Insight with Chris Van Vliet - UFC Hall of Famer Bas Rutten: Discover Your Potential and How to Develop Habits for SUCCESS

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

Bas Rutten is a UFC Hall of Famer, actor, commentator and retired mixed martial artist. His new movie called "The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre" is available in theaters and on VOD on September 10, 2021. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his legendary career, how he found success by failing forward, how a Bruce Lee film inspired him to become a fighter, his fights with Ken Shamrock, thoughts on Jake & Logan Paul changing the face of boxing, how he prepares for a film role, his attention to detail and much 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 Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are good. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris. All right, my friends, welcome back to Insight, and here we go on another audio adventure. I hope your week's been going well. Thank you so much for being with us, wherever you are, whatever you're doing right now. As we are joined by the legend himself,

Boz Routen, and what a story he has. And as we dive into it today, it's hard not to have an appreciation for the amazing amount of power. that just exudes out of him and also his attention to detail with everything that he does. His new movie is called The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre, which he stars him with Randy Couture and bodybuilding legend Mike O'Hern. It's in theaters and available on video on demand this Friday, September 10th. Give him a follow on social media.

He's at Boz Rutan MMA on both Twitter and Instagram. And if you're not already, you can follow me. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. I'm guessing you already subscribe to the podcast, but if not, it'd be so incredible if you could subscribe or follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this right now.

And if it is Apple Podcasts, please keep those five-star reviews coming on in. I super appreciate them. Let's get right into this. I've been trying to keep these intros as short as possible because it's just so much good stuff here. So please welcome the UFC Hall of Fame. Boz Rootin.

Boss, such a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. I watched the film last night. Man, you are just such a badass. In real life, in the characters you play, it's incredible. Oh, I appreciate that. It was a fun part.

You know, it was not that crazy. I had a few days filming. It was, you know, I can mind hanging out with all these guys. It's the best. Have you always been a badass? I feel like in the public perception of you, this is who you are, but like, who were you as a kid? As a kid, I was a very sick kid. I had a very bad skin disease and had severe asthma.

And so I was the leper in school. That's what they called me. So that's where my fighting comes from because they were bullying me all freaking day long until I realized that if I would be like Bruce Lee, you know, because I saw a move, he entered the dragon from him. But that's it. I changed and start training. and I'm not the first bully out.

And what do you know? Everything stops. 95% of the people stop building me. Some poor bastards who didn't hear about the story, it would come up, but they would go there. Because now I really want to pay back, you know? I mean, seven years of being freaking bullied, you want the heads to roll.

Trust me. I feel like we all have those moments in our life that change our lives for the rest of our lives. For you, if you hadn't seen a Bruce Lee film, how do you think, you know, Do you think you would have got into fighting? No, I think if I wouldn't have my diseases, I would have gone in fighting. That's what I truly believe.

Because that set me up to start looking at that. I saw this Bruce Lee move. Yeah. So, no, everything happens for a reason. I'm a big believer of that. And that just lit a fire under me. And then I found out that was good. And then it became a profession is the weirdest thing.

I'm freaking in America right now. I'm from Holland. I moved here like in 97. I'm with you. I'm originally from Canada. you might recognize from my last name there. That is a Dutch last name. That's for the first thing that I said.

I say, he's Dutch. Wow. I say, well, that's a Dutch name. And thank you for pronouncing it correctly. My goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how you do it in Holland. Just to say, boss, boss Rutten, that's official.

That's how he pronounce it. It doesn't sound as cool as here. Bas Rutan. It's much better. How many languages do you speak? You know, five, but it's, it's just just five. No, no, because I have to say, I got to be honest. For instance, I speak Flemish because I used to live at the border,

which is a very bad slang from Dutch. And since we live at the border, it's easy for us to understand. I speak Afrikaans because that's an old Dutch. So you see, they're kind of not real because it's very close to my language. But I speak German as well, English, Dutch, and then Afrikaans, which is a very old Dutch, like my grandmother would speak, and then Flemish because we used to live at the border and have this weird slang. But it's easy to understand.

So do you think in English now because you've been speaking it for so many years? Yeah, yeah. I started doing that a bunch of years ago, you know, dreaming also in English. And that's weird because my wife is from Holland and we speak Dutch at home. That's for our kids is the worst. In school, English is always their worst subject because our grammar is the opposite way. We still speak Dutch to the kids sometimes. They speak English back to us.

So it's a weird house. Wow, that's so funny. So growing up, you know, you're getting into fighting, you're starting to realize you're pretty good at this. When did you realize you could actually make a living at it? Never. I never did. I was just pure look.

I'm telling you, I was also old of old, 28 years old. So, okay, so I was a striker, a tie boxer. I did a whole bunch of tie boxing matches. Then I took a fight, I retired for a while because, you know, I was just knocking people out. And it wasn't interesting for me enough. And then I was one time I was, I didn't train for three years. I was drunk at a party somewhere and somebody asked me if I wanted to face this new guy

or not a new guy, but he came out of prison he was training in prison, Frank the animal Lottman. And I said, what do you mean? He said, yeah, well, he's fighting when he comes out and he needs to the opponent. I said, sure, I fight him. I had no clue that I said that I said that weeks or months later, they called me and I said, hey, why do I send the posters to? I said, what posters?

I said, what post? I'm going to fight? I said, who's fighting? You? I said, am I fighting? He says, yeah, who? And they go, Frank Lopman, I got the animal. And he goes, yeah. I said, when did I say that? He said, well, on New Year's Eve, I go, and I realized, oh, yeah, I did talk to him. So now I was better holding,

I wanted to keep my words. And I said, what is the fight? And it was like three weeks later. And I didn't work out for three years. And I was a bouncer. That means five o'clock the club closes, that we go party, you know? So I was not living the healthiest out.

I should have never taken the fight, but, you know, I'm a man of my word. And, of course, I lost the fight. And at that moment, everybody spit me out in Holland. They forgot about all the other numbers. knockouts, suddenly I was the worst fighter. And that really got to me. And I go, you know, I'm never going to fight again.

And then my wife in 92, and she was looking at me and she said, you're going to be a famous fighter in Japan. I said, no, I told you, I'm not going to fight anymore. I don't want to. She said, yes, but she said, for Holland, you're going to go to Japan. And I said, whatever, you know, it was just a weird comment. Who would say that? And then eight months later, they called me, and there's a tryout in Amsterdam, jump in the car

right now. And that was for new organizations called Free Fighting. And there was some Japanese guys. They were looking for new talent. I got in a... Sorry, I got in the brawl with a guy and knocked him out because he tried to knock me out. And they were pointing at me to say,

we won him. And that was it. Two months later, that was in 93. September 93. I was fighting in Japan and that's where it became my profession. So when you're working as a bouncer, I mean, you're pretty much fighting every night anyway. Yeah, in Holland, yes.

You do it, in Holland, it's not as bad as it is... Well, it should be the same as... Like if you knock somebody out, you know, most of the day you have to go to the police station. That's here in America. In Holland, the police cops, and they knew us by now. They know me. Like, I was the bouncer who got chosen not because I could fight, but because I'm good with people. You know, like from the 10 situations that happened, nine I will diffuse, 100%.

Because I'm just talking and I'm just saying, what happened? And if you break things down with drunk people, they're going to realize that they're fighting for nothing. It's a bullshit reason. They go, yeah, I didn't see it like that. So what do you drink? Your beer? Boom. okay, cheers, take hands, let's go. That's why I was a wanted bouncer

because I was just really good at diffusing fights. You were like The Mediator. The Mediator. That's the title for a movie, yeah. That will be such. That's Buzz Routin's next film, The Mediator. Boss Routen, the mediator. Who do you think was most influential

when you were coming up that really started to make you realize that potential in yourself as a fighter? You know, what a guys that were beating me in the beginning, you know, like a Funaki Mazakatsu was my third match because I was a striker. I'm punching and a kicker, and I didn't know anything on the ground. I literally the first year in Japan, I fought nine fights. I had no ground experience.

So I just traded on the back pretty much. So when he beat me, okay, I need the submission. I was looking up to death. And Ken Shembro beat me by submission. And the last time I lost against Ken by way of submission, that was the moment I said, okay, I had to go to change my whole fighting style. I'm going to quit. Because, yes, I might become a champion by knockout.

And then the next, I lose the title defense because of the submission again, because I don't learn this game. So I started forcing myself to like it because somehow I didn't like it. I didn't think it was manly enough. What really weird thoughts I had. But then I started seeing the capabilities. And then I start realizing, wait a minute, I mean, as a good submission fighter, you are able to dislocate any joint in the body, and break any bone in the body. I mean, that's a big, thinking power to have,

and that's lit. And suddenly I became obsessed. And I just was, day and I, two or three times a day, I was working out. I would wake up my wife in the middle of the night

because I would dream a submission. I would put her in that submission. And I would write it down, and I said, your shoulder serving, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, this was constantly post-its everywhere.

But you know what? Hardware pays off. I never lost a fight again after that. I actually, after my last fight, I lost my submission. I won my next eight by way of submission. You see, so I completely changed the whole thing.

And like I said, that's when I never lost again. So it's just putting the work in. I think what's so fascinating about your career is you're like a tactician. Like I feel like you're like a almost like a scientist in there the way that you break things down. It's so incredible. Yeah, I think that's everything in fighting. I just came back from Spokane.

I was teaching a seminar out there. And it's like these people in the beginning, they go like, what's going on? I said, listen, I'm doing this on purpose. Like everything I do in fighting has a reason. I don't just throw up a combination. It is always to read you or to do it to see a reaction and then, oh, I follow it up with the same combination. Because most of the time, if I connect with a combination, then I look at the guy and not my head, like, here it comes again. And he knows that I'm going to do it again.

And most of the time when I do it again, now he's ready for it. Now he's going to blog those punches, but then he exposes his body. And that's when I add a few punches to the combination to a different target. And that's how you set up fighters. and I always been like that. I try to make things difficult in fighting as well. With me, my class, you have to think, think all the time, you know, just throwing combinations.

I'm not into that. It needs to have a reason. But you're fighting career coming to an end so quickly. Who do you wish that you were able to get in the ring with that you either didn't fight or that you want to fight again? Well, at the time, it was Hickson Gracie. He was a really good ground fighter. And I saw this documentary of him.

and I was mesmerized by his technique, how fast he was. And I just wanted to fight. He had his brother, listen, we are young guys. We came up, right? You see David, the UFC. And of course they start talking some bad things about pancreas, the organization. I was in, yeah, you should do that to me because I'm going to fire back. You know, so that's when the rivalry started.

But it was never a rivalry. I don't like you guys. It was always the rivalry. You guys are really freaking good. And I would like to see what I would do against you. You see, so thankfully Hickson News did that as well, because we met a bunch of years. years ago in China and he came up to my table at breakfast. He said, hey, boss, he go, hey, I say, everything cool.

I said, no, no, I, of course, of course. I said, it's just people talking. I said, okay, good, then you got it because people always think that we hate each other somehow. But no, mutual respect, trust me. Yeah, what about another match against Ken Shamrock? Do you wish that you had another match with him? Yeah, almost, but he didn't want to take a match. That was after, because when I fought Ken, I didn't have the ground experience.

Yeah. And then when I started, after his last loss, like I said, I won my next eight, by submission. I have actually more submission victories than I have knockouts now. You know, so that's, I became a completely different fighter.

And then when he came to the prize fighting championships, I was the commentator there. And I said, Ken is coming. Yeah. I said, I come out of retirement. I want to fight him. Tell me.

And he said, no, we already did that. There's no need to do it again. So unfortunately, I didn't have the chance. Well, with the time you spent in pro wrestling, I feel like there could have been some sort of a match there.

Buzz Root and Ken Shamrock in some sort of wrestling organization. And they would have, you know, especially I would have loved in Japan because in Japan the pro wrestling is, they call it the heart style, strong style, which is the same as mixed martial arts like here, you do pro wrestling and they grab an arm like this and apparently that's hurting you, you know, and in Japan is not. It's all real moves. So for a mixed martial arts to do pro wrestling in Japan, it's much easier than to learn all these things

that they do over here, which are not real fighting. You know, you would never use it to the real fighting. So if it's close to real fighting, it's much easier, of course, to do. What are your character in this film? This film is so much fun, the Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre. How much of that were, you know,

you're playing a pro wrestler here. You were a pro wrestler. Is it just like, I'll just slide right into this game. Super easy. Yeah, that's it. That's literally it, you know? And it's always, that's why you call me Dutch. You know, I'm a Dutch guy.

So that right away takes care of the X and then I have some people start saying, so, okay, now they know immediately. And like you said, yes, it was real fighting already, pro wrestling, and it was very close to what we were doing. So, yeah, there was almost no character change at all there. When you started getting into acting, was there anyone that came along and said, Boz, you're awesome, you've got the great look, we need you to work on your accent. Was that ever a conversation?

No, no. And if somebody would say, it would be good. Listen, if I study it, if I study the alliance, I get rid of it, you know, if I really want it. But there's a lot of ad-libbing as well and my grammar is just backwards because I still speak a lot of Dutch at home here also. So, no, it was never a problem. I did try to a lot to fix it.

Like in Holland they would say, I think or I think instead of think, you know, like those things, once I start getting rid of those, that cleaned up a lot already. But, you know, if I'm just shooting in my mode, yeah, I'm not from America. But like I said,

if I really study the script and they tell me, Okay, stay by line, my line, I think I can hide it. Maybe you don't need to hide it, though. And maybe that's part of it. Like, I remember in a very famous interview that Arnold Schwarzenegger did, he said he was taking accent lessons to get rid of his accent, but still keep his accent, but just so people could understand him better.

Yeah, no, 100%. It's the same. When they would say it, I say, what about Jackie Chan and what about Shumfowd and what about Schumpfax and what about these guys, you know? I mean, just write my character as a character from Holland. Boom, problem is fixed. It's one line in the screen. And it's all taken care of.

Other than Jackie Chan, who were some of the actors that you looked up to growing up? Well, Bruce Lee, of course. He was my man because he changed my life. That was when I was 12 when I saw Enter the Dragon. And that's when I realized if I'm like him, that bullying will stop. So he put me on the path. It took me two years to convince my parents to do martial arts because they always thought it was violence.

And I started training. I was taken out of the ring by an older guy who was dead. one of my beautiful neighbor girls. They were older. They were like 22. I was, yeah, 14. And he took me out of the wing, and I was training with the adults.

And from there, it just went really fast. I started dropping adults pretty fast, like in months. And then I heard these guys talk great about me in the dressing room, you know, and you have to understand.

I was a kid that got bullied, skin disease, gloves, have to wear gloves, turtlenex, long sleeves because I got, you know, and, you know, they only talk bad stuff about you,

but when adults start talking good stuff, you tend to listen to the adults. to the adults. And then I realized, oh, I'm better than I think I am. And then let me do the biggest bully fight in my school.

And it was one punch. It was so weird. There was literally challenged me and I just hit, knocked him out. That was it. But he broke his nose in the process so that meant the police showed up

because normally that wouldn't, but his nose had to be fixed. And that was confirmation for my mom and dad, of course, that it was violence. And they took me off right away. But in their defense, I have to also say,

I never told them I was bullied. because my mother had an enormous amount of work with me. I mean, every night I needed to get mummified. We had family members sending an old bed sheets that they would rid she would rip two bandages and would creams on me. And in the middle of night, it was itching so bad. It would rip it off. And then she would come again and do it again.

So she's been a lot of my bad side helping me with that. And I didn't want to be another bother by saying, hey, I'm getting bullied this school. Yeah. I imagine that things have changed a lot over the years. But what do you say to a kid that's being bullied? now. What should they do? You know, it's

get an adult, you know, that's what I always say, because some of them, they don't have the fiscal capabilities to do it. But I always say, it's just a period. It's just a four-year period. These people are just dumb and something happened to them. Because a normal person is not a bully. You know, there's something wrong with you if you're a bully. You know, it's an ego thing.

It's whatever it is. Something happens at home. Maybe the father was like that to his brothers and his sisters to him, to his wife, whatever it is. There is a reason that they act like that, because, you know, and kids are also that, you know, we can't. We say stupid stuff. You know, you have no clue how much

things hurt by saying it. There are things that they told me when I was 12 that people still should watch out now saying that to me. I will literally say, don't repeat that anymore. And what do you mean? I said, nah, brings back memories. I know, it's going to be healthy for you. You know, we're going to stop. This is 40-ficking years ago.

longer and it's still in there, you know, that's right with the school shootings and all that stuff, you know, I can understand these guys. Oh, so, no, I'm not okay with it. Of course I'm not okay with it. But I remember a bad incident. I was watching a Tarzan movie and I got into a fight at a street job with a bunch of schoolyard with a bunch of guys and there were trees there

and it was Braun Branch was hanging down. And I saw just like Zorro or whoever did it. He grabbed the bridge and he swung over and he stopped them in his chest and somehow, my mind that will work for this particular situation. So I jumped up to the link and it broke and I fell on my back and everybody's laughing. Now this is after being bullied for six years already and I, we live about 200 yards from that school and I'm sprinting home and I remember grabbing the biggest kitchen knife and I start sprinting back and thankfully because till this day I have no clue what

I would have done. My mother saw me running with the knife to the front window. and she started chasing me and she was able to stop me at the right time. But that was the drop that made the bucket flow, so to say. And I don't know, I might have stabbed him. I don't know. I was just in such a rage at that moment. So, yeah, I always feel bad for these kids, you know?

Because, you know, also after it happened, oh, you killed somebody. I mean, tried to go through life for that. I said, oh, you've got to lock him up. I said, well, if it's a decent person, that's a life sentence, just walking around on the street. I couldn't live with it. It's like being drunk and killing kids. Good luck with living like that.

You know, it's emotions, man. Emotions, they need to be controlled. We were just talking about it. I was walking my dog and they said, I said, there's about five times in your life. You can be angry or less. You know, that's when somebody attacks the family or does something to a loved one,

where you really have to get angry and get in there. For the rest, anger should never be an option. It shouldn't because once it moves your emotions, you don't think clearly anymore. And you make mistakes. That's what happens for people. That's why they kill people. they just getting crazy.

Yeah. When do you think you started to get control of your emotions like that? Because when you're younger and you're being bullied, it's easy to just lash out. Yeah, that took a long time. Listen, I came back to the faith about seven years ago, and then I started learning about it. But I have some really good theology,

and then one day go over where the census started. And, you know, if you can control your senses, that's the whole trick. You know, the seeing here, all that stuff. Once you can control that, that's where you can start controlling your emotions. Don't get me wrong, man. The last time I exploded was,

and I do things to my, I'd like hit a table, like I'm a freaking 12-year-old kid to break my hand. And I go like, what is wrong with you? Just be, really? You can't be that angry, you know?

And it's like, oh my gosh, what did I do? So it's an explosion for a second, but of course, in that second something goes wrong. So I think fighting helped me a lot. Also, when I was 28 in Japan,

that's when I real, my fighting came together, and I became very, I knew everything, I heard the corner speaker telling him the instructions and I, I mean, it was like almost slow motion and that really calmed me down fighting. That wasn't so hard to stop

because it was, I have that ADHD. So it's very hard for me to stop my mind. But in fighting and in training, it was always calm because you have to focus. So once I take that away, you're going to start doing stuff that takes that away and that is drinking drugs, you know. You see a lot of athletes, professional athletes,

once they quit, and there's not the high anymore from knocking a personality from the 15,000 people, you know, which is a pretty cool feeling. You know, you try to replace that feeling, and most of the time, that goes with the wrong things.

Yeah. I'm so curious about someone like you, if UFC or MMA was a big thing as you were growing up, I feel like you would have had a career path. You would have gone, this is what I want to do, I'm going to go do it.

And your career path would look completely different than your current one. yeah this is all by accident this all planned that's what i'm thinking i'm literally plan out for me the reason the way it got i mean everything when i look back on my career the wins that i have the thoughts i had this you know it's like there's there's got to be a higher power here i mean it's so weird and everything just started falling together uh yeah it's it blows my mind still till this day yesterday i was walking the dog at this woman she's talking with me for weeks

And she goes, oh my God, I go, what? She says, Chris, he showed me yesterday, the videos. I had no clue. You were a fighter. It's such a nice guy. I go, yeah, but fighters are nice guys. What are you thinking? Then I'm crazy.

You think the fighters like to solve problems with fighting? No, because they don't get paid for that crap. I'm anti-violence, actually. You know, but don't get me wrong. If it's a bad person, who's going to get it? And that's probably still stamps for me being bullied. You know, if I see unjustice, I don't care. Could be 12 guys against one.

I'll go in. I can't stop it. And I had situations when I just walked there and I'm literally telling myself, what the hell are you doing? What the hell are you doing? And I can't stop it. I just got to go. But most of the time, they will seem that you're full of confidence.

And then you will disfuse the situation. And on top of that, like I said, I'm really good with talking, breaking things down. And then they were like, if people in their horn or horn or you know, I get out in the car. And I'm walking to them with my hands. I say, was that so really necessary now? I said, what do you mean?

I said, like one second it was green and you have to hang the horn for five whole seconds. I'm just asking you, is that really necessary? And they look at you and it goes, yeah, it was stupid. I said, that's the only thing I want to say, man. Just relax, take a breath. Why would you get so angry for a second of waiting? You never make that mistake? Wow.

I mean, I thought I'm only like two people like Mary and Joseph, who never made a mistake. But apparently, please shake my hands. You're the third guy. See, if I honked my horn and Boz Rutan came out of the car in front of me, I would be terrified. Yeah. You know, I had a fairly funny situation. My daughter came over from Holland.

She's older. She's with my grandson. Also, my grandson. And we were sitting in the car and it was warm and all the windows was done. And my kids were in the car. She was in the car with a boyfriend. And I'm making a turn. And some guy thought that he had the ride away while he had three legs for himself.

And somehow he gets angry. And he goes, he's from speeding next to us. and he's looking and he's literally, and we are freaking dying. They go, oh shit, boss for it, he said. And then he hit the brakes. And he was all the way back.

I'm really looking at each other. They go, oh, this is the funniest thing ever. You see, that diffused really fast. So that was kind of cool. How much do you think the fight game has changed or is changing with what we've seen over the last year with guys like Jake and Logan Paul? I think it's good.

You know, I think it's now, no part of us know there's big money to be made, you know, and hopefully they're going to put their feet down, you know, especially if you're a good fight. Look what McGregor did, right? He's, I mean, and they had to pay him because they know he's going to bring in so many people. They had to.

So once you have that, you know, Patty the Betty right now, this new kid that the UFC that fought like a couple of days ago, that's another guy like that. He looks with the beetle haircut he has. You know, he's got a great look, no tattoos, no nothing. He's a very happy guy when he comes fight. boy, he can fight, you know, and that together with the things that he says, I think that could be a next breakout star, you know, hopefully keeps his head clear, which I truly believe,

because he has, I looked at this path, he's very methodically, over like six, seven years he's been fighting and doing very well. So, but guys like that, yeah, they're going to have a lot of pool because they understand, the promoter understand, people will come for him and buy paper views for him, and they will know. So decide, oh, I go somewhere else, I'm not going to fight, you know, so now you're going to force them into pay. you and more money. Well, it's a business, right? And I think that for as much as people hate Logan and Jake Paul, you also want to see them fight because maybe you're hoping to get their ass kicked. Yeah, and I have such a huge respect for those guys. I mean, look what they did.

The YouTube stars, they decided to go boxing. They're really not bad at all. And they really commit to the sports. It's not like they go, oh, but they're drinking beer, partying and then a train? No, they 100% commit. And I have the utmost respect for that. And if you look at the, was it Logan Paul the last one Jake Paul that was Jake Paul and he was talking about

the fact that he said I was a bully you know after the fight he says and don't be a bully he said but I was one and I'm happy the boxing pulled me out of that because then I realized

oh I'm not the badass there's way more bad asses out there so I think guys who've been in that position everybody knew they were a bully and then they flip him around that's when you change minds man that's when you change other bullies into becoming just a decent person

You know, you talk about being so great at talking. This is why you're such a good commentator. Was this just, like, did you even have to do any sort of like training, or was it just like training on the job? You know, how I got the job, that was the funniest thing ever. So it was in 1999 or in 2000. It was just before the prize fighting championships, the tournament would be broadcasted to the States.

And I was there with Mark Kerr and a few other fighters, and I was the trainer. And so we're in the dressing room waiting with Kerr was always the main event. So we're watching the TV of the fight that goes on now going on at that moment. And we have some people from the Pride Fighting Championships sitting there. And they're going to get him in an armbar. And they're looking and they go like, what do you mean? There's nothing going on.

I said, I'll give it 10 seconds. And then 10 seconds later, boom, the guy's in an armbar. And they go, like, how did you know? I get what you can see the setup. I see him, you know, move a certain way that, you know, will lead to the armbar. And then the next fight it happened again with a knee bar, which is a leg lock, same as an armbar, but on a leg. And I said, oh, he's going to roll into it.

Watch this. This is because he's known for that. And he goes, yeah, but he's not doing anything. I said, just give it 10 seconds. And sure enough, he rolled in. And that was it. They came to me, they said, did you ever think about commentating? I said, no.

He said, you want to be a commentator on the next show? Because in the next event, we're going to go live to the States. I said, sure. Now, to tell you how green I was, I had no clue we had to wear a suit. I never looked at the commentators. I'm such an idiot at times, you know. I just focus on my stuff. So I'm standing there in my shorts, my flip-clops

and a Hawaiian shirt at the bus to go to the event and they say, where's the suit? I go, what suit? And they started laughing. They thought I was joking. I said, nobody told me to bring a suit. I thought it was just my voice.

You go to hear. No, you get into the opening. And then I realized, oh, of course, we see always the openings of the show as well. What an idiot. You know, but that was me at the time. I just didn't think straight. But what happened because of that,

we had to find a way to still incorporate me with my freaking Hawaiian shirt on. How are we going to do that? Thankfully, he had a really good producer at the time, Michael Braverman. And he says, we're going to make you skin out of it.

You're going to sit backstage. We put like six guy shots around you, defending you great, so you're telling more stories. I was fighting these 12 guys in the street, not that guy, you know, and then the person inside with the suit, he says,

okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're at the private funding championship, blah, blah, blah. My partner's backstage getting a little treatment there. He says, let's go to him and see what he thinks. They go, oh, hey, Stephen, how you do it, ladies, a little moment,

and I would do this whole spiel about the fight, and I'll send it back to him. Now, that suddenly became, that became a hit. Like, people go, oh, that was a great opening. So now, you see, things happen by accident, and then suddenly it became this big thing, every opening from the Pride Fighting Championship, was a little movie clip,

it was a little skit that we would do, but it was born because of necessity, because I didn't bring a suit. Oh, my gosh, that is a fantastic story. Yeah. I mean, you've taken the comment, so well. You're incredible at it. And I feel like you've done the same thing with acting. And you talk about like putting a commitment into it. I feel like that that's what you do with acting.

You put like you put yourself into these roles. With everything you've accomplished in fighting, what are your goals that you have in acting? I mean, you've done everything you ever want to do in fighting. Now, what are your goals in acting? I would love to, you know, I'm focusing on the thing. Like I said, an aspect of my patient. And I came up with an adventure for your lungs. To train your lungs. That's what I thought at the time. It's actually you're breathing muscles. doing it for you when I was 14. And I made that product about 10 years ago. And about four years ago, it started cutting attention because my chest expansion was,

I blew all the records and these long experts ago, like, how is this possible? And they found out it was the device that I used. So now they put it in their books. So now I have provenologist started buying a COPD people for COPD and asthma patients. My asthma was cured within three weeks. I had to carry an inhaler with me everywhere I went, always in my pocket. would sneeze violently, then my asthma would trigger, and I needed to open it up. Before every single fight I had an inhaler.

I don't even have an inhaler anymore. It's completely gone. And I said it to my friend in Holland, who has asthma. Eight days later calls me. He's selling him now in Holland. His asthma is going to. And now we say, okay, we're on to something here. This is really good.

And then, you know, all these tests started coming. See, and again, this is something that was born out of the defect that I had. And suddenly it gave me an idea to breathe. with resistance, it would be good. And boom, the thing was born. And now we're here. So right now I'm focusing on that. We're in the middle of it.

We had a freaking nightmare year because I ordered a new model. We were sold out. I ordered a new model, invested a lot of money. And I ordered it in August 2020. And it's still not ready. All the COVID has been, and we're sold out for seven months now. We're losing a lot of money. And then hopefully tomorrow I'm going to pick up a mold because I made a backup plan.

And thankfully, and that backup plan is actually. you know, the one that's going to hit first. So this week, it should be ready. And then I finally start selling them. Once I do that and it's going, that's when I start looking at acting again and for other jobs. There's going to be people watching this that are going to go, I have asthma.

And I would love to do what Baza is talking about. So how can they find your product? Go to O2Trader.com or go to Facebook and it's called Boss Routon's O2 Bootcamp. You have like 5,000 members there and many of those are using it. And you just put a question out there. Hey, does this work for my COPD? I don't even have to answer. People go, boom, yeah, don't use it anymore at all.

Everybody who's using it. Every day, takes four minutes a day. They either get 70 or 80% or completely rid of their asthma and COPD. That's actually my commercial. If it's not 70% or more gone in a month, in one month, I'll give you your money back. That's how I'm convinced I am how it works. Can you still use it if you don't have asthma or breathing? Oh, yeah, because for stamina,

Like I was breathing, well, not me. Again, I was breathing, but 95% of the people breathe wrong. Incorrect. They're using shoulder raises. That all stems from when you were a little baby, and it starts around six, seven years of age because that's when you look at the Barbie and candles and the freaking Avengers and all these guys,

and they look ripped. And then before we breathe through our, we breathe like we have to breathe using our core. But, you know, once you start doing that, people might think you're fat, so they start breathing chest breathing. That's why everybody changed their breathing into chest breathing. Now, four to six of these breaths are the same as one belly breath.

So when I was competing in Japan, I had these videos on the website. You can see it. You see me doing breathing like this. And that is completely gone with you. Like, I work circles around my 24-year-old students. I'm 56. And I trace seven maybe once a week. And they go, how is this possible?

I'm telling you, use the freaking thing. I'm telling you all the time because that has to be the reason. Otherwise, it's impossible. So it does great for everything. Back problems, PTSD, anxiety. I mean, back problems. Back problems, yeah, apparently because good breathing aligns your spine. That's apparently a normal thing.

I had no clue, you know. So now we're helping so many people with a simple little device. You look at it, this has no way. But it doesn't want us for you. We're going to see you on Shark Tank in no time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, right now, because we were selling the crap out of them and now with the books, everything,

and I have a famous pulmonologist is going to buy it, and that will all come out once they're ready. So hopefully this week, when they're ready, then I will bring that a pulprenologist, and this guy has thousands of people online that are all going to be treated with Yota Train. So back to the acting here,

when that ends up becoming a thing, how do you get into character? And how do you learn your lines? What are the keys for you? Learning lines for me, it's so hard because I don't have a memory like everybody else, has. But, you know, like for instance, now I have a talk coming up, two talks, two, 45-minute talks. So for the last three weeks, I've been doing these talks, two, three times

a day. That's a lot of time. It's three times one and a half hour a day. You've got to go, go, go, you got to just grind it in. But the thing with me is, once it's in there, it's, that's it doesn't come out. I'm really good. Once I have it, it takes more work than other people. You know, I have friends who are photographic memory or been actors since I were 14 years, like Holt McElney, the lead actor from Mind Hunter from that show on Netflix. He's a very close friend of mine. It's ridiculous because sometimes I use him to make a tape for an audition, and I'd go in eight pages of script, and he literally reads it twice,

and he gives me the script back, and he's got it. I go, yeah, see, I can't do that. For me, I need to work, I need to work. So it's a lot of memorization, but I do this every day. Every morning I pick a passage from something, and I memorize that. I memorize that. So I try to keep my mind busy the whole time, and so you get used to it. but that is the most important

because once your lines are hammered in there, you can completely focus on the whole character. Because otherwise you're still thinking that some of these actors you seem literally, you seem literally well-de-talking, thinking what the next line is. You see, that's the trick. But it takes a lot of hard work.

That's why I like movies alone because six weeks before you already have the script. Oh, I can dream it in six weeks. Trust me, because I'm going to rip the crap out of it. And then you can do different character development. You can play like this, the hot hat, and maybe a little middle in the middle, maybe too soft, you know.

I give them three varieties. I say you pick which one you want, but that's only possible if you know your lines inside out. I'm a big pro wrestling fan. I've had a lot of pro wrestlers on the show. And I want to talk to you about Samoa Joe, because I know you've trained with Samoa Joe. No, that's the thing.

Yeah, that's on the Wikipedia. That's not right? No, you know, I don't. Okay. We need to correct this, everybody. Yeah, and also I don't have a black belt in judo. That's apparently also on there. Well, we need to correct Wikipedia then.

Yes. No, no, we have to. Listen, I did that too. You know, you would think you would update it. You know, the thing is I can't change it. You know, I just have to go in. Apparently you can, but you have to verify it's you when actually doing it and take it off. Samojo, I already took it a few times off.

But every time somebody else puts it on, I guess, I don't know. Wow. Well, look, Samojo is an incredible fighter, an incredible wrestler. or he'd be even that much better if it was true that he did in fact train with you? That would be something. That would be something, you know, because I can change people really fast.

You know, there's a few gifts I have I can fight. I know that, but I think I'm a really good coach as well. I can see a lot of things that I can fix immediately by looking at somebody. And I really enjoy that because I can help a lot of people with it. But everything is, people don't understand. When I'm obsessed, like I said, I'm obsessed. you know, it's the only thing I do all day long.

And it's because once you love something, you do it a lot. Once you do it a lot, guess what? You become good. So, yeah, breaking things down, man, I love it. What are you obsessed with right now that we would never guess that you're obsessed with? I don't know. A lot of people look at me weird. I'm telling a very difficult Catholic.

You go like, what the heck? But, you know, of course, I have a backstory. I've been attacked by a spirit. I see the curtain and went in flooding my face. fly up against the ceiling with nobody there. I've seen the person walk. I've been, yeah, like I said, physically attacked. Yeah, no, very freak or scary.

And then also we came to this house, the first night you slept there. And my daughter was sleeping upstairs. And the next day, I'm asking my kids, how was the first night here? My daughter said, it was fun, but I had some visits from two boys. And they go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, back up.

I said, what do you mean spirits then, right? She goes, yeah. I said, you're not freaking out. She says, no, no, yeah, just wants to keep on playing. but I say, hey, I want to go to sleep, and they were very nice. They said, let me go. I said, well, two boys, yeah, how old? I don't know, 16, 17 years old.

And I'm looking at my wife because this is crazy. So I walked down, I take the computer, and I type in something ever happened close to my house. And in 2001, four kids on Christmas, poor parents, they drove three boys and one girl drove through the wall here. So I'm walking outside. You can see when they drove through the wall, and two boys, 16 years old, passed away. Wow. So now I realized that together. with the curtain flying up in front of me and with the physical attacks,

I go, okay, there's more to this whole thing that we can see with our eyes. You know, I mean, I've been physically feeling it and seeing things that are inexplicable. So that kind of got me back because I said, okay, if that is real, then heaven's going to be real. And if heaven's going to be real, I like to go there. So let's change my lifestyle and become a different guy. And never that, I was never a bad person. But there's a lot of other things that you can still work on just to be a good person. And you know what the fun part is?

As soon as you say something like that, I had my fan base on Facebook grew 5,000 people a week at that time. Every week, every month, 20,000 more for years. Can on. You know? And as soon as I came out with the fate story, it completely stopped for like a year and a half. You go like that.

You try to do something good. And apparently people don't want to follow you anymore. This is how people. how people are, you know. It's very weird. As we wrap this up, Bob, what does your morning routine look like? You are in phenomenal shape. You know, I have this big routine.

I'll do everything. And it's meditation, it's prayers, and stretching. It's everything. Like the first hour and a half, it's all, it's all me, me, me, me. The phones are all. Every day, no matter what? Every single day. No matter what, no matter where I am, and never break a habit. I'm really good with building a habit and don't break a habit. I'm the guy who at four o'clock at night,

walks you, through the, drive through the neighborhood, who's using a stern signal. I don't break that. habit. That's what I'm doing. Nobody's there. I don't need to do it. I don't do it. You know, because once you start doing those things, she started doing with other things and everything starts falling together. So, especially with my ADHD,

I need a focus and I need the habit. So my, but stretching, last time I was with Karate Combat, I'm with, that's a show I, Yeah, with Robin Black, my friend Robin Black. Oh, there you go. George, Tarantonean. Yeah, yeah, he's a funny guy. He's great.

And I was stretching and I'm falling in splits. And George goes like, how do you do that? I said, oh, I've been doing for seven years every single day. How many times you missed? Never. You know, if I miss it, this because of an injury that I can't stretch. But you see, again, that's a habit, you know, and it's a constant focus. And it's a good thing for a body to wake up in the morning to be completely clear.

Don't look at your phone if you want to do this. If you want to meditate, don't look at the text message. It's got to be completely ruined. Don't look at your phone. Turn it off the freaking thing. you don't need it, just focus for one and a half hour on yourself. And what I do, I go to the park, most of the time already trained. So when I wake up around 5.30, I think around 9.30, the phone goes on.

And the amount of work that I did at that time, it's just insane. I mean, walking the dog, I might have gone to mass. Actually, also, I worked out, I do stretching, I do meditation, I do everything. And it's a good time for you to wake up like that, because you need time on yourself. We don't have time for ourselves anymore. which you're the most important person for you. I always say that. You can lie to yourself,

you know, because every time you let yourself down, you get weaker, right? That's why the advice is a virtue, what they're talking about, you know? If you decide to be a drunk, every morning, when I, at this,

at least 150 times you wake up in the morning, you're going to hang over. Today I'm not going to drink. But then later that night, you know, hit the snooze button, I always say, and then I do it tomorrow, you know, and that's going on for years, you know.

So if you need a routine, to break those bad habits and change me into a good habit. You see, now you're working on your life. Nowadays, everybody wants to take pills for everything. It would lose weight, pop a pill. I want to be a relaxed pop a pill. I want to be relaxed, take a drink. I have heartburned.

No, what about changing your eating habits, dude? What about why for heartburn pills, high cholesterol, high blood pressure? No, just changing you. And you know what? I was exactly that guy eight years ago. Exactly that guy. But then once I start focusing on everything, I'm completely medication free.

I don't take anything and everything is normal. It's just training and it's just eating the right food. It's very simple, but you have to do it. And I've also said, I'm really good with, if something doesn't taste right, but it's really good for me, I just eat it every day. I get it for years, I eat oatmeal in the morning. And now I found out that oatmeal actually encapsules some sort of vitamins that you're doing and the vitamins don't work.

So I stopped with that. And now I start doing sweet potatoes. Well, I eat a pan of sweet potatoes, completely full. that's my breakfast. People don't eat so much. I can eat 10 slices of bread before I go to sleep, you know, because then at least I don't wake up, you know, because I burn like a freaking maniac. So, yeah, healthy food, man, and working out. It's very simple combination. It works. One of my routines, the start and end of every day is gratitude. And, Boz, I end every interview talking about gratitude. So I want to thank you for this amazing conversation.

Oh, yeah, of course. Thank you. The man. So the question I ask at the end of every single interview is what are three things that you're grateful for in your life right now? Well, you know, of course, for my family, is that everybody's healthy. I mean, health is everything. And you realize that as soon as somebody gets sick, my ex-raised mother just passed away from cancer. We had really good. We're very close still. So it's very hard. And then you realize, well, you can have a great family, but somebody goes, you know, it's a hard thing. So, yeah, health, I think is everything. I think money is not. I believe just, having enough to be comfortable.

So you, you know, I don't need the portions. I don't need all that bull trap I did. You know, it's such a waste, all that stuff. You start thinking, going back, you go, why did I do that? But you're young. You know, you did. I don't enjoy it at the time. So there's nothing wrong with it.

But, you know, if you don't really have the money to do that, well, you do, but I mean, you can spend it on so much better. It's not like I make that $20 billion. No, it's not like that. Not a million dollars. So why would I drive a car like that? Stuff like that, once you start seeing those things that we confuse happiness with pleasure. That's what we're doing.

And it's not the same. So we think our latest phone is going to give us a lot of happiness. It gives you a lot of pleasure. And then a new model comes out. You want that again. I stop doing that as well. No more updates on my phone. No more newest phone.

You know, all that stuff, I just let go because it's so useless. Whatever doesn't make you smarter, mentally stronger, you shouldn't do. It's very simple. And this is not going to make me smarter or whatever it does. A car doesn't do it. Nothing. It's useless, you know. Work on yourself, you know.

Work on helping people. I think that's the secret of their life. And then for the rest, for the rest, I assumption, I really try to, assuming is a bad thing. I always say, stay away from assumption. Because 95% what we think is wrong all the time, you know, and we assume we know certain situations. And that goes, everything goes wrong. It's like coming up with an intervention. and if you assume that that's a great invention,

well, maybe you should shop it around before you start making it. Because in your head, well, look at America's Got Talent and American Idol and all these guys. They believe they're really good singers and some of them, right? But they think they are. You see, so they assume they are. You're not. So make sure before you put a product and a lot of money into something, that your assumption is actually correct.

Otherwise you're going to lose a love. Yeah, I mean, one of the books that changed. my life is the four agreements and one of them. Oh, there we go. Yeah. That's a good one too. Yeah. They're talking about it. Yeah. Boss, thank you so much. The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Masker

is in theaters and video on demand on Friday. Again, thank you for this amazing conversation. You're very welcome, my friend. Hussu, that's what we say. And for the people at home, it's O-S-U. It's not O-S-S-S. No, it's O-Su. It comes from two words. Chapin these words. Oshy means push

and Shinobu means endure Shinobu Oshy put that together as Rosu and that's from now on you're going to get hosu to push up to endure look at that

Thanks, boss You're welcome brother Godspeed I love that guy Thanks again to Boz for spending some time with us today huge thanks to you for being on this journey with us

and for making us a part of your day today and for a lot of you for making us a part of your day every single day as you listen to every new episode, or maybe as you're diving into that back catalog of over 250 episodes of insight that we have there.

Again, Baza's new movie is called The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre. It's in theaters and available on video on demand this Friday, September 10th. And as he was talking there at the end, this quote came to mind that I will leave you with now. It's been attributed to many different people, so I will just give you the quote.

How you do anything is how you do everything. Be great. Be grateful and we will see you on the next one for some more insight. Woo. 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 it man, but get up in here. The Jim Rome show podcast. What should be? Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

You've been warned.