Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Robin Black: From Glam Rocker to MMA Commentator. BINK!

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

Robin Black is a mixed martial arts commentator and analyst, former MMA fighter and glam rocker. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Los Angeles to talk about how he went from front man in a Canadian glam rock band to MMA fighter to now MMA commentator and analyst working for Bellator, UFC, Karate Combat and many other companies. He discusses his one-minute breakdowns on social media, his friendship with Joe Rogan, making his fighting debut at 39-years old, the power of reverse engineering and more! 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 CVV 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 going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Bleas! And here we go, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet. Thank you so much for being back with us. Although, if it is your first time here, make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss out on anything that we have coming up.

Honor today to be joined by a friend of mine. Robin Black and I go back. so many years. We go back to 2008 when I was hosting an entertainment show in Toronto on a network called Sun TV. That's back when he was fighting in 2008. A lot has happened since then for both of us, and it's just so exciting to see what he's doing now in the world of combat sports. So good to be able to see him in person and sit down and have this conversation while he was in Los Angeles. You can find him on social media at Robin Black MMA. If you're not following me, I'm at Chris Van Fleet and take a screenshot and let us know that you're listening to this one.

Let us know what stands out for you the most because there's a lot of good stuff in here. Our fan of the week is Mr. Cake Ave who says, shout out CVV from NY Certified. It's Mr. Cake Ave from the NY Certified podcast, available wherever podcasts are available. To shout out a great podcast with a fresh new set, amazing interviews, and an even more amazing host. It's the CVV-V-B-B-B-B-A. Adam-Colvoice. It even says that. Adam Cole-Vorce. Babe-Bay! Love the show. Well, thank you so much for that. And this, my friends, this is a perfect example of what I was talking about. Want to shout out on the show? Want to promote your podcast or your YouTube channel? Just leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you have an iPhone,

click on the show, scroll down to write a review, and I read one on every single episode. So thank you, Mr. Cake Ave, for the kind words, and shout out to you on your podcast, NY Certified. There you go. All right, let's dive into this. So good. Please welcome, my friend, Robin Black. Okay, my friend, it has been far too long. Far too long.

It's so crazy. We chat online. I haven't seen you. in 12, 13. Yeah, I think 2009 was the last time I saw you in person. Yeah. Jeez. But we're chatting online and I think three or four days ago, you're like, well, when are you in L.A.? I'm like, in three days? Yeah, I was like, okay, done. We're making this happen. You're like, is 9 a.m. too early? I'm like, come on. Let's make this thing happen. That's great. At the last time I saw you, your age began with a three. Your age now

begins with a five. Like, yeah. I was born in 1969. The 60s. So I lived in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 80s, 2000. I've lived in seven decades. That's insane. Yeah. I think what's so wild about you, especially since the last time I saw you, is you were at that time, 2009, kind of finding your footing in this world of MMA. And now you have found that footing in MMA. Yeah. I mean, I have always thought of myself as my primary. sort of purpose or philosophy or what I've kind of built the way I think around is martial arts. So I was a little kid, I did martial arts. I was the weird, hyperactive

kid who was odd and saw things all differently. Martial arts made me a little bit of structure, made me a little wiser, and I would kind of, that was always sort of my purpose, but I sung in a rock band wearing tight pants with crazy hair, and that was really fun. Still have the crazy hair. Sort of, yeah, I mean, I just got out of the pool, and they have salt in the pool here,

so it's like a weird, salted Billy Idol thing. Now, but yeah, and martial arts was the root of it. But, yeah, when I saw you last, which is crazy, I was a singer in a rock band who wanted to fight in a cage. And my motivation was I want to learn, continue to learn about martial arts and somehow attain some kind of mastery in it. And now I talk about it, and I analyze it. And still, it's the root of my life.

But yeah, the job part, I was just trying to figure it out. But as someone like me growing up in Canada, you were the guy on much music. You were very much the front man of this glam rock band. So to see you now, it feels like it's a completely different identity. It's strange because, so when I first started talking about fighting on television, now the internet is, television is something that we used to watch a lot. But it was the thing then. And when I first started talking about fighting on TV,

and then people would, you know, comment in places, like there were message boards and stuff that people would post this picture of me. Most often this particular one, I've got crazy hair, lots of makeup, purple pants, and I'm giving the finger at it. And I've got a snarl, and they're like, look at this guy.

And I would think, are they trying to make fun of me? Because I think that looks cool. Like, I did that here. I put my makeup on. I post like that. I did it because I thought it was cool. And I still look at it and go, that's pretty cool that I did that. But it was an odd sort of reflection of

society that someone would look at that and think I'd be embarrassed. I did that on purpose. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it was a part of, it's such a strange path and it's really cool to sit and chat with you, man. It really is. It's such a strange path. At one point I was studying, I was a hairdresser as I played in a band. And then I'm playing in a band. I'm learning from good producers. I learned in the world of different kinds of art. And then you're in fighting and you're in TV. But it's all kind of one long life of being an artist in an odd way. But I think what really needs to be pointed out is this doesn't happen by accident. You don't just fall backwards into being in a rock band. You don't just accidentally get to start breaking down MMA fights. So when do you start to make that choice of, okay, this is the thing I'm going to do now? So my, when I tell this, it's strange because the more you understand yourself, I find what I, well, tell the story now as if it's my, origin story as if I'm a character in a Marvel movie.

I'm like, I had a seizure when I was on tour in a rock band. And when I came back, I went to the doctor and it's like, dude, you're doing way too much drugs. You were like, I had a hypoglycemic seizure. We were drinking lots of booze and we were taking speed. And it was particularly actually just vodka and Red Bull for days that caused a spike in my sugar. And I had a hypoglycemic seizure, which people can. And the doctor was like, man, like.

Well, you didn't finish your sentence. but people could die. Yeah, people definitely can die. What year was this? This was around 2000, I think, six or seven. I can't remember when my first MMA fight was, I think 2008. So this would have been around 2006. And it kind of, so in the origin story telling of it, you know, that happened.

I went home and then the doctor told me to change your life. And I started really diving into martial arts deeper, which kind of drove me to keep. That became the hard shift. in my life. And although that's the origin story point form, if you're writing a book, it's actually true. Like, that's kind of how it happened. I went straight back and I thought, Jesus, I can't. And the parts maybe you leave out sometimes so that the band was starting to feel unfulfilling and super repetitive. So you go to the same places, the same audience will come and you appreciate them and you love playing for them. But where is this thing going? What's the inevitable thing? And I would

start to look around and go to bars of the horseshoe or the bovine, these queens bars that I lived at the time. And I would look around and there'd be a guy who's 50 and he'd have the same kind of haircut only it was receding and he had a big gut and he would tell young girls I used to play in a big rock band. And I would look and be like, is that where my life is going? Like is that the inevitable destination of my life? So you have a big turning point. I have a seizure and I go back and I start doing martial arts. And I start redoing martial arts. I was a martial artist all my life, but really dive into it. And within weeks I was like, I'm going to fight a guy in a cage. I'm 100% going to do this. And then the

process of telling that. Partly I had the, you know, I wanted to do what Joe Rogan does and guys like that do as well. This is, and I figured the only way you can logically do that is actually go through the process, learn to do it, try, fail, try again succeed. And I believe that's true. It's funny that you mentioned Joe Rogan because I don't feel like when he was doing UFC, anyone went, ah, he can't do this.

He's the fear factor guy. He's that comedian guy. but you've been up against this resistance, I feel like, at least from the outside looking in, where people go, oh, Robin doesn't know anything about MMA, he's just that rock guy. So, I'm weirdly, in the last year or two,

I feel like that's almost not really there now. I think it's been long enough, and it started actually, and Joe was one of the first. Joe brought me on, he said, man, I love what you do. Like, I love your breakdowns. So one day I look on Twitter, and it's like, Joe Rogan followed. I'm like, get the fuck out.

That's so crazy. And within like a week, he was in my DM saying, man, I really like this. I'm like, fuck, Joe Rogan likes my shit. That's so crazy. And he said, you know, next time you're in LA, I'm on my podcast. I'm like, I'm going to be in L.A. next week. Yeah. And he's like, great.

And it was actually, he sent me that on my birthday. And I don't think that's a coincidence, knowing Joe now, like I know him. And so he was one of the first guys who's like, this guy's fucking legit, which is really moving. And now, then it was fighters. And then it was coaches, you know, Duke Rufus and Dwayne Ludwig and. these guys will say such nice things about my work and acknowledge what I do as a martial artist. So now I don't feel that anymore,

but I didn't notice the day where it kind of went away. But now, like, I posted a picture of me playing in a rock band on my Instagram, and, like, nine out of ten people, like, holy shit, you used to play in a rock band? Yeah, right. It's not, it's now some distant part of my path, and I really appreciate it because you're trying, I believe we're trying to learn to be a better artist.

And Bruce Lee used to call it an artist of life, where like your whole life is the thing. And the process of doing all of these things and finding your way through these experiences and making, trying and failing and sometimes being ridiculed for it and sometimes being encouraged. I think all of that is where you suddenly one day go,

I think I've earned some kind of wisdom. Like I think I know more than I knew. Yeah. The fact that you stepped into a cage at 39 years old, I mean, that's super impressive. That's something you've got to be able to pat yourself on the back for. because I think there's a lot of people

who think 29's too old. Like, oh man, I would have done this, but I'm just too old for this. Yeah. I got in and I that first fight I fought really hard and I had really great moments I learned a lot, but I got beat up.

I had a cut on my eyeball. I wore contact lenses into that fight because I can't see without them. That's not really allowed. But I did it because I wanted to fight. And I had a cut in the shape of a contact lens, a circular cut.

I had paralysis to my cheek for like five months. It's called the tri-facial nerve or the try-something nerve. And from the part of my eye, direct straight line. Weirdly, you could feel in a straight line all the way down to this tooth.

All of that was numb and paralyzed from being punched. From being hit repeatedly. And I had resigned myself to the fact that, okay, well, this will be a memory of my fight. You know, like I'm paralyzed and I hoped that it wouldn't affect my face, but the feeling was gone.

And months later, nerves regenerated, it came back. I had all kinds of injuries. I got, I took a lot of physical abuse. And we talk, people often say, you know, I admire anyone who got in that cage. I admire anyone who gets in a cage a second time. Because the first time in your mind, you're going to go in, land a jumping spinning kick, the ring card girl wants to take you home. Everyone's going to celebrate you. They give you a bonus. Dana White calls you and said, oh, bro, you're amazing. You can imagine these things. And the truth is you go in there and get punched in the face. You fail at the things that you're good at. You are not good at. under duress, all these things, and get, I got in there eight more times after I had paralysis

in my face and cuts in my eyeball and like absolute agony. And that I'm really proud of. And there are times where I'm in arenas now. These young fighters treat me so nicely and with this weird respect that I really appreciate. And then I'll be in there and I'll be looking around and I'll see these young guys get in there. And I'm like, I can't fucking believe I did that. I can't. And I'm really proud of it. Yeah. Not all these, lots of things in your life. Maybe you didn't, accomplish them the way, but I'm really proud that I did that. But what I think is so interesting about your life is you've had these really big milestones, these really big identity shifts too.

It was rock and roll, was aspiring musician, then it was a spiring fighter, then it was a spiring fighter, then it was aspiring analyst, and now you're sitting here right now. Yeah, I think just, like my parents, I was,

we're all fortunate in our own way. because I had really driven parents that I didn't like very much because they really drove me hard. My dad, nobody in his family had ever graduated high school. His dad has a grade three education. My grandfather, he passed away, but he could spell one word, his name, and his name is Ed. And that's what he could spell.

And my father lived in a small, small town in central Manitoba, and he got a master's degree in education. And this had never been done. And so to him, you know, he figured out setting goals and driving or working really hard and all of these things, and he's taught us that. And but he was a very, you know, things have to be a certain way and you have to do everything perfectly to some degree. And he was very stern. I think they're wonderful now. Like, I love them and I think they're great.

I'm so appreciative because he kind of sacrificed being my friend to be my teacher. And then my mother very early instilled this concept that you could actually do anything you want. Like that's a real thing. I really believed that. At one point I said I wanted to be the first man on Mars because I was born in 1969, like, I don't know, like a week after the first man walked in the moon. So by the time I'm three and four and five, space is a really big thing in the world at the time. So I was going to be the first man on Mars.

And my dad kind of broke it down in reverse. He's like, okay, if you want to be the first man on Mars, you've got to work for NASA. And generally a way you could work for NASA as we would either be a pilot. And I had thick glasses. Like your vision might be a problem. So you have to be a scientist. And you can learn to be a scientist. You go this way and then you apply it NASA.

And if you do that, you work it. And so the idea of how to become the first man on Mars was a completely realizationable thing at six years old. But look, that idea, though, of reverse engineering anything, especially something as crazy as trying to walk on Mars, is possible for whatever it is that you want to do. 100%. And it's so difficult to discuss because somebody,

you're handsome and successful. And you've hundreds of thousands of people watch. on YouTube. Very kind, thank you. And I get to do these cool things and people were like easy for those guys to say. But yes, I had parents that taught me that, but

other people had bad parents or mean parents or whatever. But there are successful people who use that as a driver where they actually are grateful for their situation which made them strong or made them overcome. Everyone has a root and it is achievable.

The big, the hack I think for a lot of people is they go, I'd like to do what Chris is doing right now. I'd like to talk to people in places on my YouTube channel. Well, you can do that. And you will reverse that. But they want what you have today. They don't under, a lot of people won't quite sit there long enough and go,

the route to today was a year ago you did this. Eight years ago, you moved to Ohio. Before that, you worked on a thing. Then you did it. And if you look at it and go, I've seen, I see that route. The route will be different whether TikTok is the next thing after that, the next thing after that. But the concept is the same.

Very small, tiny, tiny incremental goals. And I know I'm going down this thing, but this is what I'm so into and passionate about now. And martial arts teaches you this a lot. I think this conversation, our hangout, whatever this is, this will be what you would call a finite game. A fight is a finite game. If gamers in game theory,

but game theory actually applies to anything where humans are interacting. Yeah. So a finite game, it's like a fight. There's going to be five minutes, three rounds. It'll be a winner and a loser, certain rules. Within this, we will compete. But your career is an infinite game, right? Your career is an infinite game.

And if we think of it that way, that you're going to do what Chris does or what Robin does or what the Rock does or somebody like you, or what is, there is a long game of living the game. We're all really driven to do the next big thing or find the thing or get a million. followers or whatever the thing is. That's a bit of a distraction. The purpose of an infinite game is to perpetuate the game. Because the game is cool.

You like playing the game. So how do we keep playing the game? And if you think of it that way, because the first thing we said is I'm fucking 52. It took me a long time to achieve any of these things and they were a long process.

But I played this fun game the whole time. And the job of the game was to perpetuate the game. Why? because the game's really fun. And so as soon as you look at it that way, you don't go, how do I get 300,000 YouTube?

That guy's not that good, and this guy couldn't even, you know. It's not about that. It's about getting to figure out what game you want to play and then figure out how to play it and then figure out how to keep playing it. And if you do that, you'll get better at it. You'll learn other things along the way.

You'll get rid of, if you're curious and constantly learning, you'll compile the ability to play it better just by playing it. Yeah. And I think that too often people see the finish product. They see Tom Brady with seven Super Bowl wins, or they see Connor McGreg with all his success, and they forget the path along the way to get there. And I think it's so important to go,

okay, that person who I look up to is at step 64 in the process. I'm at step one. Well, that just means there's 63 steps in between. I'm at three and three hard. It's weird. And it's, it's, it's, sometimes, so I like to see, things philosophically and stoically, and I don't get involved in a lot of negativity, but sometimes when it pops up, I'll use it to try to understand where people are at. And I remember once

somebody was like, this guy was a failed musician and a failed fighter, and now he's a failed analyst. And I remember looking and going, I don't think you understand the thing. Like, if, and the reason that would be dangerous for the person saying that is if traveling around the world and making records with big genius producers that teach you to do things in arenas where people loved your stuff buying the thing, fighting in a cage as hard as you can

and living within that thing and then working in this if you are seeing that as any of those things as failures, you're not even going to play. Yeah. Like you're not... And so I think we're incorrectly viewing the universe.

Another sort of example. And again, like sometimes when you see this, don't react to it. Use it to kind of go, So how are we seeing things different? What's that person? What's the anxiety there? What's the disconnect?

I saw Nick Diaz is one of the great fighters of all times. Sure. Nick Diaz fought in a cage against Robbie Lawler, had a wonderful fight. And then in round three, he got dropped and he didn't get up. I saw like many dozens to small hundreds of people saying that guy was a quitter. And I'm like, you're not understanding. This is harmful for your life to see Nick Diaz as a quitter today. because to even get yourself into a position

to surrender in a cage fight in front of 16,000 people on pay-per-view or whatever requires you to not quit 230,000 times in your life. Yeah. To get to this point. Yeah. And everyone will be pushed to the point of failure. So you have to not be afraid of it. Failure is going to be, you make friends with it and you realize it's super valuable.

Nick Diaz failed in the finite game on that night. But the infinite game, he fucking kept playing. He's still Nick Diaz. He's still a living martial artist. He refused to surrender hundreds of thousands of times, which brought him to a situation where he wasn't able to continue. That's a beautiful thing. Absolutely.

I think, unfortunately, though, people can't put themselves in those shoes and they go, well, yeah, it's easy for him because he walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars. I would have done that for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they're missing, like you say, the whole point of this. Yeah, and I'm not saying that to make anyone feel bad or dumb. hoping that they'd be like, oh, yeah. See, like, Nick Daz's just like everybody. Like, I saw Quentin Tarantino.

Quentin Tarantino's a little harsher about this. Because he's kind of seems like, he's a bit rude for a, from a Canadian standpoint. I really like the guy. Everyone's rude from a Canadian standpoint, right? But I saw him talking about being at a thing and he would be like, people would say, you know, with the end of that, why didn't you write it like so that, you know, the hero is something, something, something. He said, yeah. So when somebody asked me that, I'll say, is that what you. would have done? And then they'll say yes and I'll say no it wasn't because you'd have never

made the film. You'd have never worked hard enough to get here. You'd never done. And I'm like, okay, you don't need to be so rude about it. Like we can use this as a way to offer this idea to people. To be Quentin Tarantino or Nick Diaz or whomever, they're just regular people who learned a bunch of stuff, worked really hard, tried a bunch of things, weren't afraid to fail, weren't handled embarrassment, setback, loss, whatever. And one day they woke up and they were like, hey, life's pretty cool. This is a really fun game. Yeah.

But to look at that and say you would have done it different, you're thinking about the Nick Diaz in the cage as if he is like you, and today he isn't. Through all of the work, he's a regular guy, he's just like everybody at the basis, but through his lifetime of learning made him see the world differently and experienced the world differently.

It is fascinating. And there's certain, you know, you can't worry about how other people think, but at the same time, somewhere in this game of analyzing martial arts, I feel like I'm trying to uncover secrets that I can show them to people. Like, hey, look at this cool thing. I learned from studying martial arts. And that's why I kind of offer these ideas. Not everybody wants them or agrees. Some people will hear this conversation and think we're just idiots. Like, we're completely crazy. You know, we drank too much caffeine and now we're talking nonsense. I did drink a good pre-workout this morning.

Nice, nice. The United States Soccer Federation present the U.S. Soccer Podcast. My name is David Goss, and I'm joined by my co-host, Megan Klinemberg. And now we're giving people an inside look at the World Cup. Time's ticking. I think you can feel the intensity. All the guys are wanting to really take their claim, and they want to be on that World Cup roster. There's no doubt about it.

Hosting the World Cup on the home soil comes with its pressures, but we're just really excited just as the people are. The U.S. Soccer podcast, presented by Henco. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. It's so easy for people to play armchair expert on Saturday night when UFC is on. How do you look at it through a different lens? Because you do. You look at it through a very different lens from everybody else. That's a really, really generous thing to say.

And it's something that is the root of what I'm trying to do. So now I'm trying to learn, like really, really learn. because being a martial artist for like, so I started, between seven and nine I started doubling. So I've been a martialist for 40 odd years. Taekwondo was first? Yeah, Taekwondo was first. Actually, I think of gymnastics as my first martial arts.

Oh, wow. And first martial arts, and Farad Sahabi is a friend of mine. His coach is George St. Pierre and stuff, and he has two sons. And he said, he sort of insists that they at least try wrestling. Because for him, wrestling is the foundational movement. And I said, well, as a kid, I did gymnastics and high diving.

And he said, just as good. If my sons didn't want to do wrestling, I would have them do gymnastics. Because you're aware of your body. It's a kinesthetic awareness. Yep. So where were we going to do? Talking about breaking this down critically. So you do it, you start to understand how the humans move.

And along the way I hit these different plateaus where something doesn't make sense to me. And I spend a lot of time literally just reading or thinking. I'm watching a lot of fighting. I take my questions into the gyms with my coaches. I purposefully fought with a goal of trying to understand the actual experience of what was happening psychologically, emotionally, chemically, biochemically. And I'm pursuing all of that stuff. And the further along I go, I have these periods of tension.

And I have a friend who's a sport psych and a performance psych, and I'm like, dude, I'm going through this again. But whenever I do, on the other side, I make these breakthroughs. And he's like, first of all, let's figure out a way. you can make these breakthroughs without feeling tension. But I do. I get to points I'm like, something isn't making sense. And generally what it is is sport. Fighting as an art, it's a sport, it's an expression, it's many things.

But the language of sport itself is very, very incorrect. The way we describe fighting, the way, and great martial artists, brilliant fighters, say Daniel Corme is a genius, a wonderful fighter. when you put him in the environment of a sports television, he does subconsciously what he thinks a sports commentator should do. And that's not truthful, right? That guy doesn't have knockout power on both hands. Hands do not have power.

Their hands are flesh and bone. Power is not something you have. Power is something you channel or create. So it's very not truthful, right? And then you say things, you know, always keep your front foot on the outside versus self-bought. That's not true, right? So at all.

It is a novice, temporary truth to learn. learn a thing, but in real life that's not true. You know, never move into the power hand. Oh, a huge right hand. Same size right hand. I don't know what you're saying. Like, it is, we don't notice it, but it is not truthful. So if you start to learn martial arts through that language, you're learning a televised interpretation,

entertainment interpretation of a thing, which is fine if that's what you want to do. If all I wanted to achieve, and at one point this was what I thought my goal was, I want to sit next to the cage with Anak, at the time it was, it was Mike, but Annex is a very good friend. Yeah, now. And Rogan, and I want to commentate fighting. And I thought that meant, get my turn to say knockout power with both hands, striker versus

Grappler and a stylistic matchup, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? But that's not what my goal is. My goal is to actually understand it. So language becomes a barrier. The language of sport fighting is limiting to our understanding. So once I started to reject it, it was very difficult, and again, that's creating tension. It's like power versus

chin. It's like, well, wait a second, chin is a slang. If I start to use this slang in such a way the audience thinks that's a real thing. Now the audience is like, you know, that guy's got a crazy chin. We've never actually learned that there is the mechanism of how the jaw is, how tense you are, how well you roll with things, how fatigued you are, how fit you are, a combination of luck and skill. All of these things, we call it a chin. If we never explain those things, we just use the language of sport, we are not being truthful. So years ago, the jaw, I realized the job was, I have to reject that. I have to...

And I turn on some commentary when Joe's commentating because he's my friend, he's a mentor, and he's brilliant, and he's an individual. And every now and again, the odd one,

but I had to turn it all off. I turned on classical music, and I just studied fighting with classical music on for years. Years. For years I did that. And I slowly started

because sound bites and narratives begin to dominate our things. Sure, of course. Right? So if when I'll be commenting, I'll watch some young guys commentate and some I go, big right head, oh my, my dish is out some ground upon, oh my God, it's all over. And the other guy goes, wow.

But it sounds like Joe saying, wow. What they're, what we don't quite grab intuitively is the reason we think Joe is brilliant is because he's an individual. So the individuality is what's brilliant. If you copy him, you are not copying Joe because you are not in an individual. Not being an individual. Yeah. Not being an individual.

So everybody commentates the same way because they have a steady diet of that language. You have to reject the language and begin to explore and really explore it and really explore it the way people have explored jazz and art and hip hop and really dig into it. And it's very difficult. It's not, you can't just wake up one day and have a different true, connected, meaningful relationship with a thing unless you study it. And so I did. I fucking studied it. What are you reaching towards now? That's a really good question

because, you know, you said an aspiring singer and a singer and aspiring fighter. I don't actually know, and I kind of like that. Aspiring father right now, I guess. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to have a baby. And that's an incredible thing.

That'll change my life. It'll change my relationship. My work in good ways, different ways. You know, it's a wild thing. It's a beautiful thing. It's really, I won't have words yet for that. But, yeah, I want to master my craft, but my craft isn't what I used to think it was.

My craft isn't wearing a suit at a lit desk, turn into camera seat, and then going over there, this one's going to be fireworks. It's got knockout, you know, knock out of the night potential. Like, that's not my craft. Do you want to be caged sides still? Yeah, I do actually a lot of commentary now. Yeah, you do.

Like, say in the next couple of weeks, I go to Amsterdam. For what? It's called Levels Fight League. I'll commentate fights in Amsterdam. I come back. The next week I go to Paris. So I come home and then I go to Paris for it's called Ares Fighting. So again, and the cool thing now, and it's just the greatest compliment,

I do Jorge Mastvedal's show, Gamebred Fighting Championship. Anthony Pettis is starting a show, and him and Duke reached out to me and said, would you do our show? Ares fighting is put on by Francis and Gano's former coach, and now coach is Cyril. And Cyril, again, they're going to fight. And he is like, I want only you. And so I'm getting these people who are,

some are mentors, some of people I admire, some of are brilliant fighters, and they're saying, that's the guy we want. And that's really fucking cool. It's a huge compliment. And I'm so, I'm proud of that. So I want to do more of that. I'll keep doing that.

but I don't want to do it the way that we think you're supposed to do it and I haven't been and I'm now being rewarded for that like people are now going cool whereas a few years ago I was like I don't know that guy's kind of weird he says weird stuff

you know he won't say ground a pound I won't say ground up I mean I just said ground impound but ground pound is an umbrella term that if our brain every time we see anything that hits when a guy's on the ground we go oh look vicious ground and pound this is a hook inside the V this is an uppercut

underneath the arm. When I'm inside the biceps and the shoulders, you know, I fight for inside control, which is really, you know, a Wing Chun concept, inside fastest, outside safest, right? When I grab the wrist and rotate it over in an elbow, that's an arc that I'm using the leverage from the wrist. All of this is different. If I call it all ground a pound, I didn't, I've described nothing, right? So I won't say that. And at first, people were like that guy, and now they all seem to, I get, I've just been getting phone calls from all of them, like saying, we like your thing, do your thing. So it's a really neat period. So I definitely want to keep doing that. But I see that weird. Now, I'm starting to re-und, I still don't understand exactly where I'm going,

because now I think, when somebody says, what do you do? And I'm so proud to say that. Somebody says, what do you do? I say, I'm a practicing martial artist. That's what I said. I live as a martial artist, studying martial arts every day in the course of doing that. If I did that with cooking, somebody might call and say, hey, can you come and talk about cooking? You're like a cooking guy. So people called to do that. But the call and the job to do it is incidental to the journey of being a practicing martial artist. So I'm trying to be a practicing martial artist, you know, trying to learn poetry. I studied, you know, jazz and freestyle rap to understand the mechanism of what's happening

and allow my train my brain to perform that way. So now I fill it with aspects of understanding of martial arts and then I prepare it and then I clean it because that's how you rap. That's how you freestyle rap is you prepare and then you clean it all and you let it. it happen. You watch yourself rap. So I'm trying to learn that's my craft. That craft can be applied at the side of a ring or a cage when somebody just fought and they come to me and I've got either a telestrator or I'm standing there by myself. I can enrich the experience for the audience. I can do it live with the fighting. I can do it after. I'm also really, I'm doing a podcast

around with artists and musicians. I'm trying to learn from that. I did C.J. Ramon this week, which was super cool. Yeah. And he was like, he was really kind, and he said something about the philosophies that I'm learning. It's like, you share them, which is nice. And I thought, don't want to, like, run around being an old school, like, what do you call it, motivational speaker.

But at the same time, if I'm learning neat shit about the world by studying martial arts, I want to share that thing. I don't know what that is other than being a practicing martial artist that sometimes talks about it. but I'm in a phase of trying to figure out where this goes now. Are you still rolling every week? Yeah, I train. In Toronto?

From Justin Bruckman, who's a super legit guy and a great martial artist and a great friend. So I see, I'm training with him, and then I do some type of martial art for sure every week. Often when I travel, so like say in Paris, Fernand is going to train me. I live in Stratford, Ontario part of the time I train there. You live in Stratford, Ontario? Justin Bieber's hometown. Yes, I do. As a matter of fact.

And so I know his dad. Jeremy is a good dude. And I actually once, my wife was performing at the Stratford Festival Theater. And then she was in Rocky Horror last. And then I came out on break and I said, I think the break, I texted her and I said, I think the break is going to be extended. This is a few years ago, maybe four. I think the break is going to be extended.

Justin Bieber is standing outside playing guitar and there's a giant crowd. And she's like, ha, ha, ha. I'm like, no, he actually is. It was the night before the MMVAs, whatever the last one or two that they don't have the big party anymore, I don't think. Certainly not during COVID. But he was performing out there on the Sunday and on the Saturday. He was in Stratford and he went right back to the spot where he used to play guitar and he played guitar there. And I was standing right there and like, this can't, oh yeah, yeah, this is what's happening.

So are you living in Stratford, not Toronto? I have a studio in Toronto. So my YouTube studio and where I do stuff for TSA and Sports Center and all and commentary gigs internationally. that we can't travel to, I go to the studio, and in my studio, we have bedrooms and bathroom bathrooms. Oh, so you can't do it. Because Stratford to Toronto is not that close with rush hour. Yeah.

But about an hour-ish. It'll be closer to two hours a lot of the time. So what I tend to do now is I live in Stratford, and then I'll go in for two days at a time. And then I'll shoot a whole bunch of stuff. Or I'll go in for TSN. I'll go in. I do bare-knuckle boxing from London.

Next Saturday I'll be doing that. So I'll go in and I'll sit in my studio with my... lights. Yeah. And just commentate it live in the O2 in London from there. It's a really wild world right now. I want to ask you about Toronto because growing up in Manitoba, like not a lot of people are from Manitoba. There's like 950,000 in total. Right. And for anybody listening right now, that's where Winnipeg is. So like Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho are from there. Yeah, yeah. When did you decide, okay, I need to move to Toronto because that's where things in the entertainment industry happen in Canada. You know, that's such a great question because it's taking me back to a period.

So I was playing in a band in Winnipeg. And we were big in Winnipeg. And that's a thing. Sure. You know, we were one of the biggest bands of that moment. We were different, and we wore eye makeup, and we played sort of a glam rock-inspired thing during a period of grunge, basically, which was weird, that that worked. But somehow, you know, we were driven and passionate and awed, and people wanted to watch us. And so we would fill like places with five and six hundred people

And we would occasionally drive to Toronto or Vancouver We made a music video We were starting to do stuff I may have never left Like I may have never left But I met a girl And her name was Joanne And I think she lives

She lives in Calgary now And I caught up with her in the last few years And I moved to be with her I moved actually Wow Wow And I think But that's a beautiful story of like

Life happens for a reason Like people put into your life for a reason. That's right. And a lot of these interesting things, there's luck and fate and fluke and weird series of events that happen that are part of every story. When something isn't going well or

is going well or whatever, those are parts of it. But they're not the driver. I don't know what the path looks like. I never met her and fallen in love and moved because she lived there. It could be better. It could be worse. I could be dead. I could have four children that are the most beautiful humans ever in the world because I met

somebody else and had children with them. And maybe somewhere along the multiverse, that version of you is existing somewhere, if we want to believe that. I mean, that's a, we're getting into existential things here, but, but I mean, there, there has to be, these are all, your life fragments into all of these. Yeah. And you can think about these often a lot, and it can drive you a little crazy. If I didn't go to, to meet you at the car, but instead went over to get the coffee. And somebody, I met someone that day that becomes a friend. friend for life or I do a job with or I got hit by a car. Like your every movement is a part of where

your potential life goes today. And you should live it with that knowledge, but you also shouldn't think about that constantly or else you'll do nothing. But yeah, I moved for love at the time. Would I have, you know, I think the goal was always to move to Toronto or Vancouver or L.A. Actually, it's a weird story. I was on sunset yesterday and we went to the, the Rainbow Room, which is an old rock and roll place. And we walked in and we sat down and kind of walked through and all of a sudden this guy goes, oh, how did you know Frankie? And I realized, oh, fuck, we're at a wake.

The drummer from Quiet Riot passed away a year ago and they're having his wake. And I'm like, oh, yeah, my drummer knew him and which he did. But it was so strange. But I remember, I actually moved briefly to L.A. when I was 20. I was working for a company called Sebastian, they make hair products. and I was an artistic platform artist doing hair on platform teaching because for some reason people seem,

and many will like it or dislike it, but people seem to notice or be interested in me when I say things sometimes. This has been a part of my work always. And so they said, we want you to be in a platform and teach people these particular hair things, which taught me a lot.

I went to the whiskey, the first time I was ever in L.A. It's probably 1989 or 90. I'm about 20, 21. And a woman walks up to me and she goes, hey are you a musician? And I said, I'm a singer. And she goes, my husband's looking for a new band.

I want you to meet him. His name's Andy McCoy. And I knew who that was. He was the guitar player in Hanoi Rocks, which was a famous band that all of the 80s bands kind of looked up to. Motley Crew loved them and all. They weren't the biggest in the world. And so they flew me down here.

And I was like, going to be the singer in his band in 2001. And Sebastian Bach from Squid Row. Yeah. There are weird times where we're talking. I'm like, there's a bit of a, what's his name, Life's Like a Box of Chocolates? Forest Gump. There's a bit of a Forrest Gump thing sometimes.

It's like there's been these many, many things. So I almost moved to L.A. And I almost moved to Vancouver. And so I guess I would have left Winnipeg, but I really loved it. I loved it there. We were successful. The world seemed scary to go and start over somewhere else.

But I did it. And again, I met someone that, and at the time was the, you know, the most important relationship in my life. We're still friends, which is cool. But yeah, I moved for a girl. And so that changed my path, but you just should,

I guess the punchline of the, which way are you turning and what is your life and the multiverse looks like is you just have to be decisive because you don't know what that one would have been. You can't sit there going, well, what if I did take that job with the UFC

or what if I didn't do that one thing? Or what if I should have, I should. You don't know what that one would have done. You could have got hit by a car seven minutes later if you did that one. You be decisive, you be where you are, and again, martial arts teaches you this. When you're on the bottom in half guard, it doesn't matter how you got there. It's still the bottom and half guard.

It doesn't matter if you just were on top and he reversed you on your on the bottom, or you were mounted and you worked away to half guard. One is a small improvement and one is worse, but they're both the same thing. You know how to work from half guard. So how you got there isn't super relevant in this moment. If you're present in this moment and you're underneath a guy and he's punching you in the face, that's the truth regardless of how you got there proceed from there oh that's so powerful and that's kind of how we how i look at it wherever you go you're there now you're at the cage with an underhook you know how to

fight at the cage with an underhook work from there and that's how i kind of see the path of life yeah and it's it's about being present and it's about being grateful for where you are and grateful for everything that has led to where you are now and we're almost out of time here i want to be i want to be super respectful of your time. No, this is, this is great to see you. We could talk for like three more hours. It's great to see you. Um, so, yes, um, just triggered a thought that I had. So present, right. So, and grateful. So when, when people will hear somebody say, you got to be grateful, they think that's a platitude. Yes. Right? They think it's a thing you say. It's something Justin Bieber says, I'm grateful for all my fans, you know, whatever. Gratitude's actually like a purposeful thing.

Yeah. Because if you are grateful that you had bad parents who were mean to you, that's different than resentful. But it's just as true. That will make you. And being grateful that you lost that fight. The worst loss I ever had, I was taken out on a stretcher. I lost vision in my eye. They put a thing around my neck and I felt fine.

I was out of it. I saw the tape. I was out of it. But then they put it on my neck. I'm embarrassed. I'm on a stretcher and people throwing beer at me and they're booing me. And I never cried as hard in my life. Damn.

as the next morning when I called. And then I'm in the stretcher. And I'm like, listen, I'm like, coach can you get me my phone? And coach gets my phone. And I realized also, I was wearing contact still. They're both out of my eyes. And my eye had filled with blood. And there was a whole thing where I had to cover up because I couldn't see.

I couldn't continue. I didn't know what was happening. A ref had a weird behavior where he got the doctor in. And it was just all a shit show. And I call my wife. And she's crying. I'm like, are you okay? And she goes, are you okay?

And she's bawling. I said, what's wrong? And she goes, I'm on the internet. And it said, you got taken out a stretcher. And, like, she's bawling. And I'm on a stretcher in an ambulance, in an arena. And my wife is fucking losing it. And I feel terrible.

And she's watching the live updates. She's working a show, I think, in somewhere in Ontario. And she's watching the live updates. And it says, Dr. Signals of Head Injury, which he did. When you signal to the guys out the side like this, it means get the stretcher. There's something wrong, right? So I'm fine, and she's bawling because all she knows is her husband was in a fight, he lost, there's a head injury, he's being taken to the hospital. Yeah.

And so she's bawling. And I'm like, I said, I'm okay. Can you hear it in my voice? I'm okay. And she goes, would you lie to me if you weren't okay? And I paused. Oh my God. Yes.

Yes, I would. I would. And she kind of giggled, and I knew I'd kind of helped her get through it. and but I was also embarrassed because I had to cover up, I couldn't see it all you know, and I'm thinking in my mind other people couldn't see and they kept fighting. Other people were, you know, blind in an eye

and they kept fighting. But I also, there was something wrong. I found out many years later, I never talked about it because I never ever wanted sort of to make any excuse or undermine my opponent, but I had extreme hypothyroidism. So I didn't know until after, which is something wrong with your hormone.

So you're actually, I actually probably detached from consciousness. It was a very strange fucking thing. But it was brutal. I've never cried as hard in my life alone in a hotel room calling my wife the next morning, shame and humiliation and stuff. But I'm grateful for that. Like I'm extremely grateful to have had this experience

because I now see the world truthfully as it relates to that experience. When I see somebody fail and some asshole is saying that guy sucks or that guy, whatever, I know what he's doing. I know. And the crazy thing is, everybody, is literally doing their best. When that guy failed and it looked like he failed spectacularly and you're like, well, you didn't

do his best. That was his best. Today at that time. That exact moment. That exact moment in time. That was what he had. And that, I'm so grateful for that experience. And failure, every time that I failed at something, I'm really grateful. At the time it torments you.

But I'm so grateful. I'm grateful for every mistake. And that's, when you say gratitude, that's where you're grateful. not, I'm so grateful for all my fans, man. Like, nobody has better fans of me. Like, you know, yeah, that sounds like horseshit. Like when a pop star says that.

But if they're grateful for the pain and the fear and the anxiety and the failure, that's where that shit's powerful. That's where that stuff will make your life better. Yeah. I practice gratitude every day. So I... With a list? I say it out loud before I get out of bed.

And then when I get back into bed at night, before I go to sleep, I say it out loud again, at least three things that I'm grateful for. That's awesome. And that's how I'm... end every interview too because I think that a lot of people don't practice gratitude in their day. And if they can hear someone like you or anybody on the show saying, yeah, I'm grateful for this, that, and the next thing, I think a lot of people can go, oh, I'm grateful for those things too. And it helps them to appreciate those things in their life. So what are three things in your life

that you're grateful for today? So I'm grateful that my wife is my best friend, for real. And it's been so great to hang out with her and she's pregnant with her child. And I'm grateful for that. You know, I'm frightened, too. I don't know where that, you know, that's a human. You want her to be okay. Unknown, yeah. It's unknown, but I'm so grateful for that.

I'm grateful I get to do what I love. Like, I literally, and a friend of mine said that the other day, he was like, dude, you literally are, what are you doing today? I'm going to the gym, and I'm doing this thing, and I'm like, and watch these fights. I'm going to analyze it, and I'm shooting this thing for TSN, and we go to LA next week. He's like, you're literally just doing what you want.

And I was like, holy fuck, that's true. And so I'm super grateful for that. And those are three very obvious things. But I think those are the important things. It's very easy to be thinking about what you don't have, which is crazy when you have a hundred million great, wonderful things no matter what they are, to spend one moment being worried about what you don't have.

To me, that's something we can control in ourselves. And I think it's really cool that you do that. It's cool that you end every chat with that. Yeah, I think also when you focus on... What am I grateful for? I love it. So I'm grateful for my family. My mom and dad just celebrated 47.

years of marriage last month, and they are a perfect example of companionship and friendship and Dirk and Helen Van Fleet. They're amazing. And my sister and brother-in-law and niece and nephews. Health, especially in the health of my family, especially during this time that we're in right now. And just really grateful for opportunities. Like the fact that you and I live in different countries. And we were connected a dozen years ago. And we're sitting next to each other right now because of this amazing thing called the internet and these supercomputers that we have in our pocket, I'm grateful that whatever you want to do,

you can do. And it's up to you to decide if you want to chase after or not. So that's it for me. I'll dig it, man. So good to see you. You too. Thank you. Yeah, you too.

Let's do this again in like a couple of months. Okay. For sure. Done. I'll be in Toronto in a few months. Oh, cool. Well, let's go on my channel. Okay.

Awesome. Done. I dig it. Well, there we go. Big thank you to Robin Black for finding some free time while he was here in L.A. Thank you to you, as always, for being on this journey with us. Snap a screenshot. Let us know you're listening.

Tag us on social media to let us know which philosophy here or which thought stood out for you the most and resonated with you the most. Tag Robin. He's at Robin Black M.A. Tag me at Chris Van Fleet. If you're not following the show already, make sure to click subscribe or follow wherever you're listening to this right now. I'll leave you with the words of Maya Angelou, who said,

you may not control all of the events that happened to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Be great, be grateful, and we will see you on the next one for some more insight. 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 but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What should be? Follow and listen on your favorite

platform. You've been warned.