Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 047 - Michael Chandler

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Join us for a discussion with UFC fighter Michael Chandler about upcoming fights, taking a year off and his thoughts on the anticipated fight with Conor. Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Michael Chandler Links: https://www.instagram.com/mikechandlermma/  Thank you to our sponsors: MUD\WTR: https://mudwtr.com/cam use code Cam for 15% off  Leupold: https://www.leupold.com/ Black Rifle: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first Order Ketone IQ: https://hvmn.com/CAM use code CAM for 20% Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv  MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Bass Pro/Cabelas: https://www.basspro.com Timestamps: 0:00:00 Intro 0:05:23 Who Does Conor Actually Want to Fight? 0:11:02 Conor’s Movement 0:16:51 The Art of the Fight 0:19:27 Tony VS Patty - Upcoming Fight 0:29:13 The Difference Between Dagestani & US Wrestling 0:35:39 Michael’s Thoughts on Bo Nickal 0:41:12 Getting Caught by a Knee 0:43:56 Losing Focus in a Fight 0:47:32 Cues From Coaches 0:49:59 Self Talk in Fighting 0:55:59 Making the Decision to Join the UFC 1:00:51 Hunter Cambell 1:04:20 Colby’s Upcoming Fight 1:09:16 Michael’s Companies 1:14:13 Outro

Well, here we are. This is the Keep Hammering Collective Roadshow edition. And we're in Michael Chandler's studio. Thank you. Nashville, Tennessee, man. I know. I just got a little workout in. Oh, man.

Well, you invited me out to, you know, Springfield, Oregon. Yeah. So it's good to have you here in Nashville. Well, thank you for letting me use this. And we can get an update and a recap on, we had an awesome workout, a little bit out of my normal. Normal I told your trainer, what's his name? Jeremy. Jeremy, yeah.

Stud. That was fun. But I told them, like, my normal warm-up is just to run slow. Yeah. And then start raining a little faster and then you're running. That's my warm-up. Just go out the door. Yeah. Go out the door and start moving and then just go into it. And then today we were doing like the band walks and the man. It's the little stuff like that. It's a little stuff like that where you think, because you got the big muscles and you got the big muscle groups and the stuff you get used to. But then you put these little bands around your ankles and your glutes are on fire and you want to rip it. in half and tell coach should never do it again you you learned that from Connor probably right I did absolutely I learned from him he's great at warming up yeah and working out no we're you know I mean is that

the most talked about fight that still hasn't happened probably well maybe Ferguson could be a lot of people wanted that fight but this one has to be like right there well for sure and the hard part about it too for me is obviously as an athlete you're always you always have a fight either you're you don't have a fight scheduled and you're just kind of out there doing updates. Hey, life is good, hanging with the family or working on this business venture. But this one, this one has been so long. We, it got announced that me versus Connor for the ultimate fighter back in February of last year or February of this year. And then now we're still not going to fight now until 2024.

So it's been this one fight. And I've really held off on doing a lot of interviews because what am I going to do, go on Ariel Hwani or go on one of these other shows and be like, well, still don't have a fight date, you know, still don't have it. I mean, obviously there's a lot of speculation that it's going to happen. You know, this, we're announced all the way up until March, and I'm hoping that I'm the announcement, April. I know. We'll see whenever that is. So it's been a long, long time coming, but it's given me an opportunity to, the best year of my life, spending time with my family, working on myself, getting ready for what is to come. Yeah.

Because sometimes you need that season of preparation leading up to the greatest moment of opportunity. That's really what this is going to be. Yeah. But you probably would have preferred it sooner, right? I mean, yeah. The original plan was like, you know, get done with the fight or get done with the show. And in August was when it was going to be. And then we could fight, you know, September, October, November, around this time.

But here we are. Yeah. I mean, I know it all sounds good. Hey, spending time with the family, doing all this, that, but you're a fighter. Yeah. And you want to get in the octagon and put on a show. And plus, Connor obviously is a big event. You know, I mean, you're a showman.

It's price fighting. So it's like to show what you can do against one of the biggest names in combat sports is like, I don't know, how long, waiting this long must be tough. Yeah, it is. You know, it's been, yeah, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't moments. We're like, man, this is where you want to pick up the phone and call Dana and call Hunter. But they're going to give you the same exact answer. Hey, we already told you, you know, we're looking like this timeline. You know, it's not public yet necessarily.

that's what they've been you know and we and as we talked about too i mean i am one of the big stars one of the guys who will put butts in seats one of the guys who can be on these big paper views they're not going to hold me out yeah this fight isn't happening so the fight is happening i've had the i've had that assurance that it's going to happen and the confident expectancy that's going to happen um but yeah like you said it's it's it's hard to train you know even like guys like us like obviously it's it's hard it's still hard for me to train when there's not an exact date yet even though there is an opponent timeline um i find myself you know hey i'm going to just work out because i'm going to just work out because i want to stay young i want to stay in shape i want to

stay dangerous um but it'd be nice to have that that fight date but i have been focused on working on a lot of business stuff outside the cage and just being trying to be a father trying to be a husband yeah trying to find deeper deeper roots and and deeper layers of myself during this time because you know give a man uh you know give a man uh you know give a man that fight date and give him that thing to strive for, he can be laser focused, but take him away from that to not have something to really focus on. And then you kind of start to see little chinks in your armor. I've started to see versions of myself or thinking of myself

when I'm not having that bull's eye to aim for, that date to aim for. And I say, okay, I need to take stock in this and really work on these different layers of myself. It's probably useful too because, I mean, you're not going to fight forever. So this could be a little intro into. when you're done fighting retirement type life of how are you going to stay busy you know of course you're going to work out but yeah i mean it it's probably a good test run for that also um i was wondering though how hard is it because every time i see connor's name he's always talking about

fighting somebody else and it's like oh i want to get he wants to fight porre he wants to fight i don't even know probably gaugie probably go up to one 85 out of sonya he who calls them all I mean, yeah, it's Islam. And it's like, what? You're not fighting anybody. And now you say you want to fight 10 other guys. Plus he needs to fight you. It's like, what is he doing?

Yeah, well, honestly, and Dana came out on a press conference and says he likes to F with everybody, you know, especially his opponent. The number one person that he wants to mess with is me. So if he knows he's fighting me next, of course he doesn't want to talk about me. He wants to talk about everyone else to get me answer. to pick up the phone and say, hey, Hunter, he's talking about Gaichi. Hey, hey, Dana, he's just calling about Islam. That's not going to happen, right?

Yeah. He wants me over here. Same thing, they're all in on it. Coach Kavanaugh's in on it. Yeah. You know, now they're talking about timeline. They're talking about July and all these different things. Yeah.

Is it true or is it not true? Because they know that the waters can get muddy. The communication can get, you know, sideways or the communication can be the lack there of. can kind of make you go a little bit crazy. And I've said this too. I mean, I think there's some other fights that Connor would rather take than me because I'm a tough fight.

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I'm going to fight one of the other top five guys. and go toward that title but i've made my decision i'm sticking to that the fight that i want is connor um and the fight that you know he needs to come back and take is me but they're all in on it you know he wants to throw people off the scent as much as possible i would if i was you too i would like have that chip on your shoulder everybody's against me because it's like that's how we operate better at that right you know everybody's against everybody's screwing with me you know fuck them all we're gonna whatever but i do think seriously connor would much rather fight somebody else yeah and he's actually shown his hand a little bit talking about i know i've seen where he said ufc doesn't doesn't help anybody

on a comeback like from injury they give you know like it'd be better to have a lower ranked opponent to get back into it he said something like that too so i know he's looking at you going god i got to fight this freaking guy coming right back from two years off and he'll talk about his titanium shin bone and all this but you know maybe a kick to that bends that shin bone and then what yeah then it's yeah it's gonna be uh one kick to that would probably be very pain it could be very painful for me as well because obviously he's got the titanium in there but man i mean i'm sure he's out there i do see him training you know we kind of talked about this he's out there he's training or at least he's he's posting the stuff that is he's training so it's good to see him it's good

to see him kind of back in the gym and not just in the places that are not good for for the career No, he looked terrible for a while. Terrible. I mean, it was just like, it was almost disappointing. I'm a fan. You know, I'm a fan of the sport for sure. I'm like the ultimate fan. And to see him all puffy and drinking,

it's just like felt like as a fan, such a waste, you know, to look at that. So I do, he does look more in shape for sure. And he's training. And yeah, I want to see you guys fight. Yeah, well, and then getting back in the East Side of Testing Pool, you know, obviously him, that was the big step. I mean, you can't say, you know, You know, the UFC is keeping me from my livelihood or I want to fight, I want to be active,

blah, blah, blah, but there's a prerequisite called getting back into the U-Sada testing pool. Unless you do that, you haven't done step one to then have the merit to say, okay, now they're holding me out, you know. So now once he did that, I mean, that was last month back in October, so now he's been in the U-Sada testing pool. So obviously his comeback is imminent. He's back in the testing pool. There's a timeline.

So that was good to see. But, yeah, I mean, I think. going back to kind of fighting someone else, it's like he agreed to this thing with me and then that attaches us to the next fight. And maybe at one point he thought, man, man, I don't want to fight this guy. You know? And I don't like to say that kind of stuff

because I don't think at all Connor's afraid of me. I think Connor stepped up against Khabib who was the most unbeatable guy in the entire world back then. He likes the big fights. He wants the big fights. He wants to test himself. but yeah it's the age old conundrum of you know give a man some silk sheets to sleep in yeah all the money in the Lamborghini yachts and timeline might look a little bit different than

the guy who's really scraping and clawing for that next paycheck so yeah i think so too and you know so it's all storyline also but if for some reason it didn't happen imagine the storyline you could have like connor ducked me yeah he's so afraid of me so then whatever you can still use it to your Yeah, I'll still use it my advantage. Because at that point, you think, okay, well, you know, we are prize fighters and we want the biggest fight possible, but you also just general thoughts of being a human being and be a man of your word, do what you say you're going to do. And this is what we said we were going to do.

And if you want to change courses, that shows a lack of, you know, integrity to move forward with what we want to do. So then I would just, I'd spend it as, okay, I'm going to go fight a real fighter. Yeah. Call someone out who's in the top five or someone who needs to come back in the UFC or someone who's got a huge name and get towards. that that title yeah it's uh no we could use it for a positive for sure in any way um what would you see if you know when it does happen it'd be sweet ufc 300 i know i've heard you say you go out

there first round put it on um break him a little bit then knock him out in the second right is that is so i mean how i see him he likes to you know his the best connor was light on his feet but he had that front leg out like a karate stance and then And then he's got that leg beat up a little bit the last few fights. So do you think that changes or do you think that's just who he is? Well, that's a thing. And this is what I, because obviously I see, you know, we see this stuff on social media all the kind of names. Just like I got shining off.

It's a bunch of people with a bunch of opinions. Yeah. Well, you can't, you know, I know I haven't been as active as I normally have. I have fought two to three times a year my entire career. Now I'm going to go a year and a half without fighting. But he's three years off, gained a lot of weight, put out a lot of muscle, got heavier. Hopefully this fight's at 170, I believe. Loopold Optics has been providing my binoculars and eyewear for the last few years.

I like that it's an Oregon company, and they make such high-quality glass. That's all I've really used. And if you can't find what you're hunting, it's going to be tough to kill. So Loopold Optics has really played an integral part in my success these last few years. Thank you, Lou Pold, for supporting the podcast. So is Connor going to be able to move? I mean, not just the fact that he had the injury, but this time. off is he going to have that karate stance yeah and a lot of times he starts he starts off with

that kind of bouncy light on his feet karate stance and then he starts to get his feet in the mud a little bit slow down still a good still a good fast counter puncher um but not as dynamic as he was back at 145 when he was fighting chadmendez and yeah jose aldo some of his greatest fights plus the greatest performance he ever put on in my opinion was in about it was in november against eddie alvarez when he became the double champ. That in and out, working the distance between the two, getting Eddie to over-extend.

I'm sure he sees shades of that. He sees shades of Chad Mendez with me. But I just don't think he's going to have that. He's not going to have... Back then he was training nonstop toward a goal. He was taking these couple years off. So what's his style going to be? Is it going to be less bouncy and less karate,

more kind of plotting forward? We're going to be ready for anything. We know he's going to come out Southpaw, most likely. Definitely now because now his compromised leg, he would want to be his back leg, which would put him in a Southpaw stance. But, yeah, I mean, typical me fashion, getting his face right away, getting his face right away, not spend too much time in that distance because that's where he's really strong.

He's really good with that distance, or at least he was, right? But I want to expect the best counterstriker that we've seen, because he still has that, hopefully. Yeah, you know, you talked about, it's it is a game of not even inches but centimeters because I think I remember in that eddie fight was that the one where Eddie threw punch and it's like he was so measured that it just barely hit his nose and then he came back with a three-piece combo right so if you're if you lost a you don't have to lose much for that one that skinned your nose to actually catch you yeah

you know so if you because of training because of heavier because maybe your reactions a little because you've been off for three years. Maybe that lands, and it just doesn't take much. It's like a game of centimeters. Especially with this. I know. I know. This one's a little bit more powerful than Eddie's.

Yeah. But, you know, I mean, it's a thing. I mean, it's one of those deals where, you know, we, we throw ourselves into the fire and see how we come out the other side sometimes. And to me, it's always been my offense is my defense. And I know people say I'm hitable and I get hit too much. and these things, of course, but with a guy like Connor

where he wants to be in and out, in and out, create that distance, let you, bait you into something. I just want to get in his face, put my head in his chest, and hit him to the body, hit him to the head, and put him in a real fight.

I mean, he hasn't been in a fight, and he will not have been in a fight in three years. Yeah. And he was in the driver's seat a lot of that Dustin fight. He's not going to be able to be in the driver's seat with me, you know, and this would be three years off.

So it's going to be a driver's seat. It's going to be a fun one and it's going to be a huge card and yeah ready for the dang thing to be announced but I know and you know you know some a star like him you can't believe your own hype pretty much but once you get hit or get a body kick or it's like all of a sudden there's probably some doubts pretty quick I would think even for the the most mentally strong guys I could imagine like it doesn't take much to be reminded as like oh my god I'm doing this shit again here we are. I know.

It was all fun in games and then now we're like, okay, now we're in a fight. And that's where I've always wanted to bring people also, you know, because you can talk about the punches and the kicks and the knees, the elbows and all the strikes and all of the different techniques. These are all techniques and these are parts of game plans. But being in someone's face, putting them into the fire, making them question themselves inside of the fight, that's part of the technique.

That's part of my strategy. that's part of a strategy. You know, and a guy like Connor, people have questioned his love for the sport or his willingness to engage or come back. Maybe it's just me because I know I'm fighting him. I want to, I want to think that Connor's, Connor is fueled more by the doubters and the doubts of everybody

that he's going to come and show up at the best version of himself. And I'm ready for that. I'm excited for that. That's what I've been looking forward to. That's what I've been visualizing. That's why I've been training so hard. And, yeah, man, it's going to be, it's going to be one of those fights where it starts, one of those fights where Joe's there. And he's like, oh, my God, I can't believe it's happening, right?

You know, and I think both of us are going to be that. I'm going to be that. Yeah, Connor's going to be that. For sure. Because there's probably moments, too, where he's laying there with a broken leg thinking, man, I might not ever get to feel that rush again. And now he's going to get to do it. And it just so happens he's going to run into a buzzsaw named Michael Champ. Well, you know, and you mentioned that people like to criticize you.

He was like, I've seen him say, you know, fight IQ or you get too wild or whatever. But then I look at this like this right here. Yeah. You didn't really plan that, did you? No. I mean, so yeah, part of your, I don't know, part of your superpower basically is on the fly, you're a fighter. Yeah. And you just instinctually make decisions.

And it landed like knockout of the, maybe not of the year. year that year but it's like one of the most iconic knockouts over a legend and that's just like that happens too so you can't just say like oh look if you would have done this because then you wouldn't have this if you're all just measured and exactly exactly calculated and fall in this game plan it's still a fight and you still are creating yeah yeah you're out there you're martial artist yeah yeah you're a martial artist making split decision split second decisions in the fight right and it's so easy for people on the outside to criticize. And it's so easy, you know, it's so easy.

And you've probably done it a thousand times on hunts. Maybe if we would have went this way a little more. Maybe if we would have thought about the wind more. Hindsight's 20. There's always the hindsight. But I think that's the beautiful thing about life. And it's a beautiful thing about doing something where the deck is stacked against you or the likelihood of losing the likelihood of failure is so high.

you're doing what 99% of people are so afraid to do. And that's why people are drawn to what you do. That's why people are drawn to mixed martial arts. That's why. And Dana and these guys have built a phenomenal business. But just inherently with what mixed martial arts is, they were able to just spread it out to the world, something that people love so dang much.

Because it doesn't matter if you're a thousand to one underdog or a thousand to one favorite, you can get knocked out. Yeah. Any given any given any given moment you can get kicked in the liver and your whole body you know paralyzes and you can't move for 10 seconds and then you get finished it's it's you're throwing yourself into the fire you're being tied onto a tornado and in the in the moment you're just trying to make decisions you know yeah I can't imagine I mean I love watching it but you're right everybody fears getting in a fight yeah you know what I mean that's like one of the the greatest

fears people have and you do it for a living in front of the world it's uh but yeah people are definitely attracted to like moth to a flame for sure um so this tony he's fighting on this next card coming up how do you think that fight goes that patty pimble man i uh i think patty is one of those guys where he he got the he got the connor treatment a little bit a little bit to where he he's phenomenal on the microphone he's got a cool look he's he loves what he's doing he's smiling he's dancing he's got an entire you know his fellow countrymen there. Liverpool, I believe he's from, or somewhere over there. Scouser. I don't know what that is. We know he's a scouser. Scousers don't get knocked out. Yeah, right? Even though they,

he almost did. Yeah, I know, right? So he's got this, he's got this look. And I think he's, you know, and he's been, but he also, he's got unwavering confidence, right? But he also has talked about struggling with, struggling with self-doubt and struggling with even a little bit of depression while he was off and being in this while he was injured and that kind of stuff. So he's done a really good job of humanizing himself, but then also being like, you know, showing that, hey, I'm a larger than life figure as well. And the UFC has done a good job of pushing that. Skill-wise, I think, I think Patty is pretty, pretty dang good and solid, but he's a guy like Tony. The one thing about Tony is he is a scary fight. And I don't care if he

fight, is he still fighting five years from now? He's still going to be a scary fight. He was the scariest fight, you know, five years ago whenever he was on that big run where he didn't lose 12 fights or whatnot. And then even being in there against Tony, you know you're fighting a legend. He can't be stopped unless you separate him from consciousness or catch him. He's had his arm broken inside there. He won't tap. He's a freaking, and he's awkward, right? And he's the type of guy who would go through Hell Week with David Goggins last week.

No, I saw that. Right? You know, he's like, he's that kind of guy. He's got to screw loose. And I don't say that to, you know. No, you need that. Yeah, to talk down to him or about him. It's a, it's a freaking scary fight.

So honestly, I, if I had to put money on it, which obviously I don't, and we can't, let me go and say that. I shouldn't say that. You can't. If I was going to put money on it. Yeah, right? I think, I mean, Tony's a scary fight for anybody. And Patty coming back from kind of the injury, it's a tough fight for, Patty for sure it's a it's a level up if Patty gets through Tony he gets put to a different a different

realm um but man I think it's hard to bet against Tony that's what I was saying because you know uh Patty gets hit you know he's like uh some people think he lost that that was Jareda Gordon right yeah yeah some people think he lost that fight which I I wouldn't have been shocked if they would give in the decision to Gordon um so yeah I think I don't think he's like any high ranked opponents really um now this is the huge step up a big step up tony man even in in your fight i mean he landed a couple shots on you because he's so awkward and when he and he throws punches from these weird angles yeah it's straight right or or it comes out here and it comes down straight because he's wide too so those punches come at a wide angle probably yeah and his feet

are doing weird stuff what i said was he's a tough puzzle to solve because you You can't really, you know, even Connor, Porriere is a very, very good fighter, but he is very basic. He's brilliant with the basics, which you can bring in guys who or have guys in your training camp. You're like, hey, you're not that far off from Dustin. Dustin's a much better fighter than you, and I think he's a world class. But you can be a South Paul who's kind of basic, but brilliant with the basics. Tony, you don't know what he could be fighting you from his hands. He might be walking around on his hands in the middle of him.

A forward roll. A forward role. and like these and these things where, you know, people might, you know, throw a joke out here and they were like, oh, he tried to throw sand in his face or this way. But like, you know, it's a scary place to be because we like predictability as human beings, right? And we have, we have pushed ourselves enough in our training and putting ourselves out there and failing enough or getting outside of our comfort zone where we're a little bit more, we're a little bit more okay with unpredictability than most people.

But still, I still like predictable. I'd much rather fight a Porrier who's probably a best one. better fighter than Tony because he's more predictable. Right. Because Tony in there, you're like, dude, I don't want to get hit with some weird spinning upward front flip elbow in front. And it's embarrassing. It's scary.

It's coming from weird angles. Oh, yeah. He'd let that like that spinning elbow he does. Yeah, dude. It's. And then on the, and then I take him down. I blast him across the cage. And then his, he's got these bony elbows, long arms. He's really good at throwing elbow.

So if Patty gets to take down, Tony's going to do some damage from. on the bottom. If Tony gets the takedown, he's got phenomenal jiu-jitsu. On the feet, he's very, very awkward, but still a very good and effective striker, and Patty's, Patty hasn't seen, nobody has seen anything like Tony. You fight Tony, it's, it's a one-of-one.

Yeah. So it's a scary thing. Where did he land against you? It was just a jab. And I ran into, I ran into the jab, and it was a hard, freaking jab. I bet. It was the one that blew up my right eye. A left jab or right? Well, and that was a thing, too. He switches,

stances and does these weird things. I think I think he actually had switched stance and threw just a hard javelin straight long those really really long arms and just boom right in the right in the eyeball and I was coming forward to you know it's definitely my face has taken some damage at my own expense sometimes too because it wasn't just them throwing it I was actually coming in and running into something too but that's what we signed up for. So it's a it's a scary fight I mean I think I would give the edge to Tony in that one just by sheer unpredictability, cardio for days. I know Patty's usually got pretty darn good cardio,

but not like Tony. Tony's got a, that cardio where it's like, I don't get tired, you know, I know I feel tired a little bit, but I don't get tired type of guy. And he's definitely not going to be intimidated.

Tony won't by the moment. Yeah. I mean, he's going to be talking his crazy stuff during the press conference with his glasses on. I love it. I mean, Elkikouet,

how could you not? I've watched so many of his, his highlights. Even his 911 call. Oh my God. I love where his wife is saying, you know, don't send whatever because you're going to get hurt. It's just like, that's just a good example of this guy, you don't know what you're going to get. No, man. I've been a fan of his forever. Well, me too. And that was where, and that's what I love too about this sport is, is we can sit here. And I'm a fan of all the different guys that I have fought in different respects, you know, because I mean, how do you not respect what these guys have done? I mean, my,

run in the UFC has been pretty darn up there. Every single guy I've fought has been inside the top five. So they're all living legends of the guys that I have fought and I can, you know, I can separate the fact that I need to fight you and I need to, you know, win from, man, I really like what you do. Or maybe I like how you operate or like a lot of things about Justin Gage. I feel like, I always said me and Gingachia would be pretty darn good friends, I think, if we didn't have to fight each other. You know, like we could be friends, right? Maybe he disagrees. You know, poor E and I, I don't know. not so much. Me and Tony. Me and Tony are cool, you know. Yeah. No, it's weird.

I don't know. You guys are all legend. To fans, it's like you're all, you know, larger than life. I mean, it's, it's so fun. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's fun. It's so, you know, watching gladiators. It's so, and especially to be there live, you know, luckily I'm friends with Joe, so I get like, he's got the best seat in the house. I got the second best seat. Yeah. And you get to see a lot of the fights live and then also get to get to spend time around the guys too because that's that's one thing if you're a fan and you just watch the fights on tv or you've been to a couple fights but you've never you've never interacted with them you know it's one thing to to get to work out with the guys

and yeah spend time with the guys and maybe even hunt with the guys or whatever where it's cool where you can just separate okay this guy's not just a guy who throws punches and kicks in a in a cage yeah you know some guys are normal some guys are a little bit not so normal but we're all human. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know how you can be. It's weird how nice. I mean, a lot of the fighters are just so nice, you know, just like you and just like,

but can flip that switch whenever. It's pretty, pretty incredible. Well, I think, I think, and that was always the misconception, right? I go from wrestling, which people would think, all these, you know, those guys are more tame than fighters. But I think the reason so many fighters are pretty darn nice guys is we already have, we already have that outlet. Yeah, you don't have to prove, and you don't have to prove anything. Yeah. Well, and that's what I always say too.

I mean, the age old question of, hey, man, you know, if you're at a bar or you're at a restaurant, are you having some drinks or whatever? Like, people try to fight you. And I'm like, no, probably not any more than you. Yeah. Probably not any more than people try to fight you. Yeah. But we also, man, I don't need to fight in this different.

I don't turn negotiations into a fight. I don't turn this conversation into a fight. I don't turn these things into a fight because I already got this fight thing that I have to do all the time, which I'm actually not a very confrontational person. I don't enjoy confrontation. I do not enjoy people not liking me

or me not being in sync with somebody, if you will. But when it comes to fighting, man, I want to rip somebody's head off. And for that 15 minutes, I'm a different guy. For that 25 minutes, I'm a different guy. And then I can just shut it off and come back to be in. a normal person yeah i uh well yeah i don't know i've followed your your journey all the way from

missouri to bellator to here and i was i was curious about this because this got a little play lately um uh dagostani wrestling versus u s wrestling is there a difference and what do what do you think about that one of my favorite packages that i get on a monthly basis is a black rifle coffee club exclusive coffee roast the only way you can get it is if you subscribe to the Coffee Club. This month's coffee is a dark roast called Gothic Serpent. The exclusive coffee subscription gives you nothing but the best. It's a coffee of the month club where you get premium roast from the best farms worldwide. Black Rifle Coffee is America's Coffee. It's veteran owned and operated. They support hunting and conservation and give back immensely to the veteran

community. They're offering followers of the podcast 20% off on your first purchase to the coffee club or order on their site using code keep hammering to get america's coffee today man so i mean obviously dagostanian um or like the russian sombo stuff right it's all kind of similar um it's it's all that would all be international type of wrestling and then we have our collegiate wrestling that we do here which is a little bit uh different more more focused on top control um because you can get writing time in college wrestling you can turn guys um so i like i think good old fashion passionate american wrestling wins really yeah in my opinion obviously i'm very biased um but i just i like the idea of it's the takedown to the top control whereas you know more that international wrestling

is take down and a guy just goes into um what we call parterre where he's on the ground he's just trying not to get turned. Whereas in fighting, you can't just try not to get turned. You have to actually get hand control and try to get out. That's why so many Division I wrestlers or college wrestlers have done so well. That top control, always putting the weight on the hands, stuff in a guy's head in the mat, weight behind his, kind of weight behind his hips to get all the weight on his hands. But yeah, with that being said, that's why I know I haven't done myself any favors by losing

some of these fights, and I would love to fight Islam. I don't think I deserve to fight Islam right now. I need to string some wins together, or at least this next win, because that's what I'm focused on. But, man, a lot of people want to see that fight because I do think, I do think I stop Islam's takedowns. I do think I'm a better striker than him. I do like the fact that he's a Southpaw, and I've done very well against Southpaws. That's a good matchup. Yeah, it's a good matchup.

And it's, I mean, the good thing about the lightweight division is no matter what, you've got probably Olivera and Islam fighting next, it sounds like. And then Gaichi is either going to. defend the BMF belt against somebody or Gachy will be the next in line for the title, which I think Gachi wins the title. I'd like to see Gachi win the title. And then obviously you got Poreen there. We're not quite sure what he's doing. But the guys at that top one, two and three, Gachi, Olivera and Islam, I have some history, obviously, with Gachi and Olivera, and then people want to see me to fight Islam. So it's going to be a fun little next 12 months when I knock Connor out and then we see what happens next yeah the I mean you four up there god so good and any

night it seems like the fight can go anyway you know I mean just so close on Olivera and then the fight of the year with Gaichi and then I do like you know Islam is crazy he uh he wins but he doesn't have that like that larger than life type where everybody's like no doubt like Kibbibati had that mystique but he's he is winning and he keeps winning but it's like I don't know people are making excuses for his wins it seems like or the fans are I don't know he just doesn't have he hasn't got over the top for whatever reason yeah and I don't know if it was because one thing kabib was really good at Khabib was good on the microphone like Khabib would Khabib would kind of speak his broken language and his kind of kind of broken English and make little jokes here

and there kind of call out people. He was very direct and people loved that. I think that really helped Habib out. Islam doesn't have that as much. Yeah. And he hasn't been as, as dominant for sure. The way Habib mauled people when he was on top of them and he never got tired and

he would just beat the crap out of them, even though it wasn't exactly what people wanted to see all the time on the ground. Because it was a ground fight. They wanted to see two guys slug it out. That's what the general public wants to watch. The way Kabib just mauled people was different. different than Islam, but then, you know, obviously his last fight knocked out Alexander Volkanowski, but that was on two weeks notice. So there always is this little bit. I know. There's always

this little thing that were like, yeah, but he just came off the couch two weeks ago. He needs a 145 pounder, you know, and then some of these other fights, he just hasn't been as dominant as his his first Volcanovsky people thought Volkinovsky won. Yeah, so there's that too. And then Volkina. And he could have never had a close fight and it didn't seem like. No, I don't think he ever lost around besides there was there was one fight oh yeah yeah i think was it michael johnson maybe landed something michael johnson michael johnson heard him yeah maybe that but then connor i think won the third or fourth maybe or i don't know what but a round yeah other than that but you know there was no like oh split decision win or anything it was yeah and what was it in islam

the problem too is is if islam if there was no Khabib, Islam would probably have a lot more, he would probably have a lot more or respect or look more dominant. But everybody compares him to Kibibb, which is unfair for him. It's really unfair, you know, that he's been so, because that's what it was. It's like the next Khabib. But he's like, well, if I was him, I'd be like, well, I would just want to be the first Islam, not the next Kibib right? But unfortunately for him, the court of public opinion is, well, he's Kibib's underling, Khabib's brother, Kib's main guy. And he's not as good as Kibib. but it's like, oh, but he's pretty dang good.

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I think he lost once too, didn't he? Yeah, he got knocked out by, I forget who it was. And he, yeah, and he had a drug test failure back in the day. So that's tough. Yeah, yeah. So the reason why that Dagestanian wrestling versus U.S. came up is because of Bo Nicol. I think he brought it up, actually, that may be talking about. But he's coming on the podcast, I think, isn't Bo Nicol come?

on pretty soon in December yeah so that would that how good do you think he is I think he's very good yeah I think Bo I think Bo is very good um and he's just like anybody he's still very green you know yeah for for the dominance that he has shown uh got a knockout in his last fight I believe um so is he fighting does he have a fight scheduled right now I don't think so he doesn't no not that I know of but no he very promising guy I mean and and honestly the way that he wrestled, he was a little bit more funky kind of in college. So that doesn't always translate really well to MMA. But the way he has dominated on the ground, he's going to be able to take guys down at will. But also, he's starting to get more and more confidence in his

hands. And the reason wrestlers are dominant isn't because they can pick you up and put you down. It isn't because of the strength or the physical attributes. It's the fact that the dude went through five years of the hardest training camp he will ever have in his entire life. Anything I've done in mixed martial arts is easier than those five years I spent at Mizzou. So his mind is built up. He's got an unwavering belief in himself.

You know, the dude coming in right off the contender series and start talking about Hamza At Chamaev. I know. Him and I have had a couple conversations of like, hey dude, well, you know, like earn it a little bit, earn it a little bit more before, you know, before you start sounding like people think you're crazy, even though I honestly think

I would love to see him in Hamzat fight tomorrow because it would be a very interesting fight. I think Hamzat's got a little bit more tools because he's been fighting for longer. But man, Bo's, I think Bo is going to be, Bo will be a champion. It's going to take a couple years.

And I think, you know, do it right. I think Patty Pimbled did it right. I think Sean O'Malley did it right. These guys who could have been pushed into that top five right away very quickly. But, man, it's a long career, you know. You want to be at your peak and at your most amount of earning income, your biggest platform possible when you hit that, when you hit, when you're seasoned enough to hit that prime of your career, you know, you don't want to take those any, you don't want to take too hard of fights right away. And that sounds a little bit counterintuitive because you're like, well, we're fighters are supposed to be tough.

But it's a long career. Yeah. You know, you want this career. I've been fighting for 15 years, you know. I could have very easily been one of those guys that fizzled out years and years before and not gotten to this point to where now I can say I'm going to set myself up for a very long time because of the right decisions. Yeah, I mean, could you imagine in your fifth fight if you would fight Porier or Gauche or Alivaura? Yeah. I mean, wouldn't have been good probably.

No. I mean, I don't know how good you were compared to now. No, I promise I would have lost. A lot worse than I lost now. You know? Yeah. It's just not, it takes time. Yeah.

It's just like anything. Well, and that's the thing, too, is we're, as wrestlers, we're very well versed in hand-to-hand combat. But the wrestling arena, the wrestling match is just different than being locked into a cage. And then the rounds are longer. And you need to get hit. And getting hit and sparring isn't the same as getting hit in a fight where everything is on the line and everybody is watching. Right. But Bo has done a really good job with the pressure thus far.

I mean, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, been a guy who came off the contender series and then went straight to, I think, a main card pay-per-view guy on these big pay-per-views. That's a lot of pressure. Yeah. A lot of people would not be able to handle in his first five fights or so. Um, so it's, he's, he's got the, he's got the mindset, the heart set. He's training really well. He's got a great, he's got a great relationship with his team at ATT. Um, so he's, he's got everything he needs. Just needs, not that time, you know. Yeah, I think it's, he's been on such a good role in dominating, but it's always a big test the first time you get caught, you know,

and get her, because I always think back to, Hosmot against Burns, you know, that was turned into a war. Yeah, I did. And nobody expected that because he had won, just dominated everybody. Then he's in a war, and it's like, that tells you a lot about a fighter, is how they respond to that. Yeah, and for a guy like Bo who, his striking is getting better, but there's nothing worse for a wrestler than shooting a takedown and missing it, getting stuffed, right?

Pushing a guy up against the cage, the take down and get stuffed. How do you respond to the thing that always works for you, not working? How do you respond to? So all of that will be, you know, I'm sure he's training very hard in the training room, but it's different once you get into a fight. And that's the thing that we train so dang hard and so long and so disciplined and do everything for this one night. And this one night isn't even a full night. it's 15 minutes and it's three different rounds, it's three little rounds that you get to showcase everything

and hopefully that you perform where you need to in this little bitty time period, you know? And that's why fighting is so hard to stay undefeated. You're going to have an off night. You're going to get caught. You're going to be going through tough scenarios, tough rounds. How do you bounce back from a bad round, you know? But all signs point toward Boe being one of those guys

who can hang in the top very, very soon, in my opinion. How hard is it? I was thinking about two different scenarios. Well, as a wrestler, you want to shoot in, but how much do you worry about getting caught by a knee? And how your opponent, how much are they kind of banking on, can I catch him with a knee when he comes in? Is that like a big thing?

It is a big thing. And it's a dangerous thing for a guy to be, if you're the wrestler and I want to catch you with a knee, if I'm throwing that knee up and I don't land it, I've put myself on one foot, weight on my heels, and I'm going to get taken down if I don't catch them with the knee. And then for a wrestler, that's why in wrestling, I mean, sweep single was my favorite shot.

I mean, you're not going to see me hitting a sweep single in fighting because, A, we're standing up, and then B, I don't want to be shooting below the knee. I want to be shooting above the knee. So you see a lot of guys. Kamar Usman does a really good job of snatching that front leg. head inside, get your head in their chest, grab the leg above the knee,

focus more and attack the hips more than the actual knee and below. That is definitely one thing that helps you keep your forward trajectory more into his chest instead of down. Because wrestling, we were able to kind of shoot down a little bit and you're not worried about getting hit with a knee and catch a leg and then turn it into a scramble.

Yeah. But it's 90% of your takedowns that you see in fighting are going to be a guy putting his head into your chest attacking the hips because if you can control the hips you can control the body and having your head up where the head goes the body goes is kind of a general rule too if i have my head down you stuffed the head head goes down to the mat i'm not going to be able to take anybody down with my head on the mat yeah and then one of the biggest eye-opening experiences was realizing i always thought well if i can take a guy down without a wall without a cage it's going to be a lot easier to take him down against the cage when i can

use the cage. But what I realized was there's a guy with, there could be a guy with very mediocre take down defense. He can use the cage to his defense for his defense. And it was a lot harder to take guys down off the cage than I thought it was. That was one of the big, that was one of the big frustration points for me when I first started fighting. That's why if you can just blast a guy without getting the cage, or if you get him to the cage, use the momentum of bouncing into the cage and then off the cage, lift them high. Rainy Coutre did a really good job of that. Yeah.

High single. And I try to do that too. If I can just bounce a guy off the cage, get my hands locked, always try to get your hands locked, attack the hips, and then lift them because you can use that cage bounce because that cage has got that three, four inches of that little spring on it. Yeah. Then I was also wondering how often in a fight, you know,

you have to be so dialed in and locked in, do you ever lose focus and just be like, what was I doing? You know, and it's just like, I don't know, just kind of get caught in the headlights a little bit. Yeah, well, that and also too, you'd be surprised. You'd be surprised, you know, because obviously you try to ignore everything. You just focus on the one guy who's trying to take your head off. That's probably the most important thing to focus on. But you'd be very surprised how every now and then, you know, you can kind of like see somebody out of the corner of your eye in there.

And you're like, all right, back, focus again. Right. Or, you know, the best is when you can take a guy down and then you're on top because what I have really tried to do is find moments of rest inside of a fight because I can, I'll just go, go, go, go, until I red line and pass out. You know, that's kind of my, that's how I'm wired. Right. So I have to, you know, one of the biggest things that I talk to my coaches about right before I'm going out there, even as we're walking out, hey, tell me to keep my hands up and tell me to breathe. Keep my hands up and breathe. Those are the two things that I need the cues,

because if not, I'm like, I'll put my hands down on my waist. Yeah. I'll hold my breath and I'll try to kill you. Yeah. You know, so I got to find these moments of rest. You know, after, you know, took a nice big shiner from Tony, blasts him across the cage, get on top and then have a moment of rest. Take nice three big, deep breaths.

You know, don't, I'm not going to sit there and stall. You know, I keep the action going. But I want to find these moments where I can push a guy up against the cage, take a couple breaths. Yeah. Because if I don't, I'll just start. mouth breathing and heart rate explodes and then it makes it very, very tough to be doing your game plan. Right. But there are those moments where, yeah, you've, and it's almost kind of a,

because it's an out-of-body experience sometimes too, where you're in there, you're thinking or you're not thinking, or you're back in the, you know, you're sitting on the stool. Either it was a good round, it was a bad round, you know, because that's, that's where the dichotomy of, oh, shoot, I just got freaking smashed in that round. Okay, I got to come back. Or you're like, okay, I can't wait for this whistle to blow again so I can get out there and hopefully finish this fight ASAP. So it's a there's so much more going on

inside of the cage than most people think when you're just an an onlooker. Yeah. But there's definitely been those moments where you're like oh is that Dana? There's Dana all over there. I wonder where my wife is sitting. Yeah. And like I always think that it'd be good to get a take down like right in front of the boss

and beat the shit out of somebody there. Yeah. Yeah. It's like instead of like like, oh, I'm on the other side of the cage. Yeah. Well, I just saw, so speaking of Patty, the guy that he fought, the guy that he fought, either last fighter of the fight before, Jordan Levitt, he was fighting Matt Wyman,

and I completely forgot about this, but he ended up shooting, shooting, getting Matt up against the cage on one end of the cage, picking him up, and you can hear his coach say, take him down, come over here, and then he goes, where are you at? Where are you at? So his coach to say something. And then he,

then he walks toward the voice, his coaches, and then slams him and knocks them like knocks them out because of the impact off the off the uh the canvas so there was stuff like that you there was it was uh frank trig versus matt hughes where he takes him all the way across the cage and takes him down in front because yeah nothing worse than you take a guy down in the other guy's corner and the other guy's corner and his coaches are coaching him how to get out and i'm like i can't even hear my coaches right i'm really just trying to whatever you tell him to do i'm going to try to stop him from doing what he's doing right you know well i was also curious about

curious about this. So I see the fighters, they go to their corner. It's like, are you actually listening to the coaching? And it's like, because they always say, okay, you got to, you know, one, two, I don't even know what. But are you just like, do you go back out there and just do whatever you want? Or are you trying to use those cues? I usually do whatever I want, unfortunately. I figured. No, but I think, you know, there's those, you want to be able to, you want to be able to be there and hear your coach. For me, it's Henry Hooft is always inside the cage. Because normally, depending on the commission, they usually only let you have one or two corners in there and you usually have three or four if it's a title fight or a main event.

You can have one guy outside the cage. So he would be behind you and you can hear his voice behind you, whether it be your grappling coach and then you have your striking coach in front of you. But Henry's always kind of right there and he'll, he knows what to say. A lot of times, it's it's very simple stuff. Henry's, all of Henry's entire each kickboxing program is basically keeping it simple, being brilliant with the basics. So he doesn't overcoach, which is great. He's very even keel.

He doesn't get too high, doesn't get too low. He'll tell you, you know, if you ask him, hey, we win that round, he'll tell you yes or no, and he'll tell you the truth. You know, you lost that round and get your ass in gear and you got to get back out there. And, but yeah, it's very simple stuff. And it's also, there's probably certain guys who, uh, who can handle more than others. You know, for me, I don't want to be coached a ton. I'd rather, I'd rather just know that it's almost sometimes a reminder that, hey,

we're in this thing together. Yeah. And I want to go out there and I want to beat that guy because I want to beat him. I want to beat him for my family and the fans and that kind of stuff, but I want to beat them for you as well. Yeah. There's that, that intrinsic, that intrinsic emotional, spiritual connection that you have with your coach too.

Right. It's 30 seconds of the one minute could be just, hey, breathe or hey, hey, stay calm. You're doing good. Like even just not even real cues, not even the X's and the O is of fighting. But because you're in it, you're in a battle. And I'm sure there's times where he's looked at me and thought, okay, he's, you know, he's deer in the headlights or he's psychopaths trying to kill somebody or he's, or he's very calm. And there's probably a different approach. Yeah, each time.

Each time. Yeah. The way you would talk to me after the first round might be completely different the way you would talk to me after the second round. I'm going on third, you know? Yeah. It's, yeah. And what do you, like, what do you tell yourself out there? I mean, do you talk to yourself or, I mean, I know everybody's got thoughts going on?

I know when I'm on a hunt, I'm like, sometimes I'm like, how have I ever killed before? I have no idea even. It's like, this is never going to work. Or you're like, I just need one chance. One chance I'm going to make it pay. But it's like, I'm the biggest doubter of myself. And also the biggest believer seems like in a. minute time.

Yeah. You know, it's like there's such a, is that how fighting is too? I mean, is a roller coaster? Inside the fight, inside the fight, there's not a lot of, not a lot of talking going on inside of my brain, not a lot of kind of self-talk, unless there's those moments of breathe, unless there's those moments of, you know, whether it be, hey, you deserve this. Yeah.

You know, hey, you're better than this guy. Right. You know, something of that effect. The biggest thing for me is, is back in the locker room and making that walk. Because I've always talked about, you know, we, we are conditioned and, you know, we are conditioned and programmed to think about worst case scenarios for protection to protect ourselves, right? So we're always going to fall back into, well, the what if this happens, what if that happens to be able to protect ourselves? So the biggest thing for me is speaking to myself audibly.

So because if I'm speaking, I can't hear any negativity. Right. So if I just sit here in my silence and I'm walking out there in silence, I'm most likely going to hear something negative. Holy cow, there's a lot of pressure. You acknowledge the pressure. Holy cow, this guy's good. Holy cow, is the biggest next fight this is the biggest moment of my life don't fucking screw this up right so if i can just speak and i can just not have any dead space in between thoughts or actual speaking actually speaking audibly inside of my mind or even verbally coming out of my mouth that's where i can just keep saying my positive affirmations or speaking life into the the reality that we're about to walk into and and ultimately it's uh puts me in the right head space hoit archer

has been my bow hunting sponsor since 2005. And personally, I really don't care what bow you shoot, what brand it is. I just hope that you have the same level of confidence in your equipment as I have in mind. Because I know if I get one opportunity with my Hoyt, it's gonna pay off. You know, and then leading up to the fight,

listening to my certain song or two that I listen to, thinking about my family, thinking about how truly blessed I am, getting myself, I know where I, operate best is when I where I am welled up so much with emotion before a fight that tears come in my eyes and I'm

start to cry a little bit I'm like that's that's when I'm my most dangerous because I feel like I'm I'm not just it's it supersedes just me being a human or me being an athlete it's something bigger than that I am your purpose it's my purpose and I'm part of a bigger I'm a piece of a bigger

puzzle than I then I sometimes give myself credit for and then speaking it into existence and speaking and speaking life over myself all the way until that that bell rings and give that, be a Bruce Buffer, the fist bump and all that kind of stuff. And then it's like, okay, here we go. Yeah. And get punched in the face. And then it really starts. Well, I mean, it is hard to have perspective sometimes. But if you looked like from your days at Missou to like here in this beautiful house, in the studio, in the gym and the life you're creating

your beautiful kids and your wife, it's just like, how could you not be grateful and be, like this is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. Look at, look at what's, this has been provided because I've followed my passion and believed in myself and I've been blessed with this. It's just like, but yeah, we, we have a hard time having perspective all the time. Yeah. You know, it's just like you get caught up in the moment. And then it's just like, yeah, that self-talk comes in. Yeah, well, that you, because you can look at it from, you can look at a problem, either, you know, something great that's happening or a problem that's happening. You can look at it under a microscope or with a, you know, looking at it like it's right

here in front of your face. But if you can sometimes just take a step back and look at it from that 30,000 foot view and you just see, if you're able to just look at all of your life thus far and what you've accomplished and even the things that were bad things that happened to you, but good things came from them. And that's why I always always kind of say, too, we just talked about it on the last podcast talking about. I said, I don't care if I win or lose. I think that's, wasn't exactly probably how I should have said it. It's almost like, it's almost, I'm not concerned with the outcome because I know I've done what I needed to do. As long as I've done what I needed to do, the outcome is going to take care of itself. And no matter what, at the end of it, my God still loves me. My family

still loves me and I still love me. So ultimately, win, lose, good thing, bad thing. All we're doing is just trying to figure this thing out. And I know I've done everything possible to be successful. Yeah. If I'm not successful that night or if I don't get my hand raised or I don't win, I'm not a loser. It doesn't define you. Right? Failure is an event, not a person. And I think we can put so much pressure on that thing.

And we squeeze it so tight that this has to happen when really maybe it wasn't supposed to happen. I always talk about losing a fight in Bellator was the greatest thing that could have happened to me. Because had I not lost that fight, I still would have been the champion. If I was still the champion, I would have had the champion's clause. I would have had another year left on my contract. But by losing that fight, yeah, it was painful. and yeah, it sucked, and it was embarrassing, and it brought tears, and I didn't sleep that night, and it just felt like a failure for weeks, but it turned out to be the greatest thing that could have

happened to me because now here I am sitting here talking to you about fighting Connor, and then you look at the awards that I've accrued over the last couple years. All of these would not have been possible had that bad thing happen. So once you have put yourself out there and failed enough, you realize that those failures are a prerequisite to the success, and also those failures are sometimes a blessing in disguise even though it sounds so cliche. It does, yeah. And it's hard to admit that in the moment

because people can say, oh man, hey, something good's gonna come from this. You're like, man, shut up, dude. I don't wanna hear that right now. Well, I think it's different too if one failure and bouncing back and being greater is better than, if you had 10 failures in a row,

tougher to tell yourself that's true. So you work your ass off to make sure that that's not like a reoccurring theme. But yeah, I totally get that. And it's like, I see this, all these, I mean, yeah, your awards from the UFC, I couldn't imagine, now I couldn't imagine you're not in the UFC. Yeah.

Even though you were the face of Bellator, you know, and now that seems like almost a lifetime ago. Man, that was such a tough decision, man. And it actually, I don't know if it's public knowledge or I think it's being out there talked now, but Bellator is essentially, now they're not going to be on Showtime anymore. There's something going on with the PFL and Bellator.

Belator is going, either going away in a couple years or PFL bought them or I don't know exactly what's happening. But so to think about that, but then also think about, yeah, I can't even imagine myself not have making that decision, making that decision to go to the UFC. But it was a tough, tough decision. I was leaving, to leave the security that you have to take a leap of faith where I could have very well fallen flat on my face.

But I was okay with that. I was okay with sitting in that meeting with Hunter Campbell. And I said, hey, I want the toughest guys right away. either I am who I say I am or I'm not. And I'm completely okay with me not being that. I'm okay with that. But what I'm not okay with is me not going to the UFC and me not fighting,

not putting myself out there because that what if would haunt me for the rest of my life. Yeah. I would have sleepless nights the rest of my life or it would take me a very long time and a lot of counseling and some other things where I would find success to have not gone down that journey. Right.

walk, just like making the decision to walk on to the University of Missouri was the single greatest athletic decision I ever made, because if I didn't take that chance to possibly ride the bench for five years, never wear the singlet, never start, and then I ended up becoming an All-American, and then coming to, you know, all those years in Bellator, and then kind of walking on, taking that chance on myself to go to the UFC, if you don't do that, you're a shell of the man that you're supposed to be. I would be a shell of the man that I was supposed to become, and I still got a lot of work left to do, but I sure him inching toward him every day. Yeah, I mean, you bet on yourself a number of times now.

And like if people could take that lesson and, you know, it's not going to be, those are big decisions and everybody's decisions. Maybe it's not like from Bellator to UFC, but it's still big in their life. You know, it's still, maybe he's changing a job. Maybe he's taking a pay cut to maybe move forward. And it's big for them, but yeah, betting on yourself. there's a lot to that because it's easy to say, but if you haven't put in the work, and you, you know, it feels like it's a hand you're going to lose, that's a tough decision.

But when you've done the work, it's way easier to say, okay, just going to work out in the end. Yeah, well, and it's got to be the right time also. You know, similar to what we talked about Joe, so going on Joe's podcast, that happened because he was like, hey, man, you're going to come to the UFC or not. And I was like, hey, why don't you invite me on the podcast or whatever? And we talked about it. I ended up doing the podcast with Joe and then not signing with the UFC. I resigned with Bellator.

Didn't even test free agency. So at that time, it didn't feel right. The time before when I resigned with Bellator, it didn't feel right. But this time, it did in September of 2020. It felt right. It felt like that door wasn't just open. It wasn't just unlocked. It was wide open for me to walk through.

And I can't explain why it was. It was an internal feeling knowing that it felt right. So to those people struggling with that decision, if it doesn't, you know, you want to make that decision, maybe it's the right decision, but it's still the wrong time. Right. You know, maybe it needs to be a little bit longer, you know, and don't act like if you don't make that decision now, that that decision's not going to be there a year from now, two years from now, six months from now, one more business deal from now, one more handshake from now,

whatever it may be. Because, you know, James 1.5, he who lacks wisdom, pray for it, and the Lord your God will give it abundantly, right? and just asking for wisdom. Like, I don't know, I don't know what the right answer is right now. It doesn't feel, it doesn't feel like I have all the pieces of the puzzle.

Just give me the wisdom. Give me the right person to come into my life. Give me the right conversation to have. Give me the right accolade to have or the failure, even the failure to have for me to gain more knowledge to them be able to make one more step. And sometimes inaction is the best action.

Yeah. Sometimes in action is the worst decision you can make. It's just, it's the conundrum of life. It is. It only worked out. for me because I was patient. I did I was down in the valley for a very long time. I knew I didn't want to be in Bellator for a couple of years. I knew it was I knew I knew I was I knew I had

something bigger for me waiting on the other side but I still made the right decision at the right time to re-sign with Bellator until it was absolutely perfect timing and then yeah coming to the UFC was the perfect timing with could be retiring and it was just it all worked out just ridiculous yeah no that's been pretty amazing but you mentioned Hunter Campbell I love that guy. The man, dude. Isn't he the best? The best.

Yeah, he's such a good guy. Yeah, I mean, it's, he's doing, he does a lot more than I think people realize. You know, Dana is obviously that he's the face and he's the, and rightfully so, the dude, you know, he was the one. It was basically his idea. Without Dana, you know, getting the Fertitas together and buying the UFC back in 1993 or whatever it was, man, or I guess 1998 or whenever it was, we wouldn't be sitting here today, right? But Hunter's, Hunter's that guy, you'd be surprised how many guys deal directly with Hunter. How much of a, Hunter's the guy, the only other guy who can really make a decision without asking Dana or other people. And Dana, he mentions him quite a bit nowadays.

He does. I mean, he'll throw out Hunter's name all the time. And it's just like, man, anytime I've been around him, such a good guy. Yeah. Well, and that's where, you know, I'm not too vocal about it, but man, these, they take so much. more flack than they should, you know, the UFC. It's, uh, it's just, they're, they run a phenomenal business. Every single person that they have on staff is a high functioning, phenomenal individual.

They are. Uh, and when you're in it, you know, and you get to see that, that firsthand look too, because you get to be in, in a lot of, a lot of rooms that most people wouldn't be able to go to or the access that a lot of people wouldn't be able to as a, as a fan on looking. Uh, but me being in it, man, there's, I have, and that, was a thing too leaving bellator i always thought man i'm like there's no way the ufc is going to treat me better than bellator there's no way they're going to look at me like a indispensable asset and really take care of me and really care about me i'm just going to be another number thrown into a

system and it churned out for the spit out the good way or spit out the bad way and either he was or he wasn't good and then i get to the ufc i'm like man the heck was it what the heck was i thinking these guys are awesome the best you know yeah yeah and they do get beat up a little bit about but they have a lot of fighters on the roster. I understand it's a business, but, you know, it seems like the guys who I know feel like they're taking care of. It's a meritocracy. Yeah.

Anything in life is a is and should be a meritocracy. You should not get anything for what you have not earned. Yeah. And if you earn it, then eventually it works out for you. Yeah. You know? And why complain today when next week you might be getting the thing that you're complaining about, but since you didn't complain, you get the thing that you'd,

You know? Yeah. It's, uh, and that's the thing. These guys are, these guys are dealing with this huge roster of people who, you know,

they sign a contract and then two fights later, they're like, hey, I'm worth more money. And they're like, dude, you signed a contract. What do you,

what do you want for me? You know, you were happy, you were happy whenever you signed it two fights ago and now here we are. And, uh, so they're dealing with a, you know,

a tough, you know, a tough daily. Yeah. Putting out fires. They put on a show every single weekend. Every single weekend, there's something weird happening with a car. Someone doesn't make weight.

Someone gets injured. Someone falls off. Yeah. Venue this. You know, there's some kind of thing happening that they're constantly putting out fires. And that's why I like to be the guy who's pretty darn easy to handle. Yeah. It's pretty darn easy to deal with.

They can count on you. You show up. You're ready. Yeah. You're going to make weight. Yeah. It's all good. Just do what you say you're going to do.

Yeah. Is it that much to ask for you to be a professional? If you're a professional fighter, you know, to be a professional. You know, Colby, from a professional. my hometown he gets beat up for that too but he's like he's different than you for sure but he's always ready yeah you know so they know they can count on him he's going to show up he's going to make weight he's gonna you know he's got his his thing that he does but he's going to fight yeah you know in a couple weeks yeah December 16th right uh yeah you're gonna be there oh yeah for sure i'll be there too really yeah oh

i'm pumped for that one how do you think that's going to go i think colby wins really i i hate uh I mean, it's tough because I would say, I would say you look at, you know, the Leon Edwards head kick of, of, of Camaro. You're like, man, 100% luck, right? Just didn't happen. You probably should have lost that fight. You ended up throwing a headkick. But then obviously he beat Camaro in the rematch, which that definitely adds a little bit of a little spice to it. Or I'm like, okay, maybe Leon is a little bit better than I thought.

But Colby, just like Dana always said, if Camaro Usman did not exist, Colby, Coventon would have been the champion all those years, right? And I think Colby's got the skills. I think Colby's honestly just better than Leon and all the different areas. Leon's good. I just think Colby's got a motor. Colby is strong, but yet he doesn't seem like he cuts a lot of weight for the weight class. No.

So he's got a great motor, great cardio. He's durable, great wrestling, throws punches and bunches. So it's going to be two south paws going out. at it. So you won't, you'll see a little bit of a different dynamic than most of the time, because most of the time you got a Southpaw, an Orthodox guy, you're going to see a lot more power shots. But see you're going to have two Southball guys going at it, so you're going to see a little bit more, a little more jabs. Yeah. So it'll be interesting, but I think, I think Colby wins that one. Yeah, I mean, I don't think Leon has a power that Ouzman has. So, you know,

that's kind of kept Colby at distance sometimes because he's, I think, you know, Camaro got to where he could punch pretty freaking hard. Tomorrow hits freaking hard. Yeah. So if Colby's not worried about that power, man, that's going to be rough for Leon. Yeah. You know. What's really funny is watching these guys the way that they, the way that they either rise to the occasion or sometimes crumbled, depending on their last performance.

Or, you know, is Leon a guy who now becomes almost feeling like he's unbeatable in his own mind, right? Because it's so much more mindset than it is anything else. He's got the belt now, beat Camaro twice now. That should be enough to feel that kind of confidence where you're like, man, I'm the best guy in the world at 170 pounds. Is he that? You know, we'll see. If he is that in his mind, he's got a lot better chance of beating Colby than he would have if he didn't. But Colby's got that chip on his shoulder, man.

Colby, I feel like Colby feels like he should have been championed in the last couple of years. Yeah. He's finally going to get the shot. I know. Well, he's had the shot, but now he's finally going to get the shot against somebody who's not Kamar Uisman. Yeah. And I think Leon, maybe it's like Connor and you, I don't know if Leon Colby would be his first pick to fight. You know, I mean, nobody wants to fight some hard wrestler, you know, that if they're not a wrestler themselves, because they're just like, oh my God, this is going to suck probably.

Yeah. So it feels like it's like it's the same as like maybe Connor would rather fight somebody besides you. I feel like Leon would rather fight somebody besides Colby, but I don't know. It's going to be going to be Yeah and it's it's crazy how like that one head kick changed two careers you know Yeah, because Camaro was basically unbeatable and then there's a chink in the armor and then got beat again Yeah, and now he's got beat another time, you know This last fight and it's like man everything changed on one kick. It's just crazy

Well, that's that's the momentum of this crazy sport and it does show how how how how the mindset of it and what your last performance will do to you. Yeah. And that's where sometimes, you know, you heard Volcanovsky talk about taking the time off and that's why he took the Islam thing. You know, he kind of spiraled a little bit. I need to be in a training. I need to have something to strive for.

And maybe that is an indication that he needs to do a little bit more of that work to work on himself to make sure, hey, fighting is what you do, but it's not who you be. Just like you talked about, this thing's going to end eventually. Who are you going to be when it does end? Right. And even me, though, I just got done admitting it was, it's not easy to to not have that target. It's like, it's very easy to have a, have a fight date and have an opponent. But when you don't, luckily for me, I've, I have other things outside the cage businesses and stuff that I can kind of work on.

And I get that different kind of type of endorphin or different type of self-worth to, to build. Because, yeah, I want to be a successful businessman when I'm done fighting. So I kind of focus on that stuff, too. How's the business is going? They're good, man. We got cram nutrition. We got, well, hiatus tequila. We was just down to Mexico a couple of weeks ago. We saw the entire process from the agave's coming out of the ground to going into the distillery, the fermentation, or the hornos, the ovens, into the fermentation tanks and then into the bottle. So it was really, really cool. That's not 100% announced yet that probably by the time this comes out, it will be because it's going in a couple days, or a couple weeks. So that's been really good. Our founder of hiatus, Christopher De Soto, made, is a tequila aficionado. Like the kind of guy where in a world where there's so many, so many kind of people just standing up tequila every day, especially tequila because it's the fastest growing, kind of the fastest growing spirits category right now. And they're putting different flavors and vanillas and rectifications and glycerins and all these different things.

This is the purest and additive. free cleanest tequila on the market in our opinion so we're excited about that uh cram nutrition is doing really really well uh we're nationwide need to get some in your your hunting packs when you're out there definitely those are good those are really good they're good so i'll hook you up with more of those yeah thank you and then speed fitness is still uh we're about to hopefully we just got a well it's not announced yet but we just got a nice capital injection from a a big private equity firm or another company in the fitness space. So we're going to be a competitor to the tonal,

similar to the tonal. It's going to be a home and commercial piece of pulley, a system. Oh, nice. 2,000 pounds of resistance. So just kind of helping being a part of these different companies where I'm not just a sponsored athlete. And I pose with a photo.

It's like I'm in the board meetings. I'm in the meetings. I'm in the meetings. I'll be in Florida next week to meetings with some distributors for hiatus. I'll be going to Indianapolis and just the first week of December to meet with distributors and these different culinary groups and just being in the business, you know, getting that firsthand look of what's it look like to be, I'm not the CEO or anything like that, but I can get to be in there with the CEO.

How are these meetings happening? How do we go from point A to point B? How do we build a business? How do we raise awareness? How do we look at the bottom line? But also what's our mindset and what we want to accomplish with each company? Yeah, that's fun. I mean that and that takes you know you know you put so much effort and attention into fighting

but giving that same effort into these businesses that's pretty exciting well it's it's all you know man look where you're at today you know it's like if who would have thought if you were just a guy who was working at you know in Oregon and started putting on your phone and running and lifting and running and shooting and hunting you weren't supposed to you weren't supposed to to get to where you are just by doing like normal guy stuff but the relationship capital the relationships you've had plus the consistency and the the beacon of who you who you are people want to be like you and people want to buy the shoes that you have and people want to drink the coffee that you drink or they want to uh do what you do right right and you just keep a darn good reputation until the platform finally continues to explode

and then before you know it people are like man i want to be just like him i want to be i want to do what he does i want to You know, and then when you can build cool businesses or have an awesome podcast and build, build what you're building with the reputation that you have, you're just trying to figure this thing out called life. Yeah. And having fun doing it your way, not getting put into a box, you know, not having people tell you what to do and how to talk and what to wear and all these different things. You do what you want to do. Yeah. It's a pretty fun thing. You've done the same.

I mean, you're a household name. I mean, I just say, you know, I'm going to go train to Chandler and everybody knows who I'm talking about. about. And so I appreciate you putting me through that workout today. That was so fun. That was good. That was all Jeremy. He, he formulates them all. Well, I actually got a new program coming. I have my fitness app as well. So we're going to have him be our first trainer who's coming on to the fitness app as well now. So it's going to be. Nice. He, uh, because I originally reached out to him because I was like, hey, dude, you're training all these NFL guys. He trains a bunch of high level NFL receivers and D-backs mainly. And, uh,

tight ends like George Kittle. They do that title in your university here in town. I was like, man, you train these guys to be bigger, faster, and stronger. And I've always been the guy who I don't want to just lift weights. I want to be bigger, faster, and stronger and try to be more athletic. So he's a stud and he's fun to be around. Oh, he's got a great personality. He loves what he does, man.

Another one of those guys, his reputation is phenomenal. He's got a great passion for what he does. And when you find people like that, you're like, I want to be connected. to you, dude. Yeah, definitely. Stick with me, man. Yeah. I need you in my life, you know. Well, I'm pretty thankful that you opened up your home and your studio to me and you shared your gym with me this morning. So I appreciate your friendship, Mike. Thank you. You as well, man. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That's a, that's the Keep Hammering Collective from the road. Take care, guys. Mountain Ops has been my go-to supplements for the past seven years.

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