Green Light with Chris Long - Dianna Russini! On Breaking The Julio Jones Trade. UFC's Michael Chandler On Life In And Out Of The Octagon.

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

(01:13) - Welcome, Layup Line, Good, Bad and Ugly from the Week. (24:11) - Dianna Russini on the Julio Jones Trade, Breaking NFL News and Deshaun Watson's Future in Houston. (58:22) - Michael Chandler on Fighting in the UFC and Bellator, Training and Preparing for Fights, What to Make of the Celebrity Exhibition Fights and Life In and Out of the Octagon. Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The thing is it's really just water manipulation, really. I mean, I'll lose 10 pounds in my one hour workout tonight before a fight. And then the next morning I wake up three, three, four pounds over and then then lose a little bit of weight that morning just by sweating some stuff out, just sweating water out. Then you feel horrible for a few minutes. Luckily, you step on the scale and then boom, you rehydrate. And then 30 minutes later, you got a gallon of water in, which is eight pounds.

So now I'm 163. An hour later after that, I have another gallon of water, which is another eight pounds. so now you're looking at 171 within two and a half hours of the way in. So I'm already back in the 70s after two hours of the way in. Diana Rossini joining us today. Slow pasta, as we call her,

affectionately, you know, beating her to the punch on Kyle Long signing with the Chiefs. But she was first. She beat you. She beat Adam Schaefter. She beat Ian Rappaport when it came to Julio Jones. So we'll get her take on that. We'll get her take on the Titans.

She's fresh off a Bachelorette. party. My friends don't have bachelor parties anymore. We had a freaking party. It was a lunch, dude. We had a lunch. So Diana Rossini will, uh, will join us in a bit. It's been too long. She is the source on that Julio Jones. Breaking news. Okay, I'll be an, I'll be a source on that story. Yeah. He's, uh, he's hurt a lot and not so good. So let's all relax a little bit. You're just, you're just insufferable sometimes with the, you just had to, no, I'm no, I'm shutting that down. I don't want anybody to say like they set on the green light pod and then it gets back to like Julio Jones or something like who the fuck is the green light pod all righty Julio Jones cool and a good

football player Colts still win that division can I report that oh you you and I might be parking our cars in the same garage okay Mike Chandler also joining us today UFC fighter so you presumably never heard of him because he's a fighter I had I have we already talked to him we talked to him okay behind the curtain we talked to him. I had not heard of the guy. I'm among his biggest fans now at this point after spending better part of 60 minutes with him. He's a big fan of yours or you're a big fan of his. I'm a big fan of his. Okay, you're among his biggest fans. That makes sense. Yeah, you got you got me? Yeah, I got it. You in my garage? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Mike Chandler is a, um, is a UFC fighter. He was a, a Belator fighter for a long time. Um, won a bunch of, you know, fights there and was like a three time champion. And,

Only recently at the ripe young age of 35 transitioned in the UFC knocked out a guy named Hooker. Barely know her. And can you say, I don't even really know what that joke means. Just anything that ends in an ER, that's what I say. That's what the kids say. Like blooper. Barely know her. Right.

It just worked for Hooker. There's a guy named Hooker, he knocked him out in Abu Dhabi. And since then, everybody's been like, oh, this Chandler guy's got Gets game, you know, like, good Lord, I wish he was in the UFC a long time ago. Then he fought another dude in the past couple months and he lost that one. Anyways, brilliant dude, really cerebral, you would agree. Yes. Yeah, we just talked to him for a while and he's going to talk to us about all that stuff from, you know, losing a couple weeks ago and, you know, on one of the biggest stages he's been on to, you know, that big coming out party in the UFC to fighting in

Abu Dhabi, what's different about that, to training to, you know, maybe some tips for you, street fighting tips. Really good interview. Even if you're not into fighting, the guy is sitting down right now at 192 pounds. He fights at 155. And we'll get into that math because that's some crazy shit, quite frankly. That's some crazy shit. I'm here at 162 trying to crawl my way up to like 165 and he's just dropping 30 on a dime.

is bloody discouraging London, England Hello! You know somebody in London, you just Hey, last week, who'd you say hello to and we had somebody, Casper Wyoming? We had a listener in Casper, Wyoming. I felt like we hit the jackpot.

Hella encouraging. Now, some entrepreneurial type out there could just be saying, hey, I'm currently in Casper Wyoming. This is an honor system deal. Yeah, honor system. Don't tweet us and tell us you're in like hell in a Montana.

or London, England. If you're not. A terrific spot. London, England, interesting thing about London, England to me is top five city to like party in, but also bottom five city to be hung over in. Go on. Legitimately the only, like one of the only cities that I put like towards the top on both lists. I mean, it's very gray.

It's very dreary. I was hung over once after we played the Jags and I couldn't wait to get out of there. It was I had the scaries so badly in London. so badly. I had like tortured writer Sunday scaries like 1800s writer. That sounds so amazing to be a writer in London in the 1800s gray dreary you would love that dreary you would love that would be amazing checkpoint death yeah I mean listen to you yeah when you talk you're my co-host um but you know thanks for listening also Atlantic City I want to put Atlantic City up there in uh worst places to be hungover. First mention of Atlantic City. Yeah, there will be another one on this podcast.

One time we were on a bridge there and it was post-batchel party early 2010s and I had a panic attack and there was traffic on the bridge and Sunday Scaries, bridge, limited space in the car. It was bad. It was just bad. I'll put it that way. Yeah, I put that up there with London. London's a lovely place though if you're not hungover. Thank you. We appreciate that. We anglify. Iles, appreciate that. Layup line today. Cush. It was Cushy.

Cush. So shout out to Ralph, who runs our social, who does a tremendous job. He reminded me today that June 7, 2007, the drought is over two came out, which is, of course,

a mixed date by... Run DMC. Lil Wayne. Okay. You heard the song. Did you know that was Lil Wayne? No. Oh, you really don't even recognize his voice.

Oh, golly, no. Unless it's Nelly or maybe M&M, I'm flying blind. You're flying blind. Jay-Z? Okay, maybe. Yeah, you can recognize his voice. But that was in the middle of that tremendous run that Wayne had when we were all in college, if you're around 35, 36 years old. One of the best years of my life, and a lot of it had to do with Little Wayne, just going home and being able to say, oh, it's a new album quality mixtape is out.

Let's all listen to it as a group of dudes, man. Drought 3 was the best one And then Drought is over two Which you lose track Chronologically of this shit here Came out June 7th, 2007 Drought 3 I came out earlier in the spring

But that's a song called Kush By Lil Wayne You know what Cush is? Drugs It's drugs, good job Okay Yeah, drugs From the Hindu Cush Mountains

in Afghanistan on the border there. It's a very resilient pot plant. Now would that be a, would that be an indica, Sativa? It'd be an indica. It's a couch lock. You ever hear like OG Kush, like Master Cush,

uh, Cowboy Reed, you, you crunchy as fuck. I'm not saying you smoke, but you think, OG, any other Cushes? No, I cannot. I mean, you crunchy as fuck. He's crunchy as fuck.

People don't, hey, we, We've been talking about this for a while, get and read one of those cameras that like people have on other podcasts the producers have. Yeah. Do you think we should leave him like Daff Punk? Or should we like start plugging people into what he looks like? Yeah, I don't know. So daft punk is something we don't, we can't see. Well, no, we can see him.

Okay. They got masks on and shit. Got you, got you. It's like Wilson from Home Improvement. Don't know that one. Wow. I didn't watch Home Improvement. Listen, we've been through this.

You show up. me characters from friends you think i'm joking no idea i couldn't name them i missed my whole childhood i don't know what it was yeah i don't know well wilson's the neighbor tim the tool man taylor i think he's might be controversial in real life oh really yeah did he go maga i think so another one of those motherfuckers the guy from uh another movie that i don't know as well as everybody else when people get together and they're all like family vacation or christmas vacation that's all that stuff i'm like yeah i remember that part the real uncomfortable I just don't want to announce the whole group that I don't know the movie as well as

there was a guy in that movie that went MAGA. Oh, Yeah, right. Dennis or Randy. And what sucks is that he saved the world in ID4. So never meet your heroes, they say. Two music plugs here. I'm going to fuck up the pronunciation here.

Cocoa Roco. Give him a shot here. It's an Afro beat eight piece band from. London, England. Holy smokes. Start with a Busy Junction. Okay? I'm gonna send it to you on your Spotify.

I think they had 23 million views a couple years ago on their YouTube and it kind of put them on the map. But this song is like the perfect song. And then Skin Shape. I don't know anything about Skin Shape. It's another guy from the UK. I couldn't even describe what the music is. It's one of those things that you're afraid when somebody's like, what genre is that music?

I can't tell you. I'm gonna sound stupid as fuck. It's good music. I can't, again, I'm going to mess up the pronunciation. Oracolo is the album. Check out that album. Check out the song, rubber gloves, but let that whole album play the album's amazing. I never heard it until, you know, last couple weeks.

So new music, check it out on Greenlight Spotify. And also, I'll make a little playlist. Check out Alan Jackson and Travis Tritt and George Strait, Kenny Chesney, and Tim McGraw. will pigeonhole those folks into country music they're nicely labeled you can just search that on your Spotify I don't think that'll make the layup line

90s country we should make a 90s country playlist though because we could definitely because we should have been cowboys yeah we should have should have should have learned to rope and ride that's right yeah oh

my six shooter riding my pony on the cattle drive what's your good I'm like, good. Jeff Garland sent us a gift, dude. That's awesome. I thought the guy hated you. He sent you a buttercup, you know, because Jeff Garland of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame

also did a lot of, he did a lot of voiceovers. And he did Buttercup and Toy Story 2, 3, 4, all the toy stories. But one, I think Buttercup was a latecomer. But he sent Waylon and your lovely daughter, two stuffed animals. So shout out to Jeff Garland. He was a great guest. Yes. She was.

She was a great guy too. Yeah. Hope we have him back. Hope he didn't hate us. Well, you just said you, you think he hated you, but I hope he didn't hate us. Yeah. No, that's fair. I don't think he hated you.

I think it was funny because he did the fuck you making thing off the top. Which I guess SVP just did as well. I think people are kind of seeing you as the soft landing for like a good laugh at the beginning and then they come around to your dry sense of humor. Or don't. They just come back to the punching back again, which is fine. I don't think you're a punching back. I just think I think you're so dry that some people can be jarring.

And they're like, what is this guy's deal? And I do. I'm going to call you Mojave. I'm going to start calling you Mojave, big Mojave from now on. Desert, dry. Big cactus, big Mojave. I'd hate to like repeat a nickname. Right.

I throw a fair amount of oops too. People can just. Yeah, no doubt about it. You definitely do. Hey, good also cinema related. Michael Clayton, just as good as I remember. You ever seen Michael Clayton? Like the receiver?

Oh my God, dude. You haven't seen Michael Clayton? No. The movie? Uh-uh. Reed? Doesn't sound like a movie. Reed?

Yeah, I've seen Michael Clayton. Okay. 2007 film. Reed is a human being. He's seen Michael Clayton. George Clooney, the Clune. Some of the best nights of my life were drinking George Clooney's vodka. Legitimately, we drank the clune on the buses in Philly at the parade.

I drink the clune at Red Rocks. Red Rocks. Underneath the Red Rocks. rocks, dude. Afterwards, got in there. Shouted to Patrick Hallahan. Drink the Clune. Michael Clayton, starring George Clooney. Do you remember this receiver? Went to LSU. He was a first rounder in 04. Oh, 4. Yeah, Michael Clayton. Yeah. I play with a Mark Clayton from Oklahoma. Yeah, see how that could be confusing. But Michael Clayton is just as good now as it was then. And I just want to say this. This was 2007. The movies look super old in that period. Like,

the movies damn near look like they're supposed to be early 90s movies. That's how much we've advanced. And George Clooney is glowing up because I was sitting there with my wife watching the movie. I didn't feel a bit of uncomfortable. Oh. Because he was just kind of, I just think George Clooney looked average as fucking that movie.

Michael Clayton looked kind of, he kind of looked dumpy. That's the guy that everybody likes, George Clooney. Definitely not an international heartthrob status. As a guy with the kind of bangs, unfortunately. Yeah. or with it all back or really short.

Yeah, I feel like Michael Clayton is the version of seeing like that fabled little league team on a bad day. And you're like, we can beat these guys. Yep. Well said. I don't think I'm not seeing it. Also, the real good. Damn, dude. Yeah, I watched two movies this weekend.

Three pack. Yeah, three pack. A lot of good. I'm going to have problems finding the bad. I might find, I got a little ugly for you. Okay. Robocop. Saw Robocop for the first time this weekend.

Reid, have you ever seen Robocop? I have not. All right, you have homework. It's like part of your contract. I'm going to write this thing in, but like you need to go watch Robocop and report back to me on the next podcast. Okay,

you think you find time in your day to watch Robocop. It's only like 100 minutes long. 102 minutes runtime. Yep. Can do. Can do. Robocop. I need a book report from read on Robocop.

But I just want to say some of the worst policing, like the worst police techniques of all time, exist and there are some pretty bad ones there are i mean like it's it's it's kind of like uh the tallest NBA player it's that kind of discussion but like some of the worst policing tactics of all time i mean from an effectiveness standpoint exists in this movie and it's just perfectly 80s it's incredible robocop looked like johnny sins i just realized that pran that right you know who Johnny Sins is?

Only from you, my friend. Okay. Okay. And I also wonder now that I'm watching many years later and without seeing the movie, you know what Robocop looks like, right? I do now. Why did he need a face?

Literally, he did nothing with his face. Why did they have to put like a, why do they have to put the face on there? Yeah, I don't know. None of this makes me comfortable. Reed, watch Robocop. My good is also a film, Chris. Yep.

1992. This is a top three, maybe top five for me. It's called my cousin Vinnie. And I caught it on one of the, I've cut the court. I caught it on a Hulu live. It's a good movie. Yeah. Marissa Tomey steals the show. She's great. Joe Pesci. I love Marissa Tomey. And I caught it at the right at the right spot just when we're in the courtroom, two Utes. Identical. It was just great. Hey, Marissa Tomey in the 90s, total babe. Marissa Tomei in the 80s, 70s, 2000s, 2000s, the 10s, the 20s, babe. Yes. It's a good movie. All right.

Bad. Bad and the ugly. I think we can roll into one. Okay. You got one as well. I think I think we have the same one. I think we talked about this. You want to go on three?

Yeah, on three. One, two, three. Titus and Tateus and Tate. It's ugly, dude. You alerted me to this. And a friend, I wish I could say that I found it on my own. I didn't. A friend alerted me that these two fellas have finally paid up on their bet.

The bet was we did a bracket challenge back in, God, when was, it feels like it was 2020. That would have been March 21 before the tournament starts. And look, the reasoning given for their not paying up on the bet in a timely manner was ridiculous. One, they didn't care for my Fibonacci scoring system, the best scoring system in C2A tournament. Okay, that was the reason. They said that there was some confusion around the scoring, right? Right. Fibonacci, or as Cowboy

likes to say, Fibirachi. Fibirachi. Now, Titus, or Tate, or whoever, if we had done standard scoring, you went up against two badasses who picked the national champion, so it would have been way more ugly than it was. Then in Fibonacci scoring. I'm just saying, I sent you a screenshot recently.

I said per making, this is a forward because you're all over this. To make things clear, like Titus, Tate, he really wanted this. This was me. I was getting dragged along for the ride here. That's fair. Okay. I said Fibonacci scoring is the only way to go. I broke it down by round.

Two points each in the first, three points in the second, five in the sweet 16, Elite 8, 8 points, final 4, 13 points each. Championship 21 points. Perfect. You got our brackets, right? And now they're out here. That's from the guy with the cabbage. These clowns saying they didn't even know what brackets we were using.

They painted us to, like they painted us to some charlatans. Jeez, fellas. Yeah, and thanks for, thanks for paint up in June. My children will never listen to another Titus and Tate podcast. Where does this stand? I mean, seriously. When it comes to scandals, this is right up there with, I don't know, steroids and baseball, big tobacco.

If we're in the college basketball world, maybe this is a Rick Petino sort of situation, where he, of course, has sex with the woman in the Italian restaurant. Okay, I don't want to get on that hit list, dude. Okay. I think part of my takes on that hit list, dude. I think, all right, hey, Rick, Rick, I'm the host of this podcast.

My name is Chris Long. And if you have any issue with the Cowboy Reed, producer, extraordinaire. You guys' voices sound the same, evidently. But yeah, it's bad. I mean, it's a bad look. It's a bad look for those guys. You know, to paint us as like we were,

to be honest, we jumped them on it. We challenged them, like, impromptu. But they're the experts, right? They're the experts. But they were right about what they said on their podcast, which is that we see all the games, just on a different level. We do.

Baylor, boom, chance. obviously. Ohio State, Mark Titus. Oral. What did, 45 minutes of oral. What did Tate say?

Who's going to win? I don't know. Both their brackets were terrible, but his, his, Tarheels lost. And a cheeks, and a cheeks pay out.

Tarheel's lost first round. You know what the penalty is? They've got to come back on the show. Yeah. Next college basketball season. That's right. We're good for now. We're good for now.

We don't want any short-haired Mark Titus's. And to be clear, yes, the Wahoo's also lost first round, but that wasn't the bet. The bet was to fill out your bracket correctly. Yeah, we knew our team was going to be possibly cheeks. It's the law of averages. Yeah, we won it the last time around. Don't know if y'all caught that. Anyways, I just want to finish this thing with class before we get Diana Rossini on to talk about

Julio Jones and her bachelor at party, not hers, but when she was attending and that sort of thing. We think they're awesome at what they do. We do. You see how we're like being serious about it. Like they really are really good at what they do. Nice. Good looking, smart. Have you seen them in a tuxedo?

Guys look like Frank Sinatra and... They look like freaking George Clooney and Michael Clayton. They don't look like George Clooney and Michael Clayton. I'm trying to compliment them. But yeah, you're probably right realistically. Hey, Diana Rossini is going to be joining us and then stick around for Mike Chandler. I ran over a squirrel And I just want to be

Oh Out front and up front Can we talk about that real quick? Yeah I think it's my second all time Did it Twitch? No, it was a It was clean

And I really do feel bad So bad that I don't like hitting stuff either It delayed my oatmeal by about 45 minutes Because I just didn't feel good I dropped the rabbit off at camp She goes to camp once a week And came back And I think it hit the left rear

I think it almost made it hit left rear, a little bump, looked in the back, ah, you know, ah, and then I'm leaving the neighborhood. It's in your neighborhood. You'll see it on the way home. Really? And way out the neighborhood, that qualifies as an ugly for me. It was not a good scene. Did you do the groundhog last week that was near my driveway? No. I felt bad about the groundhog. Did it was hit? A young groundhog. It was hit? Yeah, it was hit. Usually they're good about staying out the roadway. Yeah, no, not this one. Got a family of foxes across the road. You know the foxes.

Unfortunately, yeah. People talking about the foxes in our neighborhood, huh? Yeah. These fuckers are unafraid. And I've got a bear two doors down. You seen the bear? We could probably do safaris in our neighborhood. Yes.

Yes. Slap everybody in a Volvo station wagon. The ones where you used to sit backwards. Mm-hmm. You know what I thought about? Hell yeah. On the way to carpool. Yeah.

Shout out to Jenny Lesser, wherever you are. That's your maiden. name sure now you're married away but we used to ride in the back of the oh man her uh her husband's gonna feel awkward about this you rode together you too yeah we rode backwards yeah we're like wow look at the road well yeah but the point is we could do like suburban safaris squirrels groundhogs black bears foxes deer the whole nine yards labrador retrievers i don't like killing bugs oh i like killing bugs but the squirrel messed me up

I'll put a spider outside. Oh, no, no, no. Lached her to the spider. Yeah, but you feel bad about running over the squirrel. Oh, yeah. Okay. It ruined my morning. Quite the recovery.

Thank you. Diana Rossini. My gosh, dude, I'm shocked. We got her. Diana Rossini, friend of the program, but it's been too long, and she was the center of the football universe this week. Newsbreaker. Newsbreaker.

The original source. Have you heard she was the first to break the news on Julio Jones? I have heard that. That she was the source. Yes. Okay. Reddit. Diana Rossini, how are you?

Reddit. That's where you get your news, huh? Wow. I meant I read it like on the Twitter website. But no, it's probably on Reddit as well. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. It's also on, I don't know, Adam Schaeftery and Rapaport's Twitter.

Basically copy-paste it. But anyway. Thank you. So good to see you. It's good to hear your voices. I love all the tongue and cheat comments. You know, Big Cat, PFT, you guys, Riscilla, everyone was blowing my phone up.

Which, by the way, when you break a big story, there's no better feeling than when you actually hear from your friends, people in the business, just be like, yeah, whatever. Everybody has, like, their own little cool way of reaching out to say, like, I see you. But it's even better when people are funny about stuff. Because I guess it's pretty obvious.

You can see, I mean, yeah, you can see who's on stories, who's got it first. And the insider game is so catty and it's really lame. But I have fun with it. And I love when people call others out. When you heard about the Julio thing before anybody else in the media business, when did you first get a beat on this thing? So I've been trying to really steer away from just the obvious basic version of what people think I am, which is this Italian girl from New Jersey. So, like, I actually put effort into it now.

Like, I try to wear more blazers. And I wear, like, lighter makeup. Like, I swear, because I'm like, I'm a national. reporter, but I'm just so New Jersey. Like, I need to, I need to grow. But I was in Atlantic City. And it's just like not helping it, you know? Like, of course, I'm in Atlantic City, like the dirtiest place in the state for a bachelorette party for my sister-in-law, who's 25, everyone's 25. and and there was a pool the pool's gray it's blue or green you know every dude around me has like a travel tat and you're in heaven I was so happy but no no I was actually thinking like this is just

this was my head this was my playground like 10 years ago like oh my I would have been in the water that's the thing about bachelor parties now and somebody does it like I said to Macon who recently got married and didn't do a bachelor party. I thought it was a tremendous disservice to all his 30 plus year old friends. Like it's an opportunity. It's like we get to go do this thing over that we thought was was done like that bachelor party wedding circuit. If you get a late wedding, a bachelorette party, you got to show out. But like you said, everybody's 10 years younger. How was your liver? So full disclosure, it was an outdoor pool like day club thing. That was like we did.

And because of COVID and obviously all of us have been in the same situation, which we haven't been very social. So again, not helping myself here. But I just heard the DJ and just like the music. And I was, we are back. But I could not. Like I was pretending to be a grown-old, but a married woman now, but short. But like, I just needed one of these 20 virals to like egg me a little and just push me. That's all I needed.

And fortunately, they read that pretty quickly. I'm sure I made it obvious. So, to really, the original question here, the football-related angle here, not my ridiculous social life, is I've known about the Julio stuff since before the draft. I heard Julio, wasn't happy. And it's funny. It's one of those stories that it just happens sometimes, Chris, you know stuff. And for whatever reason, you don't think it's that big.

And then you tweet it or you say it to somebody. and they're like, whoa. And they're like, wait, really? You think that's a big deal? It's like, uh, yeah. And maybe that's like a journalism muscle. I need to improve. But I just feel like sometimes I do that where I have to like say it out loud as someone

to get the depth of it. You know, and then in the same token, you know, I'll tweet something that I think is huge and I get like two retweets. You know, and I'm like, all right, that was trash. I got to get better. You actually told me to make a pack. You were like, if I have any really shitty tweets, just tell me. and all you do the same for me.

You haven't reported back on any shitty tweets, so either you're not reading my Twitter or you didn't follow it on your head. I blocked you. No, I read your stuff all the time. When you get, like, in the wormholes of like NBA, just stuff I don't care about as much. I know I just, I don't really. Football, yeah.

Yeah, I just ignore it. As soon as you have a take on something, I'm like, I don't want to get into it. I don't remember what it was that I want to respond because I actually really disagreed with you. but I don't want to get into this. Convenient. You don't remember what it was. You're kind of annoying to fight without Twitter. So I'd rather just text you.

You're like, yo, what are you talking about here? Well, I never got that text. Maybe you're afraid to debate me. I'll go through someone else. I tell Christmas. So, yeah, so I knew the story. I knew around the draft, too, when it was heating up. And, you know, it got out from all of us that Julio wasn't happy.

He didn't want to be there. The Falcons knew he wasn't happy. those guys took over there, took over the job. Terry Fottano, the GM and Arthur Schmidt. They were well aware that Julio wanted out. This was all part of it. This was like not a secret. It just looked really sexy around the draft to hear like,

the Falcons are open to trading Julio. It was like, oh my gosh. But it was kind of part of the package they took, so to speak, when they took the job. They knew this. And I had heard from Middle regime that this was not good. Why, though? So there is things about Atlanta, the organization he did not like that.

That wouldn't change with a coaching change. Yeah, who was not happy with that. I'll also share that, you know, injury has been a little bit of a concern. His practice saying or lack thereof is a concern. He wasn't one of those players that practiced a lot. And that became a little bit of the storyline or even the narrative here during the last few months. as a concern of like a red flag like is this guy going to practice.

That's what the Falcons were upset about? Yeah, that he, there were some, not the Falcons of the current, but in the past. Yeah, yeah. Really trying to manage him. You know, and Dan Quinn's style is, it's really non-competational.

He's an incredible person and a great coach. But Quinn wasn't going to be one to really get on Julio and get the best out of him. When he left Alabama with obviously Nick, saving coming from that program, you don't get away with a lot in that program, right? So he had great habits. I think it just changed a bit. We see it a lot with players.

You guys know this. So I think this became, there was a couple little things like this that were adding up. And it just, it didn't seem like it was going to work and then throw the salary on top of it. And look who they draft and who they pick up as a rookie. And they're looking at this offense, like, you know, know what, maybe we'll be all right without them. So that's Atlanta side of it. Now you have teams all in the hunt. I reported two weeks ago that there was a team that was discussing with Atlanta for a future first round pick. Right. And that exploded. And I understood why immediately,

because a first round pick for a 32 year old receiver, that's a lot. That's a lot. A lot. You can debate it, though, right? You can say, I can see it. conversely though it sounds like to the layman you're like a second and a fourth like that's nothing so like there's no in between and you also get kickback of you're getting used by Atlanta right that's not true so when you report that stuff as I think you guys would know but I'd rather share with the listeners that maybe don't know when I share anything about compensation I don't I will always get it from the team that made the offer And the team that's accepted, or at least the, you know, you've got to get both sides on that one. Because I don't want to be used. It's happened to me before. So I don't, I don't do it.

I'd rather just not report it. What's the worst you'd been used? My husband told me he was more wealthy than he has. Your husband's taking a fucking beating. Can we just say that? I am here for your husband. I saw you said some things about him on television and I had to turn it off. I said, I've seen the guy.

He looks like a hunk. Chris, every freaking dude. Philly that he's friends with is they're going to clip this because the group she showed me the group chat they have like an NBA Twitter group like some corny thing I never even read it But now you're going at his group chat it was his face before now he's going to his group I'm killing it's just constant it's constant you guys in your NBA I guess no it's just playoff time for me he must be fully yeah I get it but um but how about in a football sense what's the worst you've been used. You don't have to use names. How does it happen? I had players share with me

offers that they that they have on the table during free agency that were not true because they knew I would go back to the team they really wanted to go to. It's usually a compensation. It's usually a compensation thing. Got it. I mean, I'm trying to think if there's anything else where you can really get played. And that's, it's why you always have to have more than one source. You know, when I started this, I'm so excited about getting any piece of news that, oh, my gosh, and just run with it. And you get older and more experienced and you eat it sometimes. You realize it is so much smarter and better and good for your career to just be a little bit more conservative. And I will say my colleague out of Shepard is the best at holding cards.

Chris, if you guys knew how much he actually knows compared to what he shares, I'm on emails with it all day. And I'm like, oh, I can't. How does he know this? Like, even this story, right? He knows you're breaking a story before you break the story, evidently. Very rarely. I told Adam something he didn't know.

And it's the best feeling. And he, you know, he's got that great or just high energy. I don't know. Wow. Wow. That's great. I mean, I didn't know that. Yeah.

Well, say on that. Say on that. That's huge, huge. And call me. And call me. Immediately. The graphic already. He's like, put the player's head in the movie.

He's doing the edits like a fucking middle schooler on Instagram. I just want to say this on the record before we finish the Julio thread that I held the Josh McCown interviewing for the head coach job in Houston like for months. And I guess I'm not a newsbreaker, but I was like, man, if I was, this would be a bomb. You remember that on the record. So on the record, I knew that first. how could you forget? That was a big deal.

Josh McCown interviewing for a fucking head coaching job. When it comes to you breaking news, I don't really care about that one as much I care about the one. I'm like, oh yeah, yeah. Well, guess who broke that? He's sitting right here. Sorry, Diana.

Slow pasta. That's when we started calling you slow pasta. You used to be you used to be a gal Palantoneo, which you hated in in Philly because I, you know, you get Sal would walk in and then Diana would walk in. It's like total, just like the Italian media is here. And then we got fast pasta. Shout out to Anthony Alfredo.

But when Macon beat you out for that scoop, we started calling you slow pasta. I got wind that other media members were hot on the trail. Yep. So I had to push it out. But it was a whole big thing between Kyle's agent and us. And we were like, nah, we're breaking the news. And his agent was like, no, I'm friends with Schefter. And there's this whole like thing.

And we're like, nah, but I'm related. And it's my podcast. I'm related to Kyle. So I'll get Kyle to beat you up. if, you know, like agent, Adam Schaefter. Yeah, that the agent game is nuts and the loyalties and the sharing of info. I'm growing in that space full disclosure. Like, I want an agent to say to you, I'm breaking your family news.

I mean, how much closer can you be at that point? Exactly. I'm like, all right, come on. And the part about the Julio thing that I didn't get quite down here and maybe you know something you're not saying, but Julio Jones, you're telling me what the Falcons had an issue with Julio about, did Julio have an issue with the Falcons? Or was that just like a thing that, you know, reciprocally just kind of fell apart?

The sense I was getting that he just, ever in close to him that I never spoke to Julio directly. I spoke to people around him, just kept saying he's just not happy here. Yeah, yeah. So you never know what that means. So I don't want to guess. Well, they've sucked.

So there's that. I mean, so I get that. I guess the question is you breaking this news, it's official. Julio's going to Tennessee. Obviously, Atlanta, get something out of it because they offload all that cap space, right? I mean, that's what this is about.

I don't think people understand. I mean, who wouldn't want Julio on their team? They might have grievances against him over the last couple of years he hasn't practiced enough. But that guy's going to help somebody. You're dumping 15 mil. I also reported it was a long shot that Tennessee was going to get him. One, because I knew about deals that were in the works. I never finished my story about how I reported a future first rounder.

That deal with that team fell through. at like the final out. Yeah. That'd happen. Like there's reports out there that say there was never a first round of. There was a future first rounder and those discussions were had. And they also involved another player, a current player. And this team did not want to give that player up.

And then they were, I don't want to say they were split within that organization, but there were enough people that changed the mind of the decision makers of like, we cannot be successful without this current player for Julio. Wow. Can you tell us what position that player was? I can't because I think there's, I think it would end up. No, I'm going to, I'm going to see maturity. See how I just asked that so confidently. It's an interview technique. You just ask and then you just stop asking.

Well, Diana going absolutely. Yeah, I was running back. I knew Diana. All right. So it wasn't a running back. That means it was probably a quarterback that leaves quarterback. And not quarterback. So the story this weekend. To sum it up, I'm at the roulette table, and I think I'm a witch, first of all, because I'm sitting there and I just, probably, I have like five bucks on 11, five bucks on 23. I don't know why I'm telling you what I'm betting, but this is what I was betting. And it just hit me at the roulette table.

I'm like, I think something's going to happen very soon. I just felt it. I hit on 11, by the way. Yeah. And I was playing outsiders on the outside. I'm playing why. I'm so psyched. They give me my little money,

you know, whatever it was, it's a couple hundred bucks. I asked for, you know, color me up already. The lady's like, geez,

you're the worst. Take my little money. I run over. You can't, you know, a casino with the phones. They like flip out. I'm wearing a skirt that's like maybe an inch from like my hip,

by the way. You're in Jersey. Yeah. I just start calling everyone I knew involved in all of this. And they were like, it's going to get done tomorrow. I'm like, oh my God. So now I have to get all my ducks in a row of competition and how I want to do this. So I just figure, all right, I'm going to start with just opening up my drafts in my phone and start typing now just in case I get a little tired later to start typing now smart tweets and reports.

Smart ones. right the falcons and the tennessee titans have agreed i'm just i'm using every lingo thing i can think of at the time i have a million versions of it but i also have tons of backstory and at the time i thought was i'm just going to i'm just going to dump i'm going to put everything out why not like i wound up not doing that as you saw yesterday i kept it all pretty tight and just went with the trade and i'm still deciding how much i want to share eventually i think people are interested in this Maybe a book. We should write a book one day, I think, about being the first person to break that, that Julio story.

So we go to some club. It's terrible. And I'm just not present because my adrenaline's going out. I'm like, I can't go to sleep because you know what's going to happen. You go to sleep, sorry, grace. So I'm just going to stay up. So I stayed up all night and I just kept check better. I mean, by the way, 25-year-olds, all they do when they go to clubs, like, remember,

remember when we would go, like, drinks, you dance, you grind. I'm bringing grind it back, by the way. 25-year-olds just TikTok and Snapchat. Oh. Look like they're having fun. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, they're not having fun.

It wasn't that fun, though. You know, you put in their, you look, their videos, and it's like, you would have thought where we, you would have thought we were, like, in the Caribbean with all these smoking hot dudes. And meanwhile, it's, like, all filtered. and hot dudes are, the Caribbean. They're just there. I was just trying to think the last place I was at

where there were a lot of key boys. So I just stayed up. They're snapping and chatting and doing that stuff. I'm checking Twitter, which by the way, no one even, if I was out with my girlfriends that are my age, they would like, get off your fan, be present, you're never around. They didn't care.

I guess back to the Julio thing. Well, the Tennessee Titans actually, and you're like all things Titans, like expert, like, to be honest, we've been fucking around a lot. but like the quarterback controversy thing. You were one of the first people that called it when Tannahill and Marriotto were getting ready to go to camp the year that Tana Hill took his position.

So like you're on the Tennessee stuff early. What do you say about this move as far as like, does this put them over the top? Because my initial take was no, but then I'm looking at some of the things they did defensively. And if they're improving that side of the ball, then maybe it does. Yeah, I do think, look, their defense stakes,

we always talk about it here. They got a little bit better. I wouldn't say they got significantly better. You take a look at their offense so last year, because a lot of the immediate response was, you know, this is the best wide receiver doing the league now with A.J. Brown and Julio. And I get it. I actually agree.

But when you take a look at just how defense has played AJ last year, he wasn't doubled a lot. And it's not like they needed this piece. Like the 49ers, in my opinion, needed this piece. This could have been the chip for them. I didn't ever sense desperation on the offensive side of the ball because the last I top, unless I checked, Derek Henry's still there. And he's healthy and ready. And yes, Arthur Smith left as their coordinator, but I have never since from anyone in that team, players and coaches alike, that they feel like they're going to

take a step back without Arthur. And no disrespect to Arthur. It's just they have a way of doing things there and it starts from Braves and that's just how it works so you know what's going to be interesting though so we talk about this practice thing you're telling me Mike Briebel is going to let a receiver come in and just not practice do you see how he just beats down tell him and i mean on we're talking about Julio Jones i mean like we're talking about Julio Jones we're not talking about Taylor no shot at Taylor we're not talking about we're not even talking about AJ Brown who I love, and by the way, who should be very relieved that Julio came to Tennessee because those videos, they were going to hang those over his head if they didn't land Julio, the recruitment

stuff he had going on. But like, I love those guys. There's just not like there's a level of stardom in the NFL when you're a Hall of Famer and everybody knows it, you don't play by the same rules. And that includes like, listen, you went out and got them, you gave something up for him. So if Julio doesn't want to practice two days a week, Julio shouldn't practice two days a week. there are a lot of players who are a lot less than Julio get days off in the NFL. But you know the Titans M.O. better than I do. Look, Derek Henry doesn't practice all the time. I know that.

You know, they sort of, they manage him, his legs. They're cool with it. I just think where it's the interesting dynamic to me is you don't have a head coach that's just, just like a guy that's worked his way through the coaching ranks and fell into this head coaching job. You have a guy who's got three Super Bowl rings. who comes from the New England way where he played with superstars. And he has a culture that he knows works,

that he's instilled, I think, or at least has attempted to to make them a little patriot way down there. And while I think he's player-friendly, I have a hard time believing that when Braves and Julio Jones had a phone conversation, they didn't talk about practice.

I'm sure they did. No way the head coach is signing off on this without knowing and feeling good that this guy's going to be there and be like the rest of the Titans. See, I think it's the other way around a little bit, though. There's no way Julio's signing off on like, okay, I know he's not the one making the trade,

but like, yeah, like, I'm excited about this happening if he's thinking they're going to work him like a dog. You know, like there's just an understanding and now he's on the other side of 30 that like certain plays. players get taken care of. And also, if I'm a head coach, as long as Julio's a good teammate,

he's a positive force in the building, and he plays on Sunday, I'll see a Friday. Like, I'll see a Friday for Red Zone. I'll see, you know, like, if you're dinged up, you get time. And if you're really good, no questions asked,

at least in my book. So I don't know. I guess for me, you're looking at the numbers. They have to let Johnny Walk, who's going to make 10 plus in New England this year, who we both love,

Davis had they picked up his option. That was 15 mil right there. So in a sense, you know, you'll have to replace the tight end production, but you're getting Julio for less money than you would to bring those two guys back. So they've kind of parlayed this. And again, like you said, it's not like a lot of people are going out and getting a second number one with the same body type as your first number one. They only make so many Julio Joneses, so I'm trying to be, you know, take it easy with the comparisons. But that's, this is a rare unprecedented thing. do think, though, the closer I've looked at it, it's a good move for them. Yeah, I think this has got to be something I want to see if they can make it work.

I didn't break that story yesterday thinking, oh my gosh, I'm going to be spending all year in Nashville now. I don't know. I want to see it. And I'm not saying I'm doubting, variable. I just, I think this may be one is, I think this could be a challenge for him. I think this is going to be something. I'm interested to see how he's going to play this.

And I know he won't love this because we're both UVA guys, but I think they went a long way into shoring up the back end and investing in a really talented defensive back in the first round in a fairly out attack. Multiple back surgeries. Julio, always ding. Okay. There's a lot. Yeah, well, evidently, they're going to be pushing these guys hard, but Bud Dupree coming

off an injury. Okay. Generous Jenkins. I mean, they've invested in their defense. I say that to just say, though, last year they couldn't outscore the Browns. Can they outscore the chief? So in my mind, as long as you're showing up the defense, you can do this offensively. But had you just remain the same defensively, this does not guarantee you anything.

But if you can improve defensively, you've got to be able to get a couple stops. I'm not like somebody who's like you've got to build around your defense. I know the new NFL and Julio's going to make the record better. But when they need a big stop in the playoffs, that's where I worry about Tennessee. So what does it say about Atlanta and Matt Ryan? What do you hear about Matt Ryan? Do you believe there's going to be a second act? that seems pretty imminent, second act somewhere,

and any inclination where that might be and when? Real quick point, I just remembered against Baltimore, the Titans. Corey Davis disappeared, and they needed him late in the game. You remember Derek, they were stopping the run really well. AJ was just okay.

I forgot somebody was just cloaking him and he could not get open. And so it came to Corey. And Corey just, and so maybe this is where Julio can, step in. A lot of coaches not overreact, but they react to what happened in the last game in the playoff game, you know, and I would argue and they played in some low scoring playoff games, some lower scoring playoff games, that Baltimore game being one of them relatively low scoring.

I just think eventually, you know, they have to make the stops. That's all. Yeah, but for the Falcons now, just their approach, I never got the sense at all that players and even including their quarterback were, you know, banging on the door of Arthur Smith and Terry Bano's office going, how could we get rid of Julio? You know, it felt like everyone knew this was, the writing was on the wall. And just like anything else, you know these guys, especially their quarterback, they know way more about what's going on with these guys than it even gets out. So I think just in terms of the way they're looking at their offense, they feel really good. The Kyle Pitts thing going back to direct, I had the Falcons on draft night.

They were my team. And, I mean, there was just no question. There was no question they were going Kyle Pitts from the start. It was one of those, you know, they don't want us to like report it because it's draft night. I would want to keep it exciting. But that was, they were going for him the whole time. And they were leaving Matt Ryan.

They made that call. I know there was a, there was a time period where I wouldn't call it a clear decision that Matt Ryan was going to be that they were going to stick with him as the future. I think there was a little debate there. There's some conversations. And then everyone got on the same age and now we're all in on believing that Matt McSill

has gained left of them. Other quarterback news, we've stayed away from the Deshawn Watson stuff and we're going to allow the details to play out in that situation. Obviously it does not look good. I'll just say that. But Diana Rossini, what do you know about the football side of things?

Yeah, the football side. of it a couple months ago, everyone I spoke to in Houston essentially was like stop calling us. We're not trading him. That would be it. It's not happening. I started to talk to other teams about their interests. They were sharing with me, they're not even calling us. Like they're calling us back.

Cicero was taking calls. But the second you got into conversation about Deshaun, it was like, got to go, I have another call or whatever he would say. And then it flipped. and then it started to change and it really swung the other way. And from what I can sense right now, and I've checked on it recently, they are still open to trading him. This is something if, you know, as we're keeping an eye, obviously on the civil case, the civil case is at the bigger story here, but on the football element here,

the Texans are open for business for Deshaun. So it's just going to be which teams. And that's something I can't report yet. I don't know who's in for real right now. Are we sure about Julio and AJ being the number one duo? Oh, yeah, Devante Smith and Jalen Rager. Calvin Ridley, Alamedez, Akias. Yeah, you're right.

These are adorable conversations. Diana Rossini, I just want to point out one more time. If it weren't for Diana, we wouldn't even know that Julio got traded. Probably never would have heard about it. Just where I got traded in silence, in my opinion. I was sober when I broke the story. I was tired because they never slept. And if you could just say

Diana's husband, Kevin is gorgeous and amazing just to help me out. Diana's husband Kevin, who I was about to, Diane Rossini husband is what I'm going to Google. You know a lot of guys do this. They like to find the creepy pages. Oh, damn. Anyone cute?

Yeah, your husband. Go, Kev. Shout to Kevin. Diana, thanks for the time. Keep it up. Keep up the great work. Keep up the great tweets. It's better to be first than to be right or sober.

Yeah, you're right, but look at the... Hold on, I just want to say this one thing. What a sweet, sweet proposal this was. On the beach, he hit the knee. He's old-fashioned. I don't know if anybody's not hitting any of these days, but then, you know, the end of this story is that he just gets a drug on national TV,

and I'm sorry. I'm sorry to that guy. Kevin? Still Kevin, yeah. He didn't deserve it. it. He didn't deserve it, Diana. I said, what do you think about when I went on get up and called you like an average not attractive person? He's like, I really don't care. I don't care.

You have a ring or a finger. Like, you obviously think a little bit better than average. Yeah, I guess. He's like, now I would go to be drunk. I'm like, okay. Like, he literally, he's the most chill dude. He is the most resilient husband on the eastern seaboard. It's amazing. So a big shout out to Kevin. Diana, I'll be come back soon. I'm way too deep into your Google images here. I was looking for your husband. Some of this other stuff. Diana, come back soon.

Glad out there, Chris. Guys, thanks for having on. I love being with you. Thanks for saving my marriage and ruining my reputation again. No problem. Let's do this again. Training camp. Yeah, no problem.

What was the most heroic bachelor party effort you ever put in? Vegas. I've done it once. Been Mathurn. Flight took off about 6 a.m. I was still in the casino about about 4 a.m. And ATM was like, nah, that'll do it. That'll be it for you. Yeah. Yeah, for like 48 hours. So, yeah, the fellows were on their way

to the airport as I was like telling my life story to the, what's the person called? To the cashier. Yeah, ish, like card dealer type person. Oh, yeah, the dealer. Yeah, the dealer. That's right. You got it. To the dealer. Yeah, I couldn't play anymore. So we were just talking about our lives. That sounds like a really rough bachelor party. Oh my god. Whoa. But hey, I put in, whoa, you got a notification on your ATM and you left at 6 a.m. from Vegas. Yeah. I didn't do you any favors by springing that question on you. The one that comes to mind for me is New Orleans. I went down there for Mike Cochran's bachelor party. Uh, the diet. This was during a bi-week. I did a bi-week bachelor party, dude, which is aggressive. I actually can't believe.

that I did this at any point, but I quit the night early. Like I was home at 10 o'clock because I drank to me hurricanes and all that stuff. We ate so much New Orleans food. I didn't take a shit for seven days. So I thought I made it out, but I didn't really make it out. Like I had New Orleans in my small intestine, large intestine, all the intestines at Candlestick Park, just driving Troy Smith into the ground. Damn, Chris, that really hurt. Yeah, well, I got a extra five pounds of shit from New Orleans in my septic. You uh you notched a quarterback sack is that what you're saying? Uh, I don't know that game.

I think maybe I had one or maybe two halves. At least a quarterback hit. I think I had two halves that game. I play very well that game but I thought to myself maybe I should shit less. Right. I played so well. Right. Go to New Orleans more.

And shit less. Yeah, that was gross but uh, hope you enjoyed the Diana Rossini interview and now we've got Mike Chandler, who is a fighter, and I told you about him in the open. If you don't follow UFC and that sort of thing, which I know a lot of you don't, because it involves staying up late, and since I became a dad, I just can't do it as much anymore. I'll watch a fight if I'm into it, but it's not like Saturday night's appointment viewing. Mike Chandler is one of the up-and-comers in the UFC, but has a long history in Bellator, again, to refresh your memory, kind of impromptu, join the, uh,

the UFC late last year, got his first fight on short notice, beat up a top five guy in Abu Dhabi. What was his name? Hooker. Barely newer. I wonder if he brought protection. I wonder how his defense was in that fight. The medical checks afterwards were exhaustive.

And a couple months later, he fought Olivera and did not come out on top. And he's just always been super classy guy. Great dude. Knew him from a distance. now finally we're going to talk for a while and we talked earlier. Hope you guys enjoy this. Again, it's Mike Chandler. You'll see him in the ring very soon.

Again, Dana White says he's got some big plans for him. But for now, sit back, relax, enjoy Mike Chandler. And after that, you are free to go. You're free to go and do whatever it is you do when you're not listening to this podcast for five hours a week. Mike Chandler's with us. This is a guy that we've known each other from a distance for years with the Missouri connection. and all that. And I just love watching him go about his business in and out of the Octagon, one of the great guys in the sport. And he's joining us now. Mike, how's it going, brother?

I'm doing great, man. Thank you for having me. I feel like this has been a long time coming, so I'm glad we're making it happen, and it's a perfect time to do it. Dude, it is overdue. And we were just joking because I was like, what, what weight class do you prefer? Because I know in Bellator, you were like, what, three-time champion in lightweight? Yeah. And now in UFC you're fighting in what? weight as well. I'm still lightweight, yeah, but I've gotten progressively bigger, but the weight class

days. I actually wrestled, I wrestled 152 in high school, my senior year, and then I wrestled at Missou at 157. Now I fight 155, but I've progressively gotten heavier, but I've always had to basically make the same weight, so 155 lightweight. And you, and you're now in Nashville, you were telling me you just got home, you were out, out west having a little downtime, it sounded like, and maybe the weight balloons up a little bit when you're just relaxing naturally? Yeah, I mean, just naturally. I mean, my body, my body doesn't want to be anywhere near the 150s, anywhere near the 160s. I'm really at my happiest when I'm like 185, really. Obviously right now, after a couple days of just hanging out in the pool and not doing much, hit 192 this morning. So, you know, we'll be back down in the 80s this week

after we get after it a little bit. Well, I guess first off, my question would be, when you go on one of these trips, which is feeling far between for you, probably where you can just completely let loose and chill out a little bit. Do you feel totally weird not being like a plugged in regimented athlete? Do you feel like something's hanging over your head? Like I'm not supposed to be relaxing by the pool right now. Yeah. And that's probably one of the most unfortunate things about being a, you know, a pro athlete, but also a pro athlete who has to maintain weight and has to maintain a healthy body. Obviously, I'm always staying in shape. Obviously, I go a week or so here and there where I just say, hey, I'm taking all the, taking all the breaks off.

We're going to have a good time. We're going to hang out. We're going to, you know, we brought a private chef out and not, we didn't bring it with us, but we hired them one or two nights there to like just serve and love on our friends that we had out there and just live a little bit more of a less regimented life, if you will. And then after a couple days, you're like, okay, I need to get back to the gym because there is always that looming, you know, am I doing, am I doing the right thing right now? Should I be having fun? Should I be enjoying my life? life, I just lost a fight a couple of weeks ago. I shouldn't be enjoying anything right now.

You know, so it's a, it's that fine line between, you know, a little bit of chaos and a little bit of, you know, psychopathic tendencies, I think, you know, for lack of a better term, you know, where you're just like, man, I just want to be in the gym. I want to be doing what I, what I was put on this earth to do. I think ever since I hit 30 years old, I knew I was closer to the end of my career than I was the beginning of my career. So you really started to take a lot. of put a lot of stock in recovery and your body and how long your body lasts, especially

in a sport like mixed martial arts where you're getting hit in the head and getting your body beat up. Same thing, probably with football, I'm sure. I can remember when I turned 30, it was just like, I can't go out drinking the same as I used to and expect to recover. Like it became glaringly obvious that things that I wanted to recover were not because I'd go out and drink and I'd think like I'm he, man, I can do what I want. Kind of that wide open mindset, I feel like when you're in your prime and you're young,

it's almost nice to have that wide open mindset. It's like good for your psyche. But then for me, it was hard to like reel it in and live a very like controlled life off the field and then be out of control on it. Is that something that fighters like have a hard time with? Because I know you guys live even stricter from a regiment standpoint and a diet standpoint. You got to be so crazy in the ring.

But then out of it you got to be like all controlled and you can't go out and have crazy fun. Yeah. I mean, well, that's always part of it too. I mean, you know, when I think about. sports where you don't have to maintain a certain weight. You know, if I weigh 192, it's not a big deal right now. But obviously in training camp, every little, you know, I don't drink alcohol during training camp, which is about a 10 week, 10 week period.

I don't have any refined sugars, refined processed foods, like all that, all that stuff that we all want to enjoy just to feel like normal human beings. It'll throw the whole thing off. It'll throw the whole wagon off the trail. And it makes that weight cut very hard, which is, which I've been very, very hard on the industry as a whole because everybody talks about how bad weight cutting is. And it is bad. We shouldn't dehydrogen ourselves.

But guys just aren't, from what I've seen, guys just aren't as disciplined enough for an 8 to 10 to 12 week period to get their body to where they need to be to make weight as healthily as possible. You know, I think there's there's certain schools of thought that would say the way that we make weight or how how much weight we lose to get to a certain weight class is always, you know, not healthy no matter what, no matter which way you look at it. But, you know, for me, for me, I take pride in doing things right, doing the small things right, doing, you know, enjoying 10 weeks of doing what 99.9% of people wouldn't be able to do from a discipline standpoint from a, you know, a pain and a outside your comfort zone standpoint, pushing my body to, to its limits. And then once it's over, win, lose or draw, you know, getting to the fight healthy and being fighting in a big fight, it's all, that's all a win, whether even if you, even if you lose the fight, you know,

and now it's time to be a normal human for a second and then, you know, reel it back in after a week or two because you kind of get, as an athlete too, you understand what your body feels like when you're not doing things, like in training camp or doing things right, and then what it does is how great you feel when you are in that, in that thick of a training camp where you wake up, you feel phenomenal and you go to bed, feeling phenomenal. Throughout the day you might be beat up from leg kicks or getting, you know, hit here and there, your body's sore, but, overall you feel really good you feel healthy and happy and hard to kill yeah exactly but with the weight

fluctuation that thing's always fascinated me because you know the most we ever tried to cut weight or gain weight was five 10 pounds to make weight over an extensive period of time and you guys are cutting what like how what's the craziest amount of weight you've cut to try to get down well so I mean I always I always look at that that performance night the fight night a Saturday night so obviously we make wait Friday morning. The thing is it's really just water manipulation, really. I mean, I'll lose 10 pounds in my one hour workout tonight before a fight. And then the next morning, I wake up three, three, four pounds over and then cut a little, and then lose a little bit of weight that morning just by sweating some stuff out, just sweating water out. Then you feel

horrible for a few minutes. Luckily, you step on the scale and then boom, you rehydrate. And then 30 minutes later, you've got a gallon of water in, which is eight pounds. So now I'm 163. An hour later after that, I have another gallon of water, which is another eight pounds. So now you're looking at 171 within two and a half hours of the way in. You know, so I'm already back in the 70s after two hours of the way in. That's wild. Yeah, you didn't know this. No.

From 155 to 171 and two hours? Yeah, and I got to figure the mental strain of dehydration because, you know, like weight loss and weight gain. Y'all are riding that wave constantly in high pressure situations, not just like sitting on the couch. My favorite part of fight week is Saturday morning when I'm fighting Saturday night, My favorite part of fight week is Saturday morning when I get a workout in because it's a good workout. I'm cracking pads.

I'm hitting pads with my coach because the one before that, I felt like if you would have thrown me in the cage the night before, weigh-ins, I would die after, you know, a couple minutes because I'm depleted, I'm dehydrated. You feel bad. You don't have any cracks in your punches. If I went to go grapple with my training partner, I'm just not feeling good. So you go from being in the best shape of your life, then you hit Fight Week and you're bringing your body down weight-wise, which is dehydration and lack of, you know, not, I don't never starve myself, but I eat smaller and smaller meals. So my energy levels are low. So you essentially are

mind, like the mind game of knowing the way that I feel now on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday is not how I'm going to feel on Saturday. When you actually have to perform in front millions of people on a UFC paper view fight for the UFC title, which is a crazy high pressure situation. So the best workout of that Saturday morning before to remind yourself, I am fast, I am strong, I am explosive, I am a good athlete. I'm not the guy that it has worked out the last four days going through all the media stuff, fight week stuff, depleting myself and losing all of that feeling I losing all of that talent, if you will. Are you just sparring with self-doubt through the week a little bit? Because even though you know that you're going to get that workout in Saturday morning, the isolation. You know, and a lot of times you were just in Abu Dhabi fighting, right?

Did you, you fought all the way over there. I mean. I thought, yeah, that was back in January. In January. So not only everything you're just describing, Bree and Hap were not there, right? Obviously, your wife and your four-year-old son. And on top of that, like, you're dehydrated.

You probably, your weights fucked up. And you're jet lagged. Like, talk about that whole situation. Yeah. So Abu Dhabi was tough. I mean, they built an infrastructure. They built a stadium. They built locker rooms.

They put us all in. one hotel, all the athletes, all the staff, all security, all the media was all in one hotel. Everybody was tested like nine times in a 10-day period. And yeah, we flew out over there 16 hours. Then we had to quarantine for 48 hours. So we were in our hotel room, stuck in our hotel room for two days straight. Then we could finally get fight week started. So we flew to Vegas.

We took a test before. Then we flew to Vegas, took a test. Once everybody was clear, we could get on the plane. Then we flew 16 hours. Then we were in Abu Dhabi, quarantined in our hotel room for two days. And that's not that big of a deal for certain athletic endeavors, but whenever you're trying to cut weight and you need your training partners, you need these workouts, you need to get your sweat in, you need to get your cardio up to burn calories, to burn them to burn and shed the water weight. That's a tough situation because you're stuck in a hotel room. What are you doing?

What are you jumping on the bed? Like, what the fuck are you doing? Well, luckily, luckily I had a decent size room and my manager who's been with me since day one of my fight career, you know, used to wrestle in, and. college and he's my size so we hit some pads or hit some myths together he had a body protector i just threw a sweatsuit on sauna suit and just kind of moved around shadow box and punched his body pad for you know an hour or two here and there and just tried to keep the weight off and then we could finally reunite with my coaches and other training partner that i brought there and then get fight we'd go on but it's like an 11-day process and actually for that fight we were a day and a half late

because our flight got delayed i think one of the pilots tested positive for covid or something so it's Like it delayed us a whole extra day, day and a half. And then essentially we got there four days before the fight, which is about three days later than we wanted to be. And it was one of the toughest weight cuts of my life. But, you know, we made it and, you know, we got the win. And it all worked out well, but it was not that fun. You're sitting there in that hotel room the day of the fight.

You're watching undercards, I assume, maybe in the hotel. And I just know as a football player, the longer the one, wait, we hate it. Yep. So like if we're doing a Sunday night game or a Monday night game, earlier in my career when I played for the Rams, and you know this well because you knew all about the Rams, but we didn't play in a lot of Sunday or Monday night games.

So I used to covet those opportunities, to be jealous of those guys. And then when I got to New England and Philly, I was like, what the fuck, man? You just sit around the hotel all day. I get anxious. I hate it. I just want to close the distance.

I want to go like, go hit somebody. And I can only imagine for you, that hotel's got to be a pretty lonely place the day of, or what are you feeling? Yeah, and I think, I guess the way I would like it, it's tough because I really don't want to watch the fights because if you watch the fights, you almost get thrusted into realizing how tumultuous and unpredictable the sport really is, you know. I mean, my UFC debut against Dan Hooker, I was the underdog, so, you know, it's no big

deal. But a lot of my fights, I was, you know, when I was in Bellator, I was the favorite. but you could be a thousand and one favorite and you get clipped on the button you get an arm get caught in something weird you can see in a split second how the guy who was supposed to win loses so you don't want to be watching that as you're going you know waiting three four five six hours until you go to the arena it's the reason why my wife doesn't get there into like two fights before me because if my wife sits there and watches 12 fights before me she sees all these guys getting knocked out these guys getting hurt these guys getting caught this guy was

supposed to win but he lost And she's like, I can't do it. I just need to, if she had it her way, she would time it perfectly from her to walk into the arena as I'm walking out. So she doesn't have to see any of how crazy the sport is, you know? Right. It really is the waiting game. And for her as a wife, it's even probably worse because she's like, I want to drink a glass of wine, but I can't because I didn't eat anything today because my stomach's all messed up. My husband's about to get inside a cage and fight another man in front of millions of people.

And our livelihood is on the line. My world rank is on the line. the future of our finances and my standing in the sport is on the line every single time to step into the octagon so it's just a it's a crazy sport i wouldn't change it for the world i love it but it's it's nuts at times yeah i wondered you know um how the relationship and this goes for female fighters too obviously but like spousal relationship where can the wives or the husbands watch at times is it like are there certain spouses that are like i'm out dude i can't yeah yeah for sure

there's there I've spoken or my wife has spoken to a decent amount or I've spoken to other you know fighters guys who say yeah my wife doesn't watch or even certain you know like wives you're close to being and you know close to being like in labor and they're like she can't take the chance of coming to the arena getting all excited is like basically pushing this baby out because of how crazy you know and that could happen in football as well I mean it's a big game I mean obviously you know it's kind of similar but there's a difference y'all y'all getting knocked out or beat up which I'm using that word like if I get in a fight to the bar and I lose I get beat up you lose a fight there's a difference to me like there's

nothing embarrassing about what happens in the octagon because you're all warriors and you've opted into something where like sure as people on the internet we can laugh at somebody for getting knocked out but you've already put yourself out there in a way that like like on top of everything you've been through you've put yourself out there in a way that I just wouldn't have the balls to do like you know I mean like you know I'll fight somebody in an alley but I don't I don't like fighting in front of an audience. I'll fight anybody in an alley, but I just, the embarrassment perceived embarrassment for me.

For you guys, I'm sure it's not quite embarrassment because you've opted into it. Or do you feel that embarrassment? Kind of. I mean, I would say the older I've gotten, the better I've gotten at it. And even now, you know, my career was largely outside the UFC. I fought in Bellator, which actually now, I actually enjoy my UFC career much more than I did, even the 10 years before this Bellator, because I always had something to lose when I was fighting in Bellator.

always had something to lose because I was usually the favorite. I was usually the world champion or I was the guy who was supposed to be winning. Now I've been the underdog in my first fight in the UFC. I was an underdog in this last fight in UFC. So I wouldn't say that I fought with nothing to lose, but there is kind of that air of enjoyment because it's like, man, supposedly to the masses, I'm not even supposed to be here. You know, when I got to the UFC, everybody said I was the outsider, the, you know, the, the, the, the, the league guy who came out, came in from outside the UFC and I come in and knockout number five in my first fight, which is great, got the opportunity to fight for the world title. But even now, I've gotten better towards the second half of my career because I do

realize that failure is an event, not a person. You know, when I lost my first fight, it turned into numerous losses after that because I felt like I was the failure. When really, am I really a failure if I put myself out there and I lost in a fight against another world-class guy? Not really. Of course, I want to win. Of course, I do things right. and I make the requisite sacrifices in order to be a champion in order to be the best guy in the world. So when I lose, it's a huge disappointment. But I've gotten to the point of my career now where you're fighting the best guys in the world, man. You're going to lose. Nobody stays undefeated in this sport for the most part. And that's kind of a freeing mentality to have, if you will,

because it's, you know, you can't expect to win every single time. Even now, coming off of a loss, I'm excited to get back in there. When lose or draw, it doesn't matter because now I'm pretty much fighting on borrowed time. I'm enjoying the process. I see. still think I want to be a world champion, even if I have a loss. The losing thing is really fascinating to me because I already let you in on the fact that one of my biggest insecurities would be getting knocked out in front of people and that sort of thing. It's just a fucking primal thing you don't want to happen.

And then you guys have to go out and do that on top of all the other stuff. But I guess I wonder then that losing streak you talked about earlier, that compounded. It was bad in the beginning. Like you said, I think I've read where you said you hit a little bit from the media and that sort of thing. Yeah. Does that compound or was that just the way you were or it just was a bad streak? I think it was just I wasn't prepared to lose. I was I was building up my body, like physical body. I could do, you know, I could do the sparring rounds and the wrestling rounds or grappling rounds. I could get stronger in the gym. I could become a better athlete. So I was building up a physical body that wasn't able to handle a loss mentally. So I wasn't ready for the loss. When I did have my first loss, As you said, yeah, I mentioned I hid from the media. I wanted to hide myself, wanted to be secluded within my own house, within my four walls, where it was safe. And a lot of it probably had to do with ego because I didn't want people to perceive me as a loser. I didn't want people. I didn't want to feel that awkwardness of me walking into a room and then people looking at me as if I was the guy who just got knocked out in front of millions of people, which now just happened a couple weeks ago. But now I look at it like, it's like, man, you know, you mentioned a second ago. Like I am the guy in the

arena. You know, I was the guy who put myself out there. And truthfully, there's probably a lot of people who wish they were able to do what I do. And I think I, I, the gratitude that I operate with right now, realizing that I do have a great crowd of witnesses. I do have a very large platform. I do have an awesome opportunity and some amazing gifts that God has given me. Now I'm able to just use that win, lose, or draw. And there's a lot of really great things that have come with this loss. I think me even having the opportunity to grow, you know, I did a podcast, the Monday morning after the Saturday loss, after the Saturday knockout, after the Saturday embarrassment in front of millions of people. And then obviously now it's 2021. So they live on

YouTube. It lives on your phone. There's your highlights everywhere. Shut up. Shut up bussing with the boys. Yeah, exactly. What I did. And that was a thing. And I actually texted Will one of the one of the hosts of Bussing with the Boys. And I was just like, you know, he wasn't expecting it here for me. And I was like, hey, man, we're still on for 10. Right. He's like, yeah, are you sure you want to? Yeah, as long as you're cool with him. I'm like, yeah, of course I am. Like my appearance on the podcast was not, was not predicated on winning the fight, you know?

And that's not toot my own horn. I think the old me would have probably canceled that, you know, podcast on Bustin with the boys. But I think I needed to get out, I needed to get out there and rip off the band-aids. And that was for me selfishly to just be able to move forward and say, hey, it was something that happened a couple nights ago. But now I'm going to move forward.

And the people who can see the way that I handle it, Maybe they needed to hear these things and maybe they needed to see my story and then be able to grow from it. And that's a beautiful platform that I've been given. And I'm not going to rob a people of that by me hiding in my selfishness and in my ego within my four walls. And then I'm also going to remember how good I am just because I lost the fight doesn't mean I'm not good. And I'm also going to not blame anybody else. It was me who lost the fight. It was me who had my right hand down.

I got caught with a left hook and boom, it's over. I got to take that accountability and now I can move forward. I thought that was a really a big move of you. You know, like I don't know how regular that is. And I think that's why like when I saw that you were going on with them, I was like, I really want to ask him about losing because it's the other side of the coin. You know, it just is. And I look at that and I'm thinking to myself, you know, I see guys after fights giving interviews

and you talked after the Olivera fight. How hard is that to do? Because, you know, I know there's some, hey, how should we do? this guys just got hit on the chin. I don't want to put a microphone in their face, but like, are you good to go? Like, how does that work? I think, I think, and I don't know if it was planned that they were going to, you know, put the microphone in my face or if Joe Rogan was going to for sure interview me, but I don't know if they just saw the way that I was, you know, because you could probably be in there in the moment and say, okay, this guy is with it or he's not with it.

Yeah. And Joe being the professional that he is doing it now for decades, can know whether or not he should stick a microphone in the guy's face. And he must have saw that I was, you know, I was there. I was okay. It seemed like I was going to be able to do a halfway cognizant, you know, speech or at least, you know, a halfway cognizant, you know, on the microphone post-fight interview. And they made the decision, which I'm glad they did because it just gave, it gives you another opportunity.

And there's really, there's so much power and so much ability and so much excitement when it, when you can jump on the cage and do a backflip and have the American flag. get the belt put around your waist. That's so great. That's what we, that's what we train for. That's what we do. But then there's something so beautiful and pure about that post-fight interview where I'm sweating and I got a black eye and I'm bleeding and I just lost. There's that loss. There's the belt not around my waist. There's the vision that will live on the internet as well of the loser being on the microphone having an opportunity to say something after he lost because that's not something that a lot of people are, I think, familiar with. You know, when we, when we lose,

whether it's business, whether it's in your professional life, in your relationships, when we lose, we all have different ways of dealing with it. And to be able to or even have the blessing or the platform of stepping into the spotlight after a huge loss like that and then seeing people see how you react to it, that's a blessing that I don't take lightly because I think that's just as important as winning, you know, and I've had a lot of people say, man, the way that you've handled this has got me got me even more pumped about pumped up about your return and that you will become UFC champion because of the way that you handled this loss. And then even in the back, I shower up and I put my clothes back on and I got my coaches there, my managers and my wife,

my mom and dad. And three, four, five of them were silent, but a couple other ones are, you know, managers are like, hey, man, let's just go to the hotel. And then wife was like, hey, you know, let's go to the hotel. And I'm like, no, it's time to go do the press conference. Doing the press conference doesn't, you don't do the press conference. You don't do the conference just because you won. You do the press conference because you are a professional fighter and you're the man in the arena, win, lose, or draw. Went there and did the press conference, and I think it was a great press conference. And there's going to be a lot of tidbits that are going to be used when I do win that UFC title that they're going to be able to pull from. You know,

they are going to be able to use that post-fight interview. The win back when I knocked out Dan Hooker with American flag pumped up, you know, surprise, surprise. They can use that. And they can also use me banging my head on the microphone, like, I can't believe I just lost when I had this huge opportunity. That's what people live for. That is sports. People love sports and they're drawn to sports because of the ups and the downs. And they probably enjoy the ups a lot more than they do your downs. But it's during the down times, the bad times, the falling short that people love you even more when you win. And I think that's just all part of the story. It's all part of the journey. With the head trauma, with the concussions, you know, something we always worry about. We can count our

concussions. Can you all count your concussions? Are they like, I don't know. I feel like every time you all got hit, I'm like, that looks like a concussion. Yeah. Guys still fighting. Can we get a, yeah, can we get a concussion protocol up in there? Yeah, dude. What's going on there? Yeah. No, I mean, we, I mean, I still to this day think I haven't had me, you know, I'm going, stick up a zero. That's a great. It's the best joke I've heard on this whole five. Yeah, exactly, right? No, but I mean, and you can see it in football too. You can see when a guy gets hit and he goes down. You can see the way his hand is, the way his arm is, whether they go limp, whether they tense up. You're like, okay, that guy got knocked out or he got his bell rung.

Is that a con, you know, if he got knocked out, obviously, it's probably a concussion. If I get TKO, it's probably a concussion, you know, and you got the doctors there, and they put the flashlight in your eyes and you get suspended for 60 days or whatever might be no contact for 60 days, 90 days. There's no protocols. I did see a, I thought I saw a headline that some athletic commission is going to start bringing in concussion protocols or something like that, which is probably a part of the sport that we need to bring in maybe.

Yeah. Do people get dinged in training? Is there a big trust factor is like we can't have some asshole in our gym lighting up the guy that's getting ready to fight or do you have to worry about getting dinged in the weeks before a fight? You do. And that's where that's where kind of the, I guess the, the veteranship of mixed martial arts comes in.

And even me, I mean, the hard, the hardest. about mixed martial arts that I that and that's why I've tried to be pretty kind of funny and and kind of um just more lighthearted than a lot of fighters it's like dude we fight in a cage for a living we we literally fight in a cage for money so you don't need to prove how tough you are you know you don't need to prove that you're a one of the toughest dudes on the planet it gets shown every single time you step inside the octagon or every single time you post a training video people know how tough you are yeah so one of the greatest things about being a veteran or a world champion being like myself is when I walk in the gym, I can choose who I want to go with. I know the guys

that I avoid in the gym and I know the guys that I want to go with because the most important thing is actually getting to the fight health. The most important thing is actually getting to fight and actually being able to make a paycheck for your family. So I pick and choose my sparring partners. I pick and choose the ones that are always going to push me. But there's that fine line between pushing you and being extremely safe. You know, one cut or one ding, one weird injury because a guy was going a little bit too hard that day, you know, takes food off the table for my family. So I get to pick and I will pick and choose my guys.

And I always tell these young fighters that you don't need to prove how tough you are. This whole sport, this whole career is a marathon, not a sprint. And that's why I've always chosen, you know, at least since the last couple years, making sure I'm going and choosing the right guys. And I say no to people, a guy will come up to me. And he might be a brand new guy at the gym who's probably wanting to train with me. I'm like, no, man, no thanks.

You can just see in his eyes or you've watched him spar with somebody else? No, it's more just like, not to sound like arrogant, but it's like, I don't know you, I don't love you, and I don't trust you. Those are like my three things. And I know the guys on my dream who I know, love and trust.

And the knowing and the loving are very important. And you can only trust them when you know them and love them. And in our team, obviously we have new guys coming in all the time. I don't go with any of the new guys. I will drill with and maybe wrestle with or grapple with. But when it comes to punching and kicking and kneeing and elbowing, no, I ain't trying to catch a knee from some new guy who just came to the gym who could post on social media that he caught me with a knee and knocked me out.

Like, you don't need. If Macon was in your gym, you're not fighting Macon. No, see, like Macon, I would walk up to me. I'd say no, Makin, kick rocks, bro. Well, what if I told you 6'4162? Does that change your mind at all? Dang, dude, that's you? 64162?

Yeah. We just did our combine here recently. We did like an NFL combine a couple weeks ago, and he had some really impressive numbers. You mentioned the Marathon, not a Sprint thing. Was there ever a time in Bell-Tor, like I just referenced earlier, all the success you had there?

I mean, you're like undefeated at, like in 2012 or 2013, you're now a 35 year old dude, yeah, 35? Yeah, 35. Okay, and you get your first shot in UFC. One, was every time where you were like, I'm getting impatient. And two, is it so much of a young man's game? Do you feel like you have a long runway ahead of you to, and then you mentioned kind of like the time is now, but how long do people fight?

Well, actually, those are two really good questions. So essentially the way it worked, the way it worked was, I mean, it's essentially just like a, I guess it's just like an NFL contract I would imagine. Like if you want to go to another team, you can go to another team. You just have to play out your contract. Is that pretty much how it works? I mean, that's what I did every single time. I never actually became a free agent.

So the UFC was never able to come pluck me and pull me away. Because truthfully, I was getting, I was, I was living a good life in Bellator. I was one of the better paid guys in the lightweight division in Bellator. I was the face of the organization. I was building up my resume. I was fighting a couple times a year, and I was enjoying what I was doing. I liked being a part of one of the trailblazers of an organization. If Bellator didn't have my fight with Eddie Alvarez, and then my second fight with Eddie Alvarez,

two of the best fights the Belator will ever have in the history of the organization, maybe Bellator isn't where they are today. So I feel like I helped trailblaze that organization, and I never actually became a free agent because every time my contractor is about to be up, they gave me another offer. Or I essentially said, hey, this is what I want, this is what I need. This is how many fights. This is how much, you know, money. And then they always pretty much said yes.

So I never really tested free agency until about a year ago whenever I was, I made the decision, okay, I'm going to fight out this contract. I'm fighting Benson, my last fight on my contract, August of last year. And then as soon as that fight was over, I knocked him out. Then we went into free agency after a couple weeks. I made the decision to talk to the UFC and a couple of other organizations, but I knew the UFC was where I wanted to go. So the decision was pretty easy. But then it's, then it becomes, okay, you left the, you left the relative security of Bellator where you probably could have

fought the rest of your career, been taken care of, and be very comfortable. But I took a chance on myself, went to the UFC, fought the best guys in the world. And if that, you know, if that roadblock happens, you hit a wall, you're going to look back saying, man, I should just stay Rebellatory, but obviously it's working out. It's working out extremely well now. And to the longevity thing, I do think that mixed martial arts is not as young, as much of a young man's game as people think it is. I think I didn't really truly feel like a man, feel like an athlete in this sport at the

highest level until I hit 30, 31, 32, and I think I'm still in my athletic prime. And I think a lot of it has to do with the way that I train. But, man, when it comes to speed, quickness, strength, explosiveness, I still feel feel like at 35 years old, I'm more of all of those things than I was at 25 years old. So I still feel like the best shape of my life. My joints feel great. My body feels great. I take care of my body and I think I still got two to five more years left of high, high level training. And at some point I'll win the UFC title. What's the biggest difference in just the structure of the two leagues or, you know, fighting organizations? Is there a big showbiz difference, like a promotional

kind of difference? Yeah. I mean, that's really the biggest thing. thing is the UFC is just so much bigger. And mainly because they invest so much money into promotion. They invest so much money into the shows. They invest so much money into the staff. I mean, the UFC has hundreds of people on staff. They have 50 security guards on a security staff at each of these events that they have in-house, that they travel from Vegas or around the country, around the world, really, to the

UFC events. They're so overstaffed compared to other organizations. and not just Belvoir. I've been around other organizations as well when I've cornered people and just, you know, there's someone who you can call about every single aspect of Fight Week, whether it be media, whether it be PR, whether it be the UFCPI, weight cutting, nutrition, supplementation, weight cutting, all that kind of stuff, all the way to the makeup artists, to the, you name it, there's just, everything is just bigger, bigger, bigger.

And I feel like that's one thing that I love about what Dana White's done. he's really tried to build the UFC as a global worldwide brand. And then he has invested all the money. He has spent all the time, all the sleepless nights to build the organization. And the other organizations around the world, the other MMA organizations can really just show up and open an arena, throw in a cage, and then people will watch because of what the UFC has built. And that's, you know, kind of just my view of how the industry has worked. and I've really enjoyed being part of the UFC

because they really do do it. They do it the best, and it's the ultimate proving grounds for mixed martial arts. If you are the UFC champion, you're the number one guy in the world. But nobody outside the UFC will ever be the number one guy in the world. And maybe that's my personal opinion, but I've been outside the UFC and I can see the shoe being on both feet, and I kind of see both sides of the industry.

The way the UFC has tried to globalize, or, you know, as you alluded to with Dana. Is there kind of an up-and-coming region when it comes to globally? Like, you're like, that fight scene over there is awesome, and we're going to see a lot more guys and girls coming out of that area. It's interesting because there's all the ebbs and flows. I mean, obviously, like Brazil used to be the biggest country. I mean, at one point, there were so many Brazilian champions.

I mean, the U.S., it's growing exponentially in the U.S. massively, mainly because the UFC is an American organization. They do the majority of their shows here. But you see in a lot of other organizations, there's a lot of Russians who are like in PFL, a lot of Russians who are now in Bellator. Russians are, so all the Eastern,

the Eastern bloc, just those dudes scare me. I don't know, a bunch of Fador's. Remember that guy Fador? Yeah, so I fought on the same card. I fought in Belizor with Fador like two or three different cars. What's he like, dude? He's quiet. He's got to be quiet.

He's so quiet. He's the quietest guy ever, but he's, it's cool because he doesn't really speak English. So his, his translator would be like, hey, he's, you know, he wants to, you know, we like, taking some pictures together. And it's like, and then his translator was like, you know, Faderor wants to take a picture with you. He's, you know, fan of you. I'm like, Faderer's fan of me.

Like, what? But he won't tell you because he's so quiet. But he's, he's really cool to be around because it's just, there's this aura about him. And there's all of the, he's fought for so many years. And he's got the, you know, I'm a quiet. Russian thing going for him where you're just, you're like, okay, this guy's got something about him because he's so quiet, you know, and then he splins with Vladimir Putin and like all that kind of stuff. So you're just like, this dude's quiet. He freaking beats people up in a cage big time.

And it's a legend. He's literally a legend, you know, so it's cool to be around him. And for all those years, whenever he was in the bell for the last like five years. And he was fighting in the days where they had like geese and shit. Like people were, were beating each other up in the full garb. Yeah. So, well, he started, he started as Russian Samba, which Russian Sambo, they wear those keys and you can grab the knee, and you can do submissions, you can punch, kick, knee elbow. That's kind of where, that's where Kibbid Nirmagamatov started. Like that Sambo is one of the big sports over in Russia. And then he, then he fought through the Pride era. Pride was an organization. They fought in Japan, and they fought in the ring where it had

looked like a boxing ring. And you could do full-on soccer kicks to the head. They had, you know, not much not many rules you know uh so that mystique part of his aura the fact that he was one of the trailblazers of the very beginning of the sport makes him even that much more of a legend and the fact that he's pretty much still fighting now is pretty crazy i want to talk about mike chandler's aura here because uh a mutual friend of ours justin you know uh speaks incredibly highly of you as and i already know this just from knowing you from a distance but justin's like one of the true good guys, one of the best people in fighting in any league in on any level. And, uh, I wonder how hard that is to square. And I know, because Justin's a great guy too, but you guys have to be

animals in that ring and you have to, and you have to promote. You have to do some, you know, I might not like this guy. You don't seem like a guy that hates people. You don't seem like a guy that can find a way to hate people. How hard is it to do that promotional side of it? Uh, I, I, I mean, I will say, I've tried to do it in the past where, you know, they're like, hey, hype up this thing or hype up that thing. You know, back in Bell, it's where I fought there was two brothers, the pit bull brothers, and I knocked out the brother who was 155 and the 145 or was coming up. And I'm like, hey, you know, play the whole, I beat up your brother's thing. And I'm just like, man, that stuff doesn't really, doesn't really resonate with me. And honestly, the real reason, going back to why I didn't go to the UFC years prior, you know, I could have went to the UFC two years ago or four years ago.

but I just, I saw the direction that the sport was going in and I just said that, that guy, I don't want to be that guy. That was when Connor came on and then all of a sudden there was this, everybody tried to emulate Connor. Everybody thought, okay, if I get on the microphone and I say dumb stuff or I say something witty or I make people laugh or I dress a certain way, I act a certain way, I put on this tough guy routine that I can make not just the UFC a bunch of money, but it's going to make me more money.

And I just saw the direction that the UFC was going in. I saw the direction sport was going in. And I was just like, man, I don't want to have to go, I don't want to go over to the UFC and have to change who I am. And then the first time I sat down with Hunter Campbell, who is the general counsel of the UFC, Dana, Dana, what? Like, he's the number two in command, essentially. He's the guy who can make everything happen just like Dana can, essentially. Sat down with him and then Dana called me and then had these conversations and they were just like, because Dana, the first thing he said to me was like, dude, I don't know what you're saying to my people, but my people are absolutely over the moon about you. Like, we want you.

We need to figure out a way to get you to get the UFC. So that right there made me think, okay, shoot, maybe they, maybe this, I don't want to say nice guy or respectable guy or whatever I am. I'm just being me. I'm being unapologetically and authentically and it's working, you know? Yeah, we used to annoy me as a football player sometimes to be like the good guy that does charity work that people are like, because I also play a sport that's conflict-centered, you know, like, and you play an ultimate conflict-centered sport.

And so you're kind of, you're wearing two hats, and it's easy to wear those two hats because If you can, you know the difference between inside the ring and out of the ring, but it's still, I mean, at times if people are like, how, that's the good guy. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I enjoy it because as long as you show them that you live on two opposite ends of the spectrum, they love you on both sides of it. As long as you entertain them and you beat that crap out of people and you're entertaining,

fun to watch, like, the actual sport of it. As long as you perform it and the sport of it, they're going to love you, whether you're the nice guy, then the not so nice guy, whatever. Whatever you are in the outside the cage realm, they're going to like you for it as long as you perform inside the octagon. And that's what I've grown to realize being in the UFC, it being that much bigger. People have enjoyed the way that I speak, the way that I talk, the things that I post, the things that I do, a lot of people have enjoyed it.

And it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea. People are going to call me fake. People are going to say, I'm trying to be a motivational speaker. people are going to say, Chandler speaks in soliloquies and motivational quotes. You speak in, I don't even know what a soliloquy is. I don't know what it is. It's a cool, it's a cool word, but. I don't think Macon, I don't think Macon knows what it is. Do you know what a soliloquy is? This is a serious question, but it's not going to sound like one.

He doesn't know. He's a smart guy. Does it, does it hurt? Does it hurt to get hit? Because I think that's the only thing holding me back from, from making this a career for myself. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. actually. It's a good question because everybody's like, how do you, like, how do you deal with the pain? And I'm like, honestly, thank God. You know, adrenaline's a heck of a drug. Like you, you step into that oxygen and you don't feel a thing, you know? You really don't. Torit all great. Because obviously, your face is all jacked up and eyes are bleeding. You're bleeding out of your nose. But you don't feel any of that until about 12 hours later when it all starts

to wear off. So what if you go out drinking, Mike? If you go out drinking after a fight, the morning you wake up, you probably feel like death times four. Well, that's one thing that that's one thing I have a rule. Like if I get hit in the head, if I have a hard fight at all, anything aside for me, going out there, one punch knocking a guy out, if I take a couple shots where I'm like, okay, I got hit, I don't drink anything for a couple days, you know, like even after a win, and that's the hardest part. It's like, everybody's having a good time.

They want to celebrate the win. And I'm like, I'll take a club soda, you know, just because I want to, I want to try to long, you know, have longevity in the sport as long as I can. And obviously, you know, getting hit in the head and then drinking is not the best thing to do. So he's got the vocabulary of a motivational speaker. He obviously takes care of his brain. And I always wondered that. Mike, I always wondered that. Like I watched guys on TV. I'm like, yeah, he won, but he took some shots. Is he out there with the sparklers in the club? And I'm, you know, it's nice to hear that at least somebody's thinking about that. The one law, it sounds like UFC and you have a good relationship. Belator and

you, good relationship, I'd say, overall? Yeah. It's still a great relationship. relationship. So the one, we talked about the losses that you could take earlier, but the primus loss, which I, you know, I didn't see that in real time, but, you know, I was reading about there was one loss you had that, uh, you weren't messed up. You say you weren't messed up. They pulled the stool out from under you or something. What happened there? How do you take that loss? Oh, that was, yeah, that was just the New York State Athletic Commission is not so great. Like they, they've had numerous fights. The doctors are really overzealous. stop fights because of cuts. They're over. They're a little bit, they're very boxing heavy.

The New York State Athletic Commission just sanctioned boxing. I think like six, eight years ago. It wasn't a very long time ago because that was the big thing. Everybody's like, when is MMA going to New York? And for the longest time, they wouldn't sanction it. That was just a, that was a commissioner. And that video, that little gift and the video is going to live on the internet forever of me, like standing up and I'm like trying to get the crowd into it. I'm like, let's keep going. I go back to sit in the stool. And little do I know the commissioner who should have known that the doctors weren't letting the fight go on for some reason the guy pulls the stool and charlie browns me and like i sit down and land right on the

wall right on the canvas i look at i'm like are you serious dude like not only is this fight about the end about to lose this fight for millions of people we're at Madison square garden the me mecca like the greatest opportunity of my life at fighting at Madison Square garden and you want to pull the stool out for under me bro like right now that's unbelievable that's unbelievable and so that so that on account of sitting down? Sort of or sort of not? Because it was already they were going to call it already. I think they were going to call it already.

That was just more insult to injury, more like embarrassment. You know, it wasn't because there was a lot of people who were like, hey, man, you need to appeal the loss. You need to appeal the loss because they called it off right after you fell. And it looked like you had a broken leg or your leg wasn't working so you fell. I'm like, no, I just went to sit back down on the stool that I was 99.9% positive was there. It would have been there in any other state, any other athletic commission. but old Joe Schmoe over here pulled the stool out from under me

and yeah it was it was a non-issue in the actual calling of the fight it was more just embarrassing but now it's more just funny because I'm like I'm that guy who got the stool pull I mean Joe Rogan Joe Rogan has talked about it on his podcast it's the biggest podcaster of all time has talked about it numerous times on his podcast it's just like so it's part of the journey now it's part of the journey now what's next for you because I you know I've heard

the name Gaichi thrown out I think Dana White had volunteered maybe that some big things were in line for you so what do you think's next? Yes I mean

as of right now we're still a couple weeks post fight so we're you know my management's giving me to just hang out the UFC has called me and said hey you know

you're right there you're right there with those guys great fight thanks for putting on a great fight in a big fight down in Houston you know we'll figure out what's next for me you know

longevity wise and just health wise I want to take a you know take the summer off and keep training and in getting better and probably not get back into the cage again until this winter time, at least, you know. Timing with Justin Gitchie might not work out because he needs to, he needs to fight.

He hasn't fought this last October. There's Benile Darius who's ranked ahead of me. Essentially, it's got to be somebody who's ranked ahead of me. I want to fight somebody. I'm number four, which essentially number five because there's the champion. And then it's Poria, Gachi, Benile Dereyush, me. So it needs to be probably Benile Darius or Justin Gachie. You're one of those guys who a win over them gets me right back into the title hunt because

that's what I want to do. I want to win that UFC title before I'm done. If not, I'll just go up to 170 and stop cutting weight. And you like all these guys? Yeah, I mean, they're all right. I mean, they're my fellow competitors. I got nothing against any of them, man. To me, I don't look across the octagon and see a person.

I just see two arms and two legs and I go. You know, it's probably the same thing. You know, if you get focused on the individual, I'm sure it's probably happened on the football field. if you get focused on the individual or hurting the individual up until the point of actual right before you make contact where you can like maybe dig him in to the ground a little bit, lawn dart him a little bit, you're really going to underperform, right? So I don't try to focus too much on any kind of animosity or anything that guy said to me or anything the media said, anything the fans have said. Just focus on going out there and doing a job. They're all great. The lightweight division is the most exciting division in the UFC right now.

My name is right there in the mix, obviously because they just fought with the title. and I'm now kind of solidified myself as one of the top guys. So fight one of the top five guys and beat him and then go win the title middle of next year. And Gaichi also has a big wrestling background as well, right? Yep. He was a Division I, All-American. So when two wrestlers, you know, are, is there a part of the fan base that's kind of lazy and just wants to see people strike each other?

And then when two wrestlers might be fighting, is they're like, you know, hey, how do we convince you guys that there's a lot of technique here that you've, should be queued in on and I don't care if these guys weren't punching each other in the face for you know the entirety of the fight yeah I mean that's the hard part about MMA like people people just want to see blood and and you know knock down drag out wars and that's the beauty of it I mean luckily I like to engage in that kind of hand-to-hand combat I'm not afraid to go out there and fight fire with fire but yeah Justin Gates was a division wrestler he doesn't use his wrestling a ton honestly he's more of a guy who loves to brawl he loves to strike he loves to so when it comes to the

aspect of it. I think I'm, you know, I think I'm a decent amount better than him when it comes to wrestling, but that doesn't mean I necessarily just want to wrestle them, you know, I think if I want to go for a take down, I think I can get one, but I also want to, I want to knock them out, you know, like I want to make them part of my highlight reel. That's what I said. Somebody's getting made part of the other guy's highlight real. Someone's probably getting knocked out in that fight. And I ain't afraid for it to be me, and I ain't going to fight like I'm afraid for it to be me. And it'll be a good fight. And the winner of that will probably get the next title shot. and I just hope that it's me.

Is this going to be a little different for you now from a UFC standpoint? I mean, Belator, you probably always knew what was ahead of you, but you've been the guy and you've been proud to say it in recent memory as like, I'll take a fight. Like, I'll take a fight, you know, I don't know, a month or two out

or a couple weeks out or something. Do you think it's harder for you or harder for the guy that doesn't know what's coming until three weeks ahead? I mean, it's for both of you guys. Yeah, it really, it doesn't, yeah, both guys, obviously there's the training aspect.

If I've been training for a certain date for eight weeks, obviously there's the mystique or the perception that, hey, this other guy took the fight on short notice. He's only got three weeks to prepare while the other guy had eight weeks. But truthfully, the clock stops and starts over whenever you get a new opponent. So you could be training for eight weeks to be fighting a striking heavy guy. And then if they switch it up on you at the last minute and you're fighting a guy in two weeks who's now a grappling guy, really your whole training camp,

you might be in shape, but you weren't, you weren't preparing as if you were fighting that style of guys. So I think the guy who's been training longer, you know, like you go back, you remember the George Miles Vidal taking the fight on seven days notice? Yeah. Camaro Oussman. You know, Kamaro Ousman really, you know, nobody gave him him credit the fact that he was putting his UFC title on the line to fight a guy who had nothing to lose was coming in on seven days notice. And yeah, he had to cut weight. And yeah, he had to drop the weight a lot more than Kamaru did. But Kamar Usman also had all the pressure, had a brand new opponent, had a brand new, a brand new fight ahead of him,

and he was preparing to fight someone else. And a lot of times those guys don't get as much credit as the guys who are coming in on short notice, mainly because they're usually, quote unquote, would be more out of shape. But really, you're fighting a guy at a high level. You're fighting a world-class athlete. So whether you have three weeks to prepare or 10 weeks to prepare,

the new change of the opponent is essentially starting of a new clock and you have to find a new way to win the fight. What'd you learn in film study when you were getting ready to fight in January? It was a shorter run for you. And I know that film is a big part of what you guys do. I mean, really, I was just down on Florida preparing because, you know, I came into the UFC and nobody wanted to fight me. Essentially, everybody inside the top five said no to a fight against me because, truthfully,

and I don't blame them, I probably would have done the same thing. Everybody had everything to lose and nothing to gain because I was the outsider, the dark horse, the no-name, all the different superlatives that people called me. And then I come in and Dan Hooker was the guy who did finally say yes, which I tip my hat to him because without him saying yes to that fight, I don't know where I would be right now. I still don't know if I would have a fight. I would have the fight number 20. I don't know who would have actually said yes. But really, yeah, just watching. I mean, Dan Hooker was a long, long, tall guy. I mean, he was a tall test literally in figuratively because he was 6'1. And he had just went 25 minutes with Dustin Fourier. He had just went 25 minutes before that with Paul Felder. He had never been knocked out to the head. He had been knocked out with a body shop, but never been knocked out to the head. So I knew he was tough. I knew he was game. He was a tough New Zealander.

And then really I was just watching film on Gaichi, watching film on could have been Porriere, could have been Ferguson. It could have been any of the guys. So really, I was watching film. And I was focusing 80% of my training, 90% of my training on what can I do to be successful? What's the easiest path to victory against any of these guys? And most of the time, that's just me being, you know, unapologetically, exactly who I am, which is come across the octagon and get into a fist fight.

One of those guys that come across the octagon and getting a fist fight guy, at least I just know this because Tarron Woodley's from St. Louis and we popped in his gym once or twice and he was very proud to say like, I just like unloading on people. You know, like he's aggressive. And he's getting ready to fight one of the Paul brothers in August. And I wonder where you are on these novelty fights. I think as long as people don't look at them as legitimate sporting events, okay. I mean, it's a sport. Like what is the definition? what does Webster's Merriam dictionary define the word sport as? Sport, you know, two teams or one person versus another person and engaging in a certain game that has ruled and it has a scoring system, right? So technically it is a sport.

It's athletics. But it's for show, it's for pay-per-view, it's for money. I mean, look at Floyd Mayweather. Flood Mayweather just made millions and millions of dollars to fight a YouTuber. And there are a lot of people saying, man, you know, half off to Logan Paul for surviving when you know, you know, Mayweather probably carried him, and I didn't see the fight.

Floyd, Floyd knocked him out at one point, I think, and held him up. Same thing he was doing when he was boxing. He's just thinking about the next check. But, you know, yeah, I guess I were saying, listen, anybody would, for the purses of these guys, these YouTuber guys are taken home, anybody would get in there in the ring with, I don't know, it was Mike Tyson. I don't go to fuck. 100%.

You know, but, which by the way, hey, what's your, what's your nickname? Iron Michael Chandler And what do you think about that making He said Iron Michael Totally fine Oh it's totally fine now He has a thing about nicknames That you can't have the same nickname as another athlete

But since now he's on with a UFC fighter It's different Iron Michael is not Iron Mike You were talking trash You were talking trash off camera He was talking shit Six 4-165 Dude dang it

Make it No I get it No because people have given me crap Like, hey, there's only one iron mic, iron mic. And I'm like, well, I'm not Iron Mike. I try to say Iron Michael and let people know it's Iron Michael, not Iron Mike. But I also, nicknames are a tough thing because if you don't choose your own or or choose, not really choose your own nickname or go with your own nickname. A nickname eventually sticks.

And it might not be the nickname that you want, you know. You could call you freaking twinkletoes making. And you're like, well, it sticks to you. I don't think they'd be calling a twinkletoe. I think it would be calling brick feet making. And listen, and we've been having this debate for three weeks here. I think nicknames are fine to recycle and be close to one another anyways. I just wanted to bust your balls and see your reaction.

I had that nugget for you. You didn't even know his nickname. So he wasn't talking shit about you, Mike. That was a plant by me. Okay, good, nice. So when it comes to these purses, Ascran said he made more in one bout than he did in Bellator nine fights, as far as like his base purse or whatever I might be butchering this.

And Tyron's, his manager says he's going to make more in this fight than he ever did. I mean, so how do you guys look at this? Are you like, go get your money guys? Or is it like, is it kind of cheapening the sport or it's a totally different sport? Well, it's hard because there's almost two, you have to look at it in two different worlds. Because you've got to remember, Ben Askeran was retired, came off the couch after a hip replacement. Okay. Tyron Woodley is now, he's not retired by any means.

but I guess he got done with his UFC contract and now he's going to do it, which Tyron's completely separate. So I don't want to put Tyron to that. I think Tyron's going to knock Jake Paul. Oh, I do too. I'm excited. But before that, it was a YouTuber and then it was a Nate Robinson, an NBA player, who was a professional athlete but not a professional fighter.

Then he fought Ben Asker who came off the couch after a hip surgery. And now he's fighting Tyrant. So before I actually go into it and say, Tyron, the man is going to kill Jake Paul. kudos to Jake Paul for actually taking the Tyron Woodley fight because that's a crazy fight for him to take. So I do think he's going to get a block knocked off. But then you watch Floyd Mayweather, who weighs 150 and Logan Paul, who weighs probably 200 pounds and cut down to 190, who's 6 foot 2 and Floyd's, you know, 5, 6 or whatever he is. And Floyd still carried the fight.

Floyd carried the fight against Connor. But they make this mystique about it just to just to leave that dangling of the carrot for all the media to say, man, Logan Paul did really well they should probably be a rematch so they can all make another $100 million it's like kind of crazy Well it feels like this is the first time one of the Paul brothers

is truly swimming in the deep end with Tyron Woodley Like And I'm glad they're finally going to swim in the deep end And that's no disrespect to Ben Askron Who's an incredible athlete and a champion And somebody that has been heights That I wish I could have

You know like in an individual sport amazing But he was coming off a hip He didn't look like he was into it And he got his bag one. Well, he's the, I mean, he's, we love Ben and Ben would tell you this, too. Ben's not known for his striking. I'm not going to say he's the worst striker in mixed martial arts, but it's a different sport. Yeah, but, you know, but he was never known for his striking. He was dominant with his wrestling and his grappling his takedown, his cardio, and his ability to wear guys

down. You're not going to be able to do that in a boxing fight. Um, so yeah, I mean, it's, I actually am really pumped for Tyron that he actually got the fight. And I say got because I think, it sounded like it was going to be impossible for Jake Paul to actually take the fight against Tyron Woodley. But the good thing is now I can say, hey, listen, if the sum off chance Jake Paul actually beats Tyron Woodley, there's only one logical next opponent, and that's me because he beat the first two Missouri Tigers. And he's got to fight the, he's got to fight the smallest of them and the third Missouri Tiger and run through all the Missouri Tiger Tigers. Oh, I like this. But I'll still be under contact. I'll still be under contact with the UFC.

So that's not going to happen, obviously. but, you know, maybe we can train together. Is there a pro athlete you wouldn't mind seeing taking on one of the, in one of these novelty fights? Is there a pro athlete you'd enjoy watching getting a ring to see just how applicable that strength and athleticism would be? Dude, it's so hard because, I mean, you're around world-class, you're around world-class athletes for all those years in the NFL.

And you're like, dude, that dude's a specimen. He can run fast, jump high, when he hits you, when he blocks you. There's probably a guy you can think about right now who just blocks the heck out of you and trying to get around the corner, around the end, and you're like, this guy is a badass, right? But then all of a sudden, you could put some boxing gloves on him and he hits like.

He looks like he can't even. Yeah, right, exactly. So fighting is such a hard thing to quantify because, and it doesn't, and this isn't me saying that we are anything special or a different breed. It's just a different type of athleticism. It's a different type of hand-eye coordination. It's a different type of movement that you're just not used to in other sports.

But man, I mean, some of the NFL guy I'd be if you're an NFL guy who is maybe you know you're still athletic good looking maybe you're doing a doing a podcast now doing all kinds of cool cool stuff you can speak you're just a couple years out inside the NFL but you're still extremely athletic you still do I mean I would say that I would definitely do some of these boxing fights and make a couple you don't know this podcast might this podcast might be paying pretty fucking well like I said well well that's the thing too trust me I it's like do I want to get Nate Robinson that's the question Because this is the way I think about fighting.

And there's some people that are like, oh, I could beat any guy up because I'm like, that's such bullshit. You could get beat up by almost anybody just depending on like getting caught or that type of thing. Now you guys have defense mechanisms that are technical and ingrained over decades. Like if you're just a fucking run of the mill guy who might have been in a fight or two, that's not to say you're going to get in there and end up unscathed. And I think when you're an athlete, kudos to Nate Robinson again for trying. But when he was laying on the ground, I was thinking to myself, why, dude? Yeah. Like what, just why do it?

Like, unless you're dead broke, like, and I'm not, I'm not, I don't know anything, but I'm just saying, like, this is not your arena. And if you get knocked out, like the difference between your son seeing you get knocked out, like on video in 10 years is much different than, you know, my son seeing me get knocked out because I was a football player that wanted to make a half a million on pay-per-view. That's not going to look as honorable as a guy who's like a champion and just lost a fight. You know what I mean? like and this is what they do.

No, that's true. And that's the thing too. And I think that's part of it is if you are a Nate Robinson, I don't know how much money he has or if you're a former NFL guy, you're probably, and you had as many years in the league as you did or even somebody who had half the career that you did. Like, why would you do that when you're probably in a much better position? Yeah.

Most of these guys who were taking freaking the fight because, but then again, if it is a, I don't want to say only a half a million. I mean, you're talking. That's a lot of money. It is, it is, but is it enough to get knocked out in front of that many people. But then again, you're also fighting a YouTuber. You're also like Chado Cho Cinco, Chado Cho Cinco, I don't know who he fought, but I saw some of those highlights.

It was cool to see him go that many rounds. I thought that was cool. It's cool. That many rounds and I don't know who he was fighting, but there's also, I think more than anything is, and I don't want to say that other sports are not. as, I don't want to put MMA on a pedestal, but there is something different about getting in a combat sport. If you're a guy who's like, man, I just need something to do. I need, I need something

that's going to make me feel that, that rush again, that the bright lights and the crowd. I think it's a, it's a good way to do it, except you got the chance of getting knocked out, you know, but if you, luckily it's eight to 10 ounce gloves or whatnot and Ocho Cinco didn't get knocked out, he got dropped, but man, good for him. You know what? He got back up and fought, like, I was impressed on one end because his hands are so quick and I texted you, I'm a layman. My assessment, really quick hands, obviously very athletic, but like the minute and his corner guy was saying to him, Maxwell's trainer, I think the guy's from Roanoke actually, he was one and Ocho, so it was a young boxer who was like, you know, Ocho's is like hero. So it was weird seeing them fight. But the guy in his corner was like, get into his body.

And the minute he got into his body, you could tell Ocho couldn't like bend and like fight inside. like it's like a different thing because he had a lot of length on him too. Well, no, and that's the thing too if I was going from combat sports, I mean, I would do it down the line, you know, just, but it would have to be even at that point, even for me

to fight a YouTuber, I don't look at it, I don't look at it like, oh man, I got, I'm going to get paid a bunch of money to fight a YouTuber. I'm looking at it like, I need to get paid a bunch of money because the chance that this guy accidentally catches me on the button and I lose to a YouTuber, it's bad, you know, know, but I got all the aspirations to do all the stuff outside of fighting with podcasting

and coaching and not coaching, but like mindset coaching and writing books and doing all that speaking and doing the stuff that's going to pay the bills very well these days, obviously in 2021, being able to build that brand and build things outside, then continuing to fight after my fight career has long gone and long past, unless it was just something where this thing just grows. I mean, who knows? Honestly, in five years, there could be a minimum of guys making five, $10 million a fight and all these. It's just crazy how it's growing. You don't know where this whole thing is going to be in five years. I think it's going to be pretty darn big.

Outside of Dana White, who's done the most for fighting, and as far as like guys that now have the luxury, you, like 20 years ago, there's no podcast to go on. There's no, you know, there's no, you can't parlay this into some media career, this lucrative career. Who's the big dog when it comes to like, thankfully that guy existed so we can do this. Well, I think it all, it all does boil back down to Dana White and the Petita brothers. So Frank and Lorenza Petita, they bought the UFC for like two million bucks or whatever it was. It was in the hole.

It was, it was right around the time John McCain called it human cockfighting. And that's pretty much what it was, right? Which John McCain essentially. Terrible word choice. Well, he, truthfully, if it's a brand new sport and you look at it, I see why he said, it. And then he did kind of retract his statement and kind of gave some props. And he actually, we went out to Washington and then we were talking about the Cleveland Clinic and how they were going to start doing brain research. And there was UFC guys there. John Jones was there. I was

there for Bellator and Kevin Kay who ran Spike TV. John McCain was there. He was there talking about how the sport of mixed martial arts has grown and turned into a more mainstream sport. So that was really cool to see the growth. But the sport has grown and cleaned up and got a better reputation because of what Dana White and Lorenzo Furtita and Frank Furtita did in building the sport. And I would just say those were the three guys that did it. And I'll tell you this, my first conversation with Dana, I thanked him for that exact thing. And I said, Dana, I've been fighting now for 10, 11, 12 years outside your organization. You haven't paid me one dime, but indirectly you paid me, your name has been on every single one of my paychecks

indirectly because of how you built and quarterbacked and championed the entire industry because without those guys taking it from quote unquote human cockfighting into what it is now being known as a legitimate sport none of us make a paycheck. Hands being deadly weapons.

I feel like people probably try to try you on account of being an MMA guy and because on the surface you're like a smaller MMA guy so I'm sure like you've gotten one or two people that have been dumb enough to like, I don't know, like posture or try you. I feel like every time if you're a fighter, you walk in somewhere, idiots size you up. But the catch for you is like literally you can be prosecuted differently than us.

So how do you handle like conflict outside the octagon? And do you have to deal with that bullshit? Yeah, I mean, luckily for me, I mean, even when I am in situations where that kind of stuff could happen, I always have my safe people around me. I always make sure I have my safe people who who can intervene, interject, you know, I mean, the only, the only way that there's ever going to be some kind of altercation is if my wife gets messed with, you know, like that's pretty much about it. Like, if I'm with my dudes, I'm not going to be the guy. Like, I'm sorry if I'm not the, you know, the, the dude that everyone wants,

everyone wants me to be. But if my dude, my buddy wants to get into a fight, do your thing, bro, because I'm trying to be able to feed my family. I'm not jumping in on this one, you know. But it is true. I mean, if. essentially any fight that I would ever be in outside of a sanctioned in a they fight, I'm going to be looked at differently. I could get jumped by 25 guys. There's a, there's a judge out there who would say, well, you're a pro fighter, so you probably started it. You probably have anger issues. You probably have this. You probably have that. So I just know, you know that's, you know, a stigma that we're always going to have,

even if you don't know the sport, or even if you do know the sport, you're always going to end up having that kind of stigma. So for me, I don't know, I would just curl into the fetal position if something breaks out and be like, well, I got beat up by that guy at a bar. Is there a strategy for Macon? He's never been in a bar fight that I know of. If he wants to be in a bar fight at some juncture, gets a wild hair. What's his best strategy?

Best strategy. Macon, do you wear a lot of hats? Yes. You wear a hat, hats a lot? Yeah, I mean, the best thing we do, you kind of walk up, you kind of walk up to him, and you take the hat on. You throw the hat in their face. And then it blinds them.

And then you go straight to the nut punch. Ooh, nut punch. Okay. Nut punch. One or gut. Like you can go straight to the stomach or nuts, but aim for the nuts. And if you go a little bit high,

you go to the gut, so you're good. And then you run. One complicating factor, and that's actually another complicating factor, my inability to run. But slow pitch intramural softball in college, dislocated and broke my pointer finger on my right hand.

And I told a friend once, I'm not able to make a fist. And the friend said, why would you ever want to? And I thought, oh, that's a really nice sentiment. That's a nice thought. But I don't really have a fist here on my dominant hand. Ah, yeah. Do I just go off hand? Left hand, grab, cup.

Yep, that's good. Yeah, I mean, you could always, yeah, you always go with the nut grab and left hook. So you just got to get a really good left foot. Look up Charles Olivera versus Michael Chambers. he throws a really great left hook that ruined my life. Look up that left. Or look up that left that you threw at the dude over in Abu Dhabi while he wants to be self-deprecating.

I want to finish with the family thing, man, because, you know, you have a wonderful, beautiful family, and you guys adopt a kid from Texas. It takes you a year to go to get the paperwork straight. Like everybody's heard it's a nightmare to adopt, that sort of thing. what's that moment feel like and what were the biggest challenges of dealing with that process? Yeah, so I mean, he was, so he was already, he was already born. And I guess when we, when we went through our preferences, as you go through the adoption process,

you have preferences, you know, my wife always wanted to adopt ever since she was 14 years old, 15 years old. So we had our preferences. We wanted to be a boy. And he, we, but we thought we wanted a newborn. and it turns out he was he was like nine months old. But we got a phone call after all the, after all the paperwork finally got done.

We got an email that said, congratulations, you're now eligible to adopt. And then six minutes later, we got a phone call. I said, congratulations, you're eligible to adopt.

By the way, there's this case down in Texas. You know, we think it matches your preferences perfectly. They sent a picture. It was actually two pictures side by side from like a cell phone or whatnot. And immediately, I was just like, my eyes started welling up with tears and I got this feeling all over my body.

And I was like, that's my son. There was something about his look. There was something about his eyes. He was drooling. He was like, in one picture, he was like drooling and sucking on a little binky or whatever. But it was just something about his eyes, just the way that he looked, what I saw on the computer screen. I said, that right there. I don't know why, but I said, that is my son.

And 48 hours later, we were down in Texas, essentially, waiting. to adopt them. And it was just, it was the craziest, scariest feeling in the world because essentially, even though it was a one year process to get all the paperwork done, I feel like, and obviously we haven't had any biological children of our own yet, but you probably, you probably have that, okay, it's getting, she's getting bigger, her stomach is getting bigger, the due date is getting closer, we are getting time to prepare, we're getting everything set up, the nursery, blah, blah, blah. And but for us it was like email, phone call, flight, you know, or driving down to Texas.

And 72 hours later, we have a child and we get thrusted into parenthood and when I didn't even know how to be parents, you know, which I guess is essentially how everybody is. You don't really know how to be parents until you actually are. No, until you leave the hospital. I mean, you didn't have to leave the hospital, but, you know, like, I don't remember when our first kid came and we leave the hospital, it's like, wow, now you actually have to take the kid home and care for the kid and you didn't give us any instructions.

You know what I mean? Yep. Yeah. Where's the owner's manual. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, everybody that's heard about the process of adoption knows it's really tough. But then on the other end of it, like every time, you know, somebody sees you and your child together, you're a different color. You guys look different.

You probably come from different backgrounds. Has that been a challenge ever? I know it's not a challenge for you, but it's been a challenge for people from a perception standpoint. You know, I've seen some people get mad at you about the UFC Black History Month thing that they ran, which I thought, like here you are two wonderful people adopting a kid. and you're doing something to try to do the right thing and to spread some love and, and, you know, you get backlash. Well, I understand some of the backlash, but not at you guys. Do you feel like there is a perception problem?

Yeah, I mean, kind of, I guess the weird thing about it is when we're, like, I think when we first adopted them, obviously, I'll never forget when we were down in Texas. We were kind of stuck down there for almost like 10, 14 days because you can take possession of your adopted child, but you have to wait for this paperwork to go. through to let you go across state lines or else it's like kidnapping you actually have to get the papers done process then you can actually go back to your state obviously we were in Texas we needed to go up to Nashville so we were stuck in Texas and all we could do really was you know go to the mall or we went to the zoo one time or some little pumpkin patch or something so immediately um you

know, a white man with a black son and a white wife. And immediately it's like, okay, so you're a little bit more cognizant of it or immediately you might see a black family or you might see a, we were at the food court at this, at the mall. And there was a, there was like a little bit older black lady. And I saw her looking over at us, but she didn't really have much on her face. She wasn't smiling or anything. And then she would look over us again. And then she started walking over to us. And that moment was like, I felt like you're walking to the principal's office or I felt like, you're like one of those moments where it's like, all right, this could be, this could be really good. This could be really bad.

This is my first interaction with an African American, you know, adults walking over to essentially say something about our new, kind of biracial family. And she came over and she goes, oh, my God, he is so handsome. He is so beautiful. look at his eyes and she just the way it was almost like that lady i wish i could sit her down right here and say you what is your name because you almost gave me that permission you gave me that permission to walk into the world now as a father of an adopted young african american man a black man to give me the permission to just parent him love him and be unapologetically this is our situation this is what we're doing i don't know what it's like to be a black man in america

or a black human being in America. I don't know what it's like to be African American. I have many African American friends, many African American teammates, but I don't know what it's like to be them. And I don't claim to know what it's like to be them or the struggles that they've gone through, the positives or the negatives, the highs and the lows.

And it's obviously on me to educate myself. But I also don't want to put so much of an emphasis on it that my son grows up thinking that's the most important thing about him. The most important thing about him is he is a child of God. The most important thing about him is he is a man in America and he is going to grow up to do amazing things, whether he's black, whether he's white or he's any other race in between. So I always remember that moment, and that kind of let me let my guard down to say, okay, here and there's going to probably be some people who say their things that are probably going to hurt my feelings, or maybe I turn off my commenting on my Instagram because people want to say things on my Instagram about my wife, my son, the dynamics of our family. And that's the unfortunate thing.

And, you know, what the UFC did, I didn't know what was happening until Twitter blew up. and there was a 99% positive things talking about me in Black History Month and how I have a black son. But then, of course, there was the negative backlash of what does he know what it's like to be a black man in America or look at the UFC, you know, masquerading this white man with a black son. And, you just really see the sad parts of it all. And when really all I can do is, you know, wake up every single morning, thank God for another day and parent that child, parent my son into a high functioning member of society who is governed by grace. love, mercy, and serving not just our family, but his generation and being a leader in his generation, and good things are going to happen. Mike Chandler, awesome fighter, up and coming in the UFC.

It's never too late. He's 35. He's got about, what do we say, 10, 15 more years of kicking ass in him. At least 15. And a great dude out of the ring. Mike, long overdue. Hope you come back another time soon, man. Yes, sir.

Thank you very much, man. Appreciate it. Thanks, brother. So you think you fight now? Well, actually, as dumb as it sounds, while he was telling me to throw my hat and hit somebody below the belt, I was actually like, yeah, it's a better plan than I've ever had.

I mean, I've never really had to make a plan, but were I in a position to need a plan, it's not so bad. I punched the guy in the balls once. How'd that go? It was during a football game. Ooh. Yeah, you might be like Chris, there were better ways, but it was Virginia Episcopal High School.

We played VES back in the day, and they were a bunch of scumbags. They were just a bunch of fucking scumbags. As you can probably tell from the name of the school. Yeah. More like scumbag high school. S-B-H-S. And they had a coach that was like, hey, high-low that kid.

And if you know what high-loing is. Try to ruin your career. Try to like take your knee out. It's like somebody holds you up and somebody goes low. And they were literally high-loying me. And they had a coach that was cool with it. His name was redacted. I don't know who he is.

But I got up on extra point block. And I said, let me line up over the kid. that was taking the knees out. You know, I don't know who I respect less, the kid who's taking the knees out of the person holding you up, but I located the cat who was taking my knees out because I told him to stop doing it, then he said, or what?

I was like, oh, or what, huh? And I came off and I threw like a Howie-long rip move right into this guy's scrot him. The ball was through the uprights like six seconds before. Nobody was watching this guy. Nobody was watching this guy. Everybody was watching the ball go through the upper. brights, this guy's writhing on the ground in pain.

So I wanna, this is my confession for punching a dude in the nuts. Just made me think of that. I like that move for you though. Yeah, I just worry that I'm up here, I'm way up here, getting down to a, to a belt. Drop to one knee.

Okay. Just drop to one knee. I can see you do it in one motion. Let's practice that. Yeah. Why don't we just get on a heavy bag? You practice the hat, you know how the guys beat up the heavy bag? Yeah.

Throw your hat at the heavy. bag dropped to an e1 motion boom and frankly like what mike was saying i would like to line up 256 ounces of water take it down during a show and see if i weigh 16 more pounds we'll try that okay hey all take care