes. Well, you know, people don't think about that, but when you're involved in multiple tasks at the same time, you know, you're taking away your ability to concentrate and do a great

“job at any one of those things. If there's multiple things going on at the same time, that's why,”

like, I used to do interviews in my car, and I stopped doing them because I sound like a moron, and I realize this because I'm thinking about cars. Right. I'm going 60 miles an hour. This is a car to the left. It's a car to the right. It's a car in front of me, car behind. This guy, this fucking asshole. Oh, he's kind of motorcycle. He's going to get killed. We'll get him zipping in between the lights. And so I'm thinking all these different things. And then I'm trying to

explain different stuff. I thought it would be a great way to multitask. Let me do this fucking stupid interview that I don't want to do anyway. And let me do it while I'm on the phone. It'll be kind of fun. Yeah. But me, mom, just sound like a moron because I can't articulate well, because I'm thinking about too many different things simultaneously. Well, you're already multitasking. Yeah, which is why I like the sensory deprivation tanks. Yes. None. There's nothing. There's no tasks.

Is that still regular thing for you? I got it right here. Have you really? Yeah. Yeah. I've only done it a couple of times. But I've found you in these days. I mean, the UK. I'm writing the Midlands in the UK. But I mean, I'm getting a little cookie over there, isn't it? Yes. I don't want to be able for they like you up for a thought crime. I know, right? I know. For real. It's like I'm conscious and cautious all the time. I feel right now like I'm

kind of holding my tongue on a lot of things, just purely because I kind of, I know that when I

“when I start talking, I'm just, ah, you know, because that's how I am. You know, I'm very opinionated”

unfortunately. Let's get things. Well, if I decide to start talking, then I won't, I won't shut up and I'm not, I'm not open that floodgate yet. But I do feel like it's coming. But I also feel like I need to, I need to feel like I need to prepare for it a little bit. You know what I mean? Like there's a bunch of books I need to consume before I'm, I mean, the right place where I can open up and fully express yourself, express sort of things. Yeah. It's just where it's going

right now is not in a good direction. It's going, it's tightening down on people's ability to express themselves. Yeah. And you got so many issues. It's happening everywhere though, isn't it? I mean, even like, you know, like, I mean, as a comedian, you know, freedom of speech is so important to you and to your industry, you know what I mean? And I feel like that's changed a lot. You know, across across the world is the same in Europe as well in a lot of places. I think in

America and comedy, it was closing down and then people realize we can't have this and it's open right back up. Right. Okay. You know, there was a bunch of people that were trying to conflate jokes with your actual opinions. Yeah. You know, I talked about on stage once. I'm like, you know, Bob Marley didn't really shoot the sheriff. You know, it's just when Quentin Tarantino's filming a film, no one's dying. Okay. This is entertainment. And you say things that you don't

really believe because it's an outrageous thing to say because it's funny. And there's this

you have these cuts out there in the world that are just looking to find words that someone said and ascribe them as if they, you know, put it, put it down on paper as if this is a statement. Like, this is where this person actually thinks. It believes. Like, no, that's not what we're fucking around. We're talking shit. Like, you can't pretend. Yeah. And then take a small clip. Yeah, completely out of context. Oh, take talk. All the time. Yeah. And all the time about all kinds

of things. People, which is part of the game. You know, people love to do that. It's like, it's fine. It's like, it's okay. You know, it's fine for TikTok-minded people. The real problem is people that don't know you and don't understand you and then they get an impression of you

based off of that. This is their first introduction to you and it's based off, well, the fuck that guy.

“But, you know, that's just part of the game. Yeah. It's gonna happen. I think comedians and sati”

is one of the last lines of defense against tyranny. I really do. Like, I watch Prime Minister's questions every Wednesday. And I listen to just the nonsense that comes out of it. And we've got the kid's hammer and Kenny Badeen, not just going at each other over just nonsense. It's not nothing real, not no real, no real quality of conversation is coming out of that. But what I feel like is if we had a panel of comedians sitting in the gallery somewhere, you know, you've got a Robert Mitchell

and Ricky Jves and James A. Caster and a few others just sitting there just going, well, that sounds like nonsense. And then poking fun at it and making a joke out of it. It brings a reality to

things that I don't think. I think we're lacking in a lot of ways. Well, the Lakota had that

in their tribes. They had a thing called the Heoka, which they called a sacred clown. And the Heoka would be able to make fun of everything. And as soon as you couldn't make fun of something, you knew it was bullshit. So it's like you couldn't make fun of the chief's wife or you couldn't make fun of, you know, someone, some warrior could make fun of something. As soon as you couldn't make fun of something like, hey, why so defensive? How come I can't make fun of that? That's interesting.

Yeah. What's it called? It had to actually be funny. Hey, Yoka. Hey, Yoka. It had to actually be funny, of course, or you'd probably get killed, but that's your new move. That's your new move, Joey. You need to sell my Heoka for the world.

“Well, I think that's what comedy is in many ways. It's a test. You test things. It doesn't mean”

it always works and it doesn't mean that jokes are always funny and it doesn't mean that

sometimes people don't overreach. You know, Patris O'Neill had a great statement about that where he was talking about something that happened on the opening Anthony show and he was on Fox news and they were criticizing it and he was saying, you got to understand that all jokes come from the same place. They all come from the place of tried to be funny and some of them, you might find offensive and some of them, you might laugh at really hard, but it's the mindset, the place that

it's coming from is all the same and I was like, that's so wise because that's really the best way to describe it because that's really what everyone's trying to do. They're just trying to make people laugh. It's just sometimes it doesn't come out right or sometimes it's a miss, like, especially if it's an ad lib. Like, at any moment in time, you generally don't know what the next word out of your mouth is going to be like right now, right? I don't know. I'm just freeballing.

And sometimes you'll say something really hilarious and sometimes you say something, you're like, cut that out, Jamie. It's like, you try swing, you miss. You don't know and people want to take these things that you're freeballing with and just trying to make laughs and call them a statement and think of that it's like this well thought out, you sat down, you wrote this out, you went over it with a fine tooth comb, this is my press release. That's not what comedy is.

It's jokes. You're just fucking around. And if you can't take a joke, you're probably annoying. Yeah. You really shouldn't be in any position to regulate discourse because you're not a fun person, right? You're a person that's looking to take things very seriously. Yeah. We know a lot of people like that. They're bad faith actors and, you know, they play gotcha. You just said this. Like, you really mean that. So tell your position on that. Like, oh fuck off. Yeah. Like, you're not,

I'm not interested in engaging with you because you're not real. You know, like, this is not a real. You're playing a stupid game. I'm playing a game of we're two human beings communicating with each other. And we're going to overstep sometimes. We're going to slip up. We're going to, and every now and then you're going to nail it knock it out of the park. And even if I don't like you, if you fucking

“make me laugh, I'll clap. Yeah. You know, it's kind of similar with trash token, isn't it?”

I'm a person. And if somebody, like, one of the funniest lines ever was, and I remember Connor as he was saying, it was laughing it himself. And it was the back and forth with Chad Mendes. And he was Chad was saying, you can't wrestle and con it. He was on a live feed, B.T. sports studio. And I remember it so clearly, because he was like, as he was saying it, he was finding it funny in himself. He was like,

laughing. Even Chad Mendes is laughing. You know what I mean? But then like funny dude, how about the

Jeremy Stevens one? Who the fuck is that guy? That's become a part of MMA law, right? Why are it some ways? And I was influenced. Oh, he's a, he was the master shit talker. Yeah. And also the master at emotional warfare. Yes. Like you like the Jose Aldo fight. I remember being there for that fight going Aldo is out of sorts. Yes. His whole, he looked fucked up. His body looks smooth. He didn't look, he didn't look like he, but wanted to be there. And he just threw

himself at Connor and got cracked. Wasn't crazy. He was so emotionally torn. And like the moment was so big. And then Connor across the other side looks so relaxed and loose. Because he knew he had won the emotional warfare. The emotional warfare was won. And that is a giant factor in fights, whether or not someone bites on emotional warfare. And I think that's a giant factor this weekend. I watched your war room. By the way, I love your YouTube show. It's really excellent. Thank you.

And this fight this weekend is a lot of emotional warfare, right? It's trickling to say some wild shit about homicide. You would say shoot him. He calls him a goat fucker. I mean, but it's interesting to me that it doesn't seem like homicide. It's biting on any of them. But it's like this guy. He said this thing, but he doesn't believe it. Yeah. And he's like, whoa. He's not, he doesn't seem upset about it. It doesn't seem like it's under his skin. He's like this

“guy. He says he wants war, but they don't think he wants war. He'd be dead. That's how it should be.”

I mean, the trickling will be the same. I don't that you could say anything to Strickland that would offend him. He's just hit laugh. Yeah. Exactly. He was like, say when I had that fight against Marcus Davis coming up, like I was surprised at how angry he got at me. Like in the countdown show, I'm laughing. I'm like, I can't, I literally can't believe he's this heads up and wound up about it. You know? And like, you go back to the Connor thing. You remember the press conference

where he stole out those belts? That's why they didn't want us. So I was behind the stage for that one to start with when they were both being kept separate and Dana was there. And then when they went on stage, I was on Connor side of the stage at the bottom of the stairs. And the anger just emanating off Aldo the whole day was exhausting for me just to be around. And then after the press conference where Connor was taking his belt, as soon as they'd circle back and they were

behind the thing, again, Aldo was like beside himself angry. And as soon as I saw that, I'm like, wow, that's like a level of witchcraft that you see in like the fainting of the sprite. And when you

“can start to pull somebody's emotions out like that. Yeah. And like for me, I think I think fighters”

should be completely impenetrable. Like no one should be able to say anything to a fighter to upset them. I just, it's an immediate weakness that you throw in the table for someone to get their teeth into.

Well, it's one of the things that I really appreciate about Parare, his stoicism. He's always just

stoic. You could talk all that mad shit about him. You know, and like the uncleye of the rematch with uncleye of like uncleye of it talked so much shit after that first fight. Yeah. You know, and then when he blasted him out in the first round, then he went like this. Beautiful. You know, the same thing with Jamal Hill. Yeah. You know, he's very stoic, but afterwards his celebration is even like, look, look. It's so cool. I like the fact that his

his coldness is a part of his brand. Oh, yeah. You know. Yeah. He's very cold. That's stare down. Yeah. Like him and Yuri Prahaska. It's so disturbing that Yuri thought he was using spiritual warfare. Like Yuri accused him of using sorcery. He's like, no magic this time. Yeah. You're so crazy. Such a crazy request. Yeah. Like, do not evoke spirits. I had someone trying to get a witch doctor on me and Brazil once. Really? I thought I was casted

spells. Yeah. They try to get a witch doctor. Yeah. Casting spells is because if you believe it

“it'll work. Yeah. Right. If you really, but that's why you voodoo works, right? Because if you believe”

and voodoo, it will fuck you up. But someone says, oh, curse you. You're like, oh, no, I'm fucking curse shit. Yeah. If you really believe that, it will work. Yeah. If you commit, if you can make someone

afraid of something, you're sensitive to something. You know, and you know, and I, I was always

a big fan of Marcus Davis. And I knew how dangerous he was in the division. But I also knew that if I poked him enough in the right direction, I would get a particular version of him that suited me. Right. And there were two versions of Marcus, right? There was the Marcus that showed up and he

Or there was the Marcus that was a little bit slender and it just looked different. And that

“version of Marcus Davis was knocking everybody out. Right. That's when he's coming into box.”

And, and I knew that if I pushed him enough, because that it was easier for me to deal with the heavily muscled grappler version of Marcus Davis than the slick Southport box of version. So my thought was, if I can push him to be really, really angry at me, he's not the one to roll the dice on striking games. He's going to want to edge his bets and try and force the fight into the range that I'm not very good at. So there was a purpose to it. But as soon as he bit on it, I was like,

that was too easy. That was too easy. And like there was clips of training and he's lightly noses bleeding and he just looks. And then that's when I'm for the weighons, I made the I hate Dan Hardy T-shirts. Because we did a like a 10-minute countdown show for it. And I was training wild card at the time just to try and get inside his head, you know, training a box in gym, you know, expecting you to be a boxer. And I played the game really hard on that fight. And

it was just, it was interesting to see how it played out because of what he expected from me and and the version of him that I got, right? And he was, he was so angry at me that his vision was, his mind was clouded. And even in the, was it, end of the second round, he went back and sat

on his stolen. It always stuck in my mind. Marta Delagrati in his corner. It wasn't advice. It wasn't

anything. He said, you won't round away from shutting this kid up. It was all about, that about silence in me, putting me in my place. Interesting, you know. And then, and then, funnily enough, after that, the next fight was Mike Swick. And for the whole training camp, Mike Swick was like, he was waiting for me to start trash talking. So I'm like, I'm not going to do it because he's expecting it. And he'll find it funny. So it's not now very kind of impact. So I just waited

until the press conference and brought him a runner up trophy. And he was like, I'm bringing this to the cage on the on fight night. And I'm going to give it back to you. But, you know, but it, it's interesting to see what you can do with how you can affect people like that and make them act out. You know, like the, the countdown show, the, the very start of it, it's just hilarious, still in my mind is you've got this whole candy. It's like dimly lit and Marcus is there. And he's like, you know,

when I was a kid, my mom used to say, you can't say you hate this. And unless you think a little bit about how much you dislike it every day. And then there was a pause. And the USC nailed it with the editing. And he looked down the camera and he went, I hate Dan Hardy. And then it cuts to me. And I'm just laughing like a prick. Like, you know, like, and I totally under, I got so much hate

“mail for that fight. I can't even tell you. I think I still got a folder in my old email account”

because I saved it all. That it was I got death threats. I got all kinds of stuff. I caught it hated me from that fight. But like, as soon as I'm, I thought, you know, I'm going to make I hate Dan Hardy T-shirt, surely to kind of like bring some light to this. I even made one for Marcus and he threw it back at me. But, you know, it was just like, I wanted a particular version of him, you know, just like, like, what kind of did with Aldo? He primed Aldo to run onto that counter

to left. And, and Aldo, a clear mind, training from a blank slate, not having any of that

psychological warfare in mind. We've never charged like that. Would have been so much more dangerous

for Connor, right? And Connor was always heavy on the front leg and Aldo was one of the best leg kickers ever. You know, he probably would have tried to kick the legs and piece him apart from the outside and find his motions. But Connor was always going to be a problem for Aldo because he's so fast and he's so explosive and so big. Yeah. He was so big for 45. He, his weight cut was hell. Watching him weigh in and that was the days where you would actually weigh in. This is before the

ceremonial weigh in. So he would have to make 145 and then stand there and he looked like a dead man. He looked like someone from like fucking the walking dead. It was weird. And then he would just rehydrate in the next day. You know, he had to be a buck 65 when he actually fought. Easy. Easy. I like what they've done with the weight cutting. I like the fact that he's done in the morning. And people can rehydrate and stuff. The thing I miss is to see people facing off when they're

in that feral dehydrated state. Right. That's the thing I miss because like a lot of the time

“I'll be looking for reads. You know, there's the picture you kind of looking around. You know what I mean?”

It's like you want to see that face off of it. People are in that state. Like what's one of my favorite things to do is see the guys head to head looking each other's eyes because you just there's a buck and smell. Yeah. There's a feeling in the air. You get a sense. I wear the meta-glasses when I'm doing face off now. So you can see P.R. I've made a little logo. Hardy vision. No. You can see

and sometimes people are like face to face. It's palpable. You know, and what I always loved when

I mean, even look at Connor, right? He was feral at 145. But 155, he was he was cut in but he was on point at 170. He was like, right, feel great. Just a different three different versions of the same person 10 pounds apart. Yeah. And when I fought Rory Markham, that was co-main event in my second fight in London. You have seen 95. He arrived five week on the Tuesday at 195 to make 171. And I knew that it was going to be a roof weight cut for. Who's a big guy? That's massive. And he'd

never been the distance 16 and 4. It was knocked everybody out that he fought. And I was,

remember when he fought was it Brody Farber kicked him in the neck. And like, as he went down, he like crossed these legs on the way down. That was in the palms. And it was just dead. It was brutal. But like when we were we did the weigh-ins in a theater in London. And obviously we're all on weight. I've been on weight since 2 o'clock as most people have. We've journeyed into London on the bus. Everyone's still on weight. No one's drinking. And like you walk through the changing rooms

in the back. And we're in like an old, like West End theater. And like you can see where people are at. What state there are, how much they've cut weight. And I remember seeing Rory Markham just sitting there. Just he was just looking like he was broken already. He was just so drained and exhausted. So my thoughts myself is I'm going to get right in his face as soon as I stepped off the scales. And I wanted him to feel that I wasn't as depleted as he was the day before because that would

then be his memory going into the fight on fight days that he didn't cut as much as me. He didn't feel like shit like I did just today. Right. And like as I walked onto the stage, I'm standing on the

scales and I'm looking at him. And there's never a photograph of me looking at the crowd and flexing.

I'm looking directly at him. And as soon as they read my weight, I went straight around upon a forehead on his and I tried to push him back a step or two. And that was because we were on weight. If that was a morning weigh-in and we were doing it later in the day, it wouldn't have had the same kind of impact. Right. You know, he would have already been replenished. He would have felt much better.

“Yeah. And he went to good point. He would have pushed. That's why I always wore contact lenses as well.”

I always had the contact lenses on the stage. You know, I just didn't want people to see my eyes. I didn't want them to get a real version of me until fight night. Yeah, you know. Yeah, emotional warfare. It's real. It's very important. I loved it. I mean, I wasn't very good as a fight CC. So I'd say you know what I think. Look, look, look at the guys in my division. I'm in John Fetch. I know. Mike Swift was great, Josh Koshchek, a bit of a prick, but great fighter,

you know what I mean? Like good guys in my division at the time. And I didn't have the wrestling to be competing with a lot of those guys. That's a giant factor. And that's a factor that takes so long to catch up to. Yeah. God, if you can ever, unless you're like a real superior athlete, just a freak athlete, there's just like someone has got a gymnastics background or something. It's like very explosive. It's so hard to pick up that wrestling later in your career.

“It's like, that's what's so crazy about Pereira. Is that he figured out how to just stuff everything.”

Like, from multiple champion kickboxing gear, where you didn't do any grappling at all, lost his first

MMA fight, the submission. Really couldn't fucking grapple at all. Get together with Glover to Shara and just figure it out. But I also think with him, it's a freak athlete thing for sure, because there's the same reason why he hit so hard. I think he's just weirdly built. Even even a freak athlete though, you take him back 10 years and you take Glover to Shara away. And he's not supplied with the information where he can apply that athleticism, right?

And this is where former fighters passing on knowledge, like we talked about. I mean, like, we went Bass-Rooten, Dwayne Ludwig, TJ Dilashore, right? You know, like Glover to Shara, it's a Alex Pereira. It's probably one of the best relationships, because for me, Glover to Shara was he overachieved in his career, based on his age and his athleticism compared to the people in the division. The reason why was because his game was so solid and so sound. I say to Yung Fighters,

you need that Glover to Shara bass level where you can be semi-conscious, taken big shots, sweep to top position, take someone's back and choke him out. Like, like, he did that consistently. Yeah, he dropped rocks and come back from the dead and finish people. So then for us on Miss Six years of his prime, crazy, because you couldn't get out of Brazil.

“Well, you were talking about him constantly before you were assigned. I remember that. I remember”

hearing his name a lot, because you were same with Pereira. You were talking about him before the UFC signed him. But like, if you imagine Glover to Shara, I'm sorry, Alex Pereira walked into an MMA gym in 2005. They would have probably tried to teach him a whole system of jujitsu and then he would have had a wrestling coach that would have tried to teach him folk style or freestyle wrestling. Right. Whereas Glover to Shara was like, there's a lot of this shit you don't need, brother.

Like, first of all, I'm not going to teach you many submissions because you're not ready going to need them. But he does know submissions. But jujitsu Blackball. But that's the thing.

a normal Black belt would learn? And I'm not discrediting his Black belt. But what I'm saying is

his game has been very specifically tailored to be effective in the arena that he's fighting in. That's true. But it's also the relationship that he has with Glover too, where it's a one really elite coach with the World Championship level experience, concentrating on a very special athlete. Whereas if you're at ATT, you know, you're, this fucking chatchins and fucking Dagestanies. And this is a room full of assassins and five coaches. And like, I don't know if

you'd get that kind of attention there. You know, there's two different schools of thought.

“You know, there's the school of thought that you need to be around those people because that's a”

shark tank. And that's how you get better. You'd be around all these killers. And then there's another school of thought is like, no, you better off at a very small gym with a small group of people that really concentrate on you. I'm more inclined to think of the small gym. I think the small gym with elite trainers is a better option than being in a giant. I mean, it's not that

ATT doesn't create amazing World Champion athletes. It certainly does. But I think if someone's coming

up, maybe you're better off with someone, like, personally, you'd have to find someone like Glover who's really interested in taking the time and really working with you. Yeah. And Glover, and you know, going back to what we're talking about earlier, like Glover's already gone through the process of learning due to it. So in absorbing what's useful and rejecting a lot of what's useless. Yeah. So he's not given parara the useless part of due to suit for MMA. Right. Right.

Now, how much of how much of due to suit specifically is applied to MMA, right? There are so many positions that it just changes when you start to use punches. Things become a lot easier when you can start to strike as well, because you can force people to do things they don't want to do. Yep. So like, I feel like the refinement that Glover to share her went through to be the great fighter that he was is the reason why parara has become so successful because he's been given

the pieces that he needs. I know what imagine that, you know, if you rolled with him, he would be a real problem. But I would imagine his game's still very direct. Like he's not using crackhead control and he's not rolled in for knee balls or that kind of thing. I just because the but need is hydrogressing. Of course. You know what I mean? But he's also gone through the shedding process, right? Yes. Because he doesn't think he ever really acquired all the crazy shit.

“I think there's a lot of these guys that like fundamentals are just like laser focus. Like Hixon.”

Hixon was always just laser focus fundamentals. It's a Taranogera laser focus fundamentals.

Do you think the do you think the existence of Valetudo kind of forced them to go very specifically to what worked though for no rules contests? Probably there's probably some of that because obviously Hixon created a competed in Valetudo very early on. So it's like, yeah, yeah. I mean a lot of stuff goes out the window as soon as you punch, right? A lot of stuff. Yeah, but including some heal hooks and things like that. Like there's certain positions

where you see guys in jujitsu tournaments like boy, you find yourself like that and the fight, that guy's gonna blast you in the face. Like you're in a bad, like you're grabbing a whole someone's leg and your head is right here and you're hooked like there's nothing stopping someone from elbowing you or punching you in the face. It's kind of nuts to even pursue those, but as long

“as it's not striking, but it's very effective. Yeah. See, I often think that I'm quite, I feel”

very fortunate that I came into martial arts before MMA. And the reason for that is because the way that I learned martial arts was not for sport, right? And this was an observation I've had recently where you know a fighter just would fall apart if they haven't done other particular person in their corner, right? My martial arts instructor back in the day from when I was six was teaching me Taekwondo or teaching me martial arts should I say, for him not to be their corner in me,

because I'm doing it for self-defense. There's no sport context. He's not teaching me techniques that I can use when he's there to coach me through a street fight, right? He's trying to give me the techniques that I need. So when he's not there, I know what I'm doing, right? Same thing with like spatial awareness. Like often, like, you know, when I was in clubs and I was fighting a lot back in the day, my awareness of fire exits and tables and that kind of stuff. It gives me a

similar awareness to how I can use the cage against my opponent, which I feel is not necessarily used as much as it could be in MMA these days. Like there are certain fighters, they just don't like how often DC2 fighters up against a fence panel and the whole cage is there. And they're like, they're not, they're not, no one's using the pressure that they could be using. Sometimes people circle themselves onto the fence unnecessarily. The idea of being backed up against the wall is

only if you don't want people attacking you from behind was my perspective in a self-defense

it in a more efficient way, right? Like, say it for example, if I had learned jujitsu, I wouldn't have wanted to use jujitsu for a street fight because a lot of street fights I got and it wasn't one person. So I don't want to be in side control or choking somebody out while he's going to volume me in the head. Like for me it was the efficiency of, okay,

“here's a guy, here's a guy, you know what I mean? Like how quickly can I get through these people?”

Yeah, you know. And I feel like that's something that this is maybe where the scoring criteria can be adjusted to, so we keep getting what we want out of the sport because there are stagnant fights. They do slow down. People do start to think, okay, this round, this round, this round, and there's not, there's not an instigation for a conclusion built into their game necessarily. But isn't that also dependent upon matchups? Like sometimes people just cancel each other out

skill-wise and that's just part of the game. Absolutely, but usually the ones where they cancel each other out skills skill-wise are the, are they actually the more interesting fights?

Because whether it's grappling or striking, it keeps moving. Almost always it's when

there's a dominant skill set on one side and the other person just can't deal with it. Like look at me, it comes out and trick us. Exactly. Look, me against GSP. Right. Like I didn't have the skill set to compete with him. Right. If I'd have been able to wrestle had a forced him to strike. If I'd have been better at you, just so I'd have maybe forced him to strike a bit more. Right. But because there was a way of him to complete taking me out my game,

there wasn't necessarily an oneness to instigate a conclusion to the fight. Right. So almost always when you see one person that is so dominant in wrestling and the other person can't handle it, that's when the fights can sometimes be quite stagnant. Yeah. My argument in those scenarios is okay, well, yet you win in this with wrestling. You're winning it with wrestling. But you're not concluding it, right? Like you're going to get to the end and the judges are going to go, well yeah,

you know, you're controlled him for more of the fight. Like the harms I'd trick us with. Yeah.

“Like this is, I mean, I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this. I think we should stop”

scoring control in MMA. Right. Control is scored up against the fence, right? Defense is not scored in MMA. Right. Defense is its own reward. Right. Control in my opinion is its own reward. If you're a grappler and I'm a striker, it's it's on you to take me into the range that suits you. Right. But if someone's taking someone down and controlling them and working towards a submission, how do you quantify that? You're the way they might not get it, but they're working towards it.

So, so then if you consider top control as you would center control. Right. When everything else is even, you go to octagon control as one of the latest scoring criteria is when the strike in and the grappling everything's even. Then we move into, okay, well octagon controls weird though, because it's like, so octagon control could be you're in the center of the cage and you're pressing the action, but what if you're a counter striker? What if your Tyron would the versus Steven

Wonderboy Thompson and you spend a lot of the time just moving away? Like, remember they fought to a draw, right? Did they fought to a draw on one of their fights? Yeah. But that was also, that was also, I mean, and I don't necessarily want to criticize Tyron, but I don't really think Tyron liked fighting. They spent a lot of time wearing these back heel down against the fence

with the crowd bowing in the championship rounds. I never got the impression that Tyron liked

fights and he was just good at it. You know, that's interesting. I don't know why you would think that.

“I just thought that was the style to beat Wonderboy. I think that's the smart style to be”

Wonderboy because he didn't fight that style that Darren Till. Well, could, yeah, till absolutely to them took him down and got rid of him quick. But with Wonderboy, you cannot stand in the middle of the cage and kickbox that guy, because he's doing weird shit. He's doing things with his legs. You can't do. And you know, if you see a guy like Raymond Daniels or MVP, you can't, yeah, if you can. Yeah, if you can. I hear what you say in totally, but like, say, for example,

in the Damian Mile fight, he defended 26 takedowns in that fight when the distance, right? But with the Wonderboy fight, he rocked Wonderboy and he had Wonderboy hurt. Where Wonderboy didn't hurt him, which is, because he forced Wonderboy to be offensive instead of countering. So, by making it boring, by backing up. Yeah, but, but I, at the same time, I don't necessarily think, I don't know as that was a calculation of going on. I think it was. You think? Yes, because it fought

him that way the second time as well. I think, but I think that was intimidation from what Wonderboy could do on the feet and him not wanting to waste energy trying to take him down. I don't think he was intimidated. I think he was waiting. He was waiting for moments to explode because it's not like he was timid when he blasted him and had him rocked and hurt. And the thing is, what was interesting is, I had a similar, you didn't think you were in a fan after the Daryntil fight?

Oh, absolutely. Like, and same with the Robbie Lola fight, you know, that was an incredible knockout.

And sometimes I just felt like he wants to play King of the Hill. He didn't want to be the

“smashing champion that other fights is did. You know what I mean? Well, you know, you got to think”

like he had some, he had some fights that didn't go his way as well. Strike Force, the Nate Mark Quart fight. The Nate Mark Quart fight when he got KO'd, where Nate hit him with like a video game combination with those elbows against the cage. Like, so there's consequences to just wait and by the way, Nate Mark Quart boy, there's the guy that kind of people forget how fucking good that guy was when he was in his prime. When he went over to Strike Force, he was a fucking monster dude.

That guy was good. He was good. You know, I had heard stories about him training at in Colorado with GSP with all those guys like, dude Nate Mark Quart fucked everybody up. He was that good at one point in time. So many names of fights is that I've just been kind of lost a time that people don't realize. Yep, there was so many. You've had words. There's another one. I talk about him all the time. There's a point in time where either words was the best 155 pounder on that planet.

Thanks. Yeah. It's just like people forget people forget how good people were.

You know, interesting. The point you made about Counter Strike, and I've always thought this about

God playing as well. If you're a God player, you've kind of got to accept that you're losing until you win. Yeah. It's like Machito was one of the best examples of a Counter Strike. And then you know, you say I'd assign you against the Palo Costa, Palo Costa was in the center of the cage for most of that. Yeah. So if you're just looking at Octagon Control, more you're going to score its Palo because he was in the center. But there was no doubt that Izzy was just toying with

him and lightning, or from a distance. Yeah, because Izzy was learning all his shots. But that's the thing is that that was a very, very clear one right where you've got one person moving back and given the center of the cage, but clearly winning on the striking. Whereas if when it gets

“very even with the striking, you have to really have good judges to be able to pick a part”

who's landing what? Yeah, even because like we had a fight with the week, Jakob Kasuba, he was fighting the tank shot and he was backing up the whole fight, but he was landing way more strikes than he's opponent. But even when it got to the end of the fight, I'm like, these judges are going to score this right. Are they because they don't have the stats that we have on the screen in front of his right? It should exactly they should. But because they don't,

are they going to go are, well, you know, it was moving forward and we had a fight in Sioux Falls the other day where the female fight to Shen Bowers was pushing forward and she was landing, but her opponent was backing up and countering a lot of the shots and the judges scored it to Sabrina. It was the right decision to make, but the crowd didn't like it because they felt like the Bowers was the one pushing forward and making a fight out of it. They're both casual. Of course,

“but it is a risky thing to be a counter striker and a guard player in MMA because you have to”

first of all credit the judges to see what, you know, but who's left that's a guard player? Not many,

right? It's kind of been psyched out of it. All of it there was like the best at it, but even that didn't work out for him in some times. There was a lot of time it spent energy, guard playing. It's a lot of the time of why, you know, good wrestlers decide not to wrestle, well, it's the amount of energy it costs. That's true, but I mean, like, look what he did to Gamra and that was super impressive. Gamra's so good. So good. The fact that

Gamra was just lost in the ground with all of there. Gamra's still of there. It's been the Gamra's debut. Okay, this is Garam Kutata Ladsi. Both of those guys, he's in karate combat now. Both of those guys are so elite. And then when they got matched up against each other in the USC debut, I'm like, man, people aren't going to realize how good this matchup is. Right, right. I saw Rukian, I called his debut against this matchup. Yeah. Like, and he was 5% behind Islam in

the fight, but that matchup was, you know, incredible fight. Yeah. Yeah. I am very curious to see how

pararad does against Cyril Garn. Yeah. Cyril Garn's a different thing. Just moves differently for a big guy doesn't it? He's also a real heavyweight. They're in a fucking time since he's been 15 without guys making 185. No. Right. That's a big man. And he's an incredible athlete and a really elite striker, like a really good striker. Like, and a fucking big heavyweight man. And I know pararad weighs like 260 now. I get it. I get it. Yeah. He's a heavyweight. Yep. Definitely.

But he was 185. He was 185. Just a few years ago. And he was 185 pound champion and then the 205 pound champion and I don't think Cyril Garn could even make 205. No. Cyril's big. Yeah. And he's big and fucking big. And he's good man. And I'm telling you that Tom Hardy fight excuse me. Tom Aspenal fight and Tom Hardy. She's horrible. My mind sucks. The Tom Aspenal fight in that first round before the the eyepokes were disgraceful. Like, first of all, I think

Why, why these, why these out like this. Yeah. You're just fucking, it's a good point. The thing annoyed me is like, they went through all the, all that, the effort to fix the gloves.

Mm-hmm. But they never asked a fighter or a person that wraps hands like what they actually thought.

They were getting contender series fighters to, to grade them. And of course, they're all like, they're great. They've got, you see on them, I'm so happy to be there. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, you know, like, talk to take, for example, I'm like, they must have asked you about the hand wrapping about the gloves and stuff. Because the problem is, right? Like, when you get there on Tuesday, and you try your gloves on, you're like, yeah, they feel good. And then you get to fight night,

and they put a quarter inch of padding underneath. Right. And then you try and close your hand. Right. And like the difference between like the pride gloves or the rising gloves or the like the

“fear text, I always used to use fear text if I could. There's a, there's a curve in the glove, right?”

When you try your gloves on, what the, what the blue shirt's backstage doing? Because they know

the game is they roll the glove up and then wrap it with the Velcro of the wrist. So it stays rolled from Tuesday to Saturday. Right. And then when you get them on Saturday, they've kind of curved a little bit, right? But it's not, the curve is not built into the padding. Right. And the, the, the, the, the new ones that they made, there, there was just too much technology and not in a common sense. Have you used Trevor Whitman's? A half Veronica's just got a pair of them. The best. They all very,

very good. Absolutely. They're the best. That's an ownership problem. No, isn't it? It is. I've tried to negotiate that and broker that and maybe I still can be successful. I talked to them. I talked to to Trevor. Maybe it still can be done. But even with Trevor's, the fingers are still exposed. And I think there's certain guys to just have this fucking impulse to do that. And I think one point every time. Yeah. I spoke so many of the eye, one point, every fucking time. Because there's a lot of

fighters that have never poked anybody in the eye. Right. So how come? How come? They've been in wild

scraps, never poked anybody in the eye. Yeah. I mean, well, I watch, I watch one championship, small glas moitai and they are pain reign. Right. They're not poking each other. No, they're not. And by the way, I love small glas moitai. It's so cool. It's so good. It's so interesting. And for all these people that like hate when fights go to the ground, my God, that's the solution. And I've been trying to sell this to the UFC forever. I'm like, fuck all this slap by shit.

“And I know you're really interested in zoo for boxing. That's great. How about UFC striking?”

How about UFC moitai? You know? Because and even kickboxing, what they're doing with one, you know, guys like Yuki Yose and, you know, watch out for Ben Willis. Have you seen this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's a beast. I'm telling him to pay off a little while ago. Just can't get in match. Just clear it in match. People don't want to stand, but the click on his, on his Instagram. And he's, I mean, in my opinion, he's one of the best strikers in the world right now.

There's just an, and I've, you know, trained, trained at Renegade for a long time with the Edwards brothers. And I would watch him just play spot with people and the level of trickery. Like, that's where you like, go back to saying about dimensions, right? There are ranges in fights. And then there are dimension, there's own those ranges. Yeah. And he's like a Jedi level of dimension of understanding of striking. And, and to see him have the success, he has me stopping John Lennico with Carf kicks.

And, you know, yeah. Just being real. You're going to see him go. How is one doing? Are they?

“Not good from what I can tell. I mean, yeah, that's what I've heard as well. And that concerns me,”

because if we have more limited options, that sucks, you know. This is why, I mean, and I, you know, I feel very much like I'm in the right place now with the peer felt, because we need more organizations. Yeah. We need more organizations. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the US, he's not the custodian of the sport that we need right now. You know, well, you think they're doing wrong. I mean, I think, I think it's a variety of different things. I mean,

underpaying the fighters, killing the sponsorship market, they buried a lot of growth of the subculture. You know, you remember the old USC expose that we used to do. I do like five, six hours a day signing, tap out over to Silverstar over to Zion's. And, like, as soon as that was all killed off, a lot of that subculture died off. And, although there's subcultures offered jobs outside of outside of fighting. You know, it allows people to then start a brand and sponsor some young fighters. Like

Charles Lewis, mask, paid me double what I was getting paid for my purse when I was in Japan. Double, just to wear tap out shorts on a tournament and cage force. Like, you didn't need to do that. But he was a fan of the sport. He loved it. And he wanted to support it. And back in the day, like, I had sponsors like Eric Records and stuff that was on my banner, just heavy metal brand from like my local town. Like, the idea of being able to have these personal sponsors that would

help you out was massive. Yeah. And then the other thing that the other issue that we've got is that we don't have enough events now for a lot of fighters to get experience. So then a lot of people

somebody about to see the day. And there's this good clear examples. Like, I was 19 and 6

“when I joined the USC in 2028. Connor McGregor, I'd already built a brand and a-”

We were just said 2028. Sorry, it's with 2008. Maybe there's a return on the club. It's 2008. So I was like a dive drama. I feel like I'm here a little bit with the photo. Yeah. So in 2008, like, there was, where was I going? A lot of my trainers thought. Sponsors. Sponsors. Yeah. So like, we had sponsors. There was a subculture that was growing around the brand. And there were, there were shows that that would host you long enough for you to develop a brand. Right. So like,

I didn't have a nearly as big of a follow-in as Connor McGregor or Paddy Pimmler. But I had a similar platform. Right. I was cage warriors champ. Then Connor was cage warriors champ. And he was an established fighter with a game and a following before he came through. Same with Paddy. We don't see that as much anymore. Right. We don't see the fighters growing on their local scene and building a local fan base that really starts to grow the sport on a grassroots level. You know? But why is that the

UFC's responsibility? Oh, no, I'm not saying it. I'm not saying it is. What I'm saying is that unfortunately, I think the UFC is now kind of paying for the control that they took many years ago because the industry has been stifled around it. Like the sponsorship industry for a start was massive. You know? And the problem with it was there was a lot of sponsors that weren't paying. So the a lot of fighters would wind up in lawsuits and there was a lot of bullshit that was going on.

I mean, some of them were and it was great. Yeah. You know, like, you know, I'm really good friends with Brandon Chobb and there was a point in time where he was making X amount for a fight. He was making like three times that in sponsors. Yeah. I mean, I doubled my show money on the GSP fight because of my banner. I only got 22,000 for that fight, but which is crazy. That's crazy.

“World title fight. But that's what I signed up for. I wasn't doing it for the money, you know what I mean?”

But in hindsight, when I look at it and GSP was getting, I mean, you get like six million. He spent

quarter of a million on his training camp. How could I compete? Like he would book out a whole hotel and bring guys in from New York. I had an old in my corner who at the time was a brown belt. You know, I, you know, and I had a tie box in coats that was telling him him me to neem in the head on the ground from bottom position, you know, like less him. He just didn't know the rules. I didn't have to support network because I just, I couldn't afford what I would have

really needed for that, you know. But if I, if I go back to, you know, what's, I mean, the sponsorship process was interesting because the first thing they did was they brought in the fees that the sponsorship companies had to pay. So it was like, if you're a clothing brand, you have to pay $50,000 a year to sponsor UFC fighters and that goes to the UFC. Now, before that, as long as it wasn't offensive and it wasn't a conflict in sponsor, the UFC would tick it and you, you, you carry on.

Kind of deeper. Oh man over there. No. No. No. No. I turned them down a few times. But like, if you think about it, like say Eric records, right, they, they couldn't afford to pay the UFC $50,000. They would pay me 300 pounds to have a, the thing on my banner, right? So then as soon as you bring in this, okay, everybody has to pay 50,000 to be a sponsor in the UFC cage, almost all of the sponsors then fell out the market straight away. And then you've only got a few that are lingering.

And then if you're a, if you're a clothing distributor, if you sell a variety of different brands, it was a $100,000 that you had to pay. You know, right? So if you're MMA warehouse and you're a sponsor in Alistair Overream and your sponsorship budget for the year is $250,000 and straight away, a 100 grams been taken out because the UFC needed, just your pools gone down. Right. So you've got less money to give to the fighters and then you sponsor in less fighters overall. I get that.

I get that argument and I definitely agree about fighter pay. Look, I'm always in favor of

“fighters getting paid for. It's a very dangerous job and it's the only thing that people are”

paying to see. And I'm paying to look at the cage and I'm paying to look at the ring card girls and I'm paying to hear me talk. They're paying to watch the fights. Fighters should get the majority of the money. And it is a problem when they don't have a leverage and I think that it's great that you have things like MVP getting involved at the Netflix card and I wish the card was a little stronger but it's difficult. Like, like, lens fighting against Francis and Ghana, like,

you know, you need, like, who the fuck is even available that's not signed to a contract that you can get Francis to fight? Yeah. That's not a goddamn execution, you know. And Francis is the legitimate

heavyweight champion of the world. Absolutely. And the thing is the heavyweight division is always

going to be more of a victim of the underpayment than any other industry. Is Francis no longer with a PFL? No. How did that what happened there? I just think it was, I just think it was a bad deal done by the previous, by the previous CEO. Oh, it was a previous CEO? Yeah. So it's not a wearer. So he fought a hand-in-for-air and that one fight. Yes. Is that the only fight that he had? No,

And we've done a lot of, we've done a lot of bad deals. Why does that guy that just knocked out hand-in-for-air?

“Oh, Sergei Billestany. Woo. He used to train with Fedor and, oh, yeah. That guy's fucking legit. Yeah.”

And very, very fast. Yeah. Like him, if he Tom Aspeno was an interest in fight. Oh, that is an interest in anybody's interest. him if he's serial gang, he moves a lot like serial gang. But he's got some bow-back ground and, but that's his legit. I watched that verer fight and I was like, holy shit. He spun his head around him. Yeah, dude. And, you know, I mean, this, this cat. Yeah. Pull this up. Here we go. Well, because, yeah, Amy moves like Fedor, too.

He trained with Fedor, which is interesting. Yeah. Yes. You want to get through to the third,

yeah, that's that little body shot. So the third round was the, the finish. But it just looks in with so much shot. He looked so dominant, like, throughout the fight, man. Like right away, he's a beast. This kid is very, very legit. Oh, my goodness. The speed. Yeah. So, the world needs another fucking big heavyweight, man. Yeah. This is, this is awesome that this guy exists. What's his name again? Sergei Billis Denny. I just saw this yesterday. I'm guilty

of not watching enough PFL. But the thing is, it's like, the fights are legit. The talent is legit, but man, it's just not getting the attention that it deserves. Look, the thing is, as a, as a UFC fan, I get it, right? Because you want to watch one promotion where all the fights are, so you can find out

“who the best is. Because that's what ultimately it was about, right? It was about finding that who's the best.”

Listen, man, that guy can kind of compete with any, but of course. Of course. And we've got guys

that can across the sport. I mean, you know, across the, across the, across the, the promotion we have. I mean, you know, Dakota, Fad Gene, you know, we've got some real, real good fighters. And even in, like, we're, if you've not watched Luis McGrill and Dean Garnet, it is one of the best fights you'll ever see. There were 13 knock downs in it. It was carnage. But then we're also seeing really interesting things like, like, the Scottish Twister. Have you seen the Scottish Twister? Yeah. So that was Stevie Ray,

who hit it against Petis. And then he hit it against Luis Long in the, in Glasgow. Yeah. Then he's passed it onto Jake Hadley. And then Jake Hadley's just submitted Matthias Matos with it. And it's fascinating. Because it's kind of a Twister. Uh-huh. It's like, it's, it's,

have you tried it? Yeah. I mean, I have a struggle with it. So here it is. Look at this. The key is the foot

in the thigh. It's like an offside triangle. You can see that that right foot is just hooked in. Uh-huh. And he's going to threaten with an arm triangle. He's kind of holding Matos here. There's a bit of a hand fight going on. He's going to keep hitting Matos. And he's going to, Matos is going to go to an arm triangle position. Then he's going to start to try and force that that right elbow down. So he's not in an arm triangle and turning to the body triangle. But that right foot

caught in his thigh doesn't allow him to turn fully into the guard. So look at this. How he turns in, clears the head and there's the crank. Look at the foot on the inside of the thigh. It's nasty. So that is, I mean, I've had this done to me as well as I've done it. So you've got, you've got compression into the neck. Pressure into the lower back. Your hips being lifted. Yeah. It's a horrible submission. It looks horrible. And oh, this is a, the cheesecake assassin demo

in it. Interesting. But like, and this is, this is what's fascinating still to me about MMA. Is that I still feel like this technology is that we're not, we've not yet discovered the calf kick at being a good example. Right. Scottish twist to being another good example. What comes next? Like this is going to be some shit. I've got books and books and martial arts books. And I feel like if I dug, I might find something. But yeah, I don't know what's missing. Here's something

that I think might be missing. Front leg roundhouse kick to the face. Guys, we're fast with that. I used to see that a lot in Taekwondo. I used to see that a lot. There's guys that get, there's throat out there like a jab. And if it hits you in the face, you're fucked. And we've seen a few times in MMA. We've seen a few guys get dropped. We've seen a young, young, young, really. You just don't see it very often. And man, if you're good at that, if you have a fast one, that is a devastating

kick. Yeah. See that, that is a good example because that's a great technique and a great set-up.

“Because the reason why the head kicklanders, because you should just land on the inside,”

low kick. Yes. So, Wally had pulled a lead like back and pitched a head forward. Yeah. Beautiful set. I totally agree with you. I think there's a lot that still to be discovered. It's just stunning to me how few people get cracked with that. I mean, I felt like that was a major weapon when I was doing Taekwondo. A lot of people use that. Yeah. Crescent kick as well. Oh, you used a lot. It's a few guys that use that still. Anderson

use that a few times. Yeah. There's a cat. I forgot. I'm so sorry, man. I forget your name. But this is dude. He's got a video on Instagram where he knocks his stick guy out with an inside. Crescent kick to the face. There's a few people that are pulling it off, you know. Yeah. There's definitely more to come. There's definitely a lot more. There are a lot more

that we're not, yeah, right. You know. Well, a lot of the guys in kickboxing in particular in one are using that toe kick to the body. Yes, apchaggy. There's this cat. Yes. What is his name, Jamie? I've actually congratulate this guy. I apologize, sir, because I went back and forth with him. Jason Barrys, I would have just said, back it up a little bit before that, before that, before that. See, look at those kids. Justin Barry, Justin Barry. That's it. Look at the curve in this

cage where his gloves. So that they're basically a, they're either, they're either fair text gloves

or they're a copy of the fair text. Look how he does that. Well, it's Crescent lickers and crazy. Very cool. Crazy. Yeah, cage warriors is another great organization that's really producing elite talent. There's just, I agree with you. There's not enough of them. But it's like, what does the PFL have to do to get more attention? You know, because it seems like they're throwing

“a lot of money at fighters. Like, there's that, is that million dollar things still happening?”

No, we've got rid of the tournament. We've gone to regular shows now, so we have main in co-main and we've got rankings now done by combat registry. They don't have other crazy point system where you, they're all that's gone. That didn't make any sense. I'll be honest. I love the PFL, but PFL has been its own worst enemy for many, many years. We've gotten, we've got a new CEO John Martin, who's, he's been on Ariel's show a couple of times. He does

great interviews. He, he, he, he, he loved the sport from a fans perspective. Doesn't know it quite as much as, as other people, but he's, he's making the right moves and making the right decisions. Previous, I mean, I loved on Davis, but he was like Willy Wonka of MMA. He was like, "I've got a great idea. Let's do this." And Robert, and then, yeah, Pete Murray, who just was consistently making bad deals with all the points, and things were like, "Hey, I didn't understand any of it." So I was

running PFL Europe for a couple of three years. I stepped in at the end of 2022 as commentator, and 2023, I became the head of head of fight drops for Europe. So I was doing all the sign and matchmaking. I only had four shows a year, but, I mean, it was a passion project for me to

sign all these young guys and match them. And my argument was every single, and I always used to say

this to the fighters, because remember when Dana used to do this back on the old way and days where it get all the fighters, no corner men, no coaches, just translators and the fighters, and we'd gather in one of the changing rooms in the arena, and Dana gave us this speech, and it was stirring. Like, we're all there to murder each other, but for like five minutes, we all felt like we were in it together. And I loved that feeling, I missed it. Even walking out, we're like fist bumping

each other and we're all hyped, and that's where you'd announce the bonus amounts and stuff. So I would do that with PFL Europe, I'd gather all the fighters together, and I'm like, "Look, there's not a single fight on this card that has been matched for one person to win. Every single person stepping into the cage has got a fair chance of winning. Your destiny is in your hands, right?" And with PFL Europe, I was able to build a good roster and to, I mean,

“we had some fantastic shows, but when I first inherited it, we had four tournaments, right?”

So I had to sign 16 fighters, sorry, eight fighters per weight class, so I had 32 fighters on my roster that was done already before the year started. And then I'm off into get loads of different flags, so we're going into a place and I've got a bunch of fighters on the card that I don't need to aren't necessarily take it. And it was just working against me constantly. So I pushed to go down to two tournaments and have just a normal MMA show for the rest of it. And that worked

out well, but they just, they loved the tournament format because it was a distinguishing factor. And the question is, you know, what do we have to do to make a difference? Like, I mean, I think we are doing those, we are making those moves. We have to make more content, tell the fight to stories better, for sure. Maybe you guys should start a fucking moody ties. I'm down close. Maybe, I mean, look, let's just fucking up with that.

I've sent Dana all these different fights. I sent him all these, uh, um, a mangasilyev, that dude, Asadula, a mangasilyev, holy shit. Is that guy good? I'm like, look at this. Like, this is what people want to see, man. Like, everybody booze when the fights go to the

ground. If it gets boring, this shit's never boring. Yeah. Maybe you guys should pick up the

slack. 100% look, it's, I mean, I've thrown hundreds of ideas on the table. I always am, you know,

“that might be the mood, man. I mean, well, they might be with different shoes. Yeah, I think so.”

You might look how big it is with one. I mean, it's essentially become most of their fights now. Yeah. And it's accommodating fighters that have got two or three hundred fights in another discipline. They don't want to learn how to wrestle or grab it. But they are the elitist of elite strikers. And so easy to translate. Everybody knows what's going on. Yeah. A kick to the face is a kick to the face. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. I mean, I think, but I'm always throwing ideas at the

piano for the one that stuck was introducing elbows. Like, when I first started working with the piano, we didn't have elbows before he's crazy crazy crazy. Like, and I hated it. No,

had elbows. So what the fuck? Well, we see that was my, that was my selling point. That was the way

“I got managed to convince them. I said, OK, right. We've taken on Beloton now. We've inherited”

Beloton and everything. Take the rules to. Right. Yeah. How, but well, this is how I pitched it to them. Right. But one of my biggest opponents was Ray Sepho. Like, he did not want elbows

at him. And I could not get my head around it because he's always coaching elbows from the corner.

Right. Why didn't he want it? I'm not sure. I couldn't, I couldn't get my head around it. But the thing that pushed it over the line was me going, OK, right. We've just we've just taken on Beloton, right? We've got Beloton. We've got PFL. Imagine in a world where we now apply PFL rules to Beloton, what are the fans going to say? They're going to be like, well, that'd be terrible. They'd hate it because taking elbows out. I'm like, you've

illustrated my point. Exactly. So clearly, that's not the right way to go. So then we need elbows. Well, I'm glad they listened to you because that's ridiculous. Yeah. You know, what really needs to happen is needs to the head on the ground. 100% absolutely. It's crazy that someone could just huddle in a turtle position and not get pummeled, like you shouldn't

“be in that position. The only thing I can do without, and I loved it in pride, and I wanted to”

fight and pride for the soccer kicks as well, that's the only thing I could reasonably do without.

And the reason why no ring, the ring is different. You can move. Yeah. The problem with being planted into the cage and stonked or soccer kicked for sure. Remember where Sims Frank Mir. Stonked him. Yeah. Yeah. The thing was, and I've watched every single pride fight that's ever existed, I'm sure. I only ever see people get involved in the head when the fight's already pretty much done. Right. Right. So it's not a human man who has been soccer or elbow. Exactly. It's

like the ice it on the cake that we don't necessarily need when you can just hit and with one more shot. Right. And they tried something in cage rage if you when cage rage existed back in the day where the referee would decide that you could stomp on or they mean that. Let me ask you this. What do you think about side kicks the knees? I don't mind it. The problem with that is it's one shot and you're out for a year. But then he hooks it just as dangerous. But they're

not because you can tap. You can tap and you can hold onto the arms before it gets to that position.

“You can tap. The thing about the side kick to the knee like, um, um, what's the face?”

A little round tree. Yeah, but the the guy, my desk is the caucus. When you watch his knee go sideways like that, you're like, good Lord. Like, you're done for a year. If you're ever the same again. I mean, I know, I know, shaft cuts in a similar situation right now is he can hit to the back of the head. But you do hit to the back of the head. Well, because if it's a roundhouse kick and it goes over the shoulder, guess where land? Absolutely. Yeah. See the bit of the thing is the back of the

head is more protected from the bottom of the base of the of the skull down, which is like that's where someone throws a roundhouse kick and it goes over the shoulder. Yeah. It's going, boom. Right to the back of the head. But then how many football players in a season are taken out with a low tackle? I mean, it's the same in rugby as well. It's like, for me, that is a, that is a risk of the sport. That is, that is a part of the, but it's a victory with an illegal move that we all allow.

It's, it's only illegal because you can't strike to the knee. But then, but then, oh, no, back of the head kick. Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, saying the back of the head kick, you win by knock out and you shouldn't have hit them there. Yeah. But then, but then also you've got to go into what did they turn their head? What was the circumstance of it? That's true. I mean, the thing, like, you can't, in the rules, you can't strike joints, right? But then it was the same thing when

we had elbows. And I'm, like, we're doing shows in France. And I'm saying to the French commission, we don't have elbows. And they're like, okay, so where does the elbow start and where does the, you know, where is it, where's it for? Yeah. But a thing about, like, attacking the knees, you would have to say, well, it's got to be a straight kick where your hyper extend the knees, because you can't say, don't leg kick the knees, because you're going to be able to leg kick

the back of the knee all the way. So if you take that out, you're taking out a giant chunk of all techniques. Because, but the side kick to the knee, the problem with that is you're going to ruin careers. Like, there's a lot of guys that are just not the same. Tago Silva, I don't think it was ever the same after the John Jones fight. In my mind, it's the game we play. I agree, but I see, at no one's dying from a knee injury. It's very unusual, too. It's like, the Modestus fight was one fight that we didn't

name and Khalil's obviously a very elite striker. Yeah. But yeah. I don't mind it. I genuinely don't. I mean, I'm more interested in making sure the fights are protected when they can't protect themselves. That's that's where we need to raise everyone's understanding of what's happening.

Yeah. I agree with you. Well, listen, brother, I'm always good to talk to you.

We should do this more often. We should have said that every six years. We should have said, yeah, we're back in Austin soon, though, we're back in Austin soon. When you go to you, like, we, uh, Johnny Eblon's fighting Costello van Steenus in the rematch. What the mood isn't when in July? July 19 Saturday. Saturday, do you lie 19? Oh, my mother for 18. You're in out of town. I know where you are. Damn it. I know where you are, be there. You'll be there.

about. Yeah, we're talking about. Yeah, but that's, but yeah, Johnny Eblon Costello van Steenus.

“Do that. I want to see that. Fuck. Yeah. And I, and I, I will say, like, for me, our middleweight”

division is probably the most competitive with the UFC's middleweight division with Johnny Eblon

and our mother for like, Costello van Steenus, the current champ. Did you watch that fight? No.

“So Johnny Eblon undefeated in 1718 fights was beaten the breaks off costs. Oh, we got to”

mitigate it. Like, last 10 seconds. I did see that. Yes. That's right. So Costello's defended his belt. He beat Fabian Edwards Travis Brown elbows. Yes. And then Johnny Eblon just ragged old Brian

“battle like it was nothing. That's all that. That was insane. Yeah. No, he's a beast dude. Well,”

now that those two boys are going to rematch, Austin at the Moody Center, middle of July. It's going to be a good. I wish I was here. Me too. All right. Thank you, brother. Thank you. Very good to see you

always. Dan Hardy, what's your Instagram? Dan Hardy. Yeah. How are you? All right. Bye, buddy.

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