Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 192 - Nico Carrillo

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Nico Carrillo - ONE championship world champ, Scottish Muay Thai fighter. He is a WMO Welterweight World Champion and ISKA Muay Thai World 65kg Champion. Join us for a conversation about Nico’s journey from growing up without a father figure to discovering his passion for combat sports. He discusses his early fights, training experiences in Thailand versus more intentional modern methods, and his relentless drive to chase a lasting legacy in fighting while motivating others. Follow Nico: https://www.instagram.com/nicocarrillo_kotn/  Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes  Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/  Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com  Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Scotland, Football, and How Nico Got into Fighting 00:05:08 – No Male Role Models: Growing up Without a Father  00:10:40 – First Fights & Nico’s Trainer 00:14:54 – How Thailand Trains vs Training with Intention 00:18:46 – Nico’s Belt, Carrying the Rock, and Shooting at the Bow Rack 00:22:35 – Never Finished: Nico’s MMA Goals 00:30:05 – “Fighter Face”, Avoiding the Damage, and UFC Fights 00:34:10 – Talking Smack and Marketing in Fighting 00:38:20 – Muay Thai: Fighting for the Love of Fighting 00:45:25 – Contracts, New Fights, and Endorsements  00:49:30 – Dream Opponents & Training with UFC Fighters 00:53:06 – Ilia Topuria 00:55:16 – Chasing a Legacy and the Inner Drive to Motivate Others 00:59:44 – Training, Nutrition, and Why Nico is so Shredded 01:03:40 – For the Love of Running 01:06:35 – Most Painful Strike, Thai Clinch, and Broken Bones 01:13:57 – F**l, Marry, Kill: Running, Shooting a Bow, Wrestling 01:16:23 – How Ultra Running Prepares Nico for Fighting Mentally 01:20:46 – Balancing Fighting History & Artform with New Knowledge in Training and Recovery  01:27:31 – Be Intentional: Fuel, Water, and Electrolytes for Fights 01:36:46 – Your Body Adapts the Harder You Push it 01:40:24 – No Part Time Savages 01:43:59 – Training to be the Best Version of Yourself Thank you to our sponsors: Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 10% your order Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off 

Every step I take I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel. Gather up my energy and boom. I hear them talking, saying the way that I'm moving so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. This is a Keep Hammering Collective.

I'm with, now this is going to be kind of adventure, Nico Carrillo, no? Without the yo. Nico Carrillo. Without the yo? Just O? Carillo. Nico, krillyo.

I don't know. I'm just going to say, Nico. Well, you know what, for today, or krillio. Okay. All I know is you are badass at Muay. Yes. Did I say right? Moitai.

Moitai. Yeah, yeah. So that's how I know you. Just from like clips on Instagram, you, all our members like, oh, this guy, Nico, he's shredded and he's really good at fighting. what else did I miss? Yeah, I think that's about that. There's not much more going for me, apart from that. Well, yeah, no, you have a lot going.

We're going to talk about it. But what a great day. You are Scottish. Yes. Probably maybe the first Scottish person I've ever met. Well, I'm happy for that. Scotland, yeah. So it's like I've never been there.

I don't know anything about anything. Apart from the movie Braveheart. Braveheart and also you guys had kings. We've never had kings. So kings are kind of cool. Like for movies you've got to have a, it's always good to have a king. Absolutely.

We don't have kings over here. Yeah, we fought for our freedom in the 1300s. Like Scotland fought for their freedom to, you know, be a separate country from England. And then one day we just gave it all back. And now we still have English in. Why did we give it back? Oh, no idea.

After Mel Gibson fought for your freedom and brave heart. That's it. And then we just gave it back. Sad. I know. His sacrifice was for nothing. Literally. So tell me about it.

How is it over there? Is there rivalries? Do you like Connor McGregor? Do you like people from Ireland? Or do you have rivalries? No. Not really. No?

Where I'm from in Glasgow. because of football, soccer, those rivalries. But it's not to do with like the actual countries. It's to do with football. Just a club. Yeah. And it's like kind of like an Irish and Scottish separation. I see.

But out with football, not at all. Okay, gotcha. Yeah. Football's a massive part of life back home. For sure. That's the biggest thing probably. Like where I'm from, it's either like you're either Celtic or Rangers. And there's a massive divide between the two.

I see. Gotcha. Well, how do you get involved in fighting? Just by chance, honestly. I always played football when I was young. Were you good? I think so. I think I was good. I can't kick a ball anymore.

So that doesn't say too much. You can kick somebody's head, though. There's a good change. Sort of like a ball up there. Exactly. I was always good at kicking something. Yeah. And then as you walked into a gym,

my friend actually, my friend jazz, went to a Muay Thai class and I always played football with him. How old were you this time? 15. Okay. And it just kind of came out of perfect timing.

I walked into this gym and I fell in love with it. That day that I knew that I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. Really? that day I remember that day like it was yesterday I remember the smell in the gym

I remember all the people there was a certain guy who just had a fight and he was ice in his shins and to me he was famous and I was like I want to be like that guy and that was it and from there it came at a good time because I was kind of getting bold of football

and so I think just the timing was good and I walked into a moiety gym and that was that I absolutely fell in love with it what did you do that first day what they have you do I don't remember what I'd done. I remember everything else. You remember the feeling.

I remember the feeling. And I just, I remember this fight. Oh, everybody was like around them because they just fought at the weekend. And I just remember thinking, oh, this guy's famous. And he's like, he was banged up.

He's heard a little bit. So he's getting attention. It's like, oh, tell us about your fight probably. Exactly. Yeah. That was exactly it. And that was it. Yeah.

And from there, I was in the gym every day and I was just obsessed immediately. I wonder if it's like, as a young, boy, that's like what you think men are supposed to be like, like, just to fight. They're supposed to like be badasses. 100%. Yeah, yeah.

That's always been my thought process. But I still thought like that. I grew up without a father. But, you know, I still had, I still thought like that at a young age. You know what I mean? So where was your dad? My dad split up from my mom when I was like five or six, something like that. So I knew him up until that point.

And then my dad moved back to Spain. And I don't know the ins and outs. I was too young to know anything. You just hear one side of the story. Yeah. And that was, I went with my mom. So that was always the story that I heard. Yeah.

And then that was it. I never had a dad after that. And so did you have like a male role model in your life at all? I actually didn't. No. One of the hardest parts of hunting is glassing big country to find animals you know are there. That's why I run Sig Sauer Zulu imaging stabilizing binoculars when I'm covering a lot of ground and need to see everything. These binoes are a complete game changer.

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figure out what it takes. I was on my own and I grew up in a household full of females. I had my mum and two sisters, two older sisters. I had a big cousin who played a kind of role model, but, you know, I wouldn't really say, like, the perfect role model. He's my best friend now, but at the time probably wasn't a perfect role model for me. So it's probably something that I am proud of that I got into all... Because, you know, when we played football, when we were younger,

you know we'd had all the all my teammates all had their dads right at the sidelines yeah and i was the only kid that they'd never had parents there um and so one thing that i'm proud about is that i don't know this not because of a male influence i just done it off my own back on your own i decided to do it so it's something that i'm proud that i don't that is because normally it takes like all those kids with their dads there, their dads are kind of pushing them. Exactly. You can do it. You got to work harder or whatever.

They're kind of setting the standard, but you had to set the standard yourself. What, what, I mean, how did you do that? What was in you that as a young, young boy that had this, this mindset to be like, no, this is what I need to dedicate myself to? I think it was, number one, it was, I was very competitive. I loved sports, all sports. I loved football, I loved boxing, I done a little bit of boxing when I was younger. I just loved being competitive.

Whenever it was like sports days in school, I was like to try hard. I just loved sports. Yeah. That was probably one part of it that was just ingrained in my DNA. I was competitive. The other part was probably the culture of where I was brought up was very rough and very, like, if it's like a one-way road and it's not a good road to go down. And I seen the effect that had on the older generation.

And at a young age, I could see this. And so I kind of thought that if I remain here and do the same things that they've always done, this is going to be the path for me also. Yeah. So at a young age, I was wise enough to just kind of know that I had to go another way. Yeah, that's insightful.

So you started training every day you started training? or yeah and then what happened there how is that progression when did you have a fight yeah so i actually had my first fight two months after i walked in the gym and it was like amateur or we call it it junior so it's like under 16 so you're wearing the full pads etc and i got put into the scottish open which was a scottish moitou tournament and it was kind of like last man standing so you're going to like a weight category and if you win the fight you get put through to the next

and you just have a bunch of fights that day I had a bunch of fights that day and I won all the fights and I became a Scottish Junior champion on my first ever fights. After two months why were you so good do you think? You know honestly

you wouldn't class me as good if you seen the fights I maybe just had a little bit of dog in me back then but oh my God it definitely wasn't Moti I was fighting I don't know what it was but I still managed to win so that's all that matters.

It was based on Muay Thai. Yeah, based on Muay Thai. The philosophy of Muay Thai. And then from there, I had an amateur fight. No, from there, my next fight after that, I think I had just a fight that I won pretty easy.

Then I had one more amateur fight, and I ended up getting put against the UK number one at amateur. And this is my third, fourth fight. Whoa. And I drew with them. Really? Yeah, and this was like,

in the space of six months. seven months. So you're still only 15? Yeah. Oh man. And then one year after training Muay Thai, one full year, the day that I started in the summer, one year later, I went to Thailand. And so one year later, I started fighting professional Muay Thai. And you were 16? Yeah. And you went to Thailand? Yep. Whoa. Just me and my, the trainer. Really? My trainer just me and him, yeah. Is it the same trainer in the videos that I see? Yep. That skinny guy. He seems tough though.

Yeah, he's skinny, right? Yeah, it's skinny. He's very skinny. We all got on him for that. He needs to have a few more protein shakes. Yeah, I know. What's up? He's deceivingly strong.

I'll give him props or that. Okay. J.B. Get on the protein shakes. Yeah, come on. Protein shakes. Yeah, no, he seems like a great coach, though. I mean, you must be very comfortable with him, too.

Absolutely. So, you know, is he older? Yeah, only two years. So he was 18 and you were 16 and you guys go to Thailand. We went across the world ourselves. Wow. Yeah, it was amazing. Where'd the money come from to do that?

So my granny and my mum sent me over. Yeah, okay. And then I think with him it was his dad or something like that. And then how'd that trip go? Amazing. So good. I feel like, yeah, you're 15, 16 year old. You're at the other side of the world.

parents, no rules, no, it's just like a law-free country. It's just Thailand's crazy, especially at that age, so everything's just like, oh my God, this is insane. But a week after I got there, I had my first fight and I won. And, you know, it was going to Thailand at that age that really progressed me as a fighter. So I came back from Thailand two months later, and all these adults in the gym, I just started like, I was able to ragdoll them. I was just, I just became far superior at such a young age. And what was it? Why do you think that was it was like more reps over there?

Because all you do is training or just different training? It's definitely both. It's definitely a bit of both. You're training Muay Thai twice a day. But it's just the level and the intensity and who you're surrounded with. So the gym that we went to at the time, it was like all Thai champions. Yeah.

And these are the guys that I'm in training. them with. So it's sink or swim. Yeah. And obviously, the sinking isn't an option. And if you don't sink, you're going to get better. Exactly. And that was it. And so I was getting ragdled off these guys and through that, I got better. Did you, I'm just curious, do they train a lot harder there than back home? At the time, probably now, I don't believe so. I believe that the Western World. So Thailand are very stuck in their ways. They have a set way they do things and that's it. They run in the morning, they hit the bag, they come in and they'll run again in the afternoon. Then they come in and they clinch and they hit pads and they do boxing sparring them.

But and they over-trained. They completely overtrain. And, you know, the Thais don't, they don't love training. Whereas like the Westerners, they do it because they have to. The Westerners, we do it because we choose to do it. We want to, yeah. We want to do it. And that's the difference. They have to to make money to provide for their family. Exactly.

And the Westerners, like, we choose to do this. So like, we do it the right way. Now I believe, like, we don't, like, me personally, I'm all for like sport science and like nutrition, recovery, not over training, listening to your body when it's time to listen to your body. Ties just like every day, they don't get days off, they just, they just, and you know what happens then is that you just go through the motions. Right. You're not intentional. You're not intentional. You're just like a robot. Whereas like the Westerners, like we choose to do this. So it's like everything

we do is with intention. And that's why now like I feel like the Westerners are. I won't say far superior, but I'd say we're getting. Yeah. Yeah. Just it's a more well thought out approach to training. Yeah. Yeah, instead of just volume and reps. I was watching, I think it was Khalil Roundtree. I think he was going over there. And I think when he first went over there, I don't know where he was training, you probably do,

but he said he couldn't keep up with the level of training they were doing. Like it was just so intense. It's insane. It's like just every day. And he said he just like, I can't do this. It's insane. And the thing is with like ties. is they're not super explosive.

And like with myself or maybe other Westerners is like, we put so much into one session and then it's like hard to do that every single day, twice a day on repeat, whereas the ties kind of aren't that intentional. Right. Just because they go through the motions, they kind of just get by.

But you know, like there isn't a... Yeah. It'd be like, you know, to get the stimulus for a fast marathon, you get on the track. You get to have to intensity. You have to try. train harder than you run the marathon, right? So you have to, if you're just going through the motions, you're stagnant.

So it reminds me of that. It's just like you have to push harder than sometimes to get that growth. You can't just show up. Exactly. And that's, to answer the question is that's why I feel like the Westerners are definitely. Yeah, that's interesting. It's just like evolving, evolving with the sport. Like we've got, like 10 years ago, we didn't have all the sport science and nutrition

and just all the things that are fingertips now that we have. Yeah. Why wouldn't we use it? Right. Not what I mean? So that's, you just need to evolve with times. Yeah,

I feel like there's so much knowledge out there now. If you, of course we're going to train hard. We're going to train smart. But then if you also like take advantage of all the science and the new, new information out there.

Wow. Exactly. I mean, is a privilege to have it now. It is, yeah. Because the people that I looked up to when I was a young guy, they didn't have this.

So it's like, you can't not level up. Yeah. It's a... But you must put in the hard work also. Yeah, for sure. It takes everything. Takes all you got and more.

So it probably doesn't seem like it's a surprise then. If you had all the success at 15 coming in in two months, going to Thailand after, you know, a year, it's not a surprise that you're champion now, right? I mean, so are you, to me, it feels like you're almost a, what is that when somebody's born to do it? What's it called? A what?

No, it's a name. It's like a, you know, like a, if they're just gifted, they're... I wouldn't say so. No. For me, for me, anyway. It seems like, God, like a savant kind of. Do you know what that is? No.

Yeah, but it's just like you're born to fight. This is what you were born to do. It seems like with that success, you were just like, this is, Yeah, I was, I maybe believe I was born to fight. Yeah. Was it born to be a champion? Champions are forged. Okay, gotcha.

I don't believe champions are born. Yeah. You know what I mean? So you could have all the talent in the world, but if you don't put the work in. Well, when hard work works. Yeah. When talent sleeps. Right, that's right.

So hard work always wins. Yeah. You don't, it doesn't matter how technically good you are. Doesn't matter. The valiant one always wins. The person who's willing to endure. What is true. I mean it's 100% true so but you're still so young and you are champion now. It's just like Where does this path go? What's what's the goal? You know

Where's the belt too? I don't know how come did you bring that belt? I didn't I didn't I wish you did ask I brought it if you asked But can I tell you something about the belt? Yeah, it's heavy is it extremely heavy. Yeah So after the after the after the I won the bill I went to Australia and done a little tour and I carried it with me. And I decided there that I'll never take it anywhere else again. So do you wish you weren't champion? That was like the rock. You wish you weren't? If you weren't champion. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. Then you wouldn't have to mess with it. You wouldn't have to carry it anywhere. I swear to God, the rock is easier to carry than that bill

around an airport. I'm telling you. Tell me about the rock. How is that? Oh, fun, humbling, humbling experience. You did great. But I didn't come in with any expectations that they came in to break any records. I just wanted to come out and it was a beautiful day. Yeah, it was. Your attitude is so good because I asked you, I said, was it harder, easier? And you're just like, wasn't just, is what it is. Just take it as it comes. Yeah, no, I love that. And then also, you shot your bow. How was that? That was amazing. That was super fun. I've got a nice little, I don't know if the camera can see this. Like a hematoma coming out of my arm. I think we call that a string kiss. Oh, a string kiss. Yeah. Not a hematoma then.

No, but you ended up, that happens. Sometimes people get too deep in with that on that grip and then that forearms in the way of the string. But it was amazing. You shot great. I shot the ones that mattered. Oh, no, that was the first time I held the bow. Yeah, no, from your first time you shot great.

So I don't know when you hit that since you, you know, you shot. I think I was after it. I think I shot perfect. I think I hit into something. I think it was from the rock. Yeah, I know the rock. Yeah, so shooting, shooting a bow is fun. And now you're going to have your own bow back there.

can't hunt. I can't hunt. No. Maybe we'll get the law change. We can work on that back there. Do you have a, also check this out. Look at this. I got trading cards.

This is sick. And does it have your stats on the back? No, I think they just have like a little blurb about it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But so these are going in the studio here. Now I got some special gifts with my other special gifts. So that's cool.

So what's the, from champion right now, what's your goal? Where are we headed with this? Yeah, I just love, you know, Gorgon's book, never finished. Yeah. That's, man, sort of that. Yeah. Never finished. I believe that too many people fall off once they reach a huge, like, milestone, like a huge goal.

Yeah. They get there. Take their foot up the gas. Yes. Yeah. And they get comfortable and they fall off and disaster. starts from there. For me, I knew I was going to get this belt. I didn't know when, but I knew I was going to get it. But I also knew once I got it, that there's going to be so much more.

Defend the belt for a start. And then from there, I'm sure a lot of people know now is I want to go down an MMA route. I want to find a new discipline. I want to be the best at something else now. And that's it. And you know, when I retire from fighting, I'll, I'll try win some races maybe come out here and do a coca donor let's do it but that that is my mindset though yeah it is never finished yeah you just once you tick something off amazing brilliant it's in the past though let's let's do something yes 100% new challenges um have you have you announced you're doing the mhm a thing i mean not really announced that um people have seen my media my social media they've seen that i've been doing wrestling and grappling and stuff they're probably ask or ask questions yeah

And yes, I will fight MMA. Mm-hmm. When do you think? That's the one, isn't it? That's the question. If I had the choice, I would fight MMA the end of this year. Really? But Rome wasn't built on a day.

No, for sure. Obviously, if I go into MMA, I've already got a massive price on my head. You know what I mean? I came in as a champion, so people already want to kill me. Yeah. So we'll make sure. that we're ready and we won't rush anything. Yeah, I like that. But I do think that, I mean, you are a star. You're a star in your discipline now. UFC needs stars. You're marketable.

You got the look. You're shredded. You're a champion. So easy to sell. Dude, you are so easy to sell. I mean, UFC needs that. That's why people watch. Yeah, maybe, maybe I need to move to the US. I don't know. I mean, I think there's, I think you got a lot of potential. I don't know how marketing and business work when you're not in the US. I know the US is good. We love sports. You know, we, I feel like it's definitely, definitely easier for sponsorships and things like that if you're, you're based over here. I would say that the, obviously, I'm with one in the Asian market. I would say it's definitely more difficult over there because they want their own. you know what I mean they want the ties and the Japanese that's who they want to yeah succeed yeah

yeah it's definitely more difficult but yeah because I see you know UFC they tried they I mean they try to branch out into those markets but anytime they go into the market it's it's always those fighters like if they go to Dubai it's always yeah they'll have lots of Arabs on the show yeah Middle Eastern guys and so it's like I that makes sense that you're saying that they only care about like the Asians only care about their fighters you know so it is harder to build a brand over there I bet um but like UFC they establish it here it's giant here and then they want to get a little bit bigger in these other markets but yeah I think that US it feels like is the key to like a lot of marketing at 100 excuse me at 100% is I feel like once you're mainstream in the US your mainstream

yeah like you're known yeah that's true yeah or I mean I mean, that seems like it's about right. If you haven't already noticed, I'm pretty into routine. I lift, run, and shoot every day. And I usually stick to three meals, big portions, elk meat and potatoes kind of guy. I'm not someone who's constantly fueling throughout the day unless it's coffee or an energy drink. And that's just how I've always operated. But since Mountain Ops sent me their new big sticks, I found myself reaching for something between meals a lot more.

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If you're serious about archery and you want something you can rely on, shoot a Hoyt. Go find one at your local, dealer. It's like the bow rack here down the street for me and try it for yourself. Get serious. Get Hoyt and keep hammering. I was just thinking about something else too. So I've watched some of your fights, not all of them, but I've never seen you like, and I said this morning when we went to breakfast, your face is like perfect. Like you're not, don't look like a fighter face.

And it reminds me of, I was always blown away by Khabib, 29 and up. I was always blown away by Khabi, I never saw him bleed. Do you ever see him bleed? Now that you say it, I don't think so. But he's because he was always shooting. What was he? How do you fight 29 professional guys and never get caught? Just an outlier.

But you remind me of that because somehow you avoid that damage. Yeah. Unfortunately, I have been cut. I've got a little cut above here. I see a little baby little thing. It's small. I'm grateful. It probably bled a lot.

It did. I've had bigger cuts in my arm. From elbows? Like thrown elbows? No, just in general. Yeah, so the cuts I've had have been not too bad. I've not broke my nose or broke any boat. I broke my hand in fights.

But the thing of people look it at my face. I know. I've not took a lot of damage to the face. Long may that continue. I understand, yeah. But yeah, wasn't it. amazing how Khabib could do that for so long and how I mean it just blows me away that's where you get obviously the the goat conversations and he just fits right in there yeah but it's like what we're

talking about earlier on on the hill what he's amazing at he just goes straight to that grappling yeah he isn't trying to mess about standing up fight people he just like I know where I'm the king that's where I'm going to take you and that's what it doesn't always fights he just grapples people to death he he dictates where the fight's going to happen always yeah it's always yeah it's always always up to him. You know, actually one fighter that gave him a really hard time up until that was McGregor? Yeah. I would say McGregor was probably winning that fight.

I know he won a round or? Yeah, I think he had run two rounds. Yeah. I mean, he did, Kibb did land that one. I mean, I was kind of shocked. He landed that one, knocked McGregor back. Yeah. Overhand left, wasn't it?

Or something. But McGregor actually fought a really great fight. He did. But then, obviously, once you're on the ground we could be, but it's, he just. The guy wrestles bears. I know. What are you going to do? What are you going to do?

You shoot them, this guy wrestles them? I know. Crazy. Yeah, it's a, I was at that fight and that was just nuts. Oh, you were there? So you're seeing the big breakout after it? Oh, it was like, it was crazy. Insane.

It was, it was crazy. But just the environment, dude, it was, there's nothing. Have you been to a live UFC? I've not been to a UFC. Oh, man. I've not been to a UFC. It's, yeah, I mean, I. I mean, your fights are amazing, electric.

It's like when Connor was fighting or even when Rhonda was fighting, or Spider-Spider, Anderson, Spider-Silva. Like, those entrances. Goosepumps. Insane. Crazy. Everybody's so hyped. You know what entrance was amazing?

Alexander Volcanovokinovsky just fought his title fight in his hometown in Sydney. Oh, yeah. And that was amazing. I've watched the video so many times with him just walking out. I watched that more than I watched the fight. You get like goosebumps. I love that stuff. And McGregor's was iconic.

Yeah. That was so good. Oh, and you know, I miss that magic. Like when he was at his pinnacle and winning and like on the mics, it was so good. It's you don't, I mean, you appreciate when it's there. But when it's gone, you're just like, wow. The UFC is definitely where it is today. single-handedly because of him

I would say like he brought UFC proper mainstream like him alone he's just a start like that comes once in a lifetime how are you at talking smack

I can talk smack yeah I can talk smack yeah if I have to see I've done it a lot in my younger career once I signed with one championship it's not like a change or anything, the market over there, they don't really like it. It's just, which for me is, I don't love that because, you know, for me, however you are, just that's the way you are, be authentic to full time.

With one over there in that market, it was like, because the boy tie is such a respected sport. Right. So we don't have to talk smack. At the end of the day, Saturday night, we're both going to. going to go and punch each other's bones out. So there doesn't have to be all this animosity before it. A lot of fights, like my last fight, my championship fight with Shadow,

I was walking by him, we sit and talk to each other, we shake hands. There was a part where I was walking into a shop and he was out eating and he was like, Nico, come eat with me. You know what I mean? It's just like, at the end of the day, all the stuff before it doesn't matter. Yeah. Because on fight night, we're both going to do the same thing. Right.

So over there, they don't really like, and it's because of how much of a standard for respect there is in Muay Thai is a very respected sport. Like, it's always been like that. Yeah. And so that's kind of a buy. I don't really. I mean, martial arts is supposed to be similar.

Yeah, exactly. But I think what changed it is... Connor McGrath. Well, Connor, but UFC loved it because they had to sell pay-per-views. Oh, that and that did. You know, and now, since they're on Paramount, they don't need to sell pay-per-views, so you don't have to, quote, sell a fight anymore.

Ah, exactly. You know what I mean? I think you could sell a fight, and it's going to, you might get a better payday, you know, like the show and the win, it's probably going to be better. And like even just like the, like your socials kind of things like that. So it's still useful, but not like when, you know,

they used to want to sell, you know, how two million pay-per-views. That takes somebody good on the mic. And it takes a villain and a good guy. It was like when McGregor fought Mayweather. Like they'd done a full tour. Yeah, like four different cities or something like that. Oh, I was more than that.

they were in a different city doing the same thing, just smack-talking each other on the. It's just weird how, you know, see, in America, it feels like we like the confident smack talker, right? But in martial arts, which we still do it in UFC here, but I understand like where, you know, like where you're from, it is the respect is, is bigger than talking shit. You get up, like you can do it. I just, the ties don't. So, for example, like last week or two weeks ago, I put up a picture of me and my last right. And you know how like we just have like sayings like which one of these fools want it next? Yeah. I don't actually mean that he's a fool or something right. I just I just put the caption

is what one of these fools want it next. Yeah. And the amount of hate I got from the ties. Like it was obviously mistranslation and they're like, are you saying shadow is a fool? Why are you disrespecting it? And it was like hundreds of comments. I just deleted the picture. I was like, Oh my God, not even worth it. That wasn't, that isn't what I mean. They're missing the whole point. Yeah. So it's like, it's just crazy. I understand that.

Yeah, it's a, and no, you're just, yeah, it's just a funny caption. Literally, there's nothing, there's nothing to it. There's nothing to it. Yeah, it's, I get that. So different cultures for sure have a different way going about business. I get it. Yeah, I mean, I think that, yeah, I want to see what you can do in MMA for sure. That'll be fun.

For sure. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. So tell me, like, I we missed part of it what after you went to to Thailand you came back so then how long has this journey been from then until like did you have the belt before this this time or is this the first time you've had it no this is this is so so one championship is like the mainstream of moitai now right boxing right before one championship fighting was only for the love of

fighting there was no money in it okay Zero. Like, nothing at all. So when, like, my passion was moiety. But when we were fighting, it was just to get a name in Muay Thai. It wasn't, you're not looking at it future thinking, I'm going to be a millionaire. I'm going to be financially secure.

And that wasn't the thought back then. Back then it was just, I want to get better and I want to do better and things like that. And then when championship came about, and then they started giving out 50K bonuses, and it's like, okay, now they're changing people's lives. So when that came about, that became the new all in on that. That's where I have to go.

And when was this? That was probably when I was 20 years old. Okay. Like it could be a job then, you thought. Yeah, so I was a electrician. And I quit when I was 20 because I hated being an electrician and one championship was about. and I was like, this is where I'm going to go.

And I put all my eggs in that basket. Quit my apprenticeship and went full time on Muay Thai. So back then, like, there wasn't any financial gain. So after I came back from Thailand, I started fighting just like Scottish scene was beating everybody up. Then from there I went into kind of the UK domestic scene, was beating everybody up. Then I started capturing European titles

and then from there I won. What's the organization that puts those on? Oh, in Muay, there's so many different ones. The ones that I got are actually really high, like probably one of the best. So it was called ISCA and WMO, World Moy Thai Organization. So in WBC is another one.

I got the European for that, but I got the world for the ISCA in two-time WMO. So you won those championships? Yeah, I was a free time. world champion before I signed to one championship okay but even then like the wages like you're just doing it to be a world champion you're not doing it to when did you start making any money only when I went to one oh okay so um yeah before that like you're you're just fighting for the love the love of the sport yeah so yeah so got into the world got into the one the world titles

and then like that was that i got a phone call to go to go to one championship and then that's it from there just it's a pretty i mean those uh those fighters i mean what's that they always have the stuff tied here yeah you don't tie the stuff there i don't absolutely what's that for absolutely hate it i think it's really uncomfortable really but it looks kind of cool though it's very cool and the the reason behind it's even cooler okay so back i'm not going to go on to and try and do a history lesson here because i'll end up getting it wrong and I'll end up getting hate for it. But back in the day when the ties went to war,

they would cut a piece of ribbon off of their mother's wedding gown or their wives, and they would give that to their sons, who are the soldiers, and wrap it around their arms to take into battle for good luck. And that tradition carries over into Muay Thai.

Okay. So this is like an emblem of good luck. Oh, I see. That's kind of cool. Yeah. But you don't do that. I don't do it. Because you don't like it on there?

It's so annoying. You don't like good luck. I do like good luck, but let's be honest, we create our own luck. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I just think it's, I mean, just watching the fight is just, I don't know, it's, that's striking. Is there something so badass about it? Maita striking is the best in the world. It seems like it to watch.

There's no argument about it. And I'm not saying this as a moitai purist because I am now going down the MMA route. If you come up against a Muay Thai guy on striking, you lose. That's why in MMA you see so many leg breaks and so many horrible injuries because the technique isn't great. Whereas Muay Thai technique and striking is perfected to every punch, every elbow strike,

kneeing, kicking, every single limb we've perfected how to throw it the best for maximum damage. Yes. Yeah, it looks like it. And the quickest way to get there with the less damage on hurting you, everything you name it, that's what Mouetai is.

Has to be best for a bar fight. Definitely. You think? I shot elbow. I know, an elbow. Nobody's expecting an elbow. Exactly. You take an elbow to your nose?

Oh, no bueno. In a bar? No, bueno. I want to go home I've seen a video a other day and it was like a guy gets into a bar fight

and he gets into a really heavy stance and the other guy just chops the inside of his leg and just snaps it yeah so you come against up

a guy who knows how to leg kicking cat kicking shit yeah somebody walks in a bar and they got these sinks tight on their arms and they're walking

with the yeah you've seen the one in the head at the Monkong yeah game over what you should really look for is a guy

we like the cauliflower videos. Yeah, that's over here, that's what we always say. Yeah, you see that. The wrestlers. Have a good night. Yeah, that's for here, that's wrestlers. So you see a wrestler, you're like, no, that's not. But, God, watching you guys strike, I don't know.

That looks devastating. And that's, for me, it's sad that it's not more mainstream in the US. Because anybody who talks about it has watched one championship, has watched the fights. They say it's the by far most entertaining stuff ever. Yeah. Because it's just madness. It's crazy, but it's a beautiful art form. Yeah, it's not on the ground.

It's standing striking. And that's what everybody wants to see. Everybody wants to see a fight. Because obviously, if you don't know Jetsu, so you don't know wrestling. You don't know what's going on. You don't appreciate it and you don't know what's going on. Yeah, you have to have like Joe or D.C. Or those guys, you know, calling and saying what they're trying to do.

Yeah, the commentary helps. Yeah. If there was no commentary, people would just be like, what the is going on here? Yeah, yeah. No, I'm, I love watching. and you know you fight for sure but i'm super pumped to see the mama stuff i i don't see how the ufc couldn't just jump all over you like so you have a manager that's like trying to book fights for yourself fights or what yeah i've got a manager right now who's just obviously i've just became

the champion and won championship so now he's dealing with negotiating with new contracts and yeah fights and then also endorsements okay as well so Yeah, work in progress. Let's see. I mean, does the pay days go up when you get to be champion, like, quite a bit? A fair amount. Yeah. Obviously, I've not been paid as a champion yet.

So your next fight, you should get a good contract. Yeah, I should definitely be on way more than what I've made so far. Do they do show and win, or what do they do? So the contract that was on before, unfortunately, wasn't. But it's because we didn't negotiate it at the time and stuff. where younger we didn't have a manager so now we've done everything for you got you got some leverage so now yeah and as a champion so now i would yeah definitely i think with moitites not so much i think in mMA and one i definitely know to do that like show and then if you win you get the same yeah yeah

it's just interesting yeah i mostly it's about if people care about you you can make money So sponsorships, yeah, social media, all sorts of stuff. Some people wake up when they have to. Some people wake up because something in them refuses to stay still. Spring has a way of exposing that. New light, new ground, new work to be done. Out with old excuses, in with the new standard. If you're lacing up boots before sunrise,

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If I had to choose, it would be towering. who is the champ before he broke his leg but he's broke his leg right now and he's not going to That's the belt you got now

Yeah He had that Yeah So he's not He's broke his leg And I don't know When he's going to recover So I'm not really

Looking at that right now I'm not hung up on it I'm just, I just want to fight Yeah I've never really cared about who I fight or anything

For me it's never been Oh that's my dream opponent And things Because every fight ends up being a dream opponent Like the last few opponents I've fought them since I was a young guy.

They've been in the game for long time. Oh, exactly. And now I beat them. I've knocked them out and it's like onto the next. For me, it's more, I always wanted to get the belt. And I didn't care about the journey to it. I just wanted the belt. Now I've got the belt and I was like, the same thing.

I just want to fight and defend it. I don't really care who it is. So. And you're fighting at 55 now? 155. Is that, do you think, is that what you'd take into like MMA, 55? Yeah. That's what you want to fight at?

I couldn't make 145. Yeah. No way. Oh, you're pretty big for that. I couldn't do that. And have you trained with like UFC guys? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So at Bangtale right now, UFC right now in Bangtale. Well, not UFC, but Craig Jones is there. No, the Jiu Jetsu. He's at Bangtel right now. Before that, I was training with Chandler's opponent,

Rouseau Rufi, Alexander Volcanovsky, Israel Adisania, who were all at the gym I train at. Oh, okay. Oh, and just recently I was training with Colby

Thickesey, he's fighting on the Perth card. Who is it today? Who is he? This Saturday. He's fighting on UFC Perth. I spent a lot of time with him the last four weeks.

Who is that? Colby Thickese. He's like Volcanowski's prodigy. Oh, okay, yeah. He's a younger guy in the gym. Right, gotcha. He's in the UFC this weekend. Can you hang with those guys?

Grapling, his grappling's insane. I must admit. Pretty good. Striking, obviously, is, that's my shirt. Yeah. So you're striking, is it better than most of UFC guys, do you think? Yes. Yeah.

So if you can level. That's like no arrogance. That's just like, yes, that is. Just it is. We're not arguing about it. Just it is. Yeah. So, but if you could get to where you could defend the,

take downs and then we're good. Absolutely. And get up. And that's a plan. Yeah. That's a plan. Oh man. Defend the takedowns. That's so sick. Like if you had a dream fight in the UFC, what would it be? In the UFC? A dream fight? Yeah. I don't know. I don't. No, no, no, no. You've been fighting your whole life. I know you've been watching UFC. I know you've got somebody.

But do you know something? See, I've been watching these guys. as fans. Yeah. So my mindset has never been to fight them. Right. That's true. It's just always been to like, I want to be like him. I want to do what he's done.

Yeah. Because in order to be like, I want to fight him one day, it would be more like he's a dick. Yeah. I don't like that guy. Right. So it would be more of that mindset. Yeah. Whereas the people I've looked up to, it's like, I want to be like him.

Never I want to fight him. Which is a boring answer. But it's the truth. It's a boring answer, but that is the truth. See, 55. Who's the champion? Elyar Toporia, unfortunately How would you match up with him?

Oh, I don't, right now, not good probably. His wrestling's amazing. Yeah. Could I beat him striking, standing up? I think I could beat everybody in the world, striking standing up. I mean, he punches hard, but you punch hard. Yeah, he does punch very hard.

Yeah. But right now, obviously. You're bigger, though. I mean, I think, I'm probably going on. You know, he looks really stocky, though. He looks really stocky. Yeah. He's explosive.

Very. But I think he... His ground game's insane as well, though. He knocks everybody out. Yeah. But his grappling is next level as well. I think I watched him. Was that against...

God, well, I know he beat the hell out of Bryce Mitchell once. But then I think also, like, Max, didn't he? Didn't he beat up Max? That was his... That was last year. God. And Max is good. Yeah, very.

Max has never been knocked out. Anybody who can do that makes me a little nervous. But do you know what Aalya Toporia reminds me of? Just like a better version of Connor McGregor. Mm-hmm. Just he keeps predicting things and saying that he's going to do things. And he just does them. He does it.

And he makes it look easy, which is terrifying. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. And let's see, who else is in 55? 55, obviously Justin Gagee, you obviously Michael Chandler, Marisiel Ruffey. What about Gachie? Gage.

Because he likes to stand and bang. For me, I don't have any doubt. If it was just a striking match, I don't have any doubt with any of these guys. I win. But it's MMA and it's not just striking. And right now, I'm 100% not there. Absolutely. I've only just started wrestling and stuff.

In time, in time, give it time. I'll get there. Who would be a first opening fight for 155 then? It would be obviously not top 10. Yeah, but we can find somebody in there. Yeah, I'm sure I'll hang. I'm sure I'll... Well, I can't wait to see it.

That's why I'm talking about it. One thing that I didn't want to talk about, I was watching, as I said, I was watching your videos. You're young. What are you, 27? Yeah. But your... But your attitude is like so...

I don't know if it's from... You grew up very young. You know, I mean, you had to grow up. You said, you know, your dad was gone. but then just traveling to other countries as a young man. I feel like your perspective is unique. And like the videos I was talking about, you were, or I was watching,

you were talking about how you just want to inspire people. Yeah. And that's most people your age. They want the money, the fame. Inspiring people wouldn't even come up. Yeah. So I thought that was, I was like, man, I loved what you were saying about that.

Tell me, where does that come from? Well, it comes from people like you, David Goggins. That is the truth. I've watched you's for a long time now. I've been massively inspired by you's. And, you know, the message that you's put out there goes to someone like me. I'm brave enough to follow that hard message and do the hard things. And I see the light in the things that he's talking about. And then it's up to me to share that on to others. And it's that simple. That's that. Well, you do a great job. I mean, that means a lot. It's like, I'm so thankful that you're here that we got to do this podcast, do, spend the day. Because, yeah, you're a special young man. But it, if, it feels good to hear

that. Yeah. It's, it's, it's. And to, just so, you know, you, you have a, as you spoke about earlier on, you have a massive fall on my side of the world over in the UK, huge, huge following. All my friends in Scotland. What's up, guys? I did not know you were out there, but I appreciate you. Oh, they're out there, for sure. Yeah, that's, that's great. I just like, I was just so, like, it was so refreshing to hear you talk like that and talk about, like, your legacy or how you wanted to, you know, just make an impact on society. Yeah, because it's just rare. Everybody's chasing the same things. They're chasing the girls and the money and the fame or whatever.

But for me, when you have this, when you have this inner drive, when you have a drive, when you have. this purpose in life, that is life. That is life. That's living life to the fullest. When you have this purpose and you go all in on it and, you know, the journey to get there is just, it's amazing. The journey to get there for me, getting the belt doesn't make me who I am. It was the journey getting to the belt that is the reason I'm sitting here, is the reason that I've done all the things that I've done.

Yeah. And I think that that's important to share to other people, how beautiful. If you put so much time and effort and go all in on something, that to me is living a fulfilled life. And so because I'm happy, man, I love the life that I'm living. And because of that, I just feel like the only right thing to do is to share that knowledge with other people. A lot of these external things won't make people happy.

The shit that we've done the day, that's happiness. Yeah. That's what makes me happy. That's, do you know what I mean? And people get too caught up on materialistic things. But it's all external bullshit. The thing that matters is your purpose. Yeah.

Go on, go all in on something. Find what you're passionate about. And spend a lot of time, if not a lot, all your time doing it. Yeah. And that's it. That's all that matters. and then for me it's just share that to other people, let other people know.

The feeling that I get, you just can all get this as well. Right. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's, it's so powerful, but it's so real, it's true, you know, and so I'm just glad that a young man like yourself is out there sharing that and like telling people it's okay to have that attitude because we get, it gets reinforced out there that, oh, you're supposed to be like, how much can you accumulate for yourself,

how, you know, the nicer, the bigger house, a nicer car, the more, jewelry and all this but then and then you come in and you say stuff like no it's about inspiring people and it's just we need that so I'm like super grateful for you um yeah that made me think of one other thing how are you so shredded have you always been shredded what's your training like because anybody who's seen you fight would be like i don't really know that much about that guy but he's shredded Yeah, I mean, does genetics come into it? Possibly a bit. I've always had like, I'll show you pictures of me when I was really young and I've always had like a little mini six pack. I was like skinny, skin and bones, but I had a little six pack. Yeah. Now it's just a training. Yeah. That's it. That was. That was training or without training?

Back then, I was, I was always athletic and I was always out doing shit, but like not at a high level. Have you ever been fat? I don't think I've ever been fat. I've been to the point where I can't see my abs. Oh, so like James. James has got abs. What? Well, I mean, technically everyone does. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. He also supposedly has a dick, but nobody's ever seen it. well his mom and your uncle but and then that guy down the street but other than well and then also that that other guy but yeah anyway but that's that's that's yeah genetics and training yeah and so like I was asking you you don't track food necessarily do you or calories or like now I don't at all no no no so when I was making the lower weight and I was killing myself, that was torture. Did you have to track then or you just starved yourself?

I had, well, about both. I had to, it was, when I'd done my fight camps, the full fight camp would be on a calorie deficit. So I was training twice a day. Do you know how many? 8,800 calories. Oh, and burning, do you know how many? 3,000.

Yeah, that's tough. Yeah, that's bad. And you know what happens then is that every day you're fatigued, every day you're tired, every day, and I fell out with Muay at that weight for a couple of years because I linked fighting, the fun thing that I love doing, I linked it with cutting weight

and cutting weight. It wasn't like a thing where you know, we're doing this because on the other side of it is like, this beautiful, this was just fucking miserable. There was nothing great. There was nothing great that came out of it apart from making the weight and getting to fight. That's right. It was bad and it made me fall out with Muay Thai.

Like I hated, because I linked, I linked fighting with now. I needed to do a weight cut. Right. And then obviously I decided to move up with it. Yeah. Now I'm just. Now you're good. Now I'm good.

Yeah, that's, that weight cutting, man, seems brutal. But yeah, because in training at a deficit, training is hard anyway. Exactly. When you don't have enough fuel. Awful. And especially like in moitais, like, you have to, like, it's, It's not something that you can just, like, put one foot in front of the other and just slog.

You have to be really sharp. You're sparring. You're doing all these really intricate things. Like, if you're not mentally sharp, you're not there. You know what I mean? And the guy you're sparring, you can't say, hey, I'm going to color your deficit. So just, like, kind of chill out. No, well, they're getting brought in to fight you the way this guy's going to fight you.

Get you ready, yeah. Exactly. So it's like, everything just becomes difficult. coat on a calorie deficit. You fatigue easy. It's harder to recover. And then, yeah, it's just shit. I'm happy I don't need to do it anymore now, though.

Yeah, that's good. Well, I don't know. Like I said, you're shredded, so whatever you're doing works. Yeah. And so tell me about your running, because you run quite a bit for a fighter. I mean, you said, I mean, I'm glad you put in for a fighter there because I definitely don't run. Compared to Courtney, you don't. I don't run. Compared to you, I don't run. But for a fighter, I'll say that I run for a fighter.

Where did the love of running come in? The love of running, so I've always ran in fight camps, but it was just like 5K before training, you know, just like hard, fast, sharp cardio before you train, just things like that. I always done that in my fight camps. The love of running came in when I met my friend, Davy Gow, who was an ultra marathon runner back home. He's supported by Hawker. In Scotland, he's not been competing lately. But I just kind of met him by chance. Me and my friend were doing a marathon, and my friend wanted to make it for charity, and my friend knew Davy.

And so he just came along with us. And on that marathon, we chatted, and we spoke a lot. And from there, I ended up out running with him every day. and through running without my end up running longer distances started learning about running shoes to wear this that all the trails all different routes in Scotland and from there I felt absolutely fell in love with trail running and that day kind of distances yeah yeah well that's I mean you can do that for a long time after your fighting days and that's what they all tell me

so look how old I am so right now right now I'm like in Thailand and I'm chasing this pursuit, you know, for the... Yeah. And I am missing running back home. Yeah. Because it's race season now. So it's like all the little Scottish races and the ultras are coming up and it's like, I'm not there.

It's fun. It is. It's an amazing time. It's a good test. Yeah, it's a good test. And that's the only thing I'm missing, but they're all saying like these trails will all still be there when you retire. They will.

And when you come back. Yeah, they will. Are you pretty good? I mean next to you probably not but the group that are running yeah you can run pretty good yeah I'm probably the best really part one guy

okay Craig Luke his name is and the funny thing about he's been running for one two years now he just all of a sudden just started running and then he came into our kind of group in last year he once he came second in Scotland's most competitive

ultra 52 miler and it came second. Wow. And it's a stacked field. Man, so he is good. Yeah, he's good. Yeah. So, yeah, apart from him. Yeah, I'd say I'm okay. Well, I'm excited to see how that goes after you get done fighting. But so you're fighting. Right now you're fighting. And I was, we talked about this a little bit. The most painful strike. Yeah. Honestly, the calf kick's pretty bad now. the calf kick's pretty bad but like all these shots as long as your lights don't go out

you have a choice to fight on how strong world are you how much pain can you endure and that's with any shot that you take but only one shot that you don't have that choice is the liver shot to shut you down it will shut your body down

and it doesn't matter if your lights don't go out you're still conscious but if you can't breathe you can't do it anything. Yeah. Yeah. And that's it. So the level shot is definitely the worst. If you get hit to the head and your lights go out, you wake up and you don't know what, you don't know what happened. Yeah, there's no choice to be made. Yeah, exactly. There's no choice to be made. But also, like, it doesn't hurt. Yeah. You just wake up and you're like, shit what happened.

This hurts so much and it shuts you down. And do they, does it always delay? It can. So. You mentioned one where the glancing, you said the glancing is worse? Yeah, I don't have an explanation for it. My coach will probably say I just find that the, I don't know if it just hits more of the liver because it hits and then slides off. So it hits like a longer, like more surface area of the liver? Maybe. Again, I don't know.

I just think when the shot, you hit it and it slides off, they one's hot rather than ones that are just dug it in. I don't know why. Yeah. But yeah, I'll have a shot. Not, you don't want to be taking them. Yeah, I think we watched a clip where you were fighting somebody. I think you went for a couple to the head, like, just whatever, just get his hands up. That's right.

And then right under the elbow. Yeah. Yeah. Got him. Shut him down. Horrible shot. And he looked in a lot of pain as well. So he did.

Yeah. Which is, oh, but what you were saying about the delay. Yeah. So I think it's the. with how you're breathing at the time. So I think if you're breathing out, when the shot comes, the delays when you take your breath in, you can't breathe in.

Oh. So it'll be like, yeah. That's pretty much what happens. So it's just like where your breath is. I think so. Sometimes normally with the delay, that's where it is. I see.

They'll take the shot and it's when they try suck air in. They can't. And that's, that's where that is. that's brutal what about you always hear about the tie clinch right so that's holding behind their head and then how did that start

because that's just knees to the to your body right well the clinching is part of my tie okay I mean now in one championship I wouldn't say it's 50% of the sport because you know there's a lot definitely a lot less clinching

happening now in one championship but before and before one championship in the stadiums in Thailand, it would be like full, a full five rounds, and it's just a clinch fight. And it's like,

clinching itself is an art form. It is very, very difficult. Really? Yeah, very difficult. It's like wrestling as well. Like, that in itself is a discipline. And so it's just like having your hands on the more dominant position,

positions where you can elbow, positions where you're... Is that inside the other arms? Yeah. So you want them in. Always want your hands on the inside. Okay. So then you can control the biceps.

Right. If you can control the biceps, it's easy to elbow. It's also easy to off balance your opponent. You know, like you trip. Yeah. You can send your hips back to strike the knees on. Yeah, it's a clinching itself is a beautiful art as well. Because I know when I'm watching it, when you see somebody get their hands,

it just, I'm like, I would not want to be the person taking those knees. A lot at MMA guys, because they've done so much wrestling stuff and like this, in wrestling, in wrestling, the hands are always like this, like they're pummeling. So when someone goes to the top of the head, a lot of M&A guys don't, like, that's not something they practice. So when you go straight up here and the head gets pulled, you can't really fight that. It's very difficult to fight that.

The only way to fight that would be by moiety clinching rather than wrestling. I see. Does that make sense? But they usually go to the wrestling or they go to... Well, you see Anderson Silva was so good at doing it. Yeah. Whenever he was like had somebody up against the case,

you would just grab the back of the head and he would because like if if you grab the neck the neck is strong but if you grab this little bone little higher up the leverage it just snaps down yeah you don't have strength there and that's where you always aim for that bit and then the head snaps down and then you can start driving the knees straight up yeah and how does that feel to like land a perfect knee like beautiful so so good but it's just any strike see any strike that lands flush and it like and it It's very sicken, like, to say, but it is an amazing feeling, like, cracking someone over the skull. Like, do you ever hear anything, like, like a cheek break? My, I broke my opponent's last jaw in two places.

Did you hear it? I didn't hear it. But you knew it's solid. So during the fight, I didn't know. during the fight I didn't know he broke his it was immediately after it he got rushed to hospital and then he was in the hospital for one week after the fight

he's actually still got what are we now two months after the fight he's still got a full retainer in to keep his jaw wired shut yeah he'll be out the rest of the year a punch so I don't actually know what shot it was that broke his jaw they're saying it was in the second round

and so for me hats off to him because all the shots that I threw after that round three, four, and five, and he stayed in a fight. That's impressive. But what I did notice was after round two, every round, his head was getting more swelling. Yeah. And then he spat out blood, and it was like a lot of blood.

Like, you know, like when you break your nose, it's just like profusely bleeding. It was like that. Yeah, so you knew something was up. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when Colby got his fight against, or his jaw broke against Camaro, I think. And I remember that his jawless wasn't working, it's bloody in there, but reminds me that. That's the second guy's job broke.

Really? Yeah. What a tough sport. Very. It is. It is. And you know what? Like, I've been on the receiving end.

I've been hurt. I've been, do you know what I mean? So it's like, at the end of the day, you're both going in to do the same thing. And it's just first man to do it. And it's just, it is what it is. Yeah. I mean, you got a chin.

I don't know. No, you're, you've, I've seen you take some shots and it's like, can't even tell. Yeah, I'm pretty durable. Yeah, very durable. Yeah, I just, I don't know, I'm a fan, love watching it. My face wouldn't tell that I'm durable, but it doesn't look like it gets up. It doesn't, yeah. Did you have questions, James?

Yeah, I got a couple. Okay. I know Niko listens to shit talkers, so. Oh, he does? Well, he mentioned, I don't know if he listens, but he knows what it is. So I feel like he knows what's coming. Oh, no. Maybe.

So we do a, we do a question. Depends on the guess, but have you ever played F-Marie Kill? My wife is here. Okay, but this is, these are random, uh, yeah, it's not like. It's not like that. No, of course, yeah, I have. Yeah, okay, so, so it's your three categories are running, shooting a bow, and wrestling. What?

All right. Okay. and you're going to say a bear or some shit and right, okay. Yeah, so you got to marry, kill those three. Right, okay. Running, wrestling and bow,

right, okay. Yeah. So go ahead. Which one are you going to marry? Oh. So the marriage. Are you not giving me, like things that I need to say?

No, because see, you marry the one of those three that you want to do the rest of your life. It's like you married your wife. You're going to be with her the rest of your life. So you've got to marry one of them. You've got to kill one, which means you're not.

never doing it again. And then you fuck, and that's just a one night. It's just for fun. You can do it one more time. And this is for running wrestling and shooting a bow. Shooting a bow. Mary. Mary, fuck who's the other one?

Kill. So the kill, you're never doing it again. Never doing it again. It might be the bow since it's your first day. You know what? I'm going to break your heart here. I'm going to break your heart. You're making me answer.

No, our job, James. I know. Yeah, I know that's the relationship done, James. Yeah. Well done. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to kill the bow. Okay.

I'm so sorry. And you know why? Because I already love running. Yeah. Wrestling is a new passion. You got to love wrestling if you're going to go to the UFC. Yeah. You got to develop that love.

And then I have to. What's other to? Get a marry. Mary and, and. Well, I'll know. I'll marry running because you can do that okay that's for the long run yeah so then wrestling you got one more shot yeah you better make the most that was difficult yeah see that's kind of hard isn't it all right okay earlier you and I kind of talked about how ultras aren't

necessarily great for physical the physical aspect of your training yeah but it can be great for the mental part. So how much of, you know, the fight game is kind of past just technique and training and comes down to mentality when you're in the ring? You know, a lot of it is you're not going to fight at the highest level if you don't have technique. You're not going to fight champions and be the best if you're not good at, you know, the art. You still need to have some savvy of doing that. However, it's, when you go through adversity, the psyche comes into it,

the mental side of it. Like, for example, the fighter showed you when I was getting my leg blown to pieces. All technique went out of the window. I didn't have any technique because my leg was shut down. I couldn't put any pressure on my leg to throw punches.

So techniques out the window. The only thing I had there, heart in control of what I do next. Yeah. And that is quit. or stay in the fight one second more stay in the fight one second more one second more one setting more

and that's it and that comes down to I have that kind of mindset through running when you're running for long times yourself that is a lot of the time what you think about I would fuck to quit right now how good would it be

to just fuck the rest of this but all you say yourself is you just set little check markers and go I'm going to run to that pole now I'm going to run to the next pole now I'm going to run and you just put one fruit in front of the other and you know with running

I take a lot of the men stuff into the dark side of fighting. Yeah. But of course you still need to have technique. You still need to have all that. First, the other part of it is a backup plan. And you don't know when that's going to come up. Exactly. You didn't know your leg was going to get destroyed. Of course not. It would be nice to be like, oh, I'm more technically sound, I'm better at the art than you are. I'm going to win. But shit happens. If that was the case, I wouldn't be the champion. Yeah. Because I ain't technically better than anybody.

but I'm just willing to go to the dark places and stay there for longer. Yeah, that's true. It's like sometimes that's what it comes down. I know, like I was, I don't know, oh, my son's wife ran the marathon too, right? She was struggling at the end as her first marathon, which a marathon's a long way, right? And he said that at that time, it's like four or five hours out there, four hours out there, but it was like a battlefield. field. People were laying on the side of the road. Everybody's limping. You know, they'd been out

their, PR or ER. Yeah. And that, I was thinking about that and I was like, that sucks, because I've been in situations like that. We're just so exhausted. But also, what also is hard and sucks in its own way is like, I ran the race too. And when you're pushing at, I was pushing on my limit, I felt, you know how like you're running and you're calf gets tight and you stop and you push on a light pole or something kind of stretch it out and that feels good and it's a little break when you're running at your absolute max there's no stopping and stretching out your calf no or taking a piss like i'd stop and take pisses all the time and you get a little break and like but when you're like pushing in a race and every stride and every it's an effort every single time and you there's not one second to spare

That is hard. Because it's just like, everything's hurting. Everything. And it's just six minute mile and you're just like, just all you want to do is like slow down. And you know what the worst part is if when you're running at that kind of pace, see when you do stop. Try. Start again is even worse.

It takes forever. Like if I have one running with people and say, hey, I can take a pitch. Just go ahead and go. 30 seconds. It looks like they're five miles away. It's like, how did you get that far in this time? So, yeah, when you're not moving and you had been moving quick, yeah, you lose a lot of ground. Yeah, but anyway, it's, I don't know, I love that mental strength.

Did you have anything else? Yeah. Obviously, you've talked a lot about how Muay Thai and other forms of fighting are like an art form. So, but you guys also mentioned how, like, Thailand is kind of stuck in their ways. So how do you balance the history and the art? form of fighting with kind of the new knowledge of nutrition and training and recovery um for a long time i carried all the culture and stuff like in and moiety over but i wouldn't say i've definitely not fell out i love with moiety i still love moiety i just love the new

version of moiety because of one championship so in one championship like they don't do like but in moitai they do this it's called a Wai Crew. It's the big dance that they do before the fight. But you know, for a spectator that doesn't understand the culture of Muay Thai, it's very boring. People don't want to see people like dancing before they fight. People are there to watch people fight.

And in one championship now, they've westernized it so that it's good for spectators. So I've kind of evolved into that, where that is the kind of thing that I love now. And then the thing about how I've took, like, the training and all that stuff is, honestly, just always willing to learn, you know what I mean? Like, just doing what all the greats are doing and, you know, listen to, like, the Huberman podcast and, like, just, there's always just trying to learn and always try to take in

information and try, and always just try things. Try it. If it works, it works. If it doesn't. least you try that it's better than than regretting it yeah and so that I would say I don't know if I explained that that well but that's that's that really just yeah the game's evolving and you just need to choose to either evolve with it yeah or be stuck yeah that makes sense I was curious you said that they do like the run in the morning come back then run again how far

are they running over there this this is this is the thing thing. The trainers are telling them to go out and run 10 kilometres, but the truth is they go out and they go by 7-11 and they all go buy snacks and 7-11 and then they'll go walk for like a kilometre or something and they'll just wait an hour and then they'll pour water over themselves and then come back into a gym like they're sweating. And I've seen this, I've been in many gyms in Thailand, this happens firsthand because of the thing we spoke about to start. There's no intention. You've got me, the Westerner. who I choose to come over and learn

and I want to get better at Moytai. I'm going out, I'm running the 10K while they're just, and then I come back into the gym and I'm really tired. 35 degrees over there. And then these guys are just thrown me about in the clinch because they haven't done the 10K.

They've just carried on it. They've done it. And then, and then that's, yeah, but what they're meant to do, they're meant to do 10K and then in the mornings. So all gyms are different, but they'll always run in the morning

and then they'll maybe come back and hit the pads or they'll clinch and not not hit the pads just hit a bag yeah or maybe just do like push-ups and abs and pull-ups and then in the afternoon sometimes they'll run again and then that's where they're serious back to 7-11 and in the afternoon it's normally a shorter run it's not as long but probably yeah and then they come back and that's when they do their hard pads and they're sparring and they're clenching and stuff as well so is it pretty much all day of training it's not all day so they'll train they'll do their running in the morning and train for like 40 minutes an hour okay and the morning and then in the afternoon it can be between

two hours to three three and a half okay it depends all gyms have been here are different um the gym i'm at now is very um kind of like they're evolving because it's a very westernized gym for being in thailand like a lot of them in me guys and everybody comes over there now and they just like you can do all all your good working an hour and a half. Like, everything you need to do. You can get your pads. Yeah. You clinch if you have to.

You spot if you have to. You just, there's no need to like prolong. Yeah. If you're training really hard, you don't have to. Like this, I hear a lot of people say, like, oh, like, and when they're in fight camp, I train like three or four times a day. And I'm like, how? How hard are you going?

How hard are you? Yeah. Because for me, it's not about the number. It's about what you put into each one. So it's like. I can train once a day, and I bet you I'm putting in more than you're putting in four or five sessions. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like, so, like, I can never train that amount of times during a day. Because, like, when I train, like, I'm redlining, like, because I'm training for explosivity and speed and power. And, like, I'm... In a fight, you're training to be a cannon for three minutes. Yeah. You're never trying to cruise. You are redlining. You're trying to hit this guy as hard as you can.

as much times as it takes until he goes down and hitting somebody as hard as you can is like 400 meter repeats or 200 meters it's fast in that and that

so for me doing that every single day is very difficult because I'm not cruising anything and so when people say they train four or five time and I'm like that how hard can you be training if you can do that? I get that yeah

they're running and going to 7-11 reminds me when I was a little kid I'd have to go, I'd just go brush my teeth and I'd just go in and get my toothbrush wet. So my mom would, okay, good job.

Got the toothbrush. Is that, does that smell your breath though? And that's why I have rotten teeth. And they're gold. Yeah, that's interesting. I was just curious about the running part. But, oh, that's what I was going to say, too.

And they run mega slow. Do they? Again, there's no intention. and there's nothing like it's specific to a fight. Right. Like you're doing three minute repeats, short recovery time, three minute repeat. Like there's no intention of or like science for it to help in a fight. They just get told to go out and run 10 kilometers and they're like doing it in like an hour and five minutes.

Like they're running slow and they're just, they're just plodding. It's like it's pointless. Right. It's genuine. It's just pointless. If anything, it would be developing discipline, if they're actually doing the whole thing. Yeah. that's another story.

Yeah, so like with the science part too that you mentioned, you know, like an ultra right now, it's carbs per hour, calories per hour, getting your salt in, even like I did a ketone before I ran my marathon yesterday, right before. So it's like, you know,

when you talk about these big fights and you're going to need 25 minutes of fuel out there, right, for a championship fight. For me, 15 minutes. Or 15 minutes, yes, five, three minutes around. Yeah. How are you taking in carbs right before that for energy or have you eaten a lot of carbs all day? What are you thinking about for fuel?

For fight day? Yeah. For fight day. So obviously, I weigh in the day before. And then after I weigh in, obviously, whatever, the amount of water that I've cut is the first thing that has to go back in. We have to get all the fluids back in. Like, how do you know how much water, just from your body weight cut? No, so from whatever I cut, they see the morning that I start my weight cut.

And you just know that that's like five pounds or what? Well, I weigh myself in the morning. So I need to be 155, which is 70 kilograms. I wake up in the morning and I'm 74 kilograms. Well, I need to go in the sauna until I lose four kilo. And then you got to drink that four kilos back. And the first thing I do is replace the fluids that I've lost. What do you replace it with?

Just water? No. Okay. Electrolites. Yeah, because if you just drink water, so as a fighter, we stop eating salts in carbs, five. days before the way in because water, salt holds water. In order for us to cut weight, we have to get rid of the water, yeah. We need to have to get rid of water so they can't be salt in our body.

Yeah. So we need to starve ourselves of salt for five days. And doesn't carbs hold water too? We don't have carbs either. Okay. So we're going to ketone diet for five days, which is high protein, high fat, which is awful. For fuel is terrible. Awful. Yeah. Yeah. Awful. Yeah. Yeah. So we do that and then it comes to weight cut, the water comes out as easier. Because we've already done this process. And then so putting it back on carbonated drinks, electrolyte, sodium, honey, fast-acting sugars. Before, I've actually put like half a caffeine tablet in it as well. So anyway, I'll get whatever I've lost, put that back in.

And I'll start eating snacks. Like you never go on the straight on the solid foods. stomachs kind of exactly exactly so we'll start by we'll just be eating like a banana or like sugary wine gums and sweets and then from there once our belly feels good we'll move on to like kind of fast acting carbs like I always have like just bread with honey and then if your belly's feeling good you just keep doing that for a while and then eventually you start moving on to actual foods and you're just going like same as like a carb load for racing you're just eating any carb that you can see that's what you're eating

rice, pastas, you're just trying to carb load and then the next day the same, you're just getting it as much carbs in as you can. And then obviously for like when you fight, it's just a martyr of eating as much as you can to the point that you're not

so full going into the changing room and getting ready to get warmed up in and one championship, we're not allowed to have any outside food in the changing room anymore. which is in my opinion quite silly yeah but before like I would just be eating like little sugary sweets okay right up until I walk out yeah yeah I was just curious because you know our food like the decision-making has to be so quick and it

reminded me of I was listening to a Rogan had on this F-1 trainer you know F-1 race cars they are so I did not know I mean I should have I just don't know that sport, but they are so particular on food, coffee, caffeine for the drivers. I mean, because their decision has to be perfect. That will be like for like cognitive function of the absolute highest level. But is it fighting like your reaction? Isn't it, wouldn't it be similar? Yeah, absolutely is.

But what you have to remember is that we've been drilling this, these things for six weeks. eight weeks every single day. So that's installed in us. So then when it comes to fighting, it's not so much thinking, it's reacting. And that's kind of, so that's how the training camp

and the drilling has to go perfect. And then when it comes to fighting, it's just all the things that you're being like, okay, when he throws a low kick, this is my reaction. When this happens, this is my reaction. It's all just reaction time. I was just thinking, like we talked about that one

where I can't remember what it was, but you did something, I said, your hand should have been up here. I was wondering if like, more dialed in, would you have done that? I can't lie to you. I was pretty dialed in that fight. I was as good as it gets.

No excuses from me. I felt really good. I was the most confident. I was so certain I was winning a championship that day. Like training camp went perfect. The weight cup was amazing. the warm up before the fight, everything felt really good.

That is just, you know, fighting is crazy because you have this window that if you don't have full concentration for one second and how little is one second. Yeah. Lights go out and you lose. And that's the crazy thing about fighting. It doesn't matter how difficult it is

to be that locked in for that period. And in any of UFC, even long ago, or 25 minutes. Yeah. It's a very, very difficult thing to stay dialed in for that long and losing concentration for one second can, but for me it wasn't losing concentration.

It was just being overconfident in my strike. I just thought, I'm going to eat you up with this body shot and I ended up taking one myself. And the rest of the fight, I learned from my mistake. Yeah. Because any time I went in for the body shot, like, I could see the left hand. Like, I knew what he was doing

and I was like a bit more cautious. Yeah, okay. We live and we learn. Yeah. Unfortunately, sometimes you need to get punched in a mouth for sure. To learn the hard lessons. I understand. Yeah.

That's the best way to learn usually. Yeah, that was just interesting. I was like, because I, you know, I'm fascinated about the science and improvements, like when it comes to running and, you know, with bow hunting. I'm always trying to be like, how can I get to a higher level that I've been? And this fueling and the diet and the supplements, like the BBC and the Wolverine stack and like all the stuff that's kind of getting, I'm always just like, oh, okay what is this going to do i mean can i get better is this going to help me put like a few

questions before like i was saying like i'm the exact same all you can do is try it you know what i mean like be your own little guinea pig like trial and error if it doesn't work you try that i got for this marathon i just did i wanted to carb load and then i'm like well i got to take a shit before this race right so i'm going to stop eating 12 hours before i leave for the marathon So I'm like, I'm going to leave for the marathon at six. I got to stop eating at six at night. What was your thought process for that? So I could get the food down so I could go to the bathroom.

So there'd be no food. Like the food would go through my body and then I could get rid of it. I'd still do my morning carb load, but that'd be in my stomach kind of getting broke down to use for the race. The stuff from the day before, yes, I pulled the carbs out for the fuel, but I don't need the waste. Right. So I'm like, I'm going to do that 12 hours before, then I'm going to eat in the morning. I'm going to get up. I thought you didn't eat in the morning. No, I did eat in the morning too. Yeah. So I had carbs in the morning. But I just was worried about because we do this huge carb load. And you know, like when you go on a run and your stomach's full, it's the worst. The worst feeling of it. I can't run a six minute mile doing that. So I'm like, okay.

Because you're just try to keep it down the full time. Right. So it's like I didn't want it to deal with that. And then I'm like, okay, also I have this routine I do every day, my cold plunge, my sauna, my whatever. So I'm like, okay, the race starts at seven. I'm getting up at four. And I got up at four and started this whole process. Do you do sauna and everything before there is?

Everything. And ran the best race I've ever run. There you go. So it's like the point is that, and I tell my kids this too, is like, everything matters everything be intentional everything matters everything you do you need to have some stuff matters this much some stuff matters this much

it all matters so I did everything and it paid off but anyway so I just get I get kind of just obsessed about like this knowledge and like how can I get better and what could I tweak and exact same you know that's exactly my mindset is it I love it has always been in that's like that's like

like getting into running and things like that. It's like people like before because I was running, I was always going on to like people like talking about me. He's like he's going to crush his knees. He's not going to have a long multi career. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, it looks like that from the outside. But all I'm gaining is all this knowledge.

And so. And it's people like I had that job for 20 some years. People when I was in my 30s, I'd be over running Piscke every day. And they'd say, keep that up. You won't build a run after you're 40. and I'm like, and now I'm almost 60, I run every day. It's like, no, my body's, I told them, I'm like,

your body gets used to what you ask of it. Always. If you don't ask much, it's not going to give you much. If you ask a lot, it's going to give you a lot. It adapts. I asked my body for a lot for decades, and it's given me everything I've wanted. It's funny that you say that. I've always said this as well.

I always say our body is like a machine in whatever we, want to put it through at the start it might be difficult at the start it might have little like oil leaks or like little tweaks with the bolts or whatever yeah but eventually it will adapt and it will do whatever we want it like wanted to do no matter how difficult it is yeah for sure it's a body's amazing it's our minds our minds our minds need to be convinced sometimes just hey do do this put in the work everything matters do it trust me and we have a hard time doing that. But if you do, sky's the limit. But that

it's the mind first, isn't it? Because the body, the mind will quit before the body does. Yeah. So we need to have control of that. Need it all. Yeah. I love it. I love your mindset. I mean, because it sounds like we have a similar mindset. Sounds like it, yeah. Self-improvement, just trying to get that, how do we get that next little edge over everyone else?

And I'm the same, like every fight camp, I have so many fighters that I know and they're just like they reach this peak of a fight camp and then after the fight they just go and live not like athletes they'll go out and they'll eat bad food and they'll drink and they won't train as hard

as they were training and fight can't like Patty. Patty gets freaking bad as hell he gets big I think he still grapples every day I think he just loves food a little bit too much but I mean like he looks like he's still in the gym a lot I mean other boys aren't even in the gym They're at the club

They're just doing other things That doesn't put them So then when they go into the new fight camp The barrier's always the same They just go They're just trying to get to there again Whereas every time I go into a fight camp I set a bar for myself

And I want to go way past it Each fight camp Because then I'm carrying all the stuff That I've done in the last If you're injured and stuff then it's difficult But if you come out of a fight reasonably fresh you go straight back into training yeah it doesn't have to be fight training because fight training is hard it's miserable but you know you you you keep the fitness that you've got and you

build on it a little bit and you build on the strengths that you've done and then when you go back into fight camp you're instead of being here or maybe just here and now you've got all this space to push that bar again and every fight camp I'm looking to push the bar push the bar how can I be better than a last fight how can I be better than a last fight I love that yeah do you do uh you know know the lights? Do you do those? I don't. I haven't done them too much. I do know what you're talking about.

I think they're great, but I haven't done them too much. I was just curious when we were talking about like different foods and supplements or even this ketone. Like, because you could measure how quick your reactions were based on what you ate the day before with this food and then do it again and be like, I'm a little quicker. I'm a little quicker with. That makes sense. That makes eye.

with and just like you do that enough times and you're like okay this is what i need to do to have the best reactions possible that it's just like and i was talking to this another professional runner uh he won the gold in the 1500 the last olympics but there's this whole thing about double threshold training which means yeah the new nor the norwegian guy yeah yeah uh yakov yeah and so he was training twice a day hard and i was just like because i'm always thinking out of the box as Cole, I said, what if you, what if you could train three days or three times a day hard if you didn't care what time of day it was? Like you would be like, I need to train. Then I'm going to be off for six hours, take a nap. Train again, off for six hours, take a nap. Training,

like maybe one of the trainings was at two in the morning. But you're still getting the rest. So you got, you got three training sessions in when the most anybody else is getting is two. over time, you're going to be so much better. Oh, 100%. Anyway, I'm always just thinking about what could we think outside the box to get an edge over everyone. I love that.

Anyway. I'm the same, but I think that's how I got so good at Muay so quick. Because the day that I started it, I was straight on YouTube and I was just obsessed with watching fights and watching, I wasn't just watching fights, I would watch like training, camps and like behind the scene.

I was just totally obsessed with it. and I would just try and copy everything and I think that's how I got so good but just being totally obsessed on how do I get better Yeah, just immersed in the life Yeah I mean that's what it takes You can't just dabble in it and be great You can't dabble and think you're going to be a champion

That's what we spoke about earlier on It's like people would love for us to sit here and say Right, how do you become what you've became And how are you one of the best runners in the world The best bowhunter on the world How am I the champion Just train a few times a week Just have fun.

Yeah. No. People want us to say that. Yeah. But it's not the answer. No. And the answer that they want, deep down, they know what the answer is. Yeah.

They just want us to say something else. And then when you tell them the real answer, they're like, I don't have time for that. You know what I love? I've seen a video. I've seen a video of a fan. Goggins is out running. And it's like, it's a hot day and he's out himself. And the guy stops him.

and he's like oh gorgans i'm down right now i'd really love you to give me some inspiration some motivation and gorgans is like do you see anybody out here right now he's like that do i have to say anything yeah what you see this is your fucking motivation that's right people people want you to say the thing out but the thing is is he sees him out here himself nobody's there it's far too hot to be running what more do you need him to say yeah action speaks louder than words that's it I Gaggins has another one that I'd love and it's so true but he just says hey there's no part-time savages love that either you're savage or you're not and most people aren't yeah but you can't just half-ass there's no part-time you're not a badass half the time and then soft it's just like no

this is full-time baby did you have anything else okay so there's this uh backyard ultra runner that we're fans of but i really like his mindset and i kind of kind of wanted to get your opinion if the fighting mindset's kind of similar. But his first two backyard races, he was really focused on winning. And he lost, both of them. And then he had a mindset shift where he was, his goal instead of winning was to meet a new version of himself, to push himself further than he ever had before. And for whatever reason, the result of that has been he's won his last, you know, five or six backyard ultras. Do you think that's a good mindset? to have with fighting or should you always go in

with the purpose of winning? So I think that's an amazing mindset for fighting, not so much. It's not that it's not a good mindset for fighting, but, you know, fighting isn't about taking part. It's never about taking part. It's about winning only.

Because if you don't win, you can get hurt. And I don't mean hurt like your legs are messed up. I mean like life-threatening damage, brain, you know, you can get really hurt. This mindset, however, maybe not so much for fighting, but me personally, I love it. Because, yeah, it's just,

instead of, because you're saying you want to win, so it's like, it's like to impress other people. But then it sounds like the mindset shift is like he's went within. And now he's only looking for self-improvement. It's like he's got the blinkers on, like a horse. He now doesn't care about other people. Yeah.

He only cares about pushing himself to his limits. Focus on what matters. But in doing this little mindset change, it's betterdom. He is still battling, but he's not set such as big expectation. And with this big expectation comes with all this pressure. And yeah, I think, I don't know if I explained that very well. But yeah, no, that makes sense to me. For me, fighting, like, yeah.

And so training camp is you can try, and be the best version of yourself every time, or you can have this mindset singularly in training sessions. So I like this for, like, not, not, not the fight itself, but for like maybe every session on the lead-up to the fight is, okay, I'm going to try be better than I was yesterday. I'm going to try be better than boys yesterday.

I'm going to try and this. I'm going to see my recovery's getting, what just everything, when it comes to fighting, there's only one thing on your mind. Just win, baby. First or last. If you went first, you're less. I love it.

That's it. Yeah, that makes sense to me. That's a good answer for sure. But, man, what a fun discussion. Yeah, absolutely. I've loved it. I mean, absolutely loved it. Yeah.

Super thankful, Nico. Thank you so much for having me here. Thank you so much for coming. Absolutely pleasure. First person ever from Scotland here. You got the Scotland title here. Thank you very much. All right, guys.

I hope you guys enjoyed this discussion. This is Nico. Give him a follow. He's a badass. Keep hammering. Peace out, guys. Thank you.