Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Luke Rockhold on his UFC return, injury update, Cagefighter movie, steer wrestling & modeling

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

Former UFC Middleweight Champion Luke Rockhold chats with Chris Van Vliet from the car on his way back from training. He talks about his role in the movie Cagefighter with Jon Moxley, Chuck Liddell, Jay Reso (Christian) and Gina Gershon, why he returned to the UFC, an update to his recent injury, how he started modeling for Ralph Lauren, his experience with steer wrestling and much more!   Support the show by supporting our sponsors: INDEED- Get a $75 credit to boost your job post by going to http://indeed.com/BlueWire BETONLINE- Get a new sign up bonus by using the promo code BLUEWIRE at http://betonline.ag Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I love fighting and I think there's unfinished business and I've, you know, there's a couple of good people behind the scenes and I don't have to deal with certain people, certain person anymore. So it's always nice when you don't get, you don't see eye to eye with one person. It's Chrysmania, brother. That's a great question. Look at you, man. What's the powerful question.

Woo! This is the Chris Van Vleet Show. Chris Van Vleet Show. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Vleet! All right, welcome on in to the Chris Van Fleet Show. Hope you're doing great. This episode is brought to you by Indeed and Bet Online. And, you know, the whole idea behind the whole idea behind the,

this podcast. The whole idea behind these interviews is deconstructing greatness. It's about finding out what makes great people so great and getting insight into what habits they have, what routines they have, that take them to that next level. And we've done a lot of MMA interviews recently. Vitor Belfort, Stipe Miochich, Ariel Hawani, you know, I guess Daniel Puter fits in that category, kind of as well. And now we've got former, UFC middleweight champion, Luke Rockhold with us. He stars in a new movie called Cage Fighter, which is available right now on demand. It also stars John Moxley, Christian, Chuck Liddell, and Gina Gershon. And we get into how this all came together for Luke. But if it's your first time

here, now make sure to hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. And if you are listening on Apple Podcasts, if you're listening to this on your iPhone right now, Maybe you could leave a review and a rating. It would be so great if you could. And I'm going to keep reading one out on every single episode until we get to that goal of 2,000 reviews. This one comes from Jay. And wow, there was a lot of numbers after his name here.

This is J 591, 22, 3, 4, 5. Okay. We'll just call you Jay. CVV has the positivity 2020 needs. That's a nice title. Wow, thank you. CVV is a tremendous interviewer. His love for what he does and his positivity really shines through in all of his interviews. Keep doing what you're doing, CVV. Well, I have no plans to stop, Jay, and thank you so much for the review. And I'll make you a deal.

I'll make you a deal. I will keep doing what I'm doing and you keep doing what you're doing. How's that sound? All right? We got ourselves a deal. Now, I call Luke Rockhold a Renaissance man during this interview, and I really think that's the best way to describe it. I mean, sure, yes, he's a UFC fighter, but he's also a model, a skateboarder, a surfer. He talks here about wrestling a steer. He was a guest on the TV show, Millionaire Matchmaker, and now he's an actor. And we talk about his role in the new movie Cage Fighter,

and we talk about how fighting in a movie is so vastly different from actually fighting in real life. And speaking of fighting, we talk about why he's back in the UFC. Also, I should point out that he's driving during this interview. Well, he's not driving, but he's in a car that is being driven down the freeway here. So I'm just trying to set the mood for this interview. So I'm sitting where I usually do the interviews, as you know, and he's driving. So if maybe it cuts out a little bit, you'll understand why.

I believe he was driving north on the 405, which is, you know, very busy freeway in Los Angeles. So here we go. Put your hands together, my friends, for Luke Rockhold. Well, he's one of the stars of the new film Cage Fighter, which is available now. Luke Rockhold, how are you? Doing pretty good.

It's good as can be. Got a current situation. Yeah, what's going on here? I had a string of unfortunate. And it's that my pinky toe of all things is, was ruptured. The tendon was ruptured. It was sublux and the capsule was busted. So it wasn't exactly that great situation.

So I had to have it basically reconstructed, reconstructing my pinky toe. Are you still able to train? Can't really. I mean, I can't really do too much right now. My shoulder's still healing up too. So two surgeries I've had last. I believe. Wow.

So just trying to waiting on these two to now kind of gives my shoulder more time to heal up too. So it's work around to stay, keep the physical therapy going. Is it strong? Well, I know there was talk of you wanted to have a fight, you know, in 2020. Is this going to now derail those plans? 2020 is pretty ambitious, but it shouldn't be too far off. Well, the hope then, you know, maybe in 2021, you'll be doing this in front of a crowd too. Yeah.

Hopefully, yes. front of the crowd. That would be like the most fortunate situation. I don't know how I feel about this fighting in front of no crowd. You know, it's kind of like, kind of takes a lot away from the fight game. Oh, seen itself. You know, you want those emotions. You want that, you want that energy and that pressure kind of makes it all as well for me.

But I heard someone make the argument recently that this is like the most pure form of combat that you could have. You know, the matches aren't being influenced by the judges. The judges aren't being influenced by the crowd's reaction to this. I mean, I suppose a case could be made for that. Yeah. Yeah, the case could be made for that, but it also takes the pressure away from, you know, the people that, you know, the pressure gets to a lot of people.

And that's the beauty of fighting and coming up onto that stage is being completely fearless. And having big Cajonis, you know, when you step in front of 20,000 fans. and you've got to perform. You know, I think this might be easier for a lot of people. So before the injury to your pinky toe, was there, did you have a fight lined up? Were you heading in that direction?

Probably we're heading in the direction. My shoulder's still needed time to heal. So it was just, I know, everything is, like a blessing in disguise. We're just going to take that for what it is and let heal, and let everything, the body kind of come together. Well, let's talk about this film. Cage Fighter has a stacked cast. It's you and it's Chuck Liddell and it's Gina Gershaw and it's John Moxley.

How did this all come together for you? You know, my agency, they leaked me up with a few things. And the director had known about me and I was fairly open to stabling. And the movie just seen what it's like given that it was Cage Fighter. I was like, ah, what better fit for me to test these waters? I read through the script a little bit, and I had a Skype call with the director. Like me a lot. I read in for it for the part, Irene.

And sure enough, you know, I got the part, got the role, joined forces, my man, Chuck Bedell, and everyone else is really good people on cast. Good, good crew, fun, fun time. Have you been bitten by the acting bug? Is this the first of many films we'll see you in? I don't know if I've completely been bitten, but it was a fun experience. I still have some other things left to do. Fighting, I still feel like I want to fight more, and I don't want to take away too much from that right now.

Maybe down the line. Acting acting, acting, it's fun. It just depends on the role, I think. You know, it's like playing something more realistic, I think, makes more sense. It's more fun. I don't like faking too much. And I like, I like doing real shit. So if it, depending on the roles and how they play and what's what, you know, and who the cast may be and could influence my decisions for sure.

How different is movie fighting from actual fighting? It's a big difference depending on obviously what you encounter along the way. the guys had quite the match moxley and him and there were some injuries that took place the last couple of fights teams I know were they were tough to get through for a man and Alex took some uh took some beatings and I think he'd like tore his hamstring or something it was bad he was he was fighting a lot fighting in there trying to fight through the last scenes um not under the best condition this isn't supposed to be happening on a movie set no one's supposed to be getting hurt yeah yeah

Real injuries. Shit happens, you know. They're not supposed to get injured in professional wrestling too, right? This is true. It happens, yeah. Well, since this is a, you know, combat sport film,

I mean, I'm curious to hear what you think is the greatest combat sport film of all time. I mean, if you want my perspective as a child, it's bloodsport. Sure.

I mean, I don't know if I go, I mean, I haven't seen it in a while, but, you know, you go back and watch it. I'm sure. might change a bit, you know? But I thought it was obviously Bloodsport was my jam. I think Bloodsport's going to be on most people's list. I think Rocky's going to be on a lot of people's list as well.

Yeah, I'd say so. I thought Warrior was pretty good for something current. I thought that it was pretty well done, decently, decently, well done. Well, and this one is well, have you seen it yet? I've seen it and it's like a countdown show it's like it's it's it's kind of a different vibe

a different feel and you know I got into it what would you think I have a might have a skewed perception but I liked it I think it was a very interesting you know angle

and perspective on how to shoot it yeah no I agree and John Moxley was like incredibly unlikable in the film which I think means he did the job right. Character, yeah. I didn't get any set time with John,

but he seemed like a good dude. It seemed like he can play his role, for sure. You know, when you look at everything that you've done, including fighting, but everything else, you're like a modern-day Renaissance man. Like, I'm on your Instagram and you're wrestling steers, like I feel like there's nothing that you won't do. Yeah, that's pretty much the,

Pretty much it. I don't know. Whatever is challenging in life, I'm not comfortable in my comfort zone. So I find the most challenging things in life, and I think that brings out true character. And in so many ways, some for better or worse. But, you know, it's exciting, it's challenging, it's scary. I want to do it. Is this like the way you've always been?

Or is this something that as you went into your teenage years, you're like, you know, I'm going to start taking some more risks. I think it came on pretty early. You know, I think for me, the biggest thing was, like, judo. I did judo when I was about five or six years old, and I started training in the kindergarten. And it's like kind of the first time, like, being, you know, being out of the protection of your parents and putting, put it on a stage,

your competition against another kid and him, you know, belittling you and beating you up and, like, putting you on, like, you know, a school yard choke, throwing you on your head. It's like, I remember it hurt, like, like I've never felt any, in life and all I wanted was redemption. I think it's been built into me since such a young age that I always wanted to just fight back and succeed and be the best of whatever I did and do whatever was hardest. I was always antagonized my brothers and their friends and take my lickings and come back

and just keep going, just keep fighting back. Even though sports may have taken a little bit of a break in 2020, your business didn't. You have to keep moving, and that makes hiring more important than ever. Indeed is here to help. Indeed.com is the number one job site in the world because Indeed gets you the best people fast. Unlike other sites, Indeed gives you full control and payment flexibility over your hiring. You only pay for what you need, and you can. can pause your account at any time and there's no long-term contracts. Plus, Indeed provides

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So go right now to Indeed.com slash Blue Wire. Terms and conditions apply. Offer valid through December 31st. And the weight is over. friends, we finally have football again. Now, you may not be at a game this year, but you can still be in on the action at Bet Online. Bet Online is going the extra mile to make sure that you can get in on every possible chance to win this season. From game spreads and totals to team, player, and coaching props, Bet Online gives you more options to wager than anywhere else. You can get in on

their season opening bonuses today and start off by wagering on wins, Division and championship futures, you can do it all day, every day. So head to bet online today and take advantage of all the great sign-up bonuses. Don't forget to use the promo code bluewire at betonline. That's blue wire, all one word. Bet online, your online sportsbook experts. Growing up here in California, you were in like a really athletic family. So what was your best sport growing up? And what was your worst sport growing up? I did just about everything growing up. I mean, maybe if I would say anything, maybe baseball.

All right. Baseball, baseball. The only comp team I didn't make. I mean, I know you're a surfer. I know they're surfing in your family. Was that ever, you know, MMA wasn't really a thing when you were younger. Did you ever think about surfing being a profession for you? I mean, like for a brief moment, I wrestled through junior high and high school, and there was a, there was no professional outlet in wrestling.

There was no money to be made and just torturous college wrestling. And I've been to like the extreme wrestling camps in high school and I knew what college was going to be like. And I kind of got screwed, but towards the end of my high school career. So I knew it wasn't going to be wrestling. I say that. I was like, there wasn't anything going on. on no money to be made. I was going to put myself through that.

And I didn't really force you fighting as like that. But, yeah, surfing, skateboarding. I was better than skateboarding. Honestly, it's pretty good at a certain point. And I started doing jih Tzu after high school, and I started getting better and better. I thought I was just, you know, going to. Earlier I thought I thought about fighting when I was young kids,

seen the voice of grace. I was like, I want to do this one day. I would do this. Kind of drifted out. And then jiu-jitsu kind of brought it back. I started winning big tournaments of Jiu-Zitsu and seeing how prevalent jitza wasn't fighting, knowing my wrestling background, and knowing the fact that I've good street fight quite well.

And I didn't mind getting punched and throwing punches. Finally, I put it together. You know, since we mentioned it earlier, and you talked about wrestling here, what kind of technique goes into wrestling a steer? More than I know. I did it two years in a row now. I took second place two years in a row by one second. I don't think they want me to win this as an outsider coming into Montana.

I think they have something against me. They penalized me 10 seconds. I flipped the bowl in three seconds last time. And I ended up losing to another guy who flipped it 13 seconds. And I was like 13 with the 10 second penalty. So, I mean, You got to, like, you got to hold the bowl, and then you got to, you can't really hold it. You can't lock on on the neck until you get out of the shoot.

You just kind of flip the bowl to its back. So you get exposed its back, kind of like wrestling. And it's just, it's just a rotation kind of, you know, subplexing kind of style. I don't know, you got to just, you have some big balls and you have some fun with it. You know, it's nothing scary than bull riding. For me, those guys are the biggest gangsters in the world. To get on top of a bowl, I mean, I'm too, I'm big. I'm a big guy.

I'm going to go that route. As steer wrestling, it should be my thing, as more so than getting on a bull, so I'm going to take that route. We're taking the easy way out of getting all in that bowl. Is steer wrestling anything like? Those board are scary. Is it anything like wrestling a person?

transfer, but, I mean, it's all field for sure. Just flipping the thing. So hold on and get mean and get nasty. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't think I could ever do that. It just looked incredibly impressive what you were doing. Yeah. I mean, it's a wrestling match.

Wrestling match with the bowl. It's a wrestling match with the bull. I'd say you want. For all the people, for all the people, for all the people, For all the people that want to knock it, I mean, I mean, bowls are just like dogs. They fight each other. They have fun fighting each other.

I mean, what's the point of a, you know, a little 200-pound man against a 500-pound bull? You think it'd be fun for the bull, right? For all the haters out there. You know, keeping with this Renaissance man thing, I was so blown away when I saw that you started modeling and then I saw your campaign with Ralph Lauren, which, I mean, I feel like you're the perfect person for this.

but there's not a lot of MMA guys that I think could pull this off. Pull off a lot of things that nobody else would do. So what else are we here for if you can't do things that in somebody else can't? You know, it kind of drives you to live a little bit, right? Was that something that you pursued? Did they pursue you for this?

I fell into conflict with negotiations with the UFC and trying to big dick me and trying to fuck with me after I lost the tie. and I wasn't one to be dicked around and I just used it as an outlet to leverage myself to get more respect, you know, in negotiations, right? Damn right. And so, yeah, I mean, given the way that Dana was not to gain my respect and just not rely upon them. Too many people rely upon them and that's why the MMA is in its current state because

they dictate, you know, they only give as much as. they want you know people people need to know their worth you don't know you're worth someone's going to tell you your worth and it's going to be less than your worth that's something that everyone should always live by

in the fight game fight game is fucking corrupt gangster cutthroat world these motherfuckers aren't here too they don't got your back the guys are pieces of shit and negotiate on the other end and you gotta fucking come

with a big dick and big pair of balls with all this said then you know why go back? I love fighting and I think there's there's unfinished business and I've you know there's there's a couple of good people behind the scenes and I don't have to deal with certain people

certain person anymore so always nice when you don't get you don't see eye to eye with one person but there's a you know the it's changed a bit and there's other people in power and people that can do with numbers so I have a good relationship with one or two

you know maybe one that don't have a good relationship with well again page fighter is in theaters now and available on demand now Luke thanks for taking us for a ride with you today yeah

you got my girl over there I'm pleasure thank you so much appreciate your time all right well there we go my friends he's just he's just such an interesting guy I mean he looks at something

that he wants to do and goes oh I'm just gonna go do that thing now and this was definitely a first for me, recording an interview while someone was driving on the freeway. Snap a screenshot. Let us know that you were along for this ride with us. Tag me on Instagram.

I'm at Chris Van Vleet. Tag Luke. He is at Luke Rockhold. And I'm very curious, very curious to see what his next UFC fight will be once he's healed up and he's ready to go. Who do you think it's going to be? I wonder. And if he gets a win or two under his baseball,

belt does he get a title shot? Let me know what you think. As Frank A. Clark once said, if you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere. Be great. Be great for my friends. We will see you on the next episode. We got a couple good ones this week. Sadie Gibbs and Chavo Guerrero. We'll see you soon. 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. Get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What should be. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.