Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Dan Lambert On His AEW Heel Promos, American Top Team, Masvidal vs. Covington

Episode Date: October 4, 2022

Dan Lambert (@danlambertatt) is an entrepreneur, AEW Wrestling personality, black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and the owner of the MMA gym American Top Team. He joins Chris Van Vliet at the Blue Wire Studios at Wynn Las Vegas to talk about being part of AEW, why he loved being a heel, working with Chris Jericho, why he started American Top Team, what they look for in an athlete at ATT, how close he was to buying the UFC, his take on the Jorge Masvidal vs. Colby Covington feud, taking legendary wrestlers out for dinner and much more! For more information about American Top Team visit: https://americantopteam.com/ If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. For more information about Chris Van Vliet and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are gathered. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Berlin. Dan, thank you so much for stopping by. My pleasure. You're in Vegas. We've got the great studio here, so it's like, well, you need to make this thing happen.

It's pretty cool, right? That's the middle of a casino. It's not bad, right? It's pretty cool. And everyone's, this is the cool thing. A lot of people walking by are going to be stopping because you can hear our conversation just on the other side of the glass.

Oh, no shit. Yeah. So they're going to be like, well, who's, it's that Dan Lambert? It is Dan Lambert. I doubt people saying that. If they're an AEW fan, they'll know that. Then it'll be all, who's that asshole?

If people got to a point where they legitimately didn't like you. Oh, so much fun. My goal every time I went out was to make them hate me as much as I hate them. You don't, come on. You don't hate them. Everyone. You love them. Every one of them.

You love them. Hate. There's nothing more gratifying in pro wrestling than hearing booze. I don't know how the faces do it. Yeah. I don't think I could do it. That's got to be way harder. Was there a specific problem?

where you were like, oh, when I say this? I wouldn't say it was that when I say this, I'm going to get this reaction. It was more so there was one promo in Philly where when we were doing the inner circle feud and Jericho's just so over. I mean, every time he gets to say word, everybody shuts up and they want to hear what he has to say. But then every time you go to say something, they just drown you out. You can't hear, you can't hear the guy standing next to you.

They have no idea what you're saying. It was so loud. And at the end of what I said, he goes, I couldn't hear a damn thing you just said. It was pretty cool. He was like 15,000 people here singing my song. Man, they, I'm coming out to that song. It's like the coolest entrance I've ever seen them. And like when we cut the song off, it was like the first time they cut the song off.

Yeah, yeah. He's so smart. Jericho just the guy is. He's the best. He's so good. And he's 30 plus years into this. And just keeps reinventing himself. And reinventing himself, he says to me, he's like, okay, you're going to cut my song off at this point.

And people are going to lose their minds. And then they're going to start singing it without the song. Yeah. Whatever the guy said is exactly what happened. It's so amazing. He says that his biggest inspiration is David Bowie. Because every album, Bowie reinvented himself and was as popular as ever. And it's so true.

Yeah. Just go through the years and go through the different changes to his character. And it's just, it's crazy. How did this whole partnership with AEW and ATT start? Tony Kahn is an MMA fan. And he just happened to be down in Miami meeting with Jorge Mosvital and his agent. They were talking about doing something together when George was just screaming off the charts. He was so hot after the flying knee, he was asking.

And his agent gives me a call. He's like, hey, what are you doing? I'm like, just sat down for dinner with some friends that came into town. He's like, well, tell them to. piss off. I'm down in Miami, sitting with Tony Kahn. You guys are like twin brothers from like another life. You got to come meet this guy. It's like, really? He's like, yeah. He's like, okay, see you. And I told my friend, see you. I see you. Happy you came in town. I'm out of here. And I went down there and we just hit it off and became friends. He's a total wrestling nerd. Yeah.

I'm a total wrestling nerd. And obviously he's a big football guy and football is like the greatest thing on this earth to me. So we just hit it off became friends and stayed in contact. And when he came down to doing Miami show, it was actually the first show they were doing after the pandemic was over in front of a live crowd. And he reached out to him. He was like, hey, do you want to come to the show and maybe bring some of the guys?

And who knows, maybe grab a mic and cut a promo on people or something. It's just for fun. Yeah, why not? So he did it. And it was a blast. And I thought that was it. And then like two weeks later,

he texted me back and said, hey, what are you doing on Wednesday? Can you come up to Jacksonville and do another show? I'm like, yeah, why not? And then it just kind of kept going. I think a lot of things. either didn't realize or maybe forgot that you were doing stuff in wrestling before AEW. Impact wrestling.

There was some stuff with MLW. Yeah. Yeah. I actually met Jeff Jared at a UFC show in Nashville. Just happened to be sitting next to him and hit it off with him. And Bobby Lashley was their champion at the time. Bobby had trained with us for a long time. Super good guy.

And Jeff reached out to me. He's like, hey, would you want to bring some of the fighters over and, you know, cut some promos and do something? I was like, yeah. You know, so that was a lot of fun too. I love that pro wrestling is the great unifier. It's like that I would describe this to people. It's that scene in stepbrothers where it's like,

did we just become best friends? Yep. Like if someone's like, I'm into pro wrestling, like, oh, gosh. I mean, what, seriously, what does pro wrestling have that's not good? I mean, it's got good versus evil. It's got good looking dudes with tans and little bathing suits and hot women and, you know, all the drama and backstabbing

and sex and romance. comedy. I mean, it's got everything ropeed in a one. People look at you say, how do you do that? That's not real. It's like, yeah, those German terrorists and diehard weren't real either, but who didn't love that movie? I had a video go viral recently where someone's like, you like wrestling. Don't you know that's fake? And then he was trying to tell me that like, no, but I watch action movies because you don't know what's going to happen at the end. I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen at the end. You know those action sequences are fake too. Yeah, yeah, but it's different because they're acting real. Sometimes the bad guys win in wrestling.

They never went in the action movies. Very rarely. Yeah. We did a show where I brought some of the fighters over and we had people from like, the thought process was getting to the ring when we were still doing the inner circle thing and bring, you know, bring a fighter from Belator, bring a couple of fighters from UFC, bring someone from like bare knuckle boxing, someone from PFL. So, you know, I grabbed some of our bigger names and, you know, we came to the ring to cut a promo.

And when we were getting ready to go out, one of the fighters I brought, Kayla Harrison is a couple of time PFL champ. she's undefeated, two-time judo gold medalist, royal pain in the ass. And she's talking all this shit backstage. I can't believe you got me to come to this thing. Wrestling sucks. Wrestling is fake. This is stupid. I can't believe I'm doing this.

I'll just shut up and come out with me. By the time we get to the ring, I turn around and she's like flexing and flicking off the fans that are booing her and come on, get in here. And she's just having the time of her life. We went backstage, she's like, I've never heard anything like that. That is so cool. Well, the great thing about you being in a wrestling ring is you're such a heat bag. Like, you don't even have to say anything.

People just hate that you're there. I got really lucky that the people they batched us up with, you know, got to do something with Jericho, got to do a little short something with Cody. Got to do something with Lance Archer against Hangman Page. So some of these guys are so over. You know, it's like getting heat off of Jericho is, you know, he does all the work. I mean, it's can't get an easier assignment than that. And then once you're in something with him, everybody knows you from that.

So then the heat from that's just kind of like a residual effect. So I just got lucky. I got booked into some good stuff. I mean, it's part luck. It's also like you know exactly what you're doing when you have a mic in your hand. I've been practicing that since I was like six years old in front of a mirror watching championship wrestling from Florida. Really? Oh, yeah, I'm a long time wrestling fan.

So who were the initial people that really got you into wrestling? The first memory I have of wrestling is just flipping through the channels. it was channel six when you had like four channels back when I was a little kid in Florida. And I flipped to a channel and I see who turns out to be Ox Baker with the assassin tied up in the ropes. He's beating the shit out of him. Assassin's bleeding through his yellow mask. And his manager is there trying to pull Ox Baker off Sir Oliver Humperdink. And I'm like, what the heck is this stuff?

I don't know, but it's great. And immediately started asking my grandfather to take me to matches and never stopped. At one point, I was able to get on the ring crew to take the ring down after the matches so I could get in for free and I could get in the back and get all the autographs and stuff. It was great. Was there ever a point where you wanted to be a wrestler? Still want to be a wrestler. What happened?

Who doesn't want to be a wrestler? I mean, I know I wanted to be a runner. I trained for a few months. Did you? If you don't be a wrestler, you're a dork. What happened? Go to be a fighter. What happened?

Go be a fighter. That's a, you know, I don't know. funny. Oh, that's going to be taken the wrong way by so many people. I care. What's a easier way to make a living than that? That's not an easy way to make a living. Those guys take a beating. I don't think people appreciate the toll that that stuff takes on these guys. I don't think that people realize how much, it's day in and day out too. Like when, especially back like in the 70s, 80s, even into the 90s. Some of these guys were working 340 nights a year. You know, they're on the road every single back in the territory days.

They are literally from one town to the next to the next, the next. They would, depending on the territory, when some of these guys would drive like 4,000 miles a week. Yeah. You know, just from one town of the next to the next to the next to the next. And it's just they're always on the road. It's just taken just a brutal toll on you, night in and night out. It's a little better now for these guys.

But it's still, I mean, if you sit behind that curtain and you watch these guys come back from their matches, these guys are beat up. Yeah. Don't you feel like when you're a lifelong wrestling fan and inform, other parts of your life? Well, you know, it's funny because me and a couple of the marks that I grew up with being wrestling fans, we bring down a different wrestler like once every month or so. And we'll bring them down, we put them up at a hotel.

We take them to this steakhouse, this Brazilian steakhouse, and we sit and have a dinner for a couple hours, and they tell us all the stories. That's amazing. And these guys, once they're involved in wrestling, it's like everything's a work to them, their whole life, they just get so, most of them just get so involved in the business that everything is a work. everything's pro wrestling and it's like everything's just getting over. Everything's trying to stay K-Fabe on certain things.

Some of these guys take it so seriously. I remember, you know, my one friend will go find the guys and get them to commit to doing it. And then they'll like send me the information. I'll book their flight. And he sends me over the information. We're having Nikita Kohloff down one time. And he sends me his information. It's Nikita Kohloff.

Here's the airport he wants to come out of. And I text my friend back. I'm like, yeah, I think American Airlines is probably going to want his real name, you know, not Nikita Kohloff. I think it was like Sean. Simps or Scott Simpson or something. He's like, no, that's his real name. He was like so into his angle.

He changed his name. When he came down, he told us he didn't speak English for years. He just did not break character. Wow. Unbelievable how married some of these guys get to the business. This story is so funny because Conrad Thompson told me a similar story. Before he was doing his podcast, he was like, I wonder if we could like pay a wrestler their appearance fee to come like watch the Royal Rumble with us.

And as you know, it's pretty. easy to just be like, hey, what's your rate? Okay, great, let's do it. And that's how most of these old guys make their livings now. They go and they, you know, they'll do like comic cons and some conventions once in a blue moon that they have them. But they do appearances and they hustle. And I've probably brought, I think it's like 85 guys down over the years.

I mean, mentioned someone from the 70s and 80s. I've had them down. So I could have like some legendary wrestler like hang out of my bachelor party. Absolutely. You know, it's an easy gig for us because we just want to hear the stories. Seriously, yeah. But I mean... He's a gig for them too.

You go back to the Terry Funks and the Rick Flares and throw a name out. I've had 85 guys down. Who did you think... Who was like the, you know, the person you didn't think you'd be able to get? And then you were like, oh, wow. Are you making this happen? Man, just about everybody we've tried to get, we've been able to get. You know, we missed out on a couple.

And, you know, the life expectancy of these old wrestlers based on the lives that they lived back then. You know, unfortunately isn't as long as some others. So we've missed out on some, but I always wanted to get Roddy Piper, never, just never able to get it lined up. You know, that was like the one I really wanted. I really wanted Only Anderson because he was just such an old miserable dude. And, you know, you hear the stories from everybody. And we always ask the wrestlers that are there, like, you know, lots of questions, standard questions. But one of them is always like, you know, at the end of your career, who'd you look back on and say,

I was the biggest jerk I ever met in the business. And so many people say, only. And I just think it was because he just had his ways and he was so old school. and he ruled his company with an iron fist when he was booking it and he rubbed some people the wrong way. And I just thought, man, he'd be great because like the old miserable guys coming there, they're not going to, you know, sugarcoat anything. You know, they're going to tell you exactly like it is. So I thought he would have been a great dinner.

But then, you know, by the time we were able to coordinate, he was just getting early onset of dimension. He couldn't travel. But those are the two that I missed out on. It was the one that, like, you didn't want the night to add. Like, it was just, it was so, so good. It's amazing how many. guys fit that bill. There's some that you would have expected that were like that. Like Flair, probably. Um, uh-oh. You know, I mean, Rick Flair's probably the greatest of all time.

But, you know, we always, friends and I like rank our dinners. You're like, oh, the best being one and the worst being like 80 or 85. And Rick Flair was like in the bottom five. Yeah. I, you know, who knows, they're doing something every different every day. You get them on good days and get them on bad days. It's like a lot of the guys, they just want to come and they don't mind sharing their stories and telling you the great stories and they get into it and enjoy it. Most of them are like that. He was just kind of like there for the payday and just didn't, I don't know, didn't really care to share stuff with this. All right. Just kind of cave-d us. Give us your top five then. Best five ever. Ted DiBiase was crazy good. And it's evident that everybody does indeed have a price.

man, he was so good. We drove him back to the hotel after dinner, and he's like, I don't fly out to tomorrow morning, man. I got plenty more stories. I'll sit here in the car and tell him to you all night. He was amazing. He was so good. We brought him back a couple years later with Stan Hanson to do it.

Oh, wow. Great tag team in Japan, and they got to tell great stories together. He was, he was great. Kent Patera surprised the hell out of me because I remember him, obviously, when he was wrestling, but I don't remember him being so charismatic and stuff. You know, he was more of just that big, big, tough heel. He was crazy good with his stories. Terry Taylor was great because he still works in WWE developmental.

So he can tell the stories comparing the old territories and how everything was when he was coming up in the business with how the business is now and training the guys like inside of a, you know, a more sterile environment, you know, than the territories. These guys back when they were on the road in the day, these guys would go from territory to territory. Every territory was different with their style and their fans and their approach to wrestling. And then every night when the show was over, they'd take the new guys and they'd put you in the car with a veteran and you would drive that veteran to the next town so he could teach you, you know, the business. Yeah. So he'd sit there and just pound beers the whole way from, you know, Fort Lauderdale up to Tampa if you're in Florida Championship Wrestling or much longer rides if you were like in mid-south or one of the Texas promotions. So you would learn different territories, different styles. You'd be around the veterans on the long drives every night and they'd be telling you all the stories on the road and teach you.

you. And now these wrestlers, you know, they're nipped out of college if they're a college wrestler or if they're an actor that wants to get into and they're putting a performance center in Orlando. Yeah. And they're taught, you know, and they got their ring and they practice promos and they're doing everything. And it's just, it's just such a different, you know, a different learning curve and experience. So it was really cool hearing his stories and, and him comparing the different times, you know. That's a great first three. I would. wouldn't have guessed any of those. Yeah.

Okay. You really wouldn't. Give me some more. Who's two more? Terry Funk was so good. Okay, I can imagine that one. I mean, and every beer that got into his mouth was, was a greater story coming out of it. He was, he was just a riot.

And it's funny because some of the guys you think would be, oh, that guy's going to be so good. I can't wait. He was so good on the mic. He had so much personality. And then he gets there, it's like, oh, shit. You know, just in this scenario, and, in, in, you know, this environment or setting. They just, either they, you know, maybe they don't want to tell their stories.

Maybe they want to keep everything K-Fave, even all these years later. And then you get guys that you're thinking, oh, well, you know, he wasn't that Ronnie Garvin wasn't, you know, the most entertaining wrestler on the microphone. He was just the tough guy with the Garvin stomp and always going to keep fighting. He gets in front of you in dinner and he was just amazing. And then you get a guy like Bill Dundee, who I thought was going to be crazy good because He booked in a bunch of territories and he was so good on the mic. And he was in Memphis for all those years.

That was such a crazy promotion. He just didn't really want to tell stories about much. You know, it's just kind of there to have dinner and get through it. So it's like some of them really surprise you. Yeah. And if you don't, that's okay. Who is the most expensive? A flare.

I guess that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. It's so funny. He's the most expensive and then he's in your bottom five. Yeah. It's just,

you just never know. I had a great interview with him about a month or two ago, right before Rick Flair's last match. And I felt so grateful because I feel like what you say is true. I've heard that good day or bad day, you know, it could be a great experience or it could just be okay. Man, I mean, I was so excited for the dinner. And even though it wasn't a good dinner, I'm still glad I did it.

I mean, it's Rick Flair. I got to have dinner with Rick Flair and hear his stories, even if he was rushing through him and probably lying through half of him because he didn't want to tell us anything and whatever, it's still Rick Flair, you know. Can people do the same with you? Could people pay your booking rate? What's my booking rate? I don't know.

You tell me. You're doing like, you get what you pay for. It's about zero. Well, you're doing like you're doing this show in South Florida at CCW. Oh, that's so much fun. You're doing a match with Bill Alfonso. I am. That's great.

I mean, who didn't love Bill, who didn't love him in ECW? Right down the middle. Right down the middle. Yeah. That's, that actually the Nellio,

the guy that runs CCW, when Paige Van Zant was going to wrestle on AEW, we had to find her a place to train, and he happens to have a school right in Fort Lauderdale. Yeah. So we reached out to him and he's like, man, we'll do it for free,

no problem whatsoever. But would you mind coming to a couple of our shows that we do in Miami every so often? You know, get on the mic, cut a promo or whatever. I'd love to do that. That's fun. Sure.

So it was kind of a tradeoff. Oh. So, you know, whenever he wants me to do a show, he just gives me a call. And it's 45 minutes from my house. I'm happy to buzz down. Did you ever think when you started getting involved with AEW that you'd actually have a match there? I figured, you know, the heel cowardly manager always gets tricked into somehow getting involved in a match to get his ass kick. So, yeah, I figured I would.

You know, I didn't think it'd be Chris Jericho beating me up with a Kendo stick in front of 20,000 people in a pay-per-view. I mean, how cool is that? Oh, you put him through a table. It looked like you were having so much fun there. I can't tell you how much fun I was having. It was like the coolest thing ever. Are you still working with AEW? Not now.

About maybe two months ago, we finished up our feud with the men of the year and Scorpio Sky against Wardlow and Sky dropped the belt to Wardlow. Sky was going to take a couple months off because he had a knee injury that needed to heal. and Paige was getting repackaged to do what he's doing now with the firm and the work with MJF. So I just thought that was a good time that, you know, seemed like it was winding down. I felt like I was getting stale, even though the reactions were still good. It was still fun. But I just grabbed Tony after that show and said, yeah, I think I think it ran its course.

You know, I don't want to go backwards or overstay my welcome. So that's going to do it for me. And he was like, oh, man, sure, whatever you want, you know, maybe. you get to come up with a good idea and you come back in the future or something. Yeah, sure, whatever. Call me. You could pop back up at any point, really. I mean, hey, Tony called me tomorrow and said, hey, I got a good idea.

Do you want to do it? And it was a good idea? I'd say, sure, why not? Yeah. Do you feel like after being on AEW television that you get recognized a lot more now? You know, it depends on where you are, you know. But, you know, wrestling is so different than, like, being involved in MMA. Nobody cares about teams in MMA.

People care about individual fighters. But you're a lot more behind the scenes. Yeah, but that's, well, that's what the guys that run the team are in MMA. So it's, you know, the fighters get recognized and the coaches, the guys that run the gym, they, you know, they don't, you know, nobody cares about the team. When you get in there, they may, they may mention where the guy trains just as filler space, you know, during a boring part of the fight. But people don't care.

It's an individual sport. Whereas wrestling, it's more about the individuals and stuff. So I think he gets a little more recognition. But you became a personality in AEW. It was, it was so, I still, I say the same thing every time. It's just. It was so fun. You can't tell you how fun that was.

Probably the coolest thing I've ever done. People just loved to boo you. Yeah, people like to boo. But you were also calling a lot of people out on, I feel like, I don't know, their insecurities or like the way that you cut promos were, I don't know, it almost felt a little like inspired by Jim Cornett,

like the things he would call out. Cornett's the greatest manager of all time. He just is. Greater than Paul Heyman? Yeah, I think so. Wow. And I love Paul. Heyman.

I just, but you know what? I grew up more with Cornette. I was, I was kind of, a lot of it, you know, who you remember is the greatest basketball player or football players, kind of like when you were younger getting into it, who you were most exposed to. So, you know, Bobby Heenan was towards the end of his run. You know, I've been watching wrestling since like the late 70s. And, you know, Heenan was still around and still great.

But it was a little bit towards the end of his run. And he was more in the AWA at my earlier year. So I didn't have as much exposure to him before he went to WWE. we didn't get a WAA television until it was like on ESPN for a short little period. But Cornett was like right in my wheelhouse, you know? And man, he was just so good. I know people, a lot of people said, you know, a lot of things you said in your promos or what Cornett said in his podcast, but I don't listen to podcasts.

You know, so I'm like, oh, cool. I mean, if Cornett says it, it must be right, you know? So I always took that as a compliment. because, you know, I just thought the guy was so great back in the day. I was a huge Jim Cornett fan. But a lot of the wrestlers that came down that we bring down for dinner would always say that the best way to get a gimmick over is if the gimmicks reflects your way you really think and your real feelings about things.

So if it's your real personality, go with it. And if it clicks, it's going to click really well. If you're forcing something, people can tell you're forcing it. It's not really you. I mean, look at MMA. at Connor McGregor. When he goes on a stick, you can, you just think, man, that's Connor McGreg. That's probably the way he is when he's out in a bar, probably like he is when he is in a restaurant. That's just like really him. George Mosvado. That's the way that guy is. I mean,

he's just, he's the OG of OGs. And, you know, when he says something on the, you, you believe it because it's really him. Then you get other guys like, you know, when Suhudo tries to come up with his little gimmick, it's, you think, is that really the way he is or he's just trying to get under your nerves and people think that with Kobe Covington. Yeah, is that really Colby? No. This is playing a heel. I mean, he might be a dick about some things, but he's playing the heel. He's trying to get

over. You know, if you go to, you went to dinner with Colby and they come up and the waitresses there and says, I know, what can I get you to drink? Just the water, please. Thank you. You know, he's quiet. You know, it's not him. So I think sometimes when he does his shtick people, some people don't like it because they don't see

it as genuine. He still got over. It still worked. But when I went to AEW, you, I'm like, man, I'm going to say stuff that I believe. You know, I'm going to amp it up, you know, to 100 to try to get maximum reaction to it. But if you believe, you know, my gimmick was basically old, grumpy old man, miserable, hates the world, yelling at the clouds, hates young people, hates certain things about wrestling today, thinks it was better when he was young and check, check, check, you know. You think it's better when you were younger?

Yeah. Absolutely. You're turning heel on us right now. Absolutely. Right before our very eyes. Come on. Go back and watch the territory days, although it's funny. That's the way you remember it.

I remember when MJF was going to do the dog collar match with punk. You know, they were hearkening back to Valentine and Piper's, you know, Starcade dog collar match, which, you know, in my memory back in, I think it was 83, that was like the greatest match of all time. It was a great feud and loved both guys. And the match was just brutal and bloody. I'm like, oh, my God, this match is so cool. I'm going to go back and watch that match before the page.

pay-per-view. And I went back and watched the match and I was like, huh, you know, that wasn't as good as I remember it. So, you know, maybe your memories are a little inflated and, you know, you go back and you see the house you grew up in, you know, 40 years ago when your little kid and, you know, man, that thing's small, you know, it's just, I don't remember it being that small. So, you know, I'm sure there's some bias in there. That's so interesting because I grew up in the attitude era. Okay. Love the attitude era. I did too. If you go back, back and watch some of it now, you go, huh, naked Midian, probably could have lived without that. You know, like, I think that people look back on it, you know, with a different perception, right?

And I think they go, oh, man, everything in the attitude era was amazing. And there was a lot of really great things in the attitude era. But then you look at some things and you go, okay, this episode of Raw was like 75% good stuff. And then there was like beaver cleavage. Right. So I completely can agree with what you're saying. Although I feel like in MMA, that has gotten better over the years. You know, it's still such a young sport.

You know, it's still evolving so much, especially from the training side and running the team side of things. There's just so many things that are different about the sport today versus five years ago, 10 years ago, especially 20 years ago, first and foremost level of athletes that are getting involved in now. I mean, these guys are studs. I mean, if you're a 145-pound guy and a great athlete, you want to make money in sports,

you're not going to play football, you're not going to play basketball. You know, where are you're going to make your money? Yeah. So a lot of these great athletes are coming to MMA, especially since they grew up watching, like, the GSP's and, you know, to a certain extent, some of the early Connor McGregor stuff, wow, wow, I want to do that. That's cool. Yeah.

So the level of athlete is like changing everything. You know, what works nowadays and what works before are completely different. Now, you still get people now that it's a mainstream major sport with relatively low barriers to entry to try to fight. You get a lot of people in the sport now that, you know, whether they're clout chasing or they just think it would be cool to be a fighter. Whereas, you know, you go back in the 90s, everybody that wanted to fight, they loved fighting. And the fights were, they were cool. I mean, you go back and watch some old pride stuff, some early UFC stuff. And it was like, it was pretty badass shit.

There were only like four cards a year in the UFC. and you knew every single fighter on every single card and you were so excited for every fight on the card. Whereas, I mean, now being in the business, there's 650 guys on the UFC roster. I mean, I'll have my friends or people call me and say, hey, who do you think is going to win this fight? I'm going to bet this fight.

So and so on. I was like, who the hell's that? You know, I don't even know half the fighters on the show. There's so many weight classes now, too. I mean, all the weight classes, they're deep. They're constantly adding new talent through, whether it's the Dana White show or the ultimate fighters show or when they go to foreign, you know,

new territory, new territories. I'm throwing the old wrestling references. When they're going to new markets, you know, they're trying to try to sign some Mexican fighters, try to sign some Chinese fighters, try to sign more Brazilian fighters. It's like, man, I don't know half the guys on this card. So, you know, it's not watered down

because the level of fighters and athletes today is just unbelievable and it's just so different. It's cool that it's so mainstream. It's cool. You can see it on ESPN and everybody knows what MMA is now and everybody knows the UFC. And that's pretty cool. The guys can make money. They're recognizable.

They get opportunities outside of fighting when they're done fighting. I mean, they've created so many opportunities just on people opening gyms, you know, and people who want to go train in martial arts because they grew up watching the UFC. So it's all good. It's a great thing, but it's definitely different. And I think people forget, like you talk about it. being a relatively young sport. If you were to compare this to like football, this is still like the leather helmet era.

25, 30 years in. I mean, I think back 15 years ago to what we were doing running our gym, like, oh, my God, I was surprised we didn't get somebody killed. We didn't have a freaking clue what we were doing. Oh, my God, we really did that. Remember, we used to do it. God, that's embarrassing. You know, it's just like, it was just like a boys club.

And there was no book to read to see how to run this or do that. And nobody knew what they were doing. And I'll talk to some of the old school gym owners and guys that have been around a long time training fighters. And we just laugh about stuff that we did back in the day because nobody knew any better. I mean, it's like this is a real sport. You know, and we run our team like it's a, it's a real sport and a real team, you know, it's a real gym. And you've got to be professional. And, you know, you've got to have team meetings.

You've got to have structure. You've got to have organization. And, you know, it gets a little crazy because, you know, these fighters all have all have egos. but I'm sure it's the same way in an NFL locker room. I'm sure it's the same way. Except that's a team sport. And I know that ECT is a team and any gym is a team, but you're an individual when you're out there in the octagon.

MMA, from a fan's perspective, is clearly an individual sport. You know, from the other side of the curtain, it's an individual sport three times a year. The other 362 days, it's a team sport. You know, you need your team, you need your coaches, you need your training partners, you need your preparation. there's a lot that goes into the guys that advance far. You know, there's still guys that, you know,

are training in their garage and either super athletes or whatever and still may make it, you know, and win some fights. But you're not going to get that far, you know, unless you have a good organization around you and good structure and good training partners. You know, maybe John Jones could still come out and, you know, still kill everybody without having that, even though he eventually did get that when he went to Jackson's. Anyway, he had that, but I'm just saying somebody,

that elite level of athlete that took to it so well. Maybe he could get it without it, but no, that's not the noise. I think he's going to fight again? Yeah, I do. I mean, heavy weight? What do you think he's going to go to medical school and go do heart surgery? He has lots of money. You never have enough money, do you?

I don't know. Somebody said you can never be too, too tan, too skinny or too rich. So everybody always wants money. You think it's a heavyweight fight? Oh, yeah. There's been talk of him fighting Stebe. Who doesn't want to see that? Who doesn't want to see him in, you know, in Ganu?

I mean. That's a great fight. It's weird. You know, fighting is not an easy sport to step away from and then come back. And, you know, whenever somebody's coming back, you know, when Luke Rockhold came back after, I don't know how long he was gone, but it was at least a couple years. Oh, how do you think he's going to look?

It's going to look like shit. I mean, nobody looks good after stepping away for years. GSP did. You know, if go back and watch that fight, GSP finished strong and landed a good shot and got the finish, GSP was getting beat up, you know, leading up to that. Bizbing, you know, was peppering GSP in that fight. And if those two fought a few years before that when GSP was active,

I think it would have been one way traffic with GSP. Sure. It's just so great. Yeah. It's not easy coming back to that sport. Where do you see a guy step away from the NFL or step away from any high-level sport? Step away from a period of years and come back. It just, you just don't see it. Yeah, that's interesting because people won't talk about,

like when Michael Jordan retired and came back or didn't Brett Favre come back. Like, like, I know, it's like, but when you switch teams at the end. That's it. Yeah, but like people will have that, like, they remember the great stuff. They don't remember the end, whereas like Brady still looks really good right now. You know, and there's certain ways to mask that and hide that, especially in a team sport. There's no way to hide that in a cage one on one. It's like you go to the NFL and you see like the average lifespan of a running back is like four and a half years or something like that.

NFL. The top for long. Yes. But at that position, I mean, when that running back has that ball, if he loses one quarter of one step, he goes from being like a pro bowl level guy to just being on the street. He's unemployably.

Nobody even wants him as a backup in a committee. Whereas maybe like an offensive tackle who's a stud loses a half a step. Maybe they move him from the left over to the right, or maybe they move him inside to guard. He can still, he's not as exposed. You know, the fighters, they're that running back. Yeah. You lose.

That's why you see a guy. who looks like a dominant fighter for a period of time. And then all of a sudden he loses and then he never wins again. That's like all of a sudden he's lost six fights in a row and nobody wants him. It's like there's a quick fall off in MMA. What do you think's been the biggest shift that you've seen in MMA over the last, say, 20 years? Probably the, you know, the ranking of what disciplines matter the most. You know, it used to be back.

You go back 20 years. It was always the best ground fight. You know, jihitsu dominated the UFC in the early days. And you look at stuff like karate and you laughed at it back then. I'm like, what the hell is that? That's for some kids at their little McDojo, you know, to buy their belts and do what that never works in a real fight. It's all about ground fighting.

And now flash forward, fast forward to the current day, who wins fights from their back anymore? Not named Charles Oliver. Maybe Brian Ortega. Outside of those two guys, you don't win fights from your back anymore. You know, everybody knows enough of the ground game to defend it. And when people say, oh, when you're Jim, hey, who wins? When those guys grapple, who wins?

Person on top. You know, so it's like, and now you've got karate actually working in fights. And you see guys that are implementing certain things of just certain basic parts of karate coming in quick, getting out, head off line, throwing from, you know, really weird positions and trajectories. And you're like, holy shit, that stuff actually works. It's like, I think karate may work more in MMA right now than Jiu-Jitsu does. Obviously, you need to learn it. You need to know it so you can defend it. But what real Jiu-Jitsu...

I'm a black film in Jiu-Jitsu. I've been done Jiu-Nizu-Ns since 1995. I love Brazilian jiu-Jitsu. It's why I got into MMA, why we started a team. I wish it still was the dominant force in M.A. And it would be on a street, you know, against people that don't know how to fight. But people that know how to fight, where's Jiu-Jitsu rank on your higher-on? You know, it just doesn't really work that well anymore.

And the positions that do work are kind of basic catch wrestling type positions. Wow. It's just the evolution of the sport. I've never heard that before, but when you think about it, it makes so much sense. Wow. How many black belts do you have? At our gym? Oh, me and me?

Yeah, you. Just presenting jitsu. I sucked at everything else. I'm sure that's not actually true. BJJ was my thing. I loved it. I, we, American top team, we actually started as just a traveling Brazilian jiu-jitsu team in the mid-90s. We used to travel the country.

We'd go to tournaments all over. And that's what we did. And then a couple of the younger guys were like, hey, I want to fight. And they started fighting. And then all of a sudden, the sport just kind of exploded. We kind of grew along with it. And then it was like, okay, guys, let's throw these geese away and, you know, focus on the MMA. How many days a week do you roll now?

None. Zero. Zero point zero. I get out of bed and just say, how am I not going to hurt today? So when an athlete walks into your gym, what are you looking for? Well, we've progressed to the point where people just don't walk into our gym. You know, we used to be back, go back 15 years. And it was like, man, where are we going to get like our next generation of fighters?

We've got to get some young guys in there so we can develop them, get kids out of our amateur program and just try to bring people up. Now the sports evolved so much that we probably get 30 legit fighters. and legit organizations a month reaching out to us saying, hey, can we come to your gym and, you know, do a camp, train here, move to Florida. And, and we, you know, you've only got limited resources in your gym. We have a big gym. I mean, it's 40,000 square feet. It's gigantic.

I've been there. But it's limited. I mean, we only got so much math space, so much time for coaches, you know, that they can divvy out. You know, you want to make sure that people are the right fit. We probably, if 30 people say this month, they want to come train, we probably say yes to two of them. Wow. And, you know, we just want to make sure that there's a lot. the right fit. And they might not be the right fit because, oh, this guy's going to be a world champion.

This guy's a stud. This guy's undefeated. It might be, wow, this guy's a heavyweight who's got a good ground game. He'd be a really good guy on our mats. He's got potential, but he's certainly going to be a good training partner also. Or, you know, this guy's a, you know, this guy's a 125 or a really good 125ers in our gym, but we don't have any great wrestlers. This guy would be a great fit as a training partner, you know, as a guy. If there are people that we know or people in the team know wouldn't have recommended they're a good guy, they'll be a good fit. And when we think they will be, we say yes. And we typically just say, why don't you come for a week or two and try it out and see if it's a good fit for us, if it's a good fit for you. Some people are better off not being

at a big gym with tons of training partners and being in that, you know, in that pressure cooker every day. Some people are better off just being off in a little small setting doing their own thing. I don't think they'll ever get as far as they would have if they would have fit in the other the other setting. But we just look for someone who's going to be a good fit in our gym, you know. You know, if you ask me what the number one thing to look at in a fighter to try to project a success, athleticism. It used to be, give me the best ground guy, give me the best jujitsu guy.

Then it was give me the best wrestler. Then it was, well, give me the best striker who can stuff takedowns. You know, and now it's just, just give me the best athlete. You know, just give us the best athlete. We'll do the rest. We'll take it from there. Because at the end of the day, you know, the size matters. well, athleticism matters when you got weight classes.

You've got so many amazing athletes there and so many champions that train there. What would you say as the owner of ATT has been your proudest moment from one of your athletes? I would say the coolest thing I've ever seen is Mazvedol's flying knee is without a doubt the coolest moment I've ever seen in a fight. But as far as the coolest thing I've ever seen is just George's, story, his resurrection that he called it and to go from where he was. I mean, should we be calling him George, by the way? I call him Georgie. He hates it, which is probably why I call him that.

What does he call himself? Well, he's Jorge Mosvado. He's a superstar, you know? You know, that's what he calls himself. I mean, 17 years ago, it was Georgie. And 17 years later, it's still Georgie to me. But, I mean, he had so many highs and so many lows of his career. And I never thought he, you know, reached his.

potential just because the guy's a nut job. I mean, what you see is what you get. You see him, you know, you see your stories, him jumping over a table in a restaurant, punching someone in the face because they piss him. You know, that's him. The stories that guy has, I mean, I could probably get arrested just telling the stories of what this guy's done over the last X years. But to see him go from where he was and where you thought he could get and then coming

up short here or there, whether it was a split decision loss here or a dumb decision he made in life here. And then thinking he was, you know, on the tail side of his career, may hopefully can get a few more fights and make some money. And then to see him just catch fire like that. I mean, he went and did a reality show somewhere in Central America and was gone for a few months. And he comes back and he's like, hey, can we go to dinner? And I'm like, if you just need money, want to just tell me how much money you need.

I'd rather do that and try to get me to dinner to get to the last minute and say, hey, can I borrow so and so? And he's like, no, man, I want to talk to you. Okay, let's go have dinner. And we sit down at dinner and he's like, I just want you to know, it's, everything's different now. Yeah, okay. What's that mean?

I'm going to start baptizing motherfuckers. And I said, okay, cool. Can we order? He's like, no, man, I'm serious. What was that even mean? I'm going to start sending people to the other realm. I'm like, dude, you got weird. I don't know where you went, what you took when you were down there,

but you got really weird. Like, let me explain to you. He goes on to tell me this story of how he's there. They didn't have electricity. They had no food. He had, like, go in the woods. And he's sleeping under the stars. And he has this epiphany of his life and his opportunities and what he's done.

He's like, I am just going to come in and start killing people. I am telling you, I'm going to kill people. He was like in great shape. He was lighter than I've ever seen him in my life. And he's like, I'm just telling you, I'm going to kill people. And I thought he was full shit. I was like, yeah, whatever. Okay.

You don't need money? No, I don't need any money. I'm going to kill people. Okay. And then, man, he came out and he had the Till fight and the Asker fight. He just went on that run. The BMF belt. The Nate fight for the BMF belt with the rock putting it on him and Donald Trump in the front row. And it's like this guy, he is like a next level star.

I mean, some people are like, you know, pro wrestling, there's certain people. We mentioned like Chris Jericho. He can lose and put over the next 10 people he has fused with. He's still Chris Jericho. Sure. And he's still going to get that heat. People are still going to want to see him just because what he's done over the years and people just have him so high up on the mountain.

He's the goat. Mosvidal's like that. You know, people just have such crazy respect for Mosbal, so such love for him. You know, he can lose a fight here. He can lose a fight there. He's still Jorge and Mosvdol and people want to see the BMF because he's so real and his story is so cool.

And he's, and this guy is making money. I mean, he'll call me somewhere and I'll say, man, it sounds like a weird connection. Where are you at? I'm in Saudi Arabia, you know? They brought me over here to do this and that. Huh? I mean, he's just, that guy is to see his story and where he was and where I thought it was going to end up, which I thought was such a waste because he had so much talent. And to see that last minute veer to the left.

Yeah. And where he ended up, that ascension he made is just far and away, the coolest thing I've ever seen. Do you think we'll see him and Colby fight again once everything's done with the legal troubles? No, I think that, I think that ran its course, you know, wasn't a very good fight. I mean, Mosphidal still has court dates as we speak right now. Like, that's not done. Punch the guy in the face. Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. Fucking.

Allegedly. I'm sure Kobe's going to say he has brain damage from it and try to get all this money from a lawsuit. You fought a week earlier and got punched in the face 300 times and were fine. And then you got punched in the tooth a week later and have brain damage. Well, you didn't have a mouth guard in. I mean, whatever. It is what it is. you know how, you know, how civil litigation is, you know, how, you know, court dates are in criminal.

You know, they charge you with a million things. And at the end of the day. Hope that one sticks. They kind of give you a slap on the wrist and you go do some community service hours and you're done. I don't think anything's coming about it. Is there bad blood with you and Colby? No, I've got no bad blood with Colby. Colby developed a schick that he needed to develop to make himself way more relevant

because the fact the matter was and is to this day, Colby's going to win 99% of his fights. The guy is a really good fighter with a really good skill set that is very difficult to beat. Prior to his personality change, he was kind of vanilla and he was kind of boring. But he's beating a lot of guys

that were way more charismatic that the UFC thought could draw way more money. So what do you do with a guy like that? I kind of likened to what John Fitch was at one time. People don't really want to pay to see it, but he's going to beat people that they do want to pay. to see. I say the same thing about Stepe.

I lived in Cleveland for five years. I don't know how a firefighter, a good-looking guy who has exciting fights and good finishes, and as a world champion, did not get over. But you know what? He's like the people's champ.

I love Steepa. I want to see him fight all the time. Me too. The guy's great. He's a great dude. I mean, you never hear a bad word about him from anybody. He comes to fights. Fights usually have finishes involved. He's great. But was he the most popular pay-per-view draw of all time when he was heavyweight champion? People keep...

I don't know. People keep overlooking him in the heavyweight division. Like, he hasn't fought since he lost the title. Crazy, right? And then people keep talking about all these other fights in the heavyweight division. I'm like, hold on, everybody. When does Stepe get a rematch? Or when does Steepa get another fight?

Especially when he beat the guy who became the champion, he won one, lost one. Nobody is talking about a third fight between them. And that's weird. What was my mind? I mean, nobody's really talking about the heavyweight division. right now, which is kind of weird right now because there are a couple guys there. I mean, again, we talked about athletes, 145 pound, 155 pound guys that are going to come to MMA when they're great athletes to try to make money.

If you're a stud athlete in 260 pounds, you're playing something else that makes you a hell of a lot more money than MMA without getting punched in the face. So, you know, the heavyweight division is always going to lag behind the others as far as skill set. But, you know, we're at a time in a May where you do have some guys at the top that are good fighters. And Gondon's a good fighter. Gons a good fighter. Steepa is a great fighter.

John Jones is John Jones. He fights at heavyweight. Stepe, you know, maybe the best of all time if you do the record, you know. Well, he certainly is. At heavyweight. So there's some really good guys at heavyweight. And people love seeing the big guys hit each other in the face.

But not a ton of heat, you know, behind that. Yeah. I know you have an amazing professional wrestling belt collection. It was like 100 belts? Right about 100 belts. Yeah. Which one's your favorite? I've been collecting it for probably like 20.

25 years. I would say my favorite belt's not going to be like the belt that most people would say that's the coolest belt you have. My favorite would be the old Georgia heavyweight championship belt because that was the belt that was on TBS during the 605 to 805 time slot when they were just on top of the world. And it was the same belt for like 20 plus years. So everybody held the exact same belt. A lot of these belts, they change out every few years or five years or four years or it gets beat up. It gets broken. It gets stolen.

It gets lost. It's thrown off a bridge in the middle of the first. feud. This belt was the same belt forever. And everybody held that bout. If you mentioned a wrestler that wrestled in the 1980s, he held the Georgia headway championship belt in the 70s. So that's probably my favorite belt. Do you have the actual belt? Oh, the only belts I collected, the actual ring-used. Oh, wow. I don't collect the replicas. So all hundred of them are ring-used. And they've all got stories behind them. I've got everything from the first belt, Rick Flair ever held, the mid-Atlantic tag team title in 72. I've got the first.

first belt that Paul Cogan ever held, the old southeastern championship belt. I've got belts from world-class championship wrestling, Florida championship. You name a territory. I've got belts. Wow. And the stories behind them are great.

You know, there's stories where this promoter screwed a guy on a payday on his last day and told him, I'm not paying you. So we went into the locker room with the champion who was taking a shower. He grabbed the belt and hauled ass. You know, there was a belt that was, you know, an old WWWF champion was a big,

gambler and he had the pawned the belt to pay off a gambling debt. It sat in the back of a pawn shop for like 20 years. This is a belt that Bruno San Martino held. You know, so there's crazy stories behind these belts. At one time, I no longer have it. I had the original title when they, when Vince McMahon Sr. broke away from the NWA to start his own promotion, WWWF, which has started as Capital Sports.

The title that he started to make Bruno San Martino is first champion, I had that belt for a while. And the guy that had it died, gave it to his best friend. His best friend died. The wife found in the attic. You know, and what does she do with it? She sells it. You know,

and there's actually some people that they call themselves belt hunters. Their hobbies, like went out and finding these old ring-use belts from way back. And I got belts that go back into the 50s and the 40s. And they go find them. And when they find them, they buy them and then they sell them. So I'm on all their speed dial. lists. You're like the Dosecchi's guy. I feel like you were the most interesting man in the world. If you're a wrestling fan, I got some interesting shit. But MMA stuff, I got some interesting

stuff outside of that. It's really not a lot I like. I don't know. You've got to, the people that you've just been hanging out with through all of this is pretty amazing. Not just wrestling, not just MMA people. Because UFC brings in a lot of star. You've rubbed with a lot of them. It's just crazy how popular and mainstream the UFC has become. I mean, You go back, I mean, in 2000, I had a contract to buy 51% of that company for 500 grand. Stuff. I mean, no. And I was probably overpaying.

What was it going to be? At the time. It was the original group that owned it. They had lost their pay-per-view. It was when John McCain got up on his soapbox and said, this is human cockfighting, even though he's the biggest boxing fan of the world. That's okay. You know, it's okay to get punched in the face, you know, this many times.

but, you know, not get thrown in a submission hold. He'd never even been to a show. So, you know, they got, he got his buddy at Time Warner to take it off paper. You could buy porn. You know, you can order pornography on pay-per-view at the time, but you can't order a UFC fight. That's literal a cockfighter. Yeah, right. So they were struggling.

They were getting, they were almost out of business. They had gotten, they knew they had to get regulated to stay in business. They get back on pay-per-view, so they knew they needed to get the commissions to sign off on them. Nevada obviously is the premier athletic commission in the country. And they figured if they could get the athletic commission in Nevada to approve them and sanction them, they could get the others to follow suit, get back on pay-per-view. But they couldn't get them to get to a show to try to push the process alone. They finally got Larry Hazard in New Jersey to agree to sanction a show on a one-off.

And he got the Nevada, a couple guys from Nevada commission to come watch the show. And if the show was going to work and go off without a hitch, they thought they had. a chance of getting approved in Nevada, which is eventually what happened. But they ran out of money and they couldn't do the show. So I got introduced to Bob Meyerwitz and we struck a deal where I was going to buy 51% of the company from them, 500 grand, had to put 200 up immediately as a down payment so they could fund that show. We were going to close and I was going to put a million bucks in escrow to carry the company for a year or a year and a half pending getting sanctioned and hopefully getting back on pay-per-view. Sign the contract.

got about a week into it, was getting some information from them the due diligence I needed to get, put up the 200 grand. It was guaranteed by ticket sales and they had money coming from a UFC Japan show they had done that was also assigned over to me. Case the deal didn't go through.

And after a week, he just went silent. Stop setting my stuff. Stop communicating. Disappeared. Ghosted you. Ghosted me. And it turns out because he got a better offer from the Zoufa guys.

Wow. So when I heard about what happened through some back channels, I called him up. I was like, hey, dude, I left a message. I don't care if you sell to these guys. These guys got deeper pockets than I do.

They've got way better connections in Nevada than I do. These guys will do a thousand times better job of running this company than I will. I don't even want to care to own. I didn't want the company to go out of business. I wanted a place for my guys to fight. Give my 200 grand back. Ghosted me. Had to sue him.

Wow. Is this a regret? Like, do you wish that you had owned UFC? These guys, who knows what I would have probably kept it on the same type of schedule, a few shows a year, just try to get a television break. No way I would have done a job like these guys did. They went so far into the red running that company. They were bleeding money right and left, and they just kept fighting. And they did, I mean, nobody's going to do the job that Dana did in what they did.

So not a regret at all in that regard. You know, and if you ask me right now, would I rather have owned the UFC, assuming by miracle, I did a great job of it and it became a multi-billion dollar company, would I rather own the UFC or would I rather own American top team? I'd rather own my team. I mean, I got, we got 100 fighters on every weekend. I've got a home game or two or three or four or five. And, you know, I'm watching these fights with a huge vested interest.

These are my guys and you're with them every day. and I feel like I'm part of, you know, all these fights, whereas, you know, the UFC, they all love the business and they love the fights. But they're just hoping for good fights and they're hoping that the right guy wins that they can promote and they're dealing with all that bullshit. I'd rather be part of a team than part of a big company like that. So there's no zero regrets. I think that story solidifies that you are, in fact, the most interesting man in the world. Come on. I've really enjoyed this.

I feel like we could talk for four hours. If it's about wrestling around and I can talk forever. Well, up to do a round two at the gym. Cool. Anytime. next time I'm in Florida. But I end every conversation with the same question because I'm all about gratitude. And I say out loud three things I'm grateful for when I wake up in the morning.

And before I go to bed, what are three things that you're grateful for right now, Dan? I'm most grateful as I sit here today for the fact that mixed martial arts has become such a mainstream, crazy sport that so many people are interested in so many people can make a living. on. I mean, I think back to the mid-90s where, you know, if we were training and doing our stuff and you, you know, you got busted open and someone would ask you, hey, what happened to your eye? You know, why? Did you have surgery in your ear? You know, what happened? And you try to explain, they'd look at you like with that Tucker Carlson cocked head, like when he hears a liberal say something that makes no sense. They'd be like, what the hell is that? It gets the point where I would just say I bumped into a door or I fell down or something because, you know, people didn't care about it. So I'm, I'm, I'm really grateful for what the UFC has done to make this sport mainstream so that so many people can make a living. You know, it's just, that's first and foremost. I've had such a great seat on such a cool ride. Yeah. So that's super cool.

And I'm so grateful that Malki Kawa, George Mazuralsudal's manager, called me and said, Hey, you want to come meet Tony Khan? Because that was like the second coolest thing you could possibly ever do. other than that, I'm just, I'm grateful that I'm at a point in my life where all my businesses have wound down. You know, my dad told me when I was younger, he said, you spend the first two thirds of your life acquiring as much shit as you can and the last third trying to get rid of it. You know, it's like, start halfway. So when I hit 45, I'm like, man, I am getting rid of everything I have. I'm going to get rid of my companies.

I'm going to free up my time so that I can just do stuff I like for, you know, hopefully the next 30 years or so. And I got to that stage because for so long, you know, American top team, which is something that I really love. That's what I really love doing. I like being at the gym. I like being around the guys. I like one of the fights. Just like being part of a team. But it was kind of in absentia.

You know, I would, any second I had free, I'm training, you know, either at the gym or having guys over my house to train. I wasn't really getting involved in a lot of the daily day-to-day stuff because I had a company to run. Yeah. At one point, I had like 3,000 employees. And, you know, the big business to run. So it takes a lot of your time. It's a lot of stress. It's a lot of effort.

It's a lot of attention. You're always on call. And, you know, once I was able to get rid of all that to be able to step back and just kind of enjoy the process now, it's just a pretty good part of life. Yeah. You're in a great place right now. It's fine. Wish I didn't hurt as much as I hurt. But I wouldn't trade.

People's like, oh, God, I wish I was 18 years old. Fuck that. I don't want to be 30 again with 40. with four kids under the age of six, all grabbing at my leg, bothering me every minute of the day. I'm not that they stop bothering you when they're all or just different problems,

but it's, I wouldn't change positions where I am in life now with anything. Yeah. It's a good spot to be in. It's just wish the clock would slow down a little bit, you know? This has been great. Dan, thank you so much.

My pleasure. A lot of fun. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today.

No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What should be? Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

You've been warned.