Jocko Podcast - 402: Discipline, Dedication, Hard Work, and Winning. With 3x NCAA Wrestling Champion and UFC Fighter, Bo Nickal

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

Bo Nickal is an American professional mixed martial artist, former freestyle and graduated folkstyle wrestler who currently competes in the UFC middleweight division. In freestyle wrestling, he claimed the 2019 U23 World Championship and the US Open National championship, and was a finalist at the 2020 US Olympic Team Trials and a Final X contestant in 2019. As a collegiate wrestler, Nickal was a three-time NCAA Division I National Champion (finalist in 2016) and a three-time Big Ten Conference champion out of Pennsylvania State University.Considered one of the most accomplished Nittany Lions of all-time, Nickal earned the 2019 Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation's most outstanding collegiate wrestler, was a two-time Schalles Award winner as the nation's best pinner and was also named the 2019 Big Ten Athlete of the Year.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 402 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. My son went to a wrestling camp when he was younger. And not just any wrestling camp, a wrestling camp known as the J. Robb intensive wrestling camp. And these are camps that were started in 1978 by National Hall of Fame wrestler Jay Robinson. and Jay Robinson competed in the 1970, 1971 world wrestling champion chips.

He placed fourth and fifth. He competed in the 1972 Olympics. He was a three-time NCAA champion head coach at the University of Minnesota, where they also won big 10, big 10 titles. And he coached 14 individual national champions. So very distinguished as a wrestler and as a coach. And he also had served in the military.

He was in the Vietnam War. He was an airborne ranger in the Army. And that service clearly had an influence on J. Rob, his attitude, and his camps. And I recognized that when my son went to his camp, they're taught something called the J-7. The J-7. The J7 are these, what they say, the necessary fundamentals to build a fulfilling and successful life. And I think you'll see that these things will obviously help person build a good life, but also turn them into a damn good wrestler. Here's the J7, the seven fundamentals.

Number one, discipline. Doing what you don't want to do when you don't want to do it. Number two, dedication, your ability to commit day after day. sacrifice number three you have to give up something to get something number four hard work you can outwork 90% of all Americans number five responsibility you are in charge of the decisions you make who you are and what you do number six accountability you must own the decisions you make that affect your life and number seven service give back to your community and and make a difference.

So these things are all, well, they're all simple, straightforward things that we've all heard before. They're not easy for sure. They're all obviously things that I talk about a lot. But that camp and wrestling as a whole left a huge mark on my son and my daughters as well. And it's been awesome to watch wrestling.

We've seen the rise of wrestlers in MMA. in the UFC. Huge list of, I mean, Mark Coleman, Mark Kerr, Tito Ortiz, Randy Cochre, Kevin Randleman, Kane Velasquez, Dominic Cruz, Brock Lester, Weidman, Rashad, John Jones, Rampage, Henry Cahudo, right? There's been some, there's been some just epic wrestlers in the sport coming up. And right now, what's neat if you're paying attention to this sport of? of the UFC, there's another generation coming into the sport right now,

another generation of American wrestlers, the next generation. And at the head of the pack, the shiny example of that next generation is a fighter and a wrestler named Bo Nickel. Bo is a four-time All-American, three-time national champion who was 135 and five in his college career, 61 and O in his last two seasons. And after competing in freestyle wrestling, he made the transition to MMA, where he's now

5 and 0, all first round stoppages. Four of those five in the first minute. A beast on the mat, a beast in the cage, but also an exemplary human being. And everybody says, great teammate, son, husband, soon to be father, and it's an honor to have him here with us tonight to talk about his life, his experiences, and his lessons learned.

Bo, Nickel. Thanks for joining us, man. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it. We're up here at Origin Jiu-Jitsu Camp, by the way. So we're a couple hours from getting a seminar from you on some, I'm assuming we're going to do some takedowns. Well, I was thinking, we were talking earlier, I was going to show guard, no, pull guard, guard retention. Well, you already, how many submissions?

You have at least one triangle, I remember. Yeah, I did a, yeah, triangle, arm triangle, rear naked choke. I have a few submissions. But that triangle's from your back. Yeah, yeah. I did. You kind of transitioned. Yeah, yeah.

I started a mount, but I like the triangle. I don't like to throw it from guard, but I'll start from Mount and then basically go to my back from there. But once I lock it up, I feel comfy. That's got to be very interesting for your brain, for you rewiring your brain for that kind of stuff. Can you even rewire your brain? So I think with my wrestling style, I was really never afraid to go to my back, like kind of high risk, high reward, go to my back to, you know, flip somebody or do something like that. So the jihitsu portion of it, it doesn't really freak me out a lot.

I think most wrestlers kind of maybe panic or this and that. But, I mean, it doesn't really feel that weird to me. I don't know. I like, I love it, though. I wish I did jiu-jitsu my entire life, but even better, I get to start when I'm 27. Yeah, you're catching up quick. Yeah. Well, let's start at the beginning.

Let's go through kind of where you came from, how you got here today. So you're born in Colorado. Is that right? Yep. Rightful Colorado. And how long did you live there for? So I lived in Colorado for the first four or five years in my life. Do you remember it at all?

Yeah. Or anything? Oh, you do. Yeah. So that's where my parents met. My mom's originally from Colorado. My dad's from Wyoming. And my dad's first job was as a wrestling coach and a football coach at her old high school.

Yeah. And so she was coming back from she would so he was right out of college. She was still in college and she was coming back in the summer to like help out the basketball team and stuff. And they just kind of they met and basically got set up by the principal at the school. And obviously got along well and stuff. And that's where I was born. And so what was your dad's wrestling career? So it actually goes back a little further than that.

So my grandpa wrestled his whole life wrestling college was a wrestling coach. And then my dad wrestled his whole life. and played football, and then he ended up playing football in college. But when he graduated college, got, like I said, a job as a wrestling coach and a football coach. And he just always loved it. So, you know, it's been in my family for a few generations. And what was your mom an athlete, too? Yeah, so my mom played college basketball.

And she did a bunch of sports growing up and a bunch of sports post-college, too. She did women's professional football. She boxed some. She did some wrestling. She just loves sports in general, so yeah. So that school principal was thinking he's going to make an athletic wonder. Yeah, I think that was fine. Yeah, I think that was fine.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so then how long did you live there for? Yeah, so that was there just as a kid, five years. And then I moved from Colorado to Wyoming where my dad's family's from. So it was just a few hours away. But my granddad, my grandpa, he was a good. coaching and he had a heart attack. And so my dad wanted to be closer to family and kind of then like take over his position and start coaching his alma mater, his wrestling team. So then I lived there for,

I don't know, until I was 12 or so. And so wait, this is in, this is in Wyoming? Wyoming, yeah. So this is where your wrestling started, was in Wyoming? I wrestled a little bit in Colorado, like my very first kind of practices and, but not really. Like I was, you know, five years old. So Really, it started in Wyoming where my dad was running the high school program, running the youth program, and I was kind of just really getting into it, starting to get some actual matches and stuff like that. What approach did he take, because I get asked this question five times a day in some cases, what approach did your dad take? Because obviously he wanted you to wrestle.

Right. And a lot of people, they want their kids to do something. Yeah. For me, a lot of times people are asking about jujitsu. But what approach did your dad take that you didn't feel like you, oh, my dad's making me do this and it's forced on me and I hate it because there's people that end up in that situation. What approach is your mom and dad take? You know, I think that there's a couple things that are important. I think that one, I was just surrounded a lot, you know, when I was born in January.

And so February is generally the high school. Did they plan that? I don't know. They might have. I tried to plan it. So my wife's due date is like the very end of December. So I'm hoping for like one like a week late. So we'll see.

But I don't know. They might have. But it worked out really well. And but back to what I was saying, the state wrestling tournament is generally like February-ish. And so I was like a month old at my first state wrestling tournament. So I've just literally been around it my entire life. And I think that I always gravitated.

towards it for some reason, but I think a big part of why I didn't ever feel pressured to wrestle was because I did other sports too. Like I said, my dad played college football. And so I played football, baseball, soccer, I ran track, I did swimming. Like, I did every sport you could do growing up. And wrestling was always the one I was probably best at and that I liked the most. But there was a lot of breaks. And I think that if you take a five-year-old, old or a six-year-old and you tell them they're going to be a wrestler and they're going to wrestle in college. It's like they're just a kid, you know, and like you got to let them be a kid, let them figure things out, let them do different stuff, figure out what they like. And I think

I was just lucky that, not necessarily lucky, but I was just in a position where I was around wrestling the most. I just also happened to like it the most. And at the same time, I could get a break from it as a kid when, you know, football season I was playing football or, you know, doing soccer playing soccer. It was always, wrestling was the most important, but it wasn't the exclusive priority at that age. If you would have been more into football, would your dad have been cool? Yeah, for sure. If you would have been more into basketball, would your dad have been cool? Yeah, I think so. You know, I don't know about basketball. I was to say, what if you were more into, like, literature? Yeah, you know, I think that one of the things that is good is that my dad and I just

really bonded over wrestling because he was a coach and he loved it. It was this thing that he was, you know, passionate about and excited about. And we shared that, right? So he was the person from when I was born to 18 that I spent an insane amount of time with more time than anybody else. And we just really bonded over that. And so it definitely brought us closer. And I think if I would have been into something different that he would have just as supportive and just as, but, but it wasn't his passion as well. So I think because we did share that, it just created a really strong relationship for us. But yeah, I mean, I believe that my dad just, he loves me, he wants me to be successful and happy at whatever I do. And I have three younger sisters and he was super supportive

and, you know, happy for them to do different. They were all athletes too. But I'm sure if they would have done, I feel like if they would have done something different, that it would have been, you know, a very supportive environment. What kind of temperament does your dad have? So it's very interesting. My dad, I was. would describe it as he's very calm, very relaxed, pretty, pretty like easy to get along with. He's very friendly. But he does have this other side of him that's like he's a leader. He's like getting it done.

And he's very like he always ran programs, right? Like he was a head coach at right when he graduated college 24 and that's what he's done his whole life. And so he has that side. and it can bring out a demanding part and also a harder part. So, you know, I think that my dad just had a great balance because he pushed me and there was a lot of discipline and a lot of structure, but there was never fear. I never really was scared of like my dad being mad at me. It was more like there was a some type, maybe I didn't understand the same.

fully as a kid, but there was some type of like understanding of, all right, at the end of the day, like if this doesn't go my way, my dad still loves me. He just wants me to win and he wants me to be successful and do my best. I never felt like it was all, we were always on the same team, if that makes sense. I never felt like we were fighting against each other. What if you lost when you were 12 years old because you did something like you did one of these risky moves that you talk about you doing? And you lost, what would your dad say to you? So it's kind of funny. In the moment, you just see things differently, and then, you know, you take a little time and you can look back and see it for, I think, more of reality.

And there were times where I would lose and feel like he was mad at me, but I would take a day or take a week and realize, or we would just continue to have a conversation about it. And he was never mad at me for losing. A lot of times as a kid, you know, like if I lost, then I would throw a fit or, you know, be mad at the ref or blame somebody else for me losing. that's he would that was not okay like that was where I would get disciplined right like I was getting he was getting after me but most of the time like if I lost and I was just crushed defeated he was the first one there for me to pick me up and tell me they love me and that he's proud of me and give me hug and stuff because you know I was just a very different kid I think at a young age at six seven eight years old I knew what I wanted to do and so it

meant a lot to me. It wasn't a kid that lost and threw a fit because, you know, they're just being a kid. It was like, it really crushed me. And so I think that he saw that. Like you saw your hopes and dreams being destroyed. It was like my identity. Like, like, I'm seven or eight or whatever and I would lose. And it was like, it would just like defeat me. And it would, it would last a long time with me. I think that's part of what motivated me a lot and help me get to, you know, where I got in my wrestling career. But yeah, that's when, you know, there was a difference in his demeanor when I would complain or make an excuse versus just be hurt, you know. Yeah.

There's an interesting thing I've been talking a lot about lately when, from a leadership perspective, when you're in charge of a team, you as a leader have to sort of often be the counter to what the team is doing from a morale perspective. So the team wins and they're all happy and they're all like, yeah, we're the best. You're the one that the leader needs to say, hey, yeah, that was a good job. But here's some mistakes we made. You got to pull them back down. When the team loses and they're all bummed out as a leader, you got to say, hey, guys, yeah, we lost. But we learned these lessons. Here's we're going to improve them.

So that's a very good point. That sounds like your dad found that same exact thing. If you lose and you're crushed, he's not saying, you're damn right. You lost. You should have lost. No, he's saying, hey, you know, here's the lesson you learned. You're not going to make that mistake again. and if you won or if you lost and you were blaming other people,

blaming the ref, whatever, then he's going to tighten you up and just pull you back in that other direction. That sounds like a really good way to handle things. Yeah, you know, I don't know. I think that he,

it was definitely coming from a foundation of just loving me, wanting me to be successful while also being passionate about what we were doing. But now I look back in, I see so many kids who, well, I mean, not kids anymore, they're adults now, but who wrestled their whole life and who hate it now or don't have a great relationship with

their dad. And there's a lot of questions in my mind. I'm like, how did we end up like that? Like, that's crazy that me and my dad are still so close and he coached me and we spent so much time together. And, you know, when the vast majority of people that were in a similar situation to me, they don't really have the same feelings. I think a lot of that comes down to alignment, right?

Because if there's a little meme out there, one of those little. videos and it's it's it's it's Matt Damon the actor and he's yelling at a kid and they have like a picture of a of the kid's bedroom and there's like a squat rack in there and a pull-up bar and like a bed and and you know he's saying you know after I remodeled my kid's room or something and the kid's like dad I don't want to be like this deep and he says you need to do this he says why are you yelling at me he says because it's a good dream And so they clearly like that kid's not aligned with the deck. But for you, luckily, you guys were aligned.

And I think what you as, this is my experience, what you have to do as a parent, what I have to do as a parent, what parents have to do is your kids, there's a decent chance. Like, hey, you might get lucky and your kid happens to want to be, you know, a wrestling champion or whatever. And that's what you're into. Cool. But if you want your kid to be a wrestling champion and they don't want to be a wrestling champion, that's where there's going to be a problem. just like in a marriage. You know, if you want to make a bunch of money and that's what you're focused on,

but your wife wants to have quality time with the family, there's a lack of alignment there and it's going to be a problem. So it sounds like you two are aligned. My recommendation for people is you have to align yourself with what your kids want. And look, if your kids are going to go through some phases where they want to do some dumb stuff, right?

So we're not going to go there. But as they grow up, they find out what they're interested, they find what their passion is. And you've got to kind of get aligned. with them. That's what you, that's what you kind of have to do. Now, you say you knew. How did you know? What did you know? How old were you when you knew? I would say when I first knew what I wanted to do, I was probably like seven, you know, like, you know, that's, at that point I knew just from being around who I was around. My dad was coaching individual state champions, state

championship teams, guys that were going to college competing on a national level. And so I saw that and I knew that's what I want to do. You know, at that moment it was like, all right, I want to be a state champion, you know, in high school and obviously in youth and stuff. And after I do that, like, I want to be a national champion. I want to be a world champion. And so it was really, you know, just my environment and seeing people that that was a reality for. And, uh, Very young, you know, I think I used to have this old TV that was like the big box with the, you could put the VHS in the bottom. And I had a VHS tape of, I want to say it was the 2002, it was either 2002 or 2003 NCAA finals.

Like I got, like that was maybe the first year they ever broadcast on ESPN. And Kail Sanderson was, that was the year he won his fourth NCAA title. And so I would watch that like every night. like over and over and over again and you know so that was yeah like I said I was born in 96 so I was six or seven years old and I knew like that's what I wanted to do I had my dad get me the same red head gear like like kale and um you know when I got more access to film for that we used to have this DVD set of the best the best Olympic trials and world world championship trials matches so would have John Smith Randy Lewis best two out of three Kenny Monday Dave Schultz best two out of three

all these crazy amazing wrestlers that competed. That's what I was watching as a kid. I wasn't watching like Disney or movies or stuff like that. We'd go on a road trip to wherever and my sisters would be so mad because I would throw wrestling in the DVD player. And that was just when I was a kid. And it was just what I loved. And, you know, I could automatically kind of just see a difference between me and kind of

the other kids that I was around, what they're interested in. and even a difference between me and the kids I was around that were wrestlers that were competing at a high level just by how much time I spent kind of obsessing over the sport just because I loved it. Like I didn't really have anybody, my dad never made me do that. My dad made me go to practice and he made me train and, you know, he would take me to tournaments. But outside of that, there was a lot that went into it that was just my decision. At what age were you when you started training year round? See, that's another interesting question. because I wasn't full-time wrestling until I was a junior in high school.

Dang. Yeah. So I played football. So I did tons of sports basically through eighth grade. And then in eighth grade, wrestling and football. And then ninth, tenth, wrestling football. And then there was honestly a time where I thought, hey, I love wrestling so much, but I could probably play college football too. That was in my mind.

And, you know, once I got a little older, I realized that I just love wrestling too much. It's just too fun for me. It's too exciting. And football is really fun, but I just identify with it on a different level. It's more of the team camaraderie, that aspect of sport that I really like. But wrestling was just more me. You know, it's me out there. And it's more my personality of, hey, at the end of the day, win or lose is on me.

I want it to be that way. I don't want to rely on whether I'm not a kicker makes a field goal in the last 10 seconds for us to win. You know, I'm just not that, that didn't fit my personality as well. Well, they say that that specialization of young kids isn't as good as people think it is. It's better to have them do a wide variety of sports. They just become more overall athletic. So apparently that worked with you.

I would 100% agree with that. I think that when I look at a lot of my teammates in college who only wrestled their whole life, they're really only able to kind of move in one kind of way. There's not a lot of different, differentiation of movement in general. It's kind of like that's how they move. But I see guys that do other sports and it's very unique, right? And I think they just kind of have maybe more upside. And in addition to that, I think it's, I said I don't identify with the team sports as much, but I do love team sports and that social component and having to work together is such a big part of sport in general that I think socially, if you start at five years old and you only

ever do an individual sport, golf, tennis, wrestling, you know, you kind of don't get that that socialization of competing together with people and having to work as a team and know, know your part and your place and do that. So to me, I'm grateful for having done sports for those two reasons, right? Like the physical aspect of being able to move differently, but also the social aspect of knowing how to interact with people

and how to deal with teammates and how to kind of struggle together, but also like come out on the other end and like win together. What were you doing with school? Like actual school work? Did you care? Did you try? Were you like slacking? No. So I don't know why, but I just always was good at school. Like, it was easy for me. I never studied. The first

time I ever studied for anything was probably my freshman year of college. And I mean, in high school, I basically, I never got to be. I was like straight A's elementary school, middle school, high school. And I think that, you know, I liked certain aspects of school. I liked math. I liked history. And the other, to me, it was just like, I'm just going to do my best regardless of what I'm doing. And that was my best. I think in college, I lost that a little bit the first couple years because I just didn't care. I was like, I'm here to Russell.

Let's be real. Now, this is what I'm here for. So I'm not going to kid around. So, you know, I'd miss class here and there. And Mike kind of got away from a little bit of that. I mean, I still did well in school. I had like, you know, 3.0 or something like that. but it wasn't what I could have been doing.

And I just remember my coach came up to me and was like talking to me about it. I'm like, I don't like, I'm going to, like, I'm going to wrestle. Like I'm not going to, you know, I thought I wanted maybe go to med school or something. I was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to wrestle. And then he's like, I get it, I get it. But you can't be doing this and not, if you're going to do something, you should just do your best. And I was like, that's a great point.

So then, you know, after that, it was all, it didn't matter to me what my grade was. It was all effort-based. So it was, I'm not going to miss a class that I, that I'm, like, if I don't have to, like if I'm traveling for wrestling, obviously I have to, but I'm not going to miss any class. I'm to sit in the front row. I'm going to be engaged. And my grades got a lot better.

I ended up with like a three, two, three, three, three, something like that. And, yeah, it was, I think that's the main thing for me was in school. Just do your best. That's, that's it. So you didn't stay in Wyoming, though. Your next move was to New Mexico? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So at about fifth grade, so I was like maybe 11, 12, my mom and, dad. My mom did not like Wyoming. It was like crap weather. We lived in a town of 5,000 people. And it was just not really her type of environment, you know. And so then, and in addition to that, it was just a small town. You know, my parents were looking for good opportunities for myself or my sisters. And so my dad got a head coaching job offer in New Mexico at a school called Rio Rancho, which had one of like honestly, a lot of top programs in the country. There was tons of kids there that were just super super high level and uh you know my mom was like this is definitely a little better weather and the environment's a little nicer and stuff so um made the move there and uh yeah live live there for a

years and that's really where i started i was serious about wrestling before that but that's where i started almost doubling down on it even more but you still weren't training full time no so basically my schedule would be um you know the fall months all get like maybe july august through October football but and and and it depended like I would probably hit one or two wrestling training sessions a week um and then maybe like I would do one one tournament or something like that like during football season but it was it was mainly just football I'd have that it was three four months out of the year to just focus on football and And then this summer I would do other sports, track or baseball.

But the other sports weren't as serious. It would be like, you know, I would just basically still be doing a full wrestling schedule through those sports. Oh, so you were training year round. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I was training, I would say this.

I was training, if you look at it, can you believe it was probably 10 months out of the year. Okay. I just did everything. I just loved it. So other than football season, you're wrestling. Yeah. Yeah. And you made varsity your eighth grade.

when you were in eighth grade? Yeah, so it's interesting, interesting story. I weighed 100 pounds, so it was 103 at the time, yeah. So basically what was going to happen was I had a really good football team that year. And I was also a little small. So, I mean, not like super small, but like somewhat small. So between seventh and eighth grade, we were all going to get held back. And it was going to be like, create this super team for sports.

And it was going to be insane. And all the parents got together. Yeah. Yeah. We're just like, yo, we got this. Yeah. And it was like, okay, let's do it. And so, yeah.

And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, like, my best friends. And so, yeah, we, do this, do this. And, do this, over. And, uh, and, uh, they're like, okay, everybody, all these other kids can do it, but you can't do it. And I was like, and, and they're like, your, your state test scores are too high. We can't allow you to.

get held back. And I'm like, what the freak? But like, this doesn't make any sense. They're like, you scored at this grade level, whatever, like, there's no way to, we're just not going to allow it. And they're like, put their foot down. Nobody taught you had a bomb a test yet. Yeah, I know. I should have. But I was just like, what are we going to do? And my dad was just super pissed because they let everybody go besides me. And so my dad's like, all right, you're going to get homeschooled this year. And so in eighth grade, I was homeschooled and I just wrestled. And I played on my football team, too. But did you still? Did you still? repeat the year then as a homeschooler?

No, so I didn't repeat the year. So basically we kind of just decided that since, oh yeah, so since I had to move up a grade to stay with my football team, I basically, because it wasn't a school team, it was a club team. Got it. I couldn't do eighth grade because the years in school were like kind of weird where like middle school is sixth, seventh and then it was like the schedule didn't work out. So we're going to homeschool you. we're going to have you do football and then you're allowed to do as a homeschool athlete

the high school technically has to allow like your local has to allow you do one sport and so obviously I'm going to do wrestling and um in new mexico you can compete on varsity as an eighth grader because of just the way that state works like there's some states that just allow that and so that year was really interesting because my parents were both working full time their teachers and coaching and stuff. And I was just at home, like, I basically took a registry year. And like, it worked out. And you're 13. I was like 13. So I would wake up. I would work out. I would do like a P90X workout. I don't know if y'all even know those. I remember P90X. I would do a P90X workout. And then my parents, the first couple weeks, they were like, all right. There's people like Googling P90X

right now going to sign up for that P90X boy. Yeah. And so they were like, all right, here's all right, here's all your school stuff. It's on the computer. You know, you got history, you got math, you got whatever, all these classes. And I was like, okay. So I did them for a week. And then my parents weren't really checking. I was like, I'm not doing that.

So I didn't do school. I just basically took that whole year and I worked out and wrestled and played football at the beginning. But it was mostly just working out and wrestling. And the wrestling was just with the high school? Yeah. So what I would do was, and what I had been doing up to, you know, from fifth grade on, is and I would do the high school practice, which would be a little earlier. So it would be like right after school 3.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.

And then I would go straight to club practice, 6.30 to whatever, eight. So I would do. That's like four and a half hours of wrestling. Yeah, most days. That's what I was doing. I would do two. Yeah. And then I would lift in the morning.

I like the fact that earlier you were saying you weren't like a full-time wrestler. And here you are just doing nothing about wrestling. I just loved it. I homeschooled my son for a few years. He sounded like he had a very similar schedule but it was all surfing in Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah. Not much.

It was great for me. I mean, it worked out because I was somebody that I didn't really it was just what I needed at the time, you know. Were your sisters? No, you're just home alone. So I had one sister, she's a year younger to me, that she was homeschooled as well.

So it was me and her and we would just hang out. But you're 13 years old home by yourself, just doing whatever. Yeah. What did you eat, dude? Dude. The worst. I would like, well,

it wasn't all bad. It was like 50% the worst, but I would make brownies like every day. I would literally, I learned how to make brownies with the old like Betty Crocker box or whatever and I would just like make a tray of brownies and eat them every day. I don't even think my parents knew. And I would watch movies. I would watch like the one movie I watched 100 times. I watch Joe Dirt.

And I just thought it was the funniest thing in the world. How did you do your varsity or your freshman year? Your eighth grade year, how'd you do? I did okay. So our team was very good. So we would travel all over. We'd go to, you know, we'd go up to Colorado, we'd go to Kansas, we'd go to California, we'd wrestle in, you know, all kinds of big tournaments. And I don't remember how many times I lost, probably four or five times. And I ended up taking second in the state, which crushed me. It was the worst. I wanted to be, I'd never lost the state tournament. So from the time I was six, when I did,

my first state tournament in wrestling, youth wrestling, freestyle Greco folk style. So three state tournaments a year, I never lost at a state tournament until the eighth grade, my first year of varsity, make the finals.

And I'm actually wrestling a kid that was an old teammate of mine who transferred to a different school and who I'd beat. I beat a couple times. He beat me maybe once. And he freaking got me. And it was devastating.

It was hard. But yeah, I mean, overall it was a, He was the same age as you? No, he was like three or four years older. Yeah, because that's the thing people got to understand is in high school. When you're wrestling, you're wrestling by weight, but, you know, different people have different weights in life. And so you can, you were probably often, actually, probably, you were probably always wrestling guys that were 17 or 18 years old.

Yeah. And you were 13. So what my dad would do, this is funny. But when I turned, I think it started when I turned nine. So when I went up till nine, I was probably wrestling like at six and seven and eight, probably 40, 50 matches a year. At nine, it was like, I would have done this for real. I was wrestling like over 100 matches a year.

What I would do is I would wrestle the nine tens. I would wrestle 11, 12. So I'd wrestle 10 and under. I wrestle 12 and under. And I would wrestle 20 matches in a weekend sometimes. It was like insane. And then by the time I graduated the 10 and under division, so when I turned 11, I would wrestle 11, 12, and then the next division was 15 and under. So I was 11, and I'd wrestle 15-year-olds.

And that was a standard for me. And I wasn't just doing, like, local tournaments like this. I'd go to, like, a big tournament with kids from 20 different states, and I would wrestle as an 11-year-old. I'd wrestle 11-12, and I'd wrestle 13, 14, 15 as well. So I'd wrestle, like I said, 20 matches in a weekend and competing against everybody. My dad was just trying to get me matches. Yep. So I just have to send out some advisory information here because I did that too with my kids. Yeah. And it wasn't good because I would put my kids when they were younger, lower belts and and lower they were lower weights and make them wrestle up age, make them wrestle up belts and make them wrestle up weights. And so they'd

get their asses kick sometimes. Yeah. And I would, in my mind, you know, my inner dialogue was like, I'm making really tough kids. And in their minds, it was, I'm not good at this. I suck. You know, I suck. This isn't fun. I don't want to do this.

And what you want your kids to do is have fun. That's what you want. And winning is fun. Right. Losing is not fun. I think, I'm trying to remember where I got this from. Maybe it's Huberman, but I don't know who it is. 80%.

Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson. 80%. That's what you want. You want to win 80% of the time. So if you can get your kids to win 80% of the time, that's good. 20% of the time they lose. Then they, oh, I can do this and they feel good about themselves.

You don't want to do 20% win and 80% lose because then they don't want to practice. They don't want to get better. How often were you winning when you're 11 years old going against 15 year olds? So I'll disagree with him a little bit because if I would have lost two matches every 10 matches I wrestled, I would have been furious. I would have been so mad. So I probably won 95% of my matches. You know, I was probably, if I wrestled 100 matches in the year,

I would lose, you know, four or five. But those kids, kids that were four years older than you. Yeah. And there would be kids that were my age that would be me too. You know, like I would go to, there was this big tournament, Tulsa Nationals. Like Tulsa Nationals was the tournament. You get kids from everywhere.

And I never won it as a kid. I would always be, you know, second, third, like right in there. I never, I always placed high, but I never, I never won. Like one year, I actually took sixth. And if you look at it, there's this crazy picture online where if you look at the five, the six guys, there's like 10 national titles, 17 All-American honors, like multiple world champions. It's like crazy. Like in this Tulsa Nationals, you know, you look, it was, I'm trying to remember the guys. It was Dean Heil, who's multiple-time national champion. Joey McKenna, Ohio State Wrestler, Zach Hall, Isaiah Martinez, Anthony Valencia.

There was maybe like one other guy and me. And I was the sixth out of all of those guys. But yeah, so I was losing at a pace that for me was good. It was like every loss would really hit me hard, but it would, I would be motivated from it. Right. Yeah. And I think that, you know, if you're a parent and your kid is obviously doing well. Like, for instance, let's say you hadn't wrestled as much and you got into it when you were in eighth grade and your dad, your dad wouldn't throw you to the Tulsa tournament and let you get annihilated because he would have been like,

oh, no, we're going to go over and beat up some of these kids in this local tournament. It's all good. It's interesting this whole personality that you have that you sat here for like 15 minutes and said that you didn't really wrestle that much as a kid. And it turns out you were competing 100 matches a year. Oh, man.

This is not normal, Beau. I'll say this. I wasn't exclusively wrestling. I was doing it a lot, obviously. Like, as we can tell, you know, I was seven, eight years old wrestling. I mean, by the time I was 10, I had probably 500 matches, you know, like crazy. But it was to me not the only thing I had. Like, I had a lot of other things going on as well.

I don't know. The big question to me is I don't know how my parents managed it because they were both working. My dad was coaching. he was traveling with his team like how he missed in my whole youth all the way up until i got to college one tournament of mine and i did terrible i was like 12 and i was like got wrecked but uh yeah i mean my whole youth and i'm like the math doesn't really check out there because he has a full-time job and he's also coaching a team so how does this work but i don't i'm just like he did it so was he your coach always in high school?

Yeah. Yeah. So basically what happened was... Well, that helps, obviously. Yeah. So up until the eighth grade, we lived in New Mexico, he was always the head coach of the high school. He would have obviously assistance and then, you know, run the youth program as well.

So he was with me, coaching me every day. And then when I, after the eighth grade, from eighth to ninth grade, my sisters were getting a little older. We started to realize New Mexico, it was... had a lot of good things, but the culture wasn't great. A lot of gangs, a lot of like, you know, drugs, just kind of bad stuff. We're near Albuquerque. It was a rougher area. That's also kind of where I started fighting, where I started getting interested in fighting, because big fight culture in that area. But they just didn't really want, it wasn't really me.

It was more so my sisters kind of coming up in that type of environment. So we were looking for places to go that had great wrestling and were more of a, family type of environment. And so we ended up moving to Texas. And my dad also didn't want to, he was spending so much time coaching and wrestling. He wanted to spend some more time with my sisters. And he decided to kind of take a back seat and just be a dad,

maybe do like some assistant coaching work. And once we got to Texas, he basically just coached me and that was it. And he wasn't like an official, he was a teacher, but he didn't coach like on the high school team officially until the coach was like, please, like help us.

Now, you said in New Mexico, you started getting, and I quote, interested in fighting. Does that mean you were getting scraps? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I always kind of just being like a boy in wrestling and playing football, it's like that's a normal thing, right? Like scrapping. But in New Mexico, it really got turned up to like 100 because we were right near Jackson's. That was right when all these dudes were coming out of there that were absolute killers,

you know, Rashad Evans, Keith Jardine, Cowboys, Stormy, like, so many, so many guys. And so that was just such a normal thing. So what we do at these tournaments, first off, like, my friends and I would just fight. It would be like, oh, let's just fight for fun, you know. And then what we started doing was we'd go to wrestling tournament, local tournament, at a high school or whatever, and we'd get, you know, 15, 20 kids, right? And we'd go back hallway where nobody was, you know, the tournament's in the gym. go out the gym through the cafeteria or whatever and find a back hallway where no parents were

nobody was and we just get in a circle and we just fight so you'd wrestle your match boom you go out there you'd fight you'd go wrestle you go fight so i would get like 10 wrestling matches and i would like fight 10 kids at the same time like the same day and uh that was just what i what i started doing it was fun i just loved it but it was uh yeah a little crazy but that's just kind of where i first got introduced to fighting and saw it as something that I was just, I was like, I like this. Yeah, right on. Now, moving to Texas, wrestling is not huge in Texas. And did your dad, he must have looked at like Pennsylvania, Iowa, like he must California.

What made him settle in Texas? Yeah, so yeah, we looked at Iowa City. We looked at Blair Academy in New Jersey. We looked at Poway. All, could have been out there, which would have been crazy. but yeah all these school is very good um so i remember my mom my dad and i were driving out to texas um to kind of just scope the area take the job interviews and stuff and uh so i get there and the people were just so nice right away just awesome people the high school was massive the football

team was like the number one team in the country they had all these crazy plans they had all this train conditioning stuff in place with with the high school and everything was like it seemed like a college. It was insane. And so my parents saw that they had a high school science teacher, which is what my dad does, and they had a middle school PE teacher, which is what my mom does. Like, those jobs were available. And it was like, okay, that's a little weird that these two jobs are perfectly already available. So they interview, they get the jobs on the spot. And then they're like, okay, like, give us like a day to think about it. And we're driving back. And this is, we just found out about basically the high school I went to was Alan.

high school. We found out about this place five days earlier, maybe less. And then, you know, got the jobs and they're driving back. And my parents were just like, if this isn't God telling us where we need to be, like, I don't even know. So call back, accept the jobs. And then the next week, I moved to Texas and lived that summer with one of my now best friends and his family and just did their summer strain conditioning program and did like some summer football. stuff and uh wrestled obviously and then my parents and sisters moved out like the end of the summer so it happened so fast it was like oh we're in new mexico but we're kind of interested in other places and then a week later i was in texas it was like insane and did you so you played football

too yeah i played football for two years there and uh the high school team's insane so um i think my freshman sophomore year they were maybe state quarterfinal state semis but then my junior senior year and then the next like two or three years years, state champion, number one team in the country, 60 game on beaten streak. Now, the quarterback when I was in school was Kyler Murray, he's a quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals. They have like, I don't even know, probably 10 guys that were on the team that play in the NFL now. Damn.

Yeah, so the team was stacked. And I love playing and stuff, but I just, after, it's so different in Texas when you're playing football. It's not football season. It's, first off, we're going to do football season. It's 16 weeks. 12 regular season games or 10 regular season games and six playoffs it's like it's a lot you go till Christmas and then as soon as you're done with that it's our powerlifting the next three months

okay we're done powerlifting we got full pad spring ball season so there's whatever 12 weeks of full pad spring ball okay summer seven on seven we're going to Arkansas we're going to oklah we're playing seven on seven it's like that's all year for them so I did it for two years and I was I was playing well and like I probably would have been you know I wouldn't have been the best player on the team but I would have been a guy that contributed a lot on the team and stuff and I was like but I wasn't committed like these other kids I was like I'm not going to not wrestle like I'm like I'm doing well in season but I'm not going to take all this and I do spring ball but I can't do everything else so in my mind I had to pick I just got to an age where I was like I got to pick a path

How'd you do your freshman year in wrestling? So my freshman year of wrestling, I did well. I had a couple losses. I had gotten a little bigger. So my eighth grade, I was about 100 pounds. My freshman year, I weighed about 120, 125. And I made the state finals again as a freshman and had an insane match with this kid who was a senior who was like two-time defending state champion. And he ended up beating me.

And so I got second again and crushed me. I just remember like, oh, that was probably. probably up to that point in my life, definitely the hardest thing I had, which it seems like, you know, I'm very blessed. Like I didn't have a lot of, like, trauma outside of that.

But that was the hardest thing I had to deal with because, like, it was like, all right, well, I can't be a five-time state champion, which I was never really like a big thing on my mind. I was like, but I'm going to win every year when I'm actually in high school. And then, boom, can't do it. And I'm like, oh, like, I just ran straight out

into the parking lot and just like, with a crush for an hour. My dad came and got me. I was like, hey, you got to get your metal. You got to go on the podium, like, take a picture. And I was like, no, I'm not doing that. And he was like, no, come on, you got to. But, yeah, it was rough.

How long did it take you to get through that? Did you, like, immediately Dan Gable just, like, start training even harder? Yeah, kind of, you know. It was right after that, you know, I had, like, I don't really remember. I kind of, like, blanket out, to be honest. You know, I know that summer I was wrestling at Fargo, National. tournaments and I did okay and stuff and um but I was still like I just kind of just had so much going on between just being a kid and school and football and wrestling that I was just it was just like

right back on it you know and I didn't really I don't think it to process that a lot but uh it was it was something that it motivated me because of how bad I hurt so anytime I go into a training session that's what I would think about I would just be like dude you want to feel that again or are you going to, like, are you going to wimp out on this workout? Do you want to feel like that? Like, what are you going to do? Yeah. Yeah.

My daughter, after she would wrestle, I couldn't talk to her for 20 minutes, whether she won or lost. Yeah. If she won't, and I went over and said, hey, good job. She'd be like, like, what I got? Yeah. She was emotional. Yeah. And then if she lost, I'd go, you know, that girl was tough.

Yeah. My son, no emotions, win or lose. Just this just looked like nothing happened. Yeah. Like, he looked like he just walked out of the grocery store. You know, he just had, you know, an overtime match and pinned a guy or got pinned or whatever. And he's just like, I'm like, hey, good job. He's like, hmm.

So interesting. I have videos of both of them and you're like, how are these kids related? That's so interesting. Yeah, totally different. Yeah. It was always really emotional for me as a kid, at least, because I put so much into it. So I feel like there was at that point, it was like, unless I, like, if I did what I wanted to do, I was like, whatever, cool, I did it. but if I lost, it was like crushed me.

Or if I won in a way that I wasn't, you know, sufficient, then I was like. Insufficient. Yeah, if it was like insufficient winning. Yeah, like, let's say like I was just mad because I'd be like, and at that point it would be like a lot of excuses. Like, well, he was stall and he back. Like, wow, this guy wrestled me. And I'd be like, and I had to grow out of that though, you know.

So it was just, yeah, very, very emotional thing, which I just, it was good and bad, right? If you let that control you, it's going to end up really affecting you a lot. And it did, you know, even through my college career. But once you learn, you have to learn a lot about yourself to be able to kind of move past that and use it efficiently versus letting it kind of dictate how you feel. Are you cutting weight at this point? No, not really. No. So I weighed 100.

My freshman year, I would wrestle 103. You know, I'd cut a little weight here and there. Maybe my freshman year I weighed, or excuse me, eighth grade I was 100. My freshman year I was 125. I'd maybe get up to 129, you know. So nothing. I didn't cut, really. I never cut.

My senior year of high school, I wrestled 182 and I weighed 170 pounds. It was best for a team for me to just be up weight. So I was just up. Yes, I just gave up 12 pounds? I've never been a big weight cutter, you know. Even in college, I started off 174. Sophomore junior, I went up to 84. My senior, I was 197.

weighing 200 maybe. So I was weighing probably actually, I'd finish practice 194, 195. That's crazy. That's just what I weighed. I just never been a weight cutter. I don't really, I always focused on getting better at wrestling.

Weight cutting is obviously an important part of the sport, and I would do it here and there, but, you know, I just wasn't interested in doing that. I was interested in getting better. So your state champ 10th grade? Yeah, so that was a big, like, right or wrong for me. So that was a big moment.

I felt like, all right, we're kind of turning a corner here. Yeah. Same thing, 11th grade. Yeah, it got a lot better. So that was the first year I just did wrestling exclusively. And I went from probably a 10 to, like, maybe like an 8 to 12 kid in the country to like number one. You still are going to like roll into some dual meets or something where you've got some kid that's been wrestling for like two years. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah. So I got a good story about that. So, especially in Texas. Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's just not good wrestling in general. Like, you get to the state tournament, the finals. There was one division at the time. So we're going to wrestle somebody good.

It's a huge state. There's going to be somebody. But you're at the district tournament or whatever. And it's like, this kid might be his first year, you know. And I'm like the number one kid in the country. So I remember one year. So our rival in football was this school. South Lake Carroll. They're Dallas school, very good at football. And we were wrestling

them in a dual meet. And I was like, got all my boys. I'm like, yo, come out to this deal. It's going to be sick. Like South Lake Carroll, let's do it. We were getting posters in the hallways and promoting it. We never got people at the duels. We'd get 80 people maybe because nobody cared about wrestling. Our team was state champ. We won state up to this year like 13 years in a row, like my high school team. We were as a team, my junior year, the top 10 team in the country. We were very good. But nobody cared about wrestling. But this one duel, I was like, yo, like, let's get it. And we had probably 600 people there, you know, like, there was a lot. And I was like, this is going to be crazy. This is going to be sick. And I go out and I'm looking and I'm like,

this kid is so bad. Like he can't even walk straight basically. And I'm like, what am I going to do here? And I'm still, you know, young, so I don't really know. And I just low single off the whistle, pull his foot, and he just like, boom, falls back. And I just like jumped on him. And I pinned it in like four seconds. It was crazy. Like, no exaggeration. I know four seconds might sound like a hyperbole. Like, I'm not exaggerating. It was four seconds. And there I was like, bing, slap the mat. And all my buddies were like, what? We came out here for this. Yeah. And I was, like, damn, I probably shouldn't have done that. I probably should take him down a few times and made it cool, but whatever, you know. So yeah, that's, you would get that once in a while.

but just kids that, you know, never wrestled, right? Like, they just, there's like, oh, I'll just try wrestling. Like, oh, frick, this is what we're doing. Yeah, you probably could have wrestled, like, the entire weight class all the way up. Oh, yeah, yeah. Then, so you said you're the number one in the country right now.

What are they basing that off? Are they basing that off of those big, like, Tulsa tournaments and stuff like that? Yeah, so the Tulsa tournaments are really just youth, so up to eighth grade. But then once you get to high school, there's different sets of tournaments. Is that like Sunkiss kids and those? There's that still youth. That's still youth. Okay.

So in high school, you have the big tournaments during the folk style season are the Iron Man. The Super 32 is a big tournament. They just have like big high school tournaments. And then in the offseason, you have like Fargo tournaments. You have now you have like U-17 and U-20 World Team trials. So those are very big. So it's basically just how you're doing against these other guys in the high school season and the off-season. and my team was traveling everywhere.

So we'd be in Ohio, Wisconsin, California, Oklahoma. Like, we were wrestling all over the country. And you're winning these tournaments. Yeah. And that's why you're number one in the country. Yeah. Coming out of Texas. Yeah, just, you know, most, it's a small sport.

So you go to a tournament, like, you're probably going to, if you go to a big tournament, like, let's say you go to a big tournament in Missouri and you get 50 teams there, you're going to get probably one or two kids in your bracket that are ranked, right? Like, you know, just kind of the, way it works. But yeah, so you're competing against these kids regularly. A lot of these kids I wrestled since I was little, right? Like, wrestled them as an eight-year-old, and I'm wrestling them in college. That's not an uncommon thing. When does the recruiting process start, or when did it start for you? I would say right about then. I was looking at schools, kind of trying to figure out

where I wanted to go my junior year. We'd have college coaches, you know, talk to me, especially ones that were close like Oklahoma Oklahoma Oklahoma State and then schools that were maybe a little smaller that wanted to like get in early and try to they just have to recruit differently than a big school but it really started heavy I would say yeah like right after my junior year so I committed to Penn State in between my junior and senior year but really like the end of my junior year it was like heavy and like do they could do they reach out to you yeah so they'll send letters at first, maybe like request your transcripts,

stuff like that. But a lot of times you know you're traveling to tournaments and you just see you guys there. Like I said again, it's a small world. So you just know coaches, right? Like when I was probably fifth,

sixth grade, we had my dad brought Coach Kael in for a clinic at my high school. So at this time he was competing. So like he, but it was like like, so we knew him, right? Like we'd talk to him.

Like we see him at a tournament. Like we would say, Oh, so a lot of the coaches, they know me or they know my dad at least. So they can just text them. You know, I don't know if that's illegal, but. Like Penn State didn't do that, but they were. Of course, they didn't. I'll say this.

Penn State is so by the book, it's insane. Like every other school didn't really, like they were just basically hit me up, mess me on Twitter, this and that. Penn State, they started late and they came in at the very end. But you knew Kail. already. Yeah, I wouldn't say we knew him. Like I said, I'd done clinic and it wasn't like I was friends with him or my dad was friends with him, but like we knew each other. And he's from Utah, so kind of like Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, a lot of those people know each other. It's just they're

wrestling on the same tournaments, stuff like that. So was this like the easy decision for you? Or was there other schools that you thought about? There were a lot of other schools. So up until that point, I took a bunch of unofficial visits. So, I visited University of Virginia. I liked them a lot. I visited Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ohio State. Basically what happened was I wrestled at a tournament in Ohio. It was the whatever U-17 World Team Trials.

And before the tournament, I went to Columbus and visited Ohio State and met with the coaches and stuff. And I was like, oh, this is great. I love this place. It's awesome. And they had been in contact with me and stuff. And they were like, all right, full scholarship, you're set. Let's do it.

I'm like, okay, cool. Like, you know, I want to visit Penn State as well because I plan to visit Penn State right after. So I ruffled a tournament. And then my dad and I drive to State college visit Penn State. Vibe is so different, but I love it. They're like, so I just remember this. Everything with Ohio State was, which I loved Ohio State, but it was so flashy. Like they took me the football facilities.

I remember with the quarterback. It was like J.T. Barrett or something. like that he's throwing passes to receive it they're like showing me like this is big time this is cool and I'm like this is cool wow this incredible I get to Penn State I go up in the coach's office the office is like this big it's like normal couches and they're like so what's up like you like wrestling I'm like I like wrestling like I like wrestling like they're just like having conversation they're just trying to get to know me and stuff and very very casual laid back and then I walked around campus and stuff and I was like I like these guys let's let's make it

let's figure this out. Every other school at that point had been 100% your school is paid for, you're good to go. And then Penn State, I was like a few weeks later, my family was taking vacation to the Cayman Islands. We never took a family vacation. This is the first one we ever took together because I was always wrestling. And they were like, I'm like, I want to get this college thing figured out before I go on seven-day vacation and don't have my phone and stuff. So I was just told the coaches, I'm like, yo, make me an offer. Like, what are you guys going to do?

And they're like, okay, here's what we can do. We can do 50% your first year because we have a big recruiting class. After that, we'll give you 100%. So you're going to have to come out of pocket, out of state tuition, 50%, 25 grand, something like that. And I was like, done, let's do it. I'm ready. And I called Coach Kale, good with me. I'm coming to Penn State.

Let's do it. And then I leave on vacation. And somehow the news got out a little bit. I told, I was like, don't tell anybody, like, keep this between us, like, don't say anything. And I don't think, I don't know how it got out. Coaches told somebody, I don't know. But anyways, I come back and they're like a couple of missed calls, a couple texts, blah, what's up? So then I have to call every coach because I didn't want to just, now people just do announcement on Twitter and then people figure it out.

I wanted to be like, these coaches invest a lot of time to me. So I'm going to call, you know, John Smith. I'm going to call Tom Brands. I'm going to have a conversation with these guys and let them know where I'm going before it's tweeted live. Which was interesting. So that's what happened. Yeah, yeah. It was the right thing to do.

It was definitely not fun. But it wasn't that bad. Yeah, yeah. I was just like, I only had one bad experience. Right on. Yeah. We'll keep that one for off recording. Yeah.

When you're in high school, you're kind of, you're just dominating, but you're doing these other tournaments. Did you start doing, did your dad, did your coaches, were you started to do anything like from a mental perspective to get? get ready to compete? That's a great question. In high school, I'm trying to think. In high school, it was just all honestly intuition, off the cuff.

Like, you know, my dad, I think, was just a good natural leader in that. So the way he would structure his practices is we'd get our warmup in. He'd have everybody kind of do like a team, maybe some push-ups, some like ab type work. And then he would give everybody like a quote of the day. Do like a quote of the day, kind of some type of mental motivation or mental how to approach competition or practice or focus, whatever that was. It was different every day. And then so it was something that was kind of talked about in that sense, but I didn't do specific coaching to me until I got to college. And but I felt like I had a good base and understanding of just kind of the natural like mental game of how to how to compute.

heat. But there were still a lot of things that I think that were holding me back. When you were in high school and you were getting ready to do the finals in the state tournament, what was going through your mind? 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade. Yeah. So in high school, you know, I think that the main thing that I would think about was obviously winning and losing was on my mind heavy. But I would think like, just push that down. Just don't think about it. Just go out there and send it. Like just get after. it like go out there and freaking go for it and that that's kind of was like my coping mechanism was was i'm just going to go for it like like whatever like let's go let's do it like i don't care like kind of

just like cowboy up like let's go and and that's kind of was my only real mental kind of strategy for dealing with stress and pressure and competition while i was in high school which it would work out a few times but not as consistently as that would i would have liked it to be yeah we We actually, I got asked a question about this handling stress, and we did a podcast about it. And I, for the first time in my life, thought about what I did going into stressful situations. And what I came up with was like everything in the beginning was all like,

oh, yeah, okay, you're going to practice, you're going to prepare, you're going to rehearse, you're going to do all these things. You're going to think about how it's going to go down. I had all those things, but there's one thing that I've been doing my whole life that I never really thought about, which is kind of very similar to what you just said, which is basically up until the execution, I'm super humble, like practice, prepare, plan, think through things, rehearse again,

like all that stuff that comes from humility. And then like when I put my night vision goggles on, when I lock and load my weapon, I'm like, I'm gonna kill everybody. Like I can't be stopped. Like we're gonna crush the enemy. So there's a level of cockiness that comes out. Yeah, just like, okay,

where I'm ready to go. And even if I'm going to talk to a group of people, like I don't sit back, you know, backstage like, oh, I hope I don't mess anything up. No, I think like, oh, I'm going to go, you know, these people are going to get their world's rocked right now. Let's go. So I had this just was doing an archery up in Montana.

And I was shooting with Laif, my buddy. And I was shooting. And because we had done this podcast, I had this mindset. And I was going up there and we're doing the 3D archery shoot. And so there's freaking crazy targets, you know, they're between trees and up hills, downhills. There was one of them that was a little white rabbit at 72 yards.

Like these are hard freaking shots to make. And for the first time ever, I went through the whole course with one arrow, right? Which is hard to do. It's 25 shots, one arrow. And these are crazy shots. But I was talking to Laf and I told him that. And I was like, hey, bro, when I walk up to that line,

I'm just like, I'm going to freaking smoke this thing. And that's what happens. You know, you just, because if you're thinking, I hope I miss it. I hope I don't miss. I hope I don't hit that rock. I hope it hit that the tree. You're guaranteed to hit that freaking tree.

Just call timber before you shoot you to hit that tree. And so I think that's similar to what you're saying. And the interesting thing is that's kind of how you wrestle. Like when people watch you wrestle, it's easy to see that you're going, I'm just going to freaking get after it. I'm going to send it. Yeah, for sure. You know, I think that I just always had that.

That was naturally just me, my personality. And it got kind of, I guess, highlighted and, and, you know, brought even more to the front when I would compete. But at the same time, now I look back in, there were a lot of mental things that I have added to my game and that I feel like, and things that I was also just doing incorrectly. Like, like, just different focuses that now I'm like, I had to let those go. And I had to learn lessons that basically brought me to where I am now, right? Like, it's ever evolving.

And I'm sure in 10 years when I look back at where I am now and be like, dang, that's what I was thinking when I was prepared. To me, that's the biggest part of it, right? Like, everybody's going to train hard. Everybody's going to have at what I'm doing. They're going to have skills. They're going to have certain things they're good at. And, you know, what's really going to separate people is mentally how they're able to focus and be free and compete. themselves like and be themselves right like that that to me is what I what I really try to

focus on now because like I said you're pro MMA fighter or you know college wrestler everybody's got reps dude everybody's got reps you got to be elite not only at that you got to that you got to have a different part of your game that sets you apart just before we get into college when you're growing up you're doing like strength and conditioning with the football team at Allen for those first two years are you naturally strong are you one of of these people that's like, look, your dad played football in college. Your mom played basketball in college. Like, you have good genes. Are you abnormally strong? So I was always, I had an interesting strength. I was always explosive and fast. Like, I could shoot very fast shots. I could,

I could run pretty quick. I could change directions fast. But I was never a strong guy, a guy that's going to grab you and you're going to be like, whoa, what the heck. But I was a guy like, I could pick you up and put you down fast. but I had to work a lot from all the way from high school through college really and still to this day my my weaker points are like that that brute strength right like that's not really and I tailor my style around that but I think you still have to have some of that so that's what I work on I work on the you know the squat the bench press the freaking just like not to explode through somebody but just like to grind somebody down and that that's the that's to me

what doesn't come naturally. So I work on that a lot. So you show up, you graduate, stay champion. You only got it four times. You know, three, oh, wait. Oh, that's right, because you're a freshman. That's right. Dang, weak, man.

I know. I still, I feel like at this point, how many years later is that? So 2010, so 13 years after, I'm a little okay with it. Like 1% I'm 1% okay. Actually, no, that's not true. So three-time state champion, you graduate, finish your senior year, you go to Penn State, and you redshirt your first year, meaning you're there, but you're not participating, you're not competing. Not competing on the official team.

You know, I'm competing in open tournaments and stuff and training every day. And that was a very interesting time. It was really interesting. I think back about that time in my life a lot. I think I'm in a similar time right now with MMA and getting into MMA. So yeah, yeah, interesting, interesting stuff. And you basically decided to do this because it gives you another year to train, learn, get stronger, get more mature, and that's what you do.

Yeah. How old are you at this point? Like 19? I was 18. Yeah. So I was 18. Yeah. Basically for me, the red shirt, it made a lot of sense for a lot of reasons.

I need to develop and get better. I was very raw, naturally talented. I had some good fundamentals, but overall, most of my wrestling was, it was wild gun slinging, like, you know, and I would come out on top most of the time. But there was a lot of risk. And I needed to develop a different side of my game. And so I was, like, you could put me out there against anybody, even a guy way better than me. And I got a shot. But that really wasn't what I was looking to do. I wasn't interested in. being a guy that has a chance to win. I was interested in being the guy that you have no chance, like, to beat me. That was, that was what, so the red shirt here made sense. So you're working with Kail.

What are we calling him the greatest, the greatest collegiate wrestler of all time? Yeah, I mean, collegiate, yeah, easily. Just, just unbelievable and like a presence, right? And I've never met him, but like you can watch him and he just has a present. about him. Part of it's because he is the greatest, right? But there's another component there. The thing you can't really identify,

what's it like with him for the first year? What's that situation feel like? So the situation's so interesting because, like I said, he was my idol growing up. It was like the guy that I watched and he was that guy I wanted to be. And I wanted to be a four-time undefeated national champion because that's what he did.

And, you know, that's something that to me, for the first while. I'm just kind of watching him. I'm just like, wow, like, what's up with this guy? He's quiet. He's very quiet. So he does individual meetings with the guys at the beginning of the year, especially freshmen to kind of get a read on him.

And I'm trying to figure him out. And this way he does. So I roll into his office. He's got like a big desk. And he sits back and he just goes like this. He's like kind of swiveling in his chair and just staring at me. And I'm like, we sat there for like 60 seconds. And nobody said anything, which is a long time, like, if you're actually doing it.

That's a super awkward secret, 60 seconds. So he's like, lean in. I'm like, so what's up, coach? Because I'm waiting for him to say something. And but then, yeah, I don't really remember the rest of the meeting. I just remember that. But then I feel like he was trying to figure me out. But yeah, and I think the first bit was just figuring him out and being around him kind of understanding what he thinks about, what he focuses on, what he wants me to do.

Like what do you expect of me, coach? Obviously, expecting to win, but how do I get there? And I think that first year was mostly learning through absorbing it, just being in that environment and just absorbing it and seeing not only him but the rest of the coaching staff, the rest of the team, how they do things, what they focus on, what their mentality is like. And yeah, I mean, I tried to really, really like be present and be around him and really really like I was wrestling on him a ton and just like absorb everything that that he was kind of putting out but it was it was a big learning curve because like I said I was very raw and had a lot

of good skills had a lot of success but had in my mind you know just as many kind of flaws in my in my game and in my mentality what's the what's the culture how would you describe the culture there This, by the way, there's both Penn State right now, they're the kings, right? What's their record right now past 10, 15 years? Yeah, I think we've won 10 out of last 12 national titles and it's just insane. So, yeah. What's that, what's driving that? What's the culture feel like?

Yeah, so, you know, it's interesting because everybody talks about how much we win, but we really never talk about winning. It's all about, you know, the principles that the program are built on. It's gratitude. It's knowing what you want. It's taking care of each other and focusing on effort. Like really, really at the end of the day, those are the main things. It's like effort, gratitude, know what you want.

Kind of in that in a different order, though. It's know what you want. It's effort, it's gratitude in the correct order. So that's the things that I was learning. And I think that they just take things to a different level as far as attention to detail. And being good at and proficient at wrestling technically is definitely what is focused on most. I think that they obviously have a specific system and a way they do things on the mat that's very different. I think they're 20 years ahead of everybody else.

But in terms of what technique or how they're drilling or how they're- Everything, everything. I think they're just ahead of the curve. And everybody tries to copy us with whatever we do. and it just seems like as far as the types of techniques that they're teaching, the way that they're teaching them are very different. The mentality is very different behind what to focus on when you're going out to compete. And also just the different, I don't know if amenities are the right words,

but the different things that they utilize to help us be the best and make things easier on us. Give me an amenity. like hot and cold tubs like like you know uh saunas stuff like that like we our weight room it's all right there um but but i would say the biggest thing like we have a full-time uh i don't know if i'd call her sports psychologist because she's not she does more than that but we've had a full-time basically sports psych for i don't know before any team ever did that you know like the coach kale was doing that when he was competing and that was in two early 2000s and and we've had one since 2009, 2010. So that was just a standard. Like you met with, you met with Bonnie, our lady's Bonnie.

What does she say to you? Um, kind of, uh, like, what are you trying to do? What are you here for? What do you want? You know, like, where did kale find her? So I think he was dealing with some challenges mentally, just being who he was and wanting to win Olympic gold medal. And I think he met her right after college, but they used to just, uh, do like phone kind of consultations. and she would help him kind of get a grip on everything that he was trying to accomplish and manage that. And then when he came to the head coaching position at Penn State, he brought her on staff. So she's been on staff with us, you know, like I said, before I even got there. But there was no schools doing that at all.

Like that wasn't even a thing. And now it's kind of like the standard. But yeah, stuff like that. And then, you know, we utilize, we have a great strain conditioning coach at Penn State, but we also utilize outside help for strain conditioning with the training lab. I don't know if you ever heard of training lab, but Sam Calavita runs it. And so he helps us. He's easily the number one strain conditioning nutrition coach in the world as far as combat sports go.

So we've been utilizing him forever. And yeah, and I think the other cool thing is that our staff, Coach Kale, his brother Cody, Casey Cunningham, Jake Varner, they've been with each other the entire time. They came to Penn State together, they're the same guys. And if you look at their daily meetings, they have what they did a year ago today,

what they did three years ago today, five years ago today, a decade ago today. They know exactly what it is. So they have so much data and information that they're just able to help us navigate a lot of, or I guess they help us not have to navigate a lot of stuff that we maybe would have had to otherwise. One of the things you said was they, that team and those coaches focus, they focus on the right thing. Like what would you say they focus on that maybe other

wrestlers or other teams or other people aren't focusing on? You know, there's a lot. I would say that the main thing is we want to get better at wrestling, right? So what are you going to do if you want to get better at wrestling? You got to wrestle. So that's what we're doing most of the time. We're not, yeah, yeah, we're going to do our conditioning workouts, but we're not going to put 100 miles on, we're not cross-country runners, you know, we're not power lifters. So we're going to focus on what we want to do. So I think that the majority of what we do for obviously technique and for conditioning even is wrestle. So we're wrestling more than anybody else. And then, they're focusing on our effort and they're focusing on, you know, results are important,

but that's a byproduct, right? Like, we're going to get the results we want to get if we just do these things, you know? So to me, I think the consistency that they preach that with of it's the same message right now than what it was when I was a freshman and what it was before that. And when you can buy into that and be consistent with it, that's how you're going to get the results. They're just going to come, you know, you don't have to start. stress and worry about it every day. You just have to improve, get better. And when the moment comes for you to make it happen, you're going to do it. When you say wrestle, like when you say

we want to get good wrestling so we wrestle, how does that break down from like a drilling versus live wrestling? Like, how does that break down? You know, one thing I think I will say that is different about Penn State as well is we have a system. You know, there's a system of of moves. And techniques that we like to use that a lot of the guys use, but they really do a great job of tailoring everything individually to people. So everybody's different, right? Like some guys, they need a little more structure. They need, all right, I want you to drill this 10 times. I want you to drill this 10 times. Now do this 10 times. And they need that. Like me, you get me in there, like show me some stuff and I'm going to apply that right away. Like you show me this

different technique that or this little adjustment I should make I don't even really need to drill it like I'm just going to do it and you know it helps to drill it so I'll still do some but I think the ratio of of drilling to kind of light sparring to live wrestling is adjustable for individuals which that just takes effort so they're putting more effort into doing that um spending time with guys who need more time, spending less time with guys who maybe need less. They're just flexible. And I think that most coaches, it's like, get in, this is what we're doing, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, done. Check, check the list. We're out. So it's a little bit more of an open-minded attitude. It's way more open-minded and it's just what makes sense. It's like,

all right, well, what makes sense for me at 197 pounds isn't going to be the same. It was what makes sense for 125 who is a freshman who's 500 record like he needs something different than me you know so that's what they do they give them different different um i guess kind of coaching how often do you learn something new let's say you let's say you let's go to your freshman year yeah how often are you kale or one of the other coaches going like hey here's an actual new move for you as opposed to like hey, you can clean up your double, you can clean up this, you can clean up this.

Is there new moves that come in where you're like, yo, I did not know that. Because the crazy thing about Jiu-Jitsu is I've been training Jiu-Jitsu for a long time, like a quarter century, and we've been up here at this camp and I learned like 20 new things.

So I'm talking things where I was like, oh, that's totally new to me. I did not know that. And it's the same with, you know, there's black belts here that have been training for 30, 35 years. Right. And they'll all,

be going, oh, I've never seen that before. Yeah. How much is there of that when you were at Penn State? A ton, a ton, especially my freshman year early. It was like, I really learned a whole different way to wrestle. I was like, I think back about it, I was like, I didn't even know how to wrestle. You know, in high school, I'm like, I'll watch film and I'm like, what was I doing? And then my freshman in college, I still think that.

So I'm kind of doing this little series where I go back over all my college wrestling matches and I break them down, it's so tough for me. So I'm just like, I suck. I was so bad. There's a freaking video of me on the internet and I'm competing against Jeff Monson and grappling. And it was like a 13 minute match because it was triple overtime because it was zero zero.

Okay. Triple overtime. The thing on YouTube is cut down to like two minutes and 30 seconds and I watch it and I'm just absolutely like human. like humiliated and embarrassed because I look so terrible. I look so bad. I mean, I'm not actually humiliated.

I'm like, oh, you know, that guy's a good wrestler, a great grappler. He's an ADCC world champion. Right. And he's, he had a really incredible vitamin program that he was on

because he was completely insane. He jacked. But a great competitor. But when I look at it, I'm like, God, I was terrible. Terrible. That's what I feel like. So that's what you do,

you're doing now? Yeah. Just breaking stuff down. Absolutely. You know, ridiculous. Yeah, it's, it's insane.

And so I think that combat sports are so cool because you can always do that. You can always get better. Even if you know 99% of everything there is to know, you're never going to learn that 1% fully. You're going to, you know, maybe creep up a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. And, you know, for me, I love learning. Learning is one of the biggest reasons that I got into MMA because, you know, it's new. I get to learn Jiu-Jitsu.

I get to learn Muay Thai. I get to learn boxing, all this stuff. Like, that's so fun and exciting for me. And that's how I felt when I got to Penn State. I was like, you know, kind of come out of college. I haven't lost in a while. I'm pretty good, man.

And then you get in and I was competitive right away, but I wasn't trying to be competitive. And so I was like, wow, I need to learn how to wrestle. I need to learn how to wrestle for real because I don't know. So I wasn't really, it's not that classic. of, oh, you go and you get whipped up and everybody's kicking your butt and you can't score a point. Like, I was scoring and stuff. Was I beating the best guys in the room?

No. Were they whipping me a little bit? Yeah. But I was scoring on a lot of guys and doing well. But I realized quick, if I wanted to get to where those guys were or where I wanted to be, I needed to learn a lot about wrestling. So you get done, your redshirt year. Now you go into your, I guess this would be called your freshman year, right? 2015, 2016, you're 174 pounds.

How's that season go? So when I look back on that season, it was just such a different play. I had to grow so much. I wish I could have grown that much in my redshirt season because I think as a red shirt, you just don't really know what that's like

and then you get thrown into it a little bit competing every weekend and feeling the pressure, and 10,000 people in the crowd. And, you know, that's something that I just think for the most part, I did the same thing that I'd always been doing in high school. I'm like, let's just go get it. Let's just throw down.

Like, I'm ready to go. And I was meeting with our sports psych every single week, like, you know, trying to figure myself out mentally, trying to figure out how I wanted to compete. Just, but I was doing all that for the result. I wanted the result. I wanted to be a national. champion. And that's not a bad thing, but that was what I was focused on, whereas I needed to learn just to let go of that and just get better and improve and do my best. And then the result

will come. But all that year was so... Does that somehow remove pressure? I won't say it removes pressure. It just gives you a different perspective of it. Because at first, it would be like, so this is what I was doing. I was saying to myself into my matches, all right, I'm at the best program in the world. I have the best coaches and the best training partners in the world. And these are all the reasons I should win. So I'm going to go out there and compete against this guy, and I'm coping and wrapping my head around what's about to happen by telling myself, I should win because of these reasons. When in reality, what I needed to be doing and what I realized that I should be doing is one, the guy who's going to win isn't the guy with the best

training partners, the guy that has the best coaches, the guy that works the hardest. It's not the guy with the most hard. It's just the guy that scores more points. It's the guy that gets his hand raise. Like, it's the guy that wins the match. It's a match. So that's what I'm trying to do. It doesn't have it like none of this stuff. Like yeah, maybe it affects it. But that's not why the outcome happens. It's just who scores? Like, okay, I have two points. You have zero. I win. Like that's it. And so and that's based on. in that moment and being present. So, you know, I think I would kind of just, in my mind, not be very present.

And that's why I got the results I did, because in the NCAA finals, I'm wrestling a guy. So, yeah, fast forward. I have a good year. You start the season ranked 14th. I start 14. I start smoking guys. I'm just better than them.

And, you know, I come into a little bit of a bump halfway through the year. I lose the kid from Indiana that wasn't nearly as good as me, but I had a bad match. I'm a freshman. Devastated me. now I can't be undefeated. What am I going to cry about it? No, I still got Big Ten's NCAA. So I just move on.

And Big Ten tournament, crush it, kill it. NCAs, I'm feeling it. I'm like, number one seed. I'm a freshman. This Madison Square Garden. This is a big deal. And in my mind, the coping mechanism was every match. I should win because I have better this and that.

And then I get to the finals against a guy who I've wrestled this point probably five times. Big 10 tournament two weeks earlier first period throw him down and pin him easy money and I go on to the match and that's what I'm thinking I'm thinking all right I got I work harder than this dude I know I'm more disciplined than him I just beat him stuck him pinned him killed him like never have even been really competitive with this guy I have better coaches better training partners like more fans want me to win like I can make every up, make up every excuse in the book. I'm like giving myself excuses to win. And so then, you know, wrestle the match. And there's, there's a big moment in the match. So right away,

I go for the crazy throw. He takes me down. And which I'm like, whatever, I don't care. We get up. And then in me, in my mind, it was like almost back to what I was saying earlier about in high school, I would go out to just like, let's get it. I'm going to go for broke when I I didn't really have to almost as like a just another excuse. Like I'm just going for it. Like I'm going to go for. I'm going to give up. Like, but I really wasn't going to, to win.

It was, it was a weird mental thing. And so get taken down. I come back up, take him down. And now I'm rolling. So I'm like, all right, I'm about to win this match. Like, no doubt. I have an underhook. I'm going far knee pick and we're going out of bounds.

And I'm running through him. And I'm like, oh, I'm about to freaking. crush this dude, plan him on the mat, get a takedown, probably get near fall, and seal this up. And for some reason, you know, I just get my arm trapped, boom, rolled through right onto my back.

And I'm just like, what is going on? What just happened? It was the only time I've ever wrestled in a match and not really been super aware and known what is going on and been like known how much time's left, known where I'm at on the mat. it like just completely dis dis dis I was in disarray and uh I get off the mat was it like overconfidence in that moment I think it was just not being present I think it was either it was I was either

in the past or in the future I wasn't in that moment either already the champ or I already worked harder yeah yeah I wasn't locked in to like get it done right here you know this all it matters is right now it was it was it was I was just not there and so boom rolled through And I get up and I'm like almost like literally dizzy. And then but I don't even know how much time's left on the mat. So where I lost this match, it wasn't even in getting thrown. I go back down and then there was whatever 20 seconds left in the period

and I get rode out. If I just got an escape right there, I guarantee you I win the match. Even though I was losing at that point 10 to 4 or something like that, I think. And so I end up losing, I come back, the guys runs from me the whole third period, but I just can't get to him. I lose 11 to 9.

I had no idea what the score was at the time. I had 15 seconds. All I needed was one takedown, and I could have tied it up. And it was just, I just didn't know where I was at. I couldn't wrap my head back. So that was, you know, I said my freshman year of high school was devastating. This was like 10 times that because I'm in front of this huge crowd. It's really my biggest goal, right?

This is what I've been thinking about as my biggest goal. it's a four-time national champion. And if I don't win my first one, it's done. It's like I got three more years, but it's done. And so there was legitimate, probably three months of real depression after that where in my head, I just didn't know what to do. I'm like, what is the point of this? I freaking went to a sports psych for 40 weeks in a row all to get second.

Like, well, that was stupid, waste of time. How dumb was that? and, you know, put all this effort in, like, you know, wrestled for 15 years to go out and get beat by this guy. Like, what is wrong with me? And just very, very negative, very, like, depressed and just kind of like don't want to do anything. Sitting in bed, like, I would have, this was the worst, is I would have dreams where, or I would

have a nightmare where, like, I would lose, like, what would happen in real life happened. But what was worse was I would have dreams where I won. Oh. It would be like, I would be dreaming. I'd be like, oh, I won the match. I'd wake up and I'd be like, I would just like start crying. I almost cry right now thinking about it. But yeah, it was like, it was terrible.

So I'd have to wake up to this reality of, you know, all right, yeah, I lost. And I got to probably end of July, early August. And I just remember one day being like, waking up and just being like, dude, are you going to cry about this for the rest of your freaking life? You're going to be a wimp? Are you going to, what are you going to quit? You're just going to like be done? Like, that's it.

And then. I was like, hell no, I ain't doing that. Like, let's get back on the horse. So then I have to reset. And I'm thinking, what is the, what can I do to kind of make up for this? What can I do to like make up for this? And so I'm thinking, all right, well, 184, which is the weight about me, is the toughest weight in the country. And not only is it the toughest weight as far as depth, but it's got the number one pound

for pound guy in the country, Gabe Dean from Cornell at this weight. I was like, I need to reset, rechallenge myself. I'm going to 184 and I'm winning, I'm winning that. Like, that's what I'm doing. And so now it was, I wouldn't even say solve what was going on with me internally. It was reassessed, create a new goal and now just chase that and kind of just let that fill in this void that had been left in me. That makes sense. You needed a new mission. I needed a new mission because I didn't I was lost I didn't know what to do and I had no motivation for like I was like what's going to motivate what's going to get me excited to compete again and so it was this it was like this this big challenge of beating the number one pound for pound guy in the country and winning

the toughest weight in the country like that's what I had to do and how do your coaches feel about this what can I'll say to that so I told him I was like coach I'm going up to 84 and he was like I think we want you at 74 so why don't you know you certify at 74 and I was like we'll see I certified at 184.0 I was like I'm not giving you guys one shred of a hope that I'm going 174 this year because I'm committed to this I'm all in because we did have a really good guy at 184 who's a good friend of mine and I was like this is going to work itself out but I I'm a team guy. Like we had won the team national title of my freshman year. That was very important to me. We, you know, and so, but I was like, I see it from a different perspective as you. You know, we have a

couple of good guys coming at 74. My guy, 84, he can move up to 97. This is going to be good. And I'm going to kill it. So as long as I win, everything else is going to work out. What do you walk around at? At that point? So at that point, I probably walked around at 184. Sure. Yeah. So I cut a little weight in my freshman year. I was a little lighter. I was probably 180. But yeah, I was weighing about 184, 185. Do you change anything in the way you were training? Going up. Well, not just going up, but now that you had this loss, you had this new goal, were you going harder, were you working harder? Did you step up your game? I always worked, you know, basically did everything I could. I was always super intrinsically motivated. But I think that my mindset changed from being like,

a, you know, more wild type of competitor, try to, try to throw your big moves to just, I need to dominate these guys. I need to get consistent. I need to get, my main focus that summer was get an attack, like a leg attack that's consistent that nobody could stop because I didn't really have that up to that point. I had a lot of tricks. I had a lot of sneaky stuff. And that really got me to where I was, but I was like, I need one go-to that nobody in the world can stop. And a lot of people say that about different stuff. Like, what's your thing that nobody can defend? And so that's what I worked on.

It was right to collar tie, lefty high sea, a whole summer. I probably drilled it. I drilled it 90% of my drills was that. Yeah. Yeah. So then that season starts and you crush. Yeah, I'm crushing it. I'm like knocking it out of the park, right?

I think my first seven or eight matches I pinned every. single guy. I was like on a roll. A couple big moments. I'm wrestling my first match in Carver Hawkeye Arena and I'm wrestling Sammy Brooks. So this is kind of funny. I got to say a couple pre-stories before I sit, get into the match. But back to when I was getting recruited and I committed to Penn State, I have to call all the coaches. I call Tom Brands, right? And I'm like, hey, coach, I just want to let you know that I'm going to be committing to Penn State. I didn't want you to see it on Twitter or something I wanted to tell you, uh, you know, myself. And he's like, okay, well, you know, appreciate it. Thank you for,

for doing that. Um, are you sure like this is where you want to go and stuff? I'm like, yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure he's like, okay, okay, that's fine, you know, as long as you're not competing against the Hawks, we'll be rooting for you, but we'll see you on the mats. I just remember he said, we'll see you on the mats. And I was like, see you on the mats. And then I roll into Carver. It's insane. They're yelling crazy stuff at. me, you know, the fans are going nuts. They're throwing trash. It's like, wild. It's like, what is going on? This is ridiculous. You're going down, mother effort. Like, get ready to freaking get smoke. Like, what's going? Like, obviously I'm not cursing, but they're cursing

and stuff. And so I walk out and the fires, they got like flame throwers. It's insane. And I get on the mat and I'm like, seeing you on the mat. So we're here. Let's do it. And, but, sorry, I missed, I missed, I had to say one other things. So I'm wrestling Sammy Brooks. So he was, I think, Big Ten champion. He was maybe number, I think I was number two in the country. He was number, he was top five, maybe three or four. And I don't know why, but I didn't really cut weight, like I said.

For some reason, the night before that match, I just randomly was the heaviest I'd ever been in my entire life. I was like, 192. I was like, it was something weird with the travel and I had a smoothie at smoothie king in the Chicago airport. That'll do it. And I think it did it. And I was like, what is going on? I've never, I had to work out like two or three extra times. And so going in the match, I'm like, these guys are all yelling how they're going to get me tired.

I was like, I better not get tired. Like, this is not going to be good. And right before that, are we, we, did they know you were off weight? They didn't know. Nobody knew. No, no, my coach didn't even tell anybody. I just did it. But, so we took our, we had a kid, a true freshman, his name is Mark Hall.

He was like the number one recruit in the country come out of high school. we pulled his red shirt in the in the match before like his first varsity match and uh he lost he got upset and it was crazy it was like the crowd was going what was the decision to pull his red shirt so they had somebody got hurt or something they had been talking about it the whole year but basically the team race was pretty tight and uh they kind of and mark wrestled at the southern scuffle which is like kind of the premier tournament of the midseason and he won and he beat all the starters from the other schools. And so they're like, this might be a good option. Like we might need to let our horses run. And so boom, pull the red shirt, boom, loses. And then they're like at their all time peak

of excitement as Iowa fans because the duel is, I think they're up maybe like 18, 16, something like that. And we have, our next three matches are all kind of toss-ups because me and Sammy are top five. The next two guys are like top, top ten guys and our heavy weights a toss-up match. And, uh, So they're thinking, like, we're going to win all three of these. We got momentum. Let's go. And I'm like, all right, bro. I'm going to show you something real quick.

So I just knew. I knew the way he wrestles, Sammy Brooks, he's so aggressive. Like, dude, this dude can't not shoot on me. Like, he's going to shoot on me. Like, he's going to freaking stick him in something. Especially there in front of that crowd. Everyone going, you know you're going to show. I'm like, this dude's coming in hot.

Like, I'm like, that's perfect for my style. My style is great. If you attack me, forget about it. You're not going to beat me. You got to play it smart, play it safe, and try to sneak one in on me. Like that's, that was really people's only chance to get me.

And so, boom, single leg right away. Beautiful single leg. In my mind, I'm thinking, dang, that was a nice shot.

Whatever, let's go. And so he just makes a mistake. Steps his leg up wrong. Fum, catch him, pin, spladle. It was crazy.

Everybody, I'm going nuts. The crowd all of a sudden silent. I give him a little bit. I'm like, what's up, y'all? And then Coach Kale goes,

hey, knock that off. Like, he's yelling at me. And I'm like, okay, whatever. Let's get off the mat. And so just this crazy whirlwind.

Coach Kael don't play that kind of stuff. He don't play that. No, he don't play that. So got that win, big win for me. And now, you know, we kind of go, me and this dude, Gabe Dean from Cornell, like, on a tear towards each other. I go into the Big Ten tournament rated number one, number one. And I'm like, I think that I wrestled maybe 20 matches, 20, 22 matches, and I've had like 17 pins.

It's like crazy. Like, I'm pinning everybody. And, like, I pinned Sammy Brooks. I pinned Oklahoma State Kid. I probably pinned like three or four top five guys. And so going in the Big Tens, I'm feeling confident. I'm like, all right, let's go. I have a buy.

I'm in the quarters. And then boom, I have to wrestle the Ohio State Kid who beat me the year before. I wrestled him in the duel earlier and beat him up eight to two or something. And so I'm feeling good and not really nervous at all. And we go in and we're wrestling and I take him down right away. And I'm like, all right, kind of got this on lock. and boom he takes me down and then it's tied and I'm like okay like this is a little more competitive and he shoots in on my my leg and I freaking like my LCL just boom pops and I'm like what the

hell was that I don't even know what that was but whatever like let's keep going I like just kind of struggling and then the match just it was a weird match just gets away from me and he and I can't and I don't take him down he beats me five to four and I'm like what just happened like I just lost like that's crazy. And I remember going off the mat. And it was weird because... What tournament was it? This is the big tens.

It's like in the quarterfinals, the big tens. And it was just kind of unexpected. And I wasn't really that nervous for the match. And after I lost, I felt so weird. I was like... I just was like... It wasn't upsetting like my other losses. It was like...

I just couldn't really... I just felt like I didn't know what happened. I just didn't know what happened. I just didn't know why I lost. And I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to move on, I guess. I don't know. I've never felt like that after a loss. And so go to the rest of the tournament, I take third.

He's wrestling the kid from Iowa in the finals and he loses. And he goes in the back. I just remember this so vividly. He goes in the back and he's like yelling, like screaming so pissed. And I just remember feeling like, all right, I need to figure out how to, like, I'm not going to deal with losses. like that anymore. I'm not, that's not really what I'm going to do. And I was like kind of finding myself also with my faith at this time. And, you know, my faith was always something that was very

important growing up and something that I really tapped into a lot. But I was really learning a lot about it in this, in this kind of time period of my life as well. I was having Bible studies with some close friends and really diving into what that meant to me. And just kind of thinking about life on a bigger level outside of wrestling. And so, actually, my third fourth match, I was wrestling a dude from Nebraska, and I hit him in like a sick, like a judo throw, and I completely tear my LCL. Like my knee is like this, and it goes, or like my knee is here, my foot's here, and it just goes, conk.

Like, I'll show you a video after. It's awful. But tear my LCL completely, I can barely walk. And, but I won and I got third. And so now I'm thinking, I'm like, how am I going to get ready for the NCAA tournament? Like, I still got to go win. Like, I'm not really, okay, I lost, cool, move on, whatever. And I still got the, I think that's why maybe I was able to refocus because I still

was, had this goal of being NCAA champion. And, you know, I was like, I can still do this. So I take the two weeks. I'm not really training. I can't really train at all. I'm just doing rehab. And then we get to the tournament. And I just felt like.

Through all the growth that I'd done in my faith and all the growth that I was doing just in myself personally at just a great place mentally and not feeling pressure on myself the way I was before. And I didn't really know why 100% in that moment. But first round, boom, tech fall. Second round, I'm wrestling the kid from Nebraska who I wrestled at the big tens. He was an SAC finalist, multi-final American. Pin him. Semi-finals or wait. No, no.

Second round, sorry. I wrestled Binghamton, pinned him. Third round, I wrestle Nebraska, pin him. Fourth round, I'm wrestling the Iowa kid that I pinned earlier in the year. And I just knew, I was like, dude, this guy's good. He's not going to be able to stay out of his back. I just know it. 60 seconds, boom, pin him.

So I went, tech, pin, pin, pin to the finals. And I'm just killing it. I'm like, yeah, I'm not losing. There's zero chance. So confident. At the same time, I had four other teammates make the finals all in a row. So 49, 57, 65, 74, then me. There's only been, up to this point, three teams to ever have five guys in the finals,

and we were the third. And I'm watching Gabe Dean wrestle, and he's having, like, tight match here, tight match there. Semis is kind of close. And I'm like, yeah, I got this dude. Like, you're done, bro. So the entire year, I'm visualized myself and Gabe Dean wrestling last match. So I knew it was going to be, boom. He's the senior.

I'm, like, pretty hyped up. So they're going to make this the last match of the, of the night. And I would do this because my buddy, he lasted this story. Because me and my best friend Tony, he was on the team as well. We would be walking back to the parking lot. And it was like probably a maybe a little over a quarter mile to our car from wrestling. And I would always hand in my backpack. It didn't matter what I would be like in jeans and boots or whatever, be snowing.

And I would just dead sprint. like all the way to the car and I'd come back and get him and he didn't know why but the whole year I would do this it would just be in my mind I'd be like Gabe Dean ain't doing this like I'd finish the whole practice and then just like I don't know it was just something dumb but in my mind now I get to this point and so they boom they start at 197 they're finishing at 84 with us and so I'm just thinking all right I'm just you know very clear in my mind what I'm going to do everything's good we get to 149, boom, Zane Rathford, our guy kills it. Winns.

157, boom, Jason Nolf kills it, wins. 65, Inchenzo Joseph, big match. He's wrestling, Isaiah Martinez. Pends him insane upset. He had lost to him a couple times. Wends. I'm like, what the hell? We're three for three, let's go.

74, so I'm on deck. Mark Hall, our guy that we pulled redshirt, he's in the finals against Ohio State Kid, who beat him in the Big Tens a couple weeks earlier. Crazy match, boom, wins. four in a row and I'm like guys I got this like it's over like don't it was the only match I've ever had only wrestling match I've ever had were a bad thought a negative thought could not creep and penetrate my mind there was never a oh what if I lose or oh what if this happens like you know

every time you compete something like that comes in your mind but it was so sound and so clear to me because of how much visualization I did and how just I knew what was going to happen. And I didn't know how it was going to happen, but I just knew I was going to win. And so, boom, go out of the match, takes me down. And I'm like, what the hell? But in my mind, I was just like, that was a great shot.

Like, I couldn't do anything about that. Whatever. Get up. There's, you know, a minute left in the period. I get away right away. And then I think, all right, let's just get one on this guy. So, boom, take him down. Kind of a weird little, I shot a single.

leg, which is not really to the left, which is not really a shot I hit, but I just pulled it in and finished it because I don't know. I've never even done that ever like in a match before. I just did it in the NCAA because I felt like it. But take him down and then there's 30 seconds left in the period and I'm like, all right, I got to ride the suit out. So ride him out, going to the second period, three, two, and I'm like, it's over. He's not going to beat me. So get to the last 30 seconds. He shoots in on my leg, gets in deep. This is second period? This is third period. So So the second period, I think he got an escape. Third period, I got an escape something like that.

And so I'm up four or three. 20, 30 seconds left, shoots in on my leg. And I watch back on video and I'm like, oh, that was like kind of close. But I'm just scrambling and I was just so calm. I was like, he's not taking me down, no shot. But boom, I am scrambling. He kind of gets in the position. I roll.

I look up in the clock and I've got both his ankles. He's got both my ankles. And it's just like four seconds. And I'm like, four seconds. And it's like three, two, two. one, boom, match over. And I'm like, I'm the champ. I did it.

I did it. Like, that's it. Like, let's go. Like, that's crazy. So go hug my coaches. Like, not even really a big celebration. I was just like, wow, like, that's crazy. Go hug the coaches.

And it feels amazing, right? Like, it feels great. And then what was so interesting to me about this whole process is I felt like finally that wrong from last year was right. Like, I made it right and we're all good now. And then, like a couple days later, I was like, oh, I don't really care. It's over. That was cool that I did that.

I'm glad I did it. But what's next? You know? And what it really taught me, it taught me that I cannot be so result oriented. I can't, it's okay to care about the outcome, have goals, things like that. That's all you have to, right? But my identity and my foundation can't lie in results. because the feeling of winning fades so fast,

the feeling of losing fades, albeit slower, but those are just feelings that they're going to fade. And so why would I wrap up so much of my self-worth in that? And then it was like, boom, switch flipped in my mind of what I need to focus on in competing and how I need to approach my sport. And after that,

it was like I had so much fun because before I was having some fun but it was more stressful than fun after that it was like this is this is good so are you like now since you're not focused on the results it's the summertime it's the fall you're starting to season you're just in practices does this mean every practice you're like you're just focused on effort and working in this particular practice that I'm in right now. So for me, the effort and the work was never an issue. That was never something where I was like needed motivation to work hard. I was always the guy that was going to go 100%. Like there was never a situation where that wasn't going to happen. So for me, it was more just relax, have some fun. Like let's enjoy this. If I'm, I'm choosing to do all this.

So let's have fun. Let's smile. Let's like have a good time. And even if I'm in a grueling workout, even if I'm doing something where we're going a 45 minute go and I'm wrestling coach kale and we're at each other it's okay like let's smile let's be like yeah let's go and I also think that what helped me too was I was compartmentalizing my life a bit with my relationship with God and my faith and it was like that's what I would do on Sundays and Wednesdays and you know I'd pray before meals but like that was that and I realized I was like okay this is my life and if my faith is as a to me as it is. Let's see what happens when I invite God into my wrestling because I wanted to

control that. I was like, I'm in control of this wrestling stuff. But what if I was like, all right, God, I'm in the middle of practice. And it's me and you here. Like, thank you. Like, kind of, you know, praise him a little bit, thank him a little bit for in those moments. And that's what kind of I do now continuously is like I don't ever feel like I have compartments of my life where all right, this is business, this is wrestling, or this is fighting, and this is my faith, and this is my family. It's like, I'm just the same person all the time. And my values and character that I take into one, I take into the next.

And that really relieved a lot of stress from me, and it made everything way more fun. Yeah. So it sounds like it's more of enjoying the process and not thinking, I have to do this because I want that. It's I get to do this and that other thing will come. For sure, it's all gratitude. It's all, you know, founded on that kind of just being grateful for everything that I have. And then just enjoying it, having fun, smiling, because I could do anything I want to do. So if I choose to do this, I'm going to have a good time. I'm not going to dread it or hate it or be fearful. That's how I feel I've carried that same mentality into the rest of my wrestling career,

into my fights, it's all, you know, I'm doing this because I want to do it. So let's have a good time. And but it's not that, so it keeps that, that fun kind of free spirit, but I'm also not at that point where I use it as an excuse, you know, what, like what I did as a kid, like, I'm just going to go for it and see what happens. It's like, no, you know, that's not really it either. It's, it's not all, it's all fun. Like, like, I'm here to win. Like, there's no doubt about that. When it's time to compete, we can get down. And it can get serious real quick. But that doesn't mean that I'm not enjoying it, if that makes sense.

Yeah, because you could also take that to practice too. We're like, oh, this isn't really fun. I don't want to do another few rounds. Yeah. Like, that's not fun for me, so I'm going to go stop practice. It's not like that. Like, I, the fun for me is doing things that other people aren't willing to do. Like, I'm going to do everything that you're not willing to do.

And then the results will speak for themselves. And I just like, pushing myself too. Like it's just fun to to push myself and do things that are really freaking difficult. I feel like if you're not struggling, if you're not struggling in life in some way, like what are you doing? You want to just sit on the couch and eat Cheetos and everything's plush and comfy? Like that's not real. So I don't know. That's to me. I want to like live real life. So you roll into your next season. It's 2017, 2018. You're still 184 pounds and you're just kind of crushing now. Yeah. So I'm crushing on a roll.

I wrestled my little rival from Ohio State a few times, whipped him. And really the whole story of that year, it wasn't me. It was the teams. Ohio State had a stack team. So they got a couple of transfers in in addition to the guys they already had. And in reality, if you look at it, it was the greatest team race ever in NCAA wrestling history, just with the guys that they had, the guys that we had. And two big moments really stand out that we had a duel.

with Ohio State, people call it like dual, it was a duel of the century. And at rec hall, 6,500 people sold out. It was insane. And Ohio State, we do the, you know, handshake before the match and stuff. And they roll out, they're all wearing these bright red robes. And they're got their hood up and they're standing in a, like a one by one on the end of the mat. And it's like this sea of white and blue and then these 10 guys in like red robes. And we, we, we're walk out and I just remember being like at this point you know good place mentally our team is very tight very close and I'm like well that's what these guys like are they for real because like our thing is we huddle up before each of us go to face off and we're like grabbing each other like all right

brother like let's go let's get it let's have some fun and like one guy's like just get massage and then he's like all right then he'll shake hands and you go in order 25 33 41 blah blah blah and they're like I'm like all right bro chill like it's not that big deal. But what had happened two weeks earlier that made it competitive was our 157 pounder who was Nolf. Jason, he tore his PCL. So he was not competing at that point. We thought he was maybe going to be done for the season. And so we're like, all right, that's like a 10 point swing right there. He's probably going to get a pin. Now we've got to throw a backup and he's probably going to lose major decision. So that's not good. But anyway, so the duel's going. We're kind of

getting beat up like at the beginning. We're getting beat up. We lose the close matches. And then it comes to Mark, the guy that was the way below me, he wins. So we got a low momentum now. We're like, all right, let's go. And then I come up and I'm wrestling miles. And first minute of the, no, first two minutes of the match, we're getting like a crazy scramble. He almost takes me down, but then I just get out of it and I freaking get him. I take him down. I'm like, all right, nice. I know if I get the first takedown on this dude, like he breaks. Like, I'm going to get him. The longer the match goes, if it's close, I'm going to win. If I'm winning, obviously, then it's going to spread the gap.

So I get that on him. And then, so I'm winning the match pretty comfortably. I think I'm up eight to two. There's 20 seconds left. And I'm on top. I'm just holding them down. Everybody's cheering. And I'm like, oh, dang.

Or no, no, I'm up seven to two. But I have a riding time point. So I'm like, if I get a turn here, I can get the major decision, get an extra point. And so I just think in my mind, I was like, who's the best guy? And this is all happening in like a split second. I was like, who's the best guy I know on top? Oh, it's Zane. What would Zane do? And Zane's bone and arrow. So he gets a freaking, so I look back. His ankles are sitting there. Boom, grab a bow and arrow. Put him on his back. As time's expiring. It's like three, two,

one. The guy's like, one, two, get my two near fall. Boom. Goes up on the board. I'm like, oh, crap. Let's go. Made a decision. And got that extra point for my team. So now I'm like fired up. I'm like, let's go. Let's get it. And then the next match, 197, they got the number one kid in the country, right, Colin Moore. And our guy is my best friend. He's best man at my wedding. I'm going to be best man at his wedding in a couple months. Anthony Casar, he had just lost a wrestle off to another one of our teammates on Monday, but our other teammate got hurt. So he's kind of like the backup at this point. But I know Anthony, I'm like, yo, this dude's a freaking, like he can win. And it's a great matchup. So, but nobody knows this besides honestly, probably me and him. Like,

even our coaches, I don't even know if they thought he could win. But, he goes out and literally the entire time everybody's like on their feet and uh first period's like zero zero boom gets a takedown then second period uh it's like three two short time left and then uh paulmore like gets in deep on a shot anthony like belly whizzards him spins around him boom takes him down again he's up five two it's like 20 seconds left and everybody's freaking out like no he's got it and so boom wins the match crazy selly everybody's losing their minds we're up 19 to, I think it's 19 to 14 or 19 to 15, yeah, 19 to 14. So heavyweight comes now. We got Nick Nevels, who's a good wrestler, a couple time All-American. They come out with

Kyle Freaking Snyder, who's one of my best friends. But obviously, enemy at this point, Kyle Freaking Snyder, Olympic gold medalist, multiple-time world champion, NCAA freaking dominator, like, I'm like, crap. Like, he's tech-falled Nick multiple times, like, but he has to pin him or tech him for us to, for them to win. And Kyle, I love him. I love him to, he trains with us now in Indian Line Wrestling Club. He lives and he came to the good side, but he was like talking mad trash before this

match, like this whole year. Like, he was saying stuff, there's no team on earth that I would rather beat than Penn State. we're coming for you guys y'all best be ready he posted like some like tombstone clips like I'm coming hell's coming with me that type of stuff and I'm like all right Kyle time to get time to get it

like let's see what you got you got a pin our boy but so we'll see so right away and Kyle's like a dude high energy just a tank comes out he's getting after it boom our dude single eggs him takes him down crowd goes nuts everybody's oh my gosh what's going on he just took down the limical medalist what's going on

boom, Kyle gets away, starts taking our guy down. And I'm like, oh, freak. Come on. So he's probably up six to two, six to four or something like that, second period. And then he gets a little crazy and he's small. Like he's 2.30-ish. Our guy's like a 265 heavyweight. And he goes for a lateral drop.

Boom, falls right on his back. Nell lands on him, takes him down. And then everybody's freaking out again. Oh my gosh. And now he's like making Kyle work to get up. He's got a lot of weight on him. So he starts getting a little tired, but then he kind of gets back on it. It starts racking up points, racking up takedowns.

And so now that we're just count down the second. Second periods ends, we got two minutes. He just got to like, and it's somewhat tight of a match. It's 10 to 6 something. So as long as it doesn't get blown out. As long as it doesn't get blown out, he's only got two minutes to do it. So we're like watching, oh, Kyle's shooting going so crazy, trying to take him down, taking them down.

Seconds are taking, seconds are taking, seconds are taking. He's racked up a few takedowns. it's 14 to 8 or something and there's like 30 seconds left and he gets in on the leg and he's like trying to take him down trying to take him down and our guy's like defending defending on his feet boom sprawls on him big sprawl everybody freaks out there's still 20 seconds left but we know now it's like it's done it's over it's not going to get it and it was just the craziest duel ever you know we win people are like crying in the stands like moms are just like holding their babies in There like it's just insane. It's like what's or just jumping up and down that me and the line the ninny line the mascot are just hugging each other

We're like let's go go on like just freaking out going insane so we beat these dudes and then Do the big 10 tournament national tournament's coming now this is like freaking big deal and and we didn't really match up that well in the team race because they had ten top to bottom like beasts and we were like kind of little top heavy we had a lot of good guys like finalist champion type guys but our depth wasn't there and so basically we

we're in like a super tight team race we get to the finals we have we have four in the finals I think it's me Mark Zane Nolf no we have five in the finals again no

yeah yeah we have five again in the finals so we have to win we have to win three of these matches and I have to win because I'm wrestling, boom, my rival again, Ohio State. And they made Snyder the last match. So it was his senior year, heavyweight, and so he could kind of go out on him as the last match. And he's wrestling a big rival to it from Michigan.

But basically the way it'll go down is if Ohio State win, Kyle's going to win. So if it's going to come down to my match. So we win our first two and then lose, lose at 6574. So now it's me and Miles. And it's like, this is for the national championship as a team. Like this whole year is like coming down to this match. And I'm freaking nervous. I'm like, I hadn't really felt this a lot.

But this whole tournament, for some reason, I got so caught up in the team, team part of it. I wasn't wrestling well. and if I would have just went out and pinned a couple guys, like we would have had it already locked up, but I didn't freaking, I was watching like all of every single guy of ours, Russell and every single guy theirs. So I got so wrapped up in this team race,

my coaches kept having to like pull me, pull me back off the floor, go sit out. I'm like yelling at me and stuff. And I'm like, oh, like I won it so bad for the team. And because to me it was always like a personal thing, me winning versus other guys. But when I started to, it got so tribal with the team stuff.

Like, like them, them saying stuff about us and, you know, they were just so different than us. And, you know, of course, everybody's a wrestler, so they're kind of saying,

but they were so outspoken and we're very reserved. And I just wanted to shut them up so bad. And I wanted my, I wanted my boys to feel that. I wanted all of Penn State, all of, like, the knitting line community to, like, feel that.

And so now I'm like, we're here. Like, I got to show out. I got to do this. I'm like, freak, sit down. And, uh, trying to, to, you know, all right, man, let's enjoy this. Let's have some fun. Let's be present.

Like this type of thing, like, all right. Just don't lose. Yeah, then I'm like, dude, but if you lose, this is going to be freaking, this is where those negative thoughts are creepy. Exactly. Yeah, and so the negative thoughts are kind of creeping. And there was this one moment, or Coach Kale comes up to me. And he's like, hey, I'm like, what's up? He goes, I just want to let you know, if I had to pick anybody to go out there in this match, I'll pick you. And I was like, well, hell yeah, let's go. Let's do it then. And not just like, got me right back to where I needed to be. So we go out and right away I'm like this dude had crazy energy. He was ready to go. He came with, you know, he was coming with everything. So he shoots

a hard double leg. I kind of get my foot caught in the mat and like we fall out of bounds. I'm like, all right, whatever, let's go. Let's have some fun. So now we're moving. And he shoots in on my leg with like a minute left in the first period. And I easily could have just sprawled and and defended it and got him off. But I kind of had an underhook and had his neck. And he had his neck a little bit. And I was like, I was not scared at all. It wasn't like a fearful thing like what I was kind of saying earlier about going for it. But I was like, I think I got this. So boom, I go to throw him. And he kind of sprawls his hips back. And I'm like, oh, crap, whatever. All right, no worries. I just like, the situation's happening so fast. I just kind of turned down.

He immediately drives back into me to try to take me to my back. And then I'm like, big mistake, bud. Boom. Flip him over, land on top. And as soon as that happened, it was like, matches over dude you're done so I just I got him get on top get the pin and immediately after get the pin I'm just like get to your coaches you got to celebrate this so hard so I mean my first coach coach Casey we run and he's like a little smaller so I grab him boom pick him up I'm like let's go come on and then I go to grab coach cal and I'm going to do the same thing and as soon as I'm reaching for him he just goes boom drops down below me and I'm like what's happening and then double like picks me up and I'm like this it's like Titanic

And I'm just like, let's go. And we're just all freaking out and, you know, won the match. And, you know, the coolest thing, I go off the mat. And my buddy, who I was saying, Mark, who was the way below me, he's the first one there. He just lost the NCAA match before. First one there, let's go, like celebrate and congratulate me. And I was like, dude, that's so freaking cool. Like, you're such a good dude for that.

He easily could have been in the back, like, just pissed. But he was the first one that I saw coming off the mat. And that meant a lot to me. But then I'm like freaking out. We're going nuts. And Coach Kail is like, hey, you need to calm down. You're about to do an interview with ESPN. And I'm like, okay, I got it, coach.

I'm chill. Put the mic on me. You ask the question? Black out. I have no idea what I said. So I black out. I'm like, whatever, let's go. Boom.

Get back to everybody. We're celebrating. We're celebrating. All the fun stuff. We're just so excited. Go back to the banquet. We have like a banquet after the NCAAs every year with all the fans. the teammates and stuff and all the guys that aren't starters that are there too.

And so do that. And then it was in Columbus. So we're driving back. And Coach Kale text me. We're on the bus. He's in the front and I'm like sitting in the middle of the bus or something. He's like, hey, just want to let you know. Best interview I've ever heard.

And I was like, what did I say? Like I have no idea. And so I'm like, all right, I got to find this. So I go look in the interview. And I just like, when I, off. It was, it was, it was great because it was so raw, so much emotion that built up to that moment and led into that. And I just kind of like gave, gave it to the Ohio State people a little bit and hype Penn State up. And the guy asked me the one question. He was like, I don't even

remember if the question applied to the answer, but I was just like, I said a couple of things, but I was like, I train every day. So I come out here and be an NCAA champion for Penn State. and I was like, that's just what we do. I was like, that's what we do. And everybody loved that. So they loved that. I just say, that's what we do. And then he goes, how about that sequence at the end?

I go, man, I've been doing that movie since I was six. I was like, I knew who's going to his back. And yeah, but anyways, it was just like a great interview and people loved it and stuff. I just got to, like, hype up the Penn State community a little bit. And we did it right in the middle of Columbus, too, which was big. That was kind of like at that moment in my career, it's definitely when I look back in my college career, the easily the biggest moment, the best moment that I had. It was fun. Next season you go up to 197. Is that just because you're getting bigger and stronger and older?

I wanted a new challenge and I didn't want to, I was weighing 190. I was like, I don't want to have to lose six pounds. I want to enjoy this senior year and let's have a good time. And the other thing was my best friend Anthony who had been 197 for us, he was going to heavyweight. And I was like, well, this was perfect. I'll bump up and it'll be all good, good for the team. And so that whole summer, he, Anthony is, like I said, he's the best dude in the world, my best friend, he had a rough go. Up to that point, he had had three labrum surgeries on his shoulder and he had never really got a shot, you know, lost, like I said, his three years of competition of eligibility

and wasn't able to compete. And he was cutting from 197 from about 220. So big 97. He's like, I'm going heavyweight. That was part of the plan. You know, let's do it. And I'm like, all right, bro, let's ride together. Let's do this.

So the whole summer, lifting, 5,000 calories a day. Literally it was wake up, six eggs, sausage, all that. Go freaking workout. Go hammer more food, work out again. Like, that's just what we were. We just had a great schedule. It was the best. Hey, you, what about your knee?

This is going back about it. Oh, yeah. Did you need to get surgery and everything? No, so it wasn't 100% torn. It was like 80% torn and I, they don't really operate on them. So I just kind of let it ride. So it's still, it bothers me once in a while, but not very often. I'm, it's, LCL is not nearly as serious like, you know, ACL, MCL.

So I, uh, yeah, after, I think the winning kind of helped it heal. Feel better. Yeah. Yeah. And this season you crush again. Yeah. You come out of 197. It's just...

It was fun. It was just like a fun. Every competition, every match, I was very present, very excited. It was like, let's just enjoy this. Let's have a good time. And let's freaking whip some ass. Like, that's what we're here to do, right? Like, let's whip some ass.

Let's smile. I started doing this thing where I was pinning guys. And the first time I happened, I pinned this kid from Ohio State. It was actually number one versus number two in the country. First time we'd ever wrestled. boom, pinned him in like 60 seconds. And he was so sad. He was landing.

He was like, oh, so sad. And it's so fun for me. I don't want wrestling to be like that for people. So I just grabbed him. I was like, yeah, it's all good, bro. Like help him up, hit him on the back. All good. And then I started doing this thing where I'm like,

all right, I'm going to start helping people up. So I'm pinning people, helping them up. Like, hey, keep your hat, bro. It's all good. And, but reality, I'm really just trying to be there for my team, be there for those guys. You know, I'm still grinding and still working. And, you know, doing my thing.

but it's it's just enjoying it enjoying this this moment the team race wasn't really close so there was no stress on that and i just knew i was heads into like heads above everybody kind of so it was now just let's just go out and dominate and improve it and smash everybody and i just want to end this on a fun note but really be there for anthony because this is his first year you know his only year his only shot and he's got to beat gable stevenson So it's like, that guy's a monster, you know, and this is a big challenge. So, you know, me and him are pushing each other in practice. I'm having to wrestle a 245-pound kid every day.

So it'll help me get a lot better. My technique's got to be absolutely on point. Not to mention, he's easily like the strongest dude I've ever competed against. So we're getting after we're doing that. Big Ten's comes around. I'm killing it. I'm like, it's a formality for me, like dominate these people. And Anthony's got Gable in the finals.

And so, you know, I finished my match. He's wrestling. You know, it's like super tight, super close, one to one. And 45 secondsish left, Gable takes him down. Like, hits like a nice, I think an angle pick gets behind him, boom. And then Anthony, like, I'm like, dang, dude, like, this is freaking, there's not that much time left. What's he going to do?

But he gets up right away. And then I'm like, all right, like, he's so explosive, so strong. I'm like, this is a good position for him to be in. So I think they go out of bounds. and then maybe 20 seconds left or so. He's faking, he's moving, he pulls, hits his like signature. There's this little like pull-around snap, catches the leg, and then just runs through him, boom, takes him down.

I'm like, let's go, come on. You got it, now he's got 10 seconds to hold him down. He holds him down. It's like, he has like one kind of crazy scramble. He's like up too high, but he gets back, boom, wins the match. And it was in Minnesota. So it was in their freaking home crowd. And I'm like freaking, I'm like, let's go.

Come on. That's what I'm talking about. And so then I'm like, all right, you got to do, I'm like, you just got to do it one more, one more time. Like, no big deal. But I'm not, I'm not really worried about myself so much. You know, I'm more just like, I'm going to, I'm going to do my thing. And so NCAA comes. And the year before, I didn't have a great NCAA tournament, aside from the finals.

So now I'm like, all right, let's put an exclamation point on this. So, you know, start smashing people up, pin a bunch of guys, make the finals. and but before that in the semis. So for some reason, they put Anthony and Gable on the same side. They were like number two, three seed. I think there was an undefeated kid from Oklahoma State on the other side, something like that. So they got a match up in the semis. So I win my semi match, but then they make me do all these interviews with ESPN.

And so I'm doing all these interviews, but I'm watching him on the TV and I'm freaking out. Super tight match. Like, come on, what's going on? Like, this is crazy. And so then at the, I'm trying to, I'm trying to. trying to think of what the big moment was. So, yeah, so there was a big moment. Anthony gets taken down right away.

End of the third period. Oh, and he gets called for stalling twice. So he's, like, down three points now. So then he's, like, kind of trying to come back. He gets a couple escapes, and then he's down one in the third. And Gable, like, takes a bad shot. Boom, Anthony runs around him. And I'm like, oh, go.

Come on, let's go. But I'm like, there's a lot of time left. So he's obviously going to get an escape. and, but Anthony's like holding him down for a while. Now, look, I'm like, oh, he's got riding time. Like, let's go. He's about to go up two. And so holds him down for a while.

And then, and you can see Gable's like getting tired. He's like having a hard time getting up. And I'm like, what's happening? So he gets, but then Anthony gets riding time, boom, gets an escape. There's like 30 seconds left. And Gable's just coming at him, come at him, coming out. And he can't get called for stong. So he's trying to like circle back in, take some shots, this and that.

And, but Gable just doesn't have the juice. He just doesn't have the gas. Tony freaking wins and I'm like, let's go this is perfect and so then we're both in the finals and

they decide that I'm going to be the last match, 197. He's heavyweight so he's going to be the first match and so I'm like okay this is kind of good kind of bad

one he's never wrestled first but two I'll at least get to like be relaxed and watch him because normally I don't really get to see him but the other thing was he lost earlier in the year and now he's got the kid in the finals who he lost to.

And so I'm like, frick, like, they lost, he lost a close match to him, but it wasn't like that, it was close,

like on the scoreboard, but it wasn't like, it was like Anthony, he never really had a, he never really was like, about to take him down. So I'm like, all right, dude,

come on, you can do this. So he goes zero, zero, first period, he gets an escape, and then second period, um, there's like 20 seconds left. Beautiful single-leg shot,

Anthony hits, picks it up, and the dude, like, just does something dumb. Weird, like, Anthony's going to take him down,

but the dude like just falls on his back, like tries to like kick out and he just jumps on him. And I'm like, let's go. Pulls him on his back, get six. And I's up seven zero. And I'm like, oh, it's over. Come on. He won. And yeah, third period took him down like two more times.

One like 11 to one. Killed the guy. And just so happy for him because obviously people see that moment. But I'd been with him five years up to this point. Three shoulder surgeries, never having even been able to compete in an NCAA tournament. And now he's the NCAA champion heavyweight. like best guy in the world nobody more deserving nobody that works harder

really taught me so much about discipline, commitment and consistency because he was through all those years you know I was competing at least he wasn't even able to do that so me and him just pushed each other so much and I was so happy to see him win I was like

we freaking did it like let's go and then I you know I win my match and we just kind of ride off in the sunset of college wrestling like all right that part of our life's over with so You know, I felt like it ended perfectly. I win the Hodge Trophy. And I'm like, this was just the ideal cap to the college career. Now you go to the Olympic trials.

What's your thoughts on going to the Olympics? Like, where's that? Because you're doing it also like in between each season of wrestling in college. You're doing like world tournaments or Olympic trials types tournaments and freestyle tournaments and stuff like this. So just give us a quick brief on all that. Yeah, so I was wrestling freestyle quite a bit. You know, it's a different style. Obviously, in college wrestling, it's just different rule sets than the Olympics.

And so I'm mainly focused on the college style. And but in the summer, yeah, doing some freestyle training. And I have a, you know, a big goal of mine was to win Olympic gold medal. I was always something that I wanted to do. And so basically in 2019, I start kind of my freestyle, career I compete at the U23, like the university world championships. I win the university world championships and feeling pretty good. And then getting ready for 2020 trials and boom, COVID. I'm like, freak, what the heck? Life just gets paused for a year. So I just,

okay, what am I going to do? I just kind of, they shut Penn State down. We can't really train. So we're trying to figure out places to train. And, you know, everything is just kind of in limbo. So then I guess towards the end of the year, it kind of gets lightened up a little bit. I get married, which is great. And then, you know, get back into training. We're getting ready for Olympic trials. So basically just at that point I was, I knew I wanted to fight MMA. I was like, you know, I was planning on starting MMA after the Olympics in 2020.

With COVID, I had to push everything back. I was building a gym in state college near Penn State and that got pushed back as well. it was kind of just a weird time for me, for everybody. And, you know, getting ready for the trials, I felt like I wasn't really at my best physically. You know, I had some stuff that I really wasn't able to train through and things that I wasn't really able to. I just wasn't able to be like as prepared as I wanted to be. I make the finals and I'm wrestling one of my teammates, David Taylor, who's great wrestler, you know, world champion at this point and, um, lose the match, you know, it's, it's pretty,

pretty rough, pretty upsetting. Just the, now, you know, knowing that I'm not going to be able to compete in the Olympics and I just got to make a decision, you know, do I want to continue to train through 2024 or do I want to fight? Because my plan was, you know, win the Olympics and then obviously be done. I don't have to prove anymore in wrestling. I can just move on. And so there was a lot of questioning and soul searching in my mind of what do I want to do? I've had this goal of being Olympic gold medalist for a very long time. But I'm definitely more excited and passionate about fighting and more interested in getting involved in that. And if I wait until after 2024, we're talking starting at 28 or starting at 25.

like that's a pretty big difference you know so yeah to me the the decision came down to just I have this big goal but I'm not going to let this big goal get in the way of what I'm really truly where my heart's calling me what I'm really passionate about what I really want to do I felt like I would be doing like a disservice to myself if I had continued to wrestle which I still love wrestling I still wrestle all the time but my my goals and achievements, they don't define me. That's just part of, that's just what I've done. I've just done those things. It's not who I am as a person. So it was, it was tough and it took, you know, a lot of kind of just thoughts and talking with people and, but I knew that was the right move for me. So

get the gym built in August of 2021. I actually didn't, I wasn't able to train from April, even until then because the injuries I had and stuff, I had just rehab and whatnot, and then got back after it in August and took my first amateur fight like five weeks later. Who was your first amateur fight against? And like, that's just not cool, dude. That's just not cool. I know. I actually have had many, many fighters that, you know, come through my gym and I want to fight,

I want to fight, I want to fight. And I'm like, hey, dude, like, you've been training for nine months. and sure you might there's a there's a chance you can fight someone that's been training for six months there's also a chance do you fight someone that's been wrestling since they were six years old

and you're going to get annihilated so you need to get better before you go and fight when you started training so who did you bring in what was this situation? Yeah so I partnered with American Top Team and we basically built an American Top Team

in State College so they do franchises that are you know I don't know exactly the business structure but it's like a franchise fee So there's 40 of them or whatever all in Florida in the southeast. But this was like a real partnership with the headquarters. So the headquarters like directly backs and funds the gym.

And they provide the coaches and, you know, built the whole facility out and stuff. So basically I met them through my management team and just got along with them very well because I felt like two things. I felt like one, they were very structured relative to what most MMA kind of training situations, what I've seen. and they also just had a lot of really high-level guys and high-level guys in different areas from me. You know, a lot of high-level jiu-jitsu, high-level Muay-triking. And they had good wrestling as well,

like, you know, but I felt like that complimented me very well and it was just a good fit to partner up with them. So I spend probably 80, 90% of my time in state college in PA, but then when I'm able to, I go down to Coconut Creek in Florida and train with the main gym at the headquarters there. And it's been a really good system for me so far. They just wanted to support and start this and partner with me because where they saw my career going and also all the possible connections with Penn State wrestling and the wrestlers that want to come up and start to fight once they're done with their wrestling career.

So it's a little pipeline we're creating. Yeah. That's a big, badass pipeline actually. When did you first do jihitsu? So my first experience with jiu-jitsu was when I was in college. So I was doing a camp in, I think, St. Louis, Mizzou. Zerry wrestling camp. And this guy, his kid was wrestling at the camp and he was like, hey, I do jih Tzu. Do you want to like come up and roll? We're doing practice right here if you

want to go. It's in the wrestling room at the high school. We just have a little club. And I was like, okay, let's go. And so I go in and I have no idea what's going to happen. I've obviously, I've watched tons of fighting. I've watched some jiu jihitsu because I'm just interested in combat sports and stuff, but I've never really done any jiu jiu jitsu ever. And, and, And so they start me off with a guy. And, like, it's just like a regular guy. And I'm going with them. I'm kind of, like, put him on the ground, take his back, choke him, whatever, get a geese.

Just from watching. Yeah. Just from watching. Yeah, just from watching. My style with wrestling was always very, like, I was always focused on the pin. And so the pin is very similar. Like, there would be wrestling matches where I'd get a guy in like a, like a, like a, we call the snake, like a cement job. And I like, I choked multiple guys out cold like that.

purpose but just they're trying to fight off their back I'm squeezing their neck boom they go out so that wasn't really a foreign feeling to me like choking people but that was allowed and you're like so what I always teach so I teach clinics and stuff and what I teach is all right we're not in wrestling we're not going to choke this guy that's illegal in wrestling we don't choke we're just going to make it really hard for them to breathe so that that's like how I how I teach so it came fairly natural so I tap the guy out and stuff and then they're like all right how about like try this blue belt I'm like oh Okay, so same thing. You know, kind of, these guys aren't, like, competing at a high level.

They're just practitioners, you know, and they're not really even, like, they're not great. They're just having fun. And so kind of same thing. And they're like, all right, what about this, dude? Like purple belt. And then they're like, all right, this guy's brown belt. This is no ghee, I'm assuming. Yeah.

Well, so all these guys are in no ghee at this point. And they're like, all right, try this guy. He's, like, he's a brown belt. And then we kind of go at it a little bit. like five minutes or so, six minutes. And at the end, I just, I never, like, subbed him, but I was, like, taking his back, kind of, like, moving around him, like, got him tired, and he wasn't really able to, like, hang with me.

And then I was, like, at this point, they had slowly been, like, stopping their practice and just watching me. And now at this point, it's, like, just us and everybody's watching. And they're like, go against the instructor, go on the instructor. I'm like, freak. I don't want to do this. This is his class. Like whatever.

Let's do it. And he's an older guy. He's probably 60. He's wearing a ghee. Black belt. Like really nice guy too. And so he immediately pulls guard. The other guys were kind of trying to wrestle me a little bit.

Like they didn't know. And but he just pulls guard. Goes half guard just locks me down. Like it's called lockdown, I think. Right. Yeah. And I'm like, he's in a ghee. I'm like not moving.

And we're kind of sitting there and like just in a stalemate. He tried to wrist lock me once and was like cranking on my wrist and I was like, get off me. But I'm like, don't know what I'm doing. So I'm like kind of trying to pass or trying to figure out what to do. But we just end up in a stalemate for like 10 minutes. And so we were just kind of stuck there. And then everybody's like, all right, time.

Like you're done. And I'm like, all right, we're done. And then so that was my whole first experience with Jiu-Zitsu. And then the guy was, they were all super nice, super cool. And the guy like gave me a t-shirt from their club and stuff. And we took a picture together and stuff. It was really cool. So that was my first experience.

And at that moment, I really liked it. And I was like, oh, I'm fighting. I got to fight MMA. Like, I'm going to do it for sure. This is so fun. When was like, when's the first time you rolled with someone that was really good at Jiu-Jitsu that, like worked you over and choked you? And you were like, yo, this is, I need to learn this stuff.

Well, I've never really been like worked over and choked, I wouldn't say. Just because, like, I think my skills translate well. So actually, I'll say this. The first guy that whoop me was a guy from Pittsburgh, Isaac Greeley. So he wrestled at UPJ, and he's older now. He's probably 40, 45. Shout out to the old dudes. Let's go.

Yeah, yeah. He's like Renzo Gracie Blackbilt, like Beast, like runs his own club. I don't know if you ever heard of Matt Factory, but they have a lot of good guys that he, so he trains everybody out of Matt Factory. And like, first time I rolled with Isaac, that's actually not true when I said. I never got like whip because he whipped my ass. He was like choking me, throwing me down. And he's smaller to me too.

He's like probably 170. Yeah. If you don't know, that's what's going to happen. Yeah. And obviously you're going to learn freaking at an exponential incredible rate. But I figured there had to be at least somebody that made you say, oh, anyway. He was the guy, yeah, that like kind of, he kind of, but you got to, I wasn't going with, like, I wasn't going to take time out of what I was doing to, like, go to legit jujid jujid gym. or these guys are freaking beasts.

Yeah. You know, so I was able to kind of learn slow and then like start challenging myself a little bit. Oh, but I forgot because that's actually not true. So I worked, I had never worked with Isaac. And so I had done that one session, I guess session call it where all the dudes rotated in on me. And then in 2020 when COVID happened,

so this was the first time I got whooped actually. In 2020 when COVID happened, And it was like December-ish, and I followed Gordon Ryan on Instagram. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I follow him on Instagram, and he was like trying to get a match. Like three people drop out.

And I was like, I'll frigging do it. These none of these dudes will grapple you. Like, let's go. Like, I'll do it. Like, I don't care. And he was like, all right, like, let me talk to the promoter and stuff. So we're like, all right, let's do it. So we get it all agreed to.

And I'm like, just try to make it like somewhat fair. Like, I don't know anything. So like, no guard pulling. He's like, no guard pulling, no leg locks. I'm like, that's fine, whatever. I don't even. No guard pulling, no leg locks. Okay, so he wasn't allowed to pull guard.

Not allowed to pull guard and not allowed to do. And he wasn't allowed to do leg locks. Right, yeah. So that means you would get to take his ass down. Yeah. And you would at least not get your leg torn off. Leg torn off. Yeah.

These seem like appropriate rules. Fairly fair. And so they're like, all right, eight minute match, blah, blah, blah. This now I'm like, done, let's do it. And so we get there and I'm like, what weight are we going? And I'm like, and I'm like, whatever, I'm here.

So I weigh like, 202, and he's like 230. And I'm like, whatever, I'm okay. He's big. Yeah, he's big. He's a big dude. Yeah, yeah. So I was just like, whatever, let's go. I'm here.

And we get to, they want to do a rules clinic. So I'm like, okay, fine. They're like, all right, match can be 15 minutes. I'm like, well, that's different. But whatever, okay, let's do it. And then him and Danahur proceed to like, mostly Danerher. like grill the refs and the judges the people for like 45 minutes about what if this happens what if the rules are happening what this is that I should have paid more attention because I was

just like what are these guys doing like I'm a freaking wrestle I've never done a jitzy match in my life so I did I did I did go out to Pittsburgh and train like a couple times I did three practices legit practices where I was like trying to learn stuff before the competition because it was like 10 days and I was like competing you know so they're asking all these questions and I'm like I'm here to compete I don't care like whatever like let's go

I was just confused why they're grilling I'm like I should be the one doing this not y'all because y'all know what's going on so we get to the match and in my mind I was thinking

that going into it I was like I'm going to win this match I'm going to go 14 minutes and 20 seconds or 14 minutes and 50 seconds and take him down and score in 10 seconds he's never going to take me down It's not going to happen.

I was way more excited about eight because then I was like, that's easy. I can go seven and a half, no problem. But then they started saying stuff in the meeting. They're like, if you get called for stalling, we're going to take half your purse. You get called again, we're going to take your whole purse. And I was like, that's so stupid. Like, what do you mean? And so the match starts.

And in my mind, I'm thinking, I'm not going to shoot. Because the questions they were asking were, oh, if I shoot, then he could pull guard. It was like, if I grab a single leg, he could pull guard. So I'm not going to put myself in a bad position. Obviously, if I get in the guard or get in a situation like that, I know nothing. So, you know, I want to be in that as little as possible. And so he actually freaking like scissors sweep me right off the bat and like tore my MCL. It didn't 100% tear it, but it like tore it like a good bit to where a few months after that I tore it 90% in practice, which sucked.

But yeah, and freaking mess me up. and then, but I didn't really feel it that much in the match. But, so we go through the match and there's like, I don't know, two minutes left or something. I'm like, I think I got this. Like, I'm going to win. And he starts backing up into me and like turning his back towards me and like backing up so that I'll try to take him down so that then he could do jiu-jitsu, right? And I'm like, I don't want to do jihitsu. And so he's doing this and everybody's kind of like, oh, like making a noise in the crowd.

I'm like, I got to freaking do something. So he's backing up, grab him, suplex him. And now that's the clip that everybody sees is me suplexing him, which is a good thing, I guess. But so I suplex him and then I get up and I'm like, oh, hell yeah. Like that's like now we separated and I got a takedown. It's tied and it was two. They gave him two points for something at the beginning. And they gave me two.

So it's tied. And there's a minute and a half left. I'm like, this is beautiful. I'm going to go. One more takedown. Yeah, I'm going to go one more takedown at the end. And I'm going to win. And so.

But then after I took him down, then all of a sudden he starts pulling guard. And he's like scooting towards me. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? Like, why are we not? Like, but they, they were yelling in Portuguese at me. And I'm like, I don't know what that means. So then whatever. But I guess they're saying that once I got the take down, he could pull guard, which

once he was on the ground, he could stay on the ground. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. And so I'm like, okay, whatever. So now I'm like, I can't just run away. So I got to try to engage. So I don't know what I'm doing. So then he goes shoulder crunch on me, which I've watched some film on him, so I know

he loves to do that. So I just sit back because I got good hip. So I'm like, he's not just going to freaking sweep me over here. Like if I obviously put all my weight on him, he's going to do that. So I'm sitting back, beautiful triangle right over my shoulder. I try to stand up. Dumbest thing I could have done. I don't know.

And then I'm like, I just got to try to slam him, I guess. I go to slam him. He switched to arm bar. He didn't hurt my elbow, but like he would have. And then I'd try to slam, boom, tight over. I'm like, son of a bitch. one minute left. I'm like, I could have freaking got him.

Like, obviously in this rule set, but then I'm pissed. But overall, it was a good experience for me. And, you know, I love Jiu Jitsu. It was really fun. I hate that I lost. Like, it pisses me off. Bro, you lost to the freaking literal best like no geek grappler in the history. So to me, don't feel too bad about it.

It doesn't really matter. Like, you know, I just think how cool it would have been for me, for wrestling community, going there. First graphic match, win. Like most time wrestlers roll in and like do something like that, which they don't do often and they get killed in 20 seconds. But if I were to won, it would have been like ultimate creed forever, you know? So to me it's like hard because I'm not full time in jujitsu. I really never trained up to that point and I lost.

So I technically shouldn't be that mad at myself. But I also just see like what that could have been. It could have been so cool for me. and now I like I don't know if I'll ever get another like I don't know if I'll ever get to compete against him again like hopefully we'll train and stuff but and I like I don't know how long he's going to compete my plan is when I'm done with MMA you know all grappling all grappling like I just don't have time right now so yeah yeah that's awesome I got I got maybe a little bit of flack the other day somebody took a clip from our podcast where I said there's a couple key things that I I said. I said pure wrestler against pure jiu-jitsu fight, the jiu-jitsu guy is going to win nine times out of ten. Listen, I love wrestling. Definitely. I think wrestling is the best possible base you can have for MMA. I think it's what every kid should do. We think it's awesome. But the problem is they literally don't know how to finish a fight. They just don't know how to do it. And so that's

what a jitsu guy knows how to do. And what you just said was like, you just, and the reason I'm bringing this up because you just kind of backed me up, bro. I got the, I got the freaking king wrestler right here. You said, look, normally it's like 20 seconds. If you don't know Jiu-Jitsu at all, you take the guy down great and then you get arm-locked. You take the guy down and get key attention. Like, you just don't, you're just not used to that kind of thing. A month later of training, that wrestler is now murdering this Jiu-Jitsu guy. That's why it was key component was like pure versus pure. That really doesn't even exist anymore. Even you knew how to choke people, you know, without any training at all. So please, you know, a little mercy on the kid

over here, you know? Yeah, I mean, I don't know why people would be like mad or prideful about that. It's, I think probably, you know, yeah, it makes perfect sense. If you got somebody that's wrestling against somebody that's doing jujitsu, it's not going to be like the jujitsu guys can win. As soon as the, as the guy shoots, they're going to get guillotine, get triangle, get arm locks, something. I can tell you, I have gone against, especially in the early days when I was like a blue belt.

So we're talking mid mid-90s, I, I went. against all kinds of wrestlers high school college wrestlers I mean and I never like lost I never got like they didn't know what a submission was how could I lose like it's not happening so that was sort of what I based that opinion on

and I gave the bend and frithed out like sometimes I'm sure a guy might grab you know put you in a cradle and crank your freaking head off and be like yo this is what's going down but um yeah so I think this like now with MMA being so prominent and stuff people see like everybody knows how to lock like a rear naecke

could choke or a guillotine or or even like dars like people like that have never done jiu jitsu like a lot of people like a lot of like combat athletes like they'll know all right this how to do it but they don't really know actual like jiu jitsu for me at the beginning when i started doing grappling it was all right just don't get submitted like all right i'm gonna control this dude and then i don't even know how i'm gonna like my best chance the only time i really submitted guys was because I was just so much better of an athlete or I'll get them tired and they'd give their backs up or something like that. And I know how to do like something simple, right? But you don't really know how to compete in sport jiu-jitsu, right? Like if you take a guy down,

you're sitting in guard and you don't know how to pass guard. You don't know how to like do anything. You're eventually they're going to just, they're going to get you. Who's your consistent coach in, in your gym? So for jiu-jitsu, we have Ayolton Barbosa. He's an ATT guy. So, he competed a lot and the cool thing about him is he competed at a very high level in jujitsu you know he started off judo then got into jiu jitsu as a teen and then you know competed out a high level and then uh since then he had like close to 20 m mhm a fights so he has a lot of practical mhmai jihitsu which is great for me right like i love the sport jihitsu but i need to know practical top game stuff because and and defending submissions and then you know stuff that's specific to what

I'm doing. Hell yeah. You don't need much bottom game at this part. Yeah. I like it. I like honestly, like when I'm rolling, like I'll play bottom and stuff like that. It's fun, but I, it doesn't really, I'm never going to do that in a fight. Yeah.

No, no. So you get your first fight, you knock somebody out in a minute or whatever. That's an, uh, amateur fight. And then the next thing was contender series, right? No. So I took, so basically what happened was I scheduled two amateur fights in a row. I did one. I did another one three weeks later.

and then I was really working hard. I wanted to make my pro debut at Penn State and State College. So we were trying to get licensing, put a promotion together, work with my management team, work with Penn State, and I wanted to do a fight in rec hall. Like, it was going to be insane in April. So when the students were in town and, like, you know, we were so close to getting it done.

And then the PA Athletic Commission, and between them, Penn State, my management team, it was just we weren't going to get it done. And so I had gone from October through April and not gotten a fight. And I was like, guys, I need to get a freaking, give me a freaking fight. So some random dummy called me out at like this promotion was like, I want Bo Nicol, blah, blah, blah. This not I want Boa nickel. And I was like, okay, let's do it.

Pro-MMA debut in Richmond, Virginia. I did it in June. And it was on UFC Fight Pass. So there had been people, you know, paying a little bit of attention to me and stuff in MMA, but not a lot. And then I made my pro debut and Boom straight left hand uppercut hook Knocked the dude out in 30 seconds And everybody loses their mind and

Immediately the next day UFC's calling bellator's calling one of us every promotion is calling wanting to sign me and it's crazy and and now it's like Well, I can go with these promotions, but I need to get more experience. I need to get some fights and You know nobody on the regional scene is gonna who's gonna fight me? now. Like I just knocked this dude out cold. I'm an NCAA champion wrestler like, how am I going to get a fight? So we, my management team and I decided, it was always the UFC for me. That was the path. And they really wanted me because my knockout, that promotion, it did the most views in fight past history over, over like the next week out of any event that they ever done. It did like, I don't know, three or four million views over the next week. And so then they were like motivated because they,

they obviously saw the views. They saw what I did, which, you know, knocking a guy out with my hands, which was big. And then they're like, all right, what can we do to get you experience? Boom. Get you two fights on contenders. Or let's get you one fight on contenders.

Oh, that's right. It turned into one fight, didn't you? Well, it was interesting because so I go into, Oh, no, you did. You had two fights. I had two contenders fights. So I thought it was going to be one. I thought I was going to go in one fight.

Then they're like, all right, we're going to get you another fight. So they just said, let's get you on contenders, boom. And then Dana's like, let's get you one more. So, yeah, the contenders thing was great for me, though, because I got to just get experience. And I got to basically get these fights that I, these guys wouldn't have fought me if it wouldn't have been in contenders. It's like, none of those guys would accept to fight me for. 500 bucks.

Yeah. Local show somewhere. No, but now it's like, okay, if I want to get into the UFC, let's do it. So now I can get the fights. And then from there, I was ready to go. Do you have any nerves at all going into these fights? Well, the first one, I was a little nervous because, you know, bigger stage, my first one. And, but I knew, like, literally any fight I go into is the dude has 60 seconds, two minutes to knock me out.

If that doesn't happen, it's over. It's like, I'm going to get you on the ground. I'm going to beat the crap out of you. I'm going to choke you out. I'm going to do whatever I want because you got a short. window of time to win this fight. So as soon as I get a hold of them, I'm like, oh, it's over. Like, I'm not nervous at all. But until then, it's like, okay, let's figure this out. Like, let me get close to you. But then my second fight, I was nervous because 10 days before

that, I was riding home from practice on a one wheel. You've seen these? Yeah, they're like weird looking skateboard. Yeah, skateboard with a big wheel. Yeah. And so it sounds like a smart move coming up. this hour roll. But no pun intended. But I'm riding back from practice and I live 200 yards from the gym. But there's a main road that's like 45 mile an hour speed limit. And so I'm riding down this road.

And the one wheel doesn't work when you wear flip flops. So I take my shoes off. So I have my flip flops, my big Yeti bottle, my phone, my wallet, like all the stuff in my hand on my shirt, my shirt's off, nothing on just like all that stuff in my hands. and my buddy Anthony, he's just finished training with me too. He's behind me. And so I'm like driving like...

Is he on a one wheel as well? No, no, he's on a car. Okay, okay. And so he's like going... So there's really no reason for you to be doing this. Zero. This is the dumbest thing I've ever done. So, but it was just fun.

I just like riding it. So, and it's 200 yards. It's like, what's going to happen? Like, I'm going just real quick. And so he's behind me and I'm going like 15. So they're like rolling and I'm like, freak. Then another car comes. I'm like, oh, they're, I got to go faster.

So I'm like, start. starting to lean forward. And it does this thing where if you lean forward too far, it'll auto-correct you. But then if you lean forward farther than that, it'll just die and like catch the nose and you'll just freaking fooom. So I'm like trying to go as fast as I can on this one wheel to get around the curve to go to my house. And it, boom, does exactly what I said.

Catch the nose. 23 miles an hour. I fly off this thing. Land straight on my freaking shoulder. Everything I have in my hands goes flying in the air. boom hit roll and I'm like I just got to get off the road I'm gonna get hit by a car so I pop up and just run off and then I Anthony's like look he's like this and I'm like and I go grab all my stuff and I jump in the car and he's like are you okay and I'm like let me check and then I was like no no I'm not okay this sucks and so then I go home

I'm like I have to like I can't lift my shoulder up at all it's like done and So then I'm like, I got to go get an MRI, get x-ray. So I crack my collarbone and I sprained my SC joint, like, really badly. And so we're 10 days away from the fight. I'm like, I got to pull out. Like, I'm not going to be able to fight. I can't lift my arm. And so we have an athletic trainer at Penn State.

I'm like, I'm going to give it like three more days. And he's like a magician, right? So like any injury I've ever had, he's helped me. It's just like he does a lot of Eastern medicine stuff. It's insane. And so he starts working on me and he's like, you don't got a lot of, tissue there so it's not really going to heal super fast but we'll do what we can so he starts working on me and the first day I was like I saw improvement I was like okay this is a possibility the second day I saw a little

more improvement and I was like all right I'm gonna give one more day we'll see we're at and the third day to improve a little more I still I could go to like about here and like move pretty slow but I can move and I was like fights on let's go I can move my arm so that made me nervous I wouldn't have been nervous but freaking like I said broke my collarbone and messed myself up so then I just I just didn't really trained just kind of got my weight down and by the time I was about to fight it was like I could box and do stuff but it was just painful it was like I could move the way I wanted to move but I just felt pain while I was doing it which is not ideal but we could fight so luckily freaking boom straight left hand knock the dude down triangle finish him in like 50 seconds and I'm like

thank the Lord so I don't ride the one meal anymore is the main story then you get your first fight in the actual UFC right yeah is that the right thing they say the actual UFC because it's not the contenders yeah so I was supposed to fight in December right after that that was in

October or something and I I finished that fight and I was like let's go December let's run it and I get back home and I was like ooh this is not really I need to need to fix this so it's all good move it to March. But yeah, I get my first fight in March in the UFC. Crazy. I'm like 3 and O and I'm like, let's go. Main card too, right? Main card, opening the main card. John Jones pay-per-view. This is wild. It was wild. Yeah. Any nerves on that one? Definitely. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel

nerves for every time I compete. I think that. Did you feel nervous before the NCAA championships? Because the only time I didn't was my senior in the finals because I was just so much better than everybody. It was more like, it was hard to get excited for it. It was just kind of like, all right, let's do this. Let's finish on a good note. But every other time I'm like, like, what makes you feel nervous in the UFC? Is it like the crowd? Is it the possibility you get knocked out?

Is it your career goals? I think it's just how much I put into what I do. And I spend so much time and effort. to go perform. And I know these moments are so short and finite, and there's only a few of them that you get. So I really, really put pressure on myself to perform to the best of my ability.

And then, of course, there's nerves for, man, I do not want to get knocked out cold on national TV. I do not want to get freaking, there's always that risk, like my entire family is watching and I'm putting myself in a very dangerous situation. So, you know, I do not, I want, and I want to win, you know, so to me, like the, the nervousness, it comes from, from those two areas. And I think one's very negative and one's very positive. So I really try to lean into the positivity and, and replace the negativity, the negative one with, with other things, with just more positive, loving feelings.

And that's, so that's your kind of protocol. Yeah, pretty much. How much you warm up? I would say like 40 minutes before, I'll probably go for like a hard 20 minutes. Like I get my heart rate up. I don't want to, I used to do this thing where I'd roll out and wrestle cold. And I would still go Pentagon 60 seconds, but I found overall long term I get better results when I warm up pretty good. So I'll get a good sweat and get that heart rate up.

And yeah, then I give myself about 15-ish minutes to cool down before it's go time. How about the next fight? Yeah. So, and this was your last fight, right? Yeah, my most recent fight was frigging sweet. It was so much better. Well, there was one little hiccup. The first fight I was very nervous.

I wanted to perform really well. And the guy who was fighting was dangerous. He's like 6-3, super long, south paw, awkward. It's like, that was not a great fight, you know. But he was the guy they brought to me and we're going to make it work. So, and it wasn't like he was an absolute killer, but he was just awkward and dangerous and had good power athletic. Yeah, you get caught.

You get caught. Yeah, so I was nervous. But then, you know, the second fight. And by the way, that one was an arm triangle. Yeah, arm triangle. Yeah. So the second fight, I was like kind of, I was way loose. I was like, I'm about to mess this dude up.

Like, we're ready to go. Camp was amazing. No injuries. All healthy. Weight cut was perfect. I actually, you know, I came down. I came in a little heavier. than what I normally do, but that was planned.

I wanted to be a little bigger. And I felt amazing. What are you walking around at? Right now I'm probably, I'm a little light right now, but normally like in training camp, I'm 206 to 208. I'm probably 202, 204 right now. What are you week of? So week of, I'll come in like lower than 200, like 98, 99.

And you just go like all water night before. I'll do seven day water load, six day water load. And then, yeah, just like cut the calories a little bit. but it's mostly just the water load and sauna and stuff. I try to limit as sauna and plastics as much as I can, but it's very intuitive based on I've done it so many times. But it's like no factor for you? None, no, no, none at all.

None. I feel, yeah, I mean, I've never missed weight in my life. No, I've been weighing in since I was five, so never miss weight. Check. Yeah. So it's not an issue. But, yeah, the hiccup was my opponent pulling out of the fight. You know, Monday I get a call.

I just finished a training. Well, I actually hadn't even finished. I was in the middle of my training session, and my mom, comes up to me and she's like, yo, Malky's on the phone, my agent. And I'm like, pissed. I'm like, why are you coming to me with a phone call in the middle of my? I'm about to like hit pads. And then he's like, I'm like, can it wait?

And she's like, no, it's important. And I'm like, I knew immediately when she said that. I was like, damn it. So he tells me he's pulling out. I heard his wrist or something. And I'm like, I just wasted like 10 weeks. And I bought 40 tickets for family and friends. And what are we going to?

This is, I paid, I got an Airbnb for the whole week. Like, you know, not to mention, I'm just not going to get to perform. That sucks. So, Frick, and Malkey's like, all right, we'll work on it. Let me call you in a little bit. So like, 45 minutes later, he calls him back. He's like, we got two names for you. And I'm like, give me whichever one signs.

I don't care. And he's like, all right, well, like, we're going to have the coaches watch some film and stuff. I'm like, okay, fine. So it tells my coaches watch a film. They're like, all right, check this dude out. I watch him in two minutes. And I'm like, done. I'll sign.

Let's go. and, you know, I told myself, it's funny because I told myself going into MMM, I'm like, I'm not doing last minute replacements, I'm not coming in. It's like, I'm a professional. We're going to do this for real. But then I get into the moment and I'm like, let's go. I'm fighting. Like I, you could throw out the freaking incredible Hulk.

Like, we could go. I'm ready to get it. And so, yeah, so he signed the contract. Luckily, fortunately, I obviously signed the contract. And then it was just back on business as usual, which was just such a blessing because I just thought was done. How are you feeling in training camps? Like what do you what are you focused on in training camps do you I mean obviously and I was thinking about this earlier and talking about doing all your different sports that's probably why you're striking is able to get up to speed so quickly like

if you just wrestled your whole life you wouldn't be striking the way you're striking no but because you were throwing balls and playing other sports and like that you're just athleticism is through the roof so what are you concentrating on? I would say the main thing that I focus on is just my base and fundamentals is agility, you know, being able to move forward, backwards, side to side with both stances. And just keeping that foundation solid and building good habits is the main thing. You know, the strikes and the combinations, when you put yourself in good position and you're in good position, you can do whatever you want. It doesn't really matter. You throw a knee, elbow, punch, whatever, whatever.

The main thing to me in striking is my understanding my range, understanding how to have agility, be able to move, and they always say this in jih Tzu, position before submission, right? It's the exact same thing in striking. It's getting a good position, then whatever you want to throw is going to land, right? Be super sound fundamentally on defense, so catching jabs, checking kicks, defending straight right hands as a south paw, all very big for me. And yeah, I mean, you know, you work a little bit of fundamentals on the actual strikes, right? Making sure that left hand, that straight left hand is straight, making sure you're right. right hook is where it needs to be, making sure your jab, you know, I have a versatile jab.

I can throw it to the head, to the body, I can throw it slow, I can throw it fast, I can throw it to the gloves, I can throw it to the air, different stuff like that, you know, but it's all solid foundation fundamentals. I think where a lot of people go wrong is they try to do the combo of the day, the one, two, three, slip two, uppercut, step back two. Like, it's like, that's not a real fight, bro. Like, let's do stuff that actually applies. So I think that's why I've been able to get as good as I have. And I just have really good coaches, guys that I listen to and trust and who are going to keep me in the right, like, laying in mindset of get this solid base fundamentals. Use your wrestling, right?

Like we're never going to forget about that. We're always going to use your wrestling. But now how do we mix it up? That's kind of my philosophy. How much wrestling do you do? I wrestle every day pretty much. And when you say wrestle. So not that much.

Do you do? Yeah. Barely ever. every day. DGJJJetzu, is that considered wrestling now, kind of? Like, if you're,

if you're going to train, can I slap a guetine on you? And, like, you're not like, dude, this is wrestling. Well, so what I do is when I'm, I do my wrestling training with Penn State still. So I go train with the college guys, but I adjust it a little bit.

So, like, I'm doing all folk style wrestling because that's most applicable to MMA. And I'm always, like, protecting myself. Like, of course, these guys aren't going to try to, like, they're wrestling, they're trying to get better at,

wrestling so they're not going to try to guillotine me or whatever but i i just adjust my style a little bit to where it's more the way i would compete in mma and like let's say i'm going with a dude and he shoots and something like if i could put a guillotine on him like i'll put it on a little bit yeah i'll just show it to him and just kind of like no i could have got it obviously he's not trying to defend me but like me just getting used to that and stuff and you know then um when i would do like actual grappling training it's with guys that you know what we're trying to trying to do like you know i do that a couple times a week yeah so that way you're getting all that and um when's the next fight do you know i'll probably go early next year so right now i got a couple

elk hunts coming up so through september yes sir so i'm super pumped about that and then um october uh my buddy anthony is fighting so i want to help him get ready for that and then my wife's having a baby december so i kind of like it kind of eliminated like the rest of this year for me um Because the main thing was, since my wife's pregnant, I don't want to have a situation where, all right, I'm fighting December 12th. Boom, she goes on the labor. And I'm like, what the frick, you know? So I'll probably push it to March or April.

But I think that's good for me, too, just with my development. I fought five times in the past year. And, you know, it's good for me to take some time and not be in camp because I've just been in camp the whole time. Yeah. And you got a baby coming. Your wife's a three-time All-American, freaking track athlete, savage. So you're, like, going to have a genetic.

mutant offspring as well. Yeah, that's the plan. That was kind of... But you messed up the date for wrestling a little bit. I know. I know. We'll see. So I'm hoping if she's a week late, we're good.

Yeah, so we'll see. But, yeah, yeah, I'm really excited about it. She's the best. So, you know, met my wife in school and whatnot. And, yeah, I'm excited for us to be parents. It's going to be insane. Yeah, that's awesome. Do you know if you're having a boy or girl yet?

Boy. Yo. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And then on the, like on the business front kind of, you got things going on there. You got Scrap Life. I see you're wearing a Scrap Life T-shirt.

So this is like, you know, you're wrestling apparel. And you guys make shoes and everything. Yeah, we do head to toe wrestling. So that's kind of where we started. Scrap Life was, I came on to Scrap Life a few years after the brand, you know, began. And then, you know, because of my position and just what I was bringing to the table, they brought me in as partner. And now I do all of our product development. I do our manage a lot of the NIL athletes and our influencers and stuff like that.

And yeah, there's, it's a, we're still early in the business. So you kind of got to do a lot of things when you're early in the business. And it's fun though. I really enjoy it. And I've learned so much just from having to figure things out and also dealing with people that, um, know a lot as well. It's, it's fun.

How's that NIL athlete stuff? Are you pissed? No, you know, I think you accept it. I accept it, yeah. For me, it's like, I look back at first, I was like, oh my gosh, I missed out on so much money. This is insane. And then, you know, it's like, what are you going to cry about it? Just get over.

And for me now, it's like I always felt like I don't want, the way NIL is working is donors writing checks to athletes. It's like, it's not the way it's intended. It's just a donor writing a check. And so for me, I don't know. I just, I don't really like the way that it's going,

the way that it's trending, but I'm also on the other end, excited for kids to be able to make money and happy for a lot of my friends that are doing really well. So, you know, and I'm, you know,

never going to beg for a dollar from anybody. So I'm going to go earn it myself. So it's all good. Right. Then you got your like, this recovery cream that you came out with, which you have some for me, which I'm at camp right now.

I need it. I thought you need it? Yeah, I got you. So what's that all about? Yeah, 2717. So it's a recovery cream that actually a close family friend of mine basically asked me, he was like, are you interested in like this recovery cream?

I work with a scientist and we're formulating it to basically help with any type of inflammation, bump bruise, that type of thing. Would you want to try it and see how it is? And this was like three years ago. So this was 2020, 2020, 2021. and I was like, okay, I'll try it, whatever. And so I tried it here and there, and I kind of have a bad back, bad neck,

so I rub it and I was like, oh, like, that kind of helped a little bit. But, you know, I just kind of kept moving, moving on. And then right before the Olympic trials in 2021, that was when I tore my MCL 90%. So I kind of like partially tore it with grappling Gordon and then completely tore it right before. And then it was three months of rehab

and just re-aggraving it like all the time. It would be like train, train, train, third day training, boom, reagivate it. And I'm like, what the hell? So basically after three months of that, I was like, what if I just, let me rub this on it. Let me see what's up. Because I kind of had forgot almost. And so I started putting it on my knee, you know, in addition to rehab and doing stuff. And then after a month, I was like, I'm good to go.

Like, wow, this actually helped. So I hit my family friend back up and I was like, what's up with this? Like, give me some more info on it. Like, let me see this. So he gives me some more info, gets me some more out. And I was like, all right, this work for me. I want to see how my teammates like it. So give something to Nolfe, give some to Kyle Snyder, give some to a few guys that kind of are doing the same things as me.

And then immediately, every single one was like, dude, send me more. This stuff's sick. Yeah, like, let me try that. Like, what are you having going on here? I'm like, it's just like, yeah, product we're working on. So then at that point, it kind of became real. I knew we had something. So then I kind of partnered up with a financial guy, partnered up with my uncle.

marketing team and I'd basically help design all of the branding, the packaging, that type of thing and, you know, do a lot of the now social media and whatnot. I'm not running the social, but I'm doing the marketing. And it's kind of for me, what I've realized about business is I have certain strengths. You know, I have a good eye for the look and I'm able to help with that type of stuff, product design and product development, and then what I'm able to do as an athlete in my own brand and that association. So that's kind of the lane I pick.

And then I've been trying to fill in the gaps with other people because I just couldn't do the other stuff that needs to be done, you know, the research or the fulfillment or anything on the back end, customer service. So, you know, I have other people that help me out with that. Yeah, no, you definitely have your role in this stuff and you shouldn't be sitting in a lab somewhere figuring stuff out. What about, you know, I saw on your website, bow nickel.com, I saw on your website, it says

camps. Do you actually do camps? Once in a while. So when I was in school and wrestling, that was like a huge source of income for me. I could do, you know, 20 camps of summer and make good money and stuff. But now with the way my situation is with fighting, I have a few rental properties, a few businesses, I don't really need to. So I will hear in there if it's like a camp. for maybe like a close friend or if somebody offers me like a lot of money, then I'm like, all right, well, let me see if I can carve it out. But I definitely don't make it a priority at all. And like I do a camp every summer for my buddy in Texas, who he's a high school wrestling coach and I want to give back. Right. So to me, that's a lot of what camps are. And if somebody

comes in with something like astronomical, then I'm like, all right, we'll make it happen, you know. But it's really, I try to limit them because it's a lot, as you know, it's a lot to go and do that. and it takes away from my training and stuff. So, you know, for me, it has to make sense. Now, is your gym in PA? Is that thing justified gym with no, or is there like members? There's members. Oh, okay.

So we have public class. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, jiu-jitsu classes. We got Muay. We got boxing classes. Oh, dang. Kids self-defense. Yeah.

That's freaking totally legit. I don't run any of them. But, you know, for me, my coaches are, the same guys that are coaching me are coaching the public classes, which is pretty cool. You know, they get that, you know, elite level knowledge. to you know anybody that wants to come in and learn and uh my goal is you know obviously right now i'm just fighting but when i'm done and retired is to like kind of head head the fight team up so i'll just have all these hopefully wrestlers that are coming up underneath me i'll have learned

what i need to learn and help guide them through that and i want maybe 10 to 15 guys you know not a crazy huge team but guys that are all on a mission on that same mindset on that same wavelength that want to be world champion and dominate and just take those guys under my wing so So that's kind of the plan long term for the gym. You and I had an offline conversation a while ago about, and then I've heard you mention it in the press too, and I love it. And that is that some of these other countries

are getting a lot of recognition for their wrestlers because of what their wrestlers are doing in MMA. And, I mean, I rattled off a ton of American wrestlers that have kicked ass in MMA and been world champions. I mean, everybody from John Jones to Suhudo. I mean, it's just, but for some reason, these other wrestlers from other countries get like recognition as if they're almost as if they're wrestling is superior almost as if they're like some different breed and what do you how do you feel

about that bow nickel you know just just to be 100% honest about it it does bother me I'm like kind of I feel a chip on my shoulder from that because I believe what I represent American wrestling is is number one. And so to see kind of the the excitement and hype around the other countries and what they're doing, I'm like, all right, bring your best. We'll see what's up. Let's do it. So to me, it's there's, you know, I'm totally cool to talk about it and chat about it and, you know, have a conversation. I don't know that that will go a long way in people's minds as far as helping them realize and understand what the reality is. So we got to fight. And that's what's going to happen. And I'm ready. Let's go. Yeah. So we'll do it.

Yeah, it seems kind of crazy. I mean, American wrestlers are badass. Now, would we be better off if we did like freestyle wrestling our whole lives here in America? We would be better off in the Olympics, right? Like, you know. But we worse off in MMA? Definitely. Yeah, because folks out the The skills that it takes to be successful at folk style wrestling are so different from freestyle. One, conditioning is way bigger factor in folk style. It's a longer match. There's less, there's more kind of, I guess, scramble situations, actions, more stuff that's going to be taxing to you.

You have to get up off bottom. You don't just get let up, right? Which is what is that, right? Like, I don't know. I don't know. So I always like freestyle, but to me, folk style wrestling is really. really true peer wrestling. Like that's what it's about.

It's about I'll get a take down. If you want to get away, you got to get, you got to earn that. You got to get away. I'm going to hold you down on the ground or and roll you over to your back and pin you, you know, or if you try to grab a hold of me or you grab my leg or something and I want to roll and do something to counter that, I shouldn't lose points for that. You're not controlling me, making me do that. So to me, I prefer folk style wrestling and it's easily superior in MMA.

It's like not even really comparable. You just look at, I mean, I can say that, but you can look at the stats too. Look at like guys that wrestled exclusively Freestyle or Greco and how successful they were. And not only how successful they were, but how successful were they at implementing wrestling game, which there's really not a lot of examples.

But guys that did folk style wrestling, you can clearly see them implementing the wrestling game. Well, I mean, it's going to be cool. You're going to be coming face-to-face with some of these foreign wrestlers in the future. and like you said, we'll find out by fighting. What a beautiful thing. Like, oh, you think you could beat me?

Well, let's fight. Yeah. Okay, we can do it. I'm ready. When you watch their wrestling, what do you think? It's just like, you know, it's like they got a specific style. And I think everybody gets so impressed by it because they are, they're disciplined and relentless and they have a game plan and focus on what they want to do.

And it's like, that doesn't really, to me, make you special. It's like, cool, dude. Like, I got to know a thousand guys that. do that. Like, it's not really anything that's unique. I think that I do respect their approach to the sport, and I think that some guys in fighting get a little too lax, party, like, I'm going to go out and be crazy, and then I'm going to go whip ass, and it's like, all right, cool, man, but I like the, that's just not my mindset. My mindset is all in, discipline, focus, commitment. And I think a lot of their guys do kind of have that. So I respect that. And I respect the challenge. Like, they're going to come

at me with everything and you know that's what I want I want to be the best in the world I don't want to beat a bunch of guys that aren't good and then call myself the best in the world like I want to beat the best guys and know I'm the best and so if they're if they're the best guys then let's run it let's go uh we're putting together kind of like the jaco fuel fight team right now and with the you and the rotolo brothers the rutolo brothers freaking awesome uh I keep calling kids is that bad heckled Charles technically I've literally known them since they were little kids that's the impression they were like eight years seven years old or whatever but so I call them kids don't and I am also 50 almost two years old so

that's well but I'm falling into that like old person trap where everyone's a kid right well anyways I've we've got the two young men there you go the Ruto brothers you know they're great guys great attitudes and now you're jocco fuel team which is awesome, and we just want to build it out where we have, look, to me, it's not just like, oh, this person's popular or this person's winning, but like who is living the lifestyle that we are about?

And so you clearly are about that. So it's been awesome. I know we kind of just got that done a couple, maybe a month ago or something like that. No one really knows yet, because I don't like do that big promotion thing. But I guess they'll know now. But yeah, that's awesome.

So hopefully we can give you some big support with everything that you're doing. Yeah, I'm excited to be on the team, you know. There's really no team I'd rather be on. It's a good fit. It makes a lot of sense and doing a lot of good things. So, yeah, I appreciate you. Freaking outstanding. So what's next?

What do we got? We got the kid coming. We got fighting sometime, you know, next year. The next main thing is go kill some elk. I'm going. I got a couple elk hunts. Where are you going? I got Colorado and New Mexico

Nice Yeah I'm excited And you're just bow hunter Just archery yeah Yeah I mean I don't really look down on Hunting with a rifle But archery is where it's at

Yeah so I'm an archery guy Yeah Have you done a lot of elk hunting before So Basically two years ago was my first experience Elk hunting I did it with a rifle And it was great

And I loved it But basically what happened was I wanted to get into archery hunting at that time, I had been shooting my bow for two months. And I was like, all right, it doesn't really make sense for me to go try to kill an elk right now. And so I was like, I need to train some. So the plan was train a year, next year, or excuse me, last year, go get one, go get after it. But then I had fights end of September.

So I was like, freak, I can't do it. So now I was like, get me a fight before September. Get me a fight in, you know, July. And I was like, boom, got it done. and I got September to go get after it. So that's going to be like my plan every year is fighting, you know, July-ish, September, get after the elk, and then get back on it. Hell yeah.

That's going to be awesome. I'll be out there too. I'll be in Utah. Beautiful. And where can people find you? So we got bow-nickel.com. That's where you can find the scrap life. Also scraplife.com is on there.

I didn't see 2717. What's the website for that? It's 2717 recovery.com. Yeah, so I need to update the website. This really new, no, just kind of launched the product the last few weeks. And yeah, yeah, 2717 Recovery, boneckel.com. And then you're on Instagram at no Bickle 1. No Bickle 1.

Is there a joke behind that? So basically when I was in high school, my buddy, I was like 17. I was like, yo, I should make an Instagram. I'm like, what should I do it? I don't know. What, Bo Nickel? He was like, how about no Bickle? And I was like, all right, this is my buddy, Jack.

And I was like, that's it. It's done. So it wasn't even me. It was Jack, Jack Bass. Okay. So on Instagram, you're no Bickle one. On Twitter, you're just no Bickle. And then Facebook, you're actually just yourself at Bo Bickle.

Just myself. There you go. That gets us up to speed, right? Yeah. Echo Charles. You got any questions? Yes. I've seen you were taking notes.

I don't know what you're doing over there. So when was last time you played football? I knew it. We had football questions coming. So the last time I actually played football, I don't know, I wouldn't count this as playing football. So I'll say two things. I played touch football over Thanksgiving when I was in college, like 2018, with a bunch

of my buddies. But I did a workout in the last like two years probably with my buddy, Michael Parsons. He plays with the Cowboys now. And we did a little speed workout running some 40s and doing stuff like that. So I'm down to play football anytime. That was fun. Yeah. So in what was that high school, right?

That was when you were doing. That was when I was actually playing. Yeah. Sophomary high school. What position did you play? So I played receiver. Yeah. Yeah.

Echo was receivers. Let's go. Nice. He was a lot smaller back then. Got you. That's your question? That's it, well. He went over everything.

Everything I was won. So we're good to go. Right on, man. Bo, any closing thoughts from you, man? I just thank you for having me on. This was really fun to chat. Kind of weird to go back over my whole life, but it's good. So, yeah, thank you.

I mean, to me, you know, obviously a lot of times I have military folks on here, and we get to hear their story of where they were at, what they were doing. But, I mean, dude, to sit here with a national champion that where you have this historical record of what you were thinking at that time, I think that's pretty awesome. and thanks for joining us for sure. And, you know, thanks for setting a great example for wrestlers, for fighters, but just for people as well. You know, your post-fight interview is pretty awesome. You don't see too many people with that attitude.

And I think we're all looking forward to watching you chase and win your next championship, UFC. And also, thank you for bringing forth the next generation of American fighters. Let's go. Let's go. Love it. Right on. And with that, Bo Nickel has left the building. Echo Trannels.

Yes. Up here at camp, we're just doing some jiu-jitsu, some wrestling. Bo-Nickle. Doesn't wrestle very much. Only 100 matches a year when he's six years old. Only 93% of his waking hours. No, it was awesome to have him on. And very cool, definitely.

And we talked a lot offline. We're going to have to do another podcast where we talk a little bit more of his training protocols. Yeah. I apologize. You know, like we just didn't get into, we touched on in the podcast, but like after the podcast, when we were sitting around, we kind of like started talking about it. And then we just started going deep. So we'll come back.

He'll come back. We'll do a better job. We'll make it happen. But one thing we definitely talked about is the need for fuel. Yep. Chaco fuel. You're training. You're wrestling.

you're doing jih Tjitsu, you're lifting, you're getting after it. You can't get after it without fuel. If you didn't put fuel in your car, where are you going? No-where. You're not going nowhere. You're not going nowhere, yeah. Yeah. So we want to go somewhere.

Yes. Yeah. Get your fool. Get jocco fuel. Go to joccofuel. Get the hydrate. Get the greens. I've had greens at camp.

Yeah. I brought them. Yeah. Well, they did a good job in supplying them. They did supply them as well. I brought some as well. But it's a good way. It's a good thing to have in the breakfast area time.

You know, because you know I don't like to eat a lot of breakfast. Usually I don't eat any breakfast. Yeah, I'm with you. But having that little, nice little greens package. Yeah. It's kind of a good deal. Yeah, yeah. Another thing, hydrate.

Jocco hydrate. Have you had jocco hydrate? Every day. This has been clutch. Yeah. Because, let's face it, when you're training in jiu-tut-too, it's summertime, you're going to sweat. The wonder of time, of course, you're in a wrestling room.

You're in a jit-so room. It's going to be hot in there, too. You're going to be sweating. Get jocohydrate. It's basically what you sweat out, it puts back into you. That's what happens. You sweat out minerals and it replenishes them. It also has vitamins there.

It's not like 100 grams of vitamin C. Yeah. I'm sorry, 100 milligrams of vitamin C. Not 100 grams, 100 milligrams of vitamin C. The electrolytes and all the electrolytes that you need. Yeah, and that's a big deal. So, you know how like, okay, so basically electrolytes. And look, I don't want to go deep into the scientific element.

of this whole thing. To bro science elements? No, no, no, no, no. It's the real one. The real one that I looked up. But in a nutshell, there's a good way to even kind of look at it, right? It's to electrolytes are like the electrical signals,

you know, or the chemicals that bring the electrical signals like through, you know, to your muscles or whatever. So I'm like, all right. So you got to, you sweat all that stuff out. And then so, because of course I'm going to be like, hey, I want you just want to just drink water. It's no problem. But when you don't have those electrolytes, like I got to go, okay,

so we did this workout. Me, Pete, Rob. Roberts Jason Kalippo known for CrossFit scenarios obviously well he's a champion crossfit. Yeah. So we did my workout. We did his workout and his workout he didn't make it up he did it before but his workout was bench press 135 pounds for 100 reps for time for time so you could get it the you know he makes it a competition so you could get it the fastest so and then we did some weird ab thing that I never did for by the way. Like you ever got an ab cramp?

Like an abdominal cramp? Honestly, normally I get, I'll tell you when I get abdominal cramps. Train jiu-jit, worked out, ran, trained jiu-jitsu, hard training jiu-jitsu,

get home. I'm like laying in my bed and go to like turn on the light and it's just like cramp. So that's my normal. So I don't know what you're about to tell me. No, after the ab thing. You know how like,

and the thing is like when you're done the ab thing, you really feel it. You're like, oh, this is some ab stuff. My ab's not used to. And then I turned a certain way, like right after, before I even stood up. I turned a certain way and like it flexed, whoa, you know, and you're just laying there and you got to, you got to like mentally like get past it or whatever.

Anyway, so it's like, so all in one, the whole thing, my workout. Usually I just do my workout. I'm done. So I did my workout, freaking the bench breast challenge, which I lost, by the way, next time we'll win. Which is embarrassing. Yes. Let's face it. Yeah, let's face it.

I lost, yes. But Pete won and hey, look, we congratulate him. Good for Pete. You know, good for Pete. I really hope he's happy with it. But either way. He seemed real happy about it. And then...

I mean, he's pretty pumped, right? Yes. He beat you. Yes. And let's face it, beating you would be cool. It would be cool, yes. It would be cool, yes. It would be cool, yeah.

But he also would be Jason Kalipa. And that's very cool. And Jason Kalip is a legit professional athlete. Yeah, and he made up the challenge. That's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah. You know he was mad.

Dude. He's going to want some revenge. Yeah. And rightly so, because even I wanted to revent. Damn. But the point is, oh, and then, and I didn't eat anything that day by the way is this even fair do we need to edit this out i feel bad no i know i wasn't even part of this but i feel bad it's all over it's good for pete oh it's all it's already out

oh yeah results are out oh yeah people know we're just recapping right is it trending on twitter either way so i go straight from there to training and i train like look did i train 10 rounds no but i did two workouts mine and jason cleopas and then trained i think it was like four or five rounds guess what i had right after hydrate yeah yeah yeah can you get that hydrate oh yeah good as new good as i had some no more cramps no cramps all right so jacofuel hydrate greens go we've been drinking go like it's going out of style out here yeah because you're out here let's face it when you train this much in a day you're gonna be you're gonna need a little go and and and another thing there's not a lot of sleeping going on.

People are staying up late. People are, you know. Sure. Even the judjitsu class ends at like nine. But then somebody's got a question. Somebody wants to catch another round. Somebody wants to do this. Well, somebody wants to work a guard pass.

All of a sudden, you're like a little bit hungry. So you go to the chow hall. Oh, some people are explaining something. Oh, you met a guy that you met last year. He's wanting to talk about this thing. And you want, oh, yeah, how's that? Next thing, you know, you get back down to your cabin. And it's freaking 11, you know, 38.

And you got to brush your teeth and you got to take your super grill and you got to take your your joint warfare and you got to take your time more then you got to brush your teeth floss now it's 12-07 yeah a long clock's going off in four hours in your case in my case anyways you're gonna need some go get it joccofuel.com mulk how many mokes have you been having a day here average yeah like three yeah sometimes four i've been having like three four a day yeah pre meal is what I've been doing And then I think, oh, I just, you know, have one before I go down there. And then I'll have one post meal.

I eat two meals a day. That's four. So there you go. Mulk, get what you need. You can get this stuff at Wawa. You can get vitamin shop, G&C, military commissaries, Afees, Hanford, dash stores, Wakefern, Shoprite, H.E.B., Mire.

By the way, like, these stores are starting to bring in the full line. It's awesome. Meyer, full line. H.E.B.'s been just getting after it. Harris Teeters just brought in every So you're gonna see everything So when you see it get it You know you want to be stronger

You want to be smarter You want to be faster, you want to be better And if you want to sell this stuff at your school You want to sell this stuff at your school You gotta school you teach kids Educational stuff Maybe you teach them jiu-jitsu Maybe you teach them crossfit

Maybe you teach them strength and conditioning Maybe you teach them power lifting Maybe you teach them archery I don't know what you're teaching people But if you're teaching people And you want to bring this stuff into your school Email JFsails at joccofield.com Set up a wholesale account.

That's what we're doing. Anyways, joccofuel.com. Get some. Also, origin, USA. Hey, we're out here. Yeah, we're here. Currently. Origin, Jiu-Jitsu immersion camp,

brought to you by origin. Yeah. Origin. American-made apparel started with geese and still has geese. The best geese factually. Hands down. Brought that new one, that black or black.

Oh, two years. Like the fashion side of that one. I know what's going on. Unless, all, of America right here right here from the cotton all the way to the ghee but not just geese jeans some jeans on boots yeah uh jeans boots they got some good jackets the kilo the heavy like those because i've been seeing those around i'm like oh man some that i never seen before hey let me just put this out there it's the end of august currently you need a hoodie for this winter for this fall

you need a hoodie get yourself an american made a hoodie don't buy a hoodie that's made a by a communist, by a hoodie that's made by Americans. That's my recommendation. It'll be better for you. It'll be better for the environment. It'll be better for the economy. It'll be better for freedom. It'll just be better.

Get a kilo hoodie. OriginUSA.com. Go get some. Yeah, it's cool. They got something for everybody, by the way. You're into hunting, hunt gear. You're into just regular normal stuff, working out, freaking. RTF gear.

The whole deal, origin, USA. dot com check check also jock was store called jaco store this is the you know the guys that are kind of in the game discipline equals freedom representing in the game on the path if you will that's where you can't get your stuff you know you like the the idea of good something bad happens good will come out of yeah you can represent that as well also we have the shirt locker which is a new shirt every month a subscription scenario i've seen a lot of people representing the shirt locker oh yeah up here it's interesting because i have this one on Right now the toxic productivity and a lot of people haven't seen it.

And multiple. They said, ooh, that's a good shirt. Yeah. When you say multiple, what are we talking about? In my case, seven people? Seven to ten people. Okay. That's multiple.

Oh, yeah. And yeah, it's only in like what, like the period that I've seen a bunch of people, which is only like maybe one and a half hours. Yeah. All right. It's a lot. Shirt locker. Yes, called the shirt locker.

It's on jocco store.com. Hey, check out primalbeef.com. where we got Sean Glass selling steak. We're selling steak. Hell yeah. We got badass steak. We got burgers. Like, just get it.

Grass fed, grain and fruit finished. Finished with fruit. You want a cow that was eating apples, right? Apples. You know what I mean? Eating a grape, eating a pear. I'm starting to sound like Theo Vaughn over here. So, check it out.

Primalbeef.com. See what you get to get into you need some steak also subscribe to the podcast also subscribe to Jockle Underground also subscribe to our YouTube channel also subscribe to origin USA YouTube channel also subscribe to Jago Fuel YouTube channel Psychological Warfare flipside canvas.com by cool stuff to hang on your wall by Dakota Meyer I've written a bunch of books you know what they are get the books I've signed a bunch of books we're up here how many people come up to me and say hey well thank you for writing leadership strategy and tactics oh man oh dang Planning? Multiple, we'll say. Multiple. Yeah.

In this case, in this case, it's more than 30. Yeah, no, I believe it because I witnessed. It's more than 30. I mean, I've signed at least, oh, I probably signed 70 books. I've signed three here. There you go. And you didn't even write a single book.

Or a single real word in any of those books. Just made the cover. Oh, wait, which one did you make the cover for? Leadership Strategy. Oh, dang, I forgot about that. Well, how much credit? do you take for that honestly none until right now no but i mean i i give you a crappy powerpoint that like basically has the design on it yes and then you clean it up and put it in the

proper format yes and you want credit for that also known as making the cover okay okay all right bro i'm taking it where i can get it over here you see what i'm saying well okay so you can get a book echo charles made the cover you know a lot of people think that's the most important thing Well, you know, we do what we can over here. Anyways, a bunch of books. You know what they are. Go get them. Hey, also Warrior Kid books.

I signed all kinds of Warrior Kid. Kids are playing Jiu-Jitsu now. They're playing that Jiu-Jitsu because they got the Warrior Kid Books. They're doing pull-ups. They're getting A's in their math classes. They're on the path. Get the Warrior Kid Books for the people that you know. You're thinking like, well, how good can they be?

I'm telling you, there's no way that this many people come up and talk to me about how these books help their kids if they're not freaking outstanding. I agree. So check out the way the Warrior Kid books. Check out About Face by Hackworth. I signed one of those while we're here. No, two. Two of those while we're here.

And extreme ownership, dichotomy, leadership, leadership strategy, tactics. I signed a lot of discipline equals freedom up here. Probably 14 of those. Estimated, 17 maybe. Anyways, that's what we're doing. A bunch of books. Get them.

Eslamfront.com. If you have issues, you want to prove the leadership inside your organization, go to Eslamfront.com. You can come to one of our events. We can come to you. You can do our online training, which is available at extreme ownership.com, where you can take online courses. You can learn jujitsu online, which is a real physical thing, but you can also learn

to lead. So check out extreme ownership.com. Learn about life. Learn about home life. Learn about leading your family. Learn about leading your boss. Learn about leadership. Extreme Ownership.com.

And if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star Families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an amazing charity organization. And if you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's Mighty Warriors.org.

Also check out Heroes and Horses.org. That is Micah Fink. He's got a charity where he takes people up into the wilderness. I mean deep into the wilderness. and they go in rivers, cold rivers. They ride horseback. They eat meat. They have no junk food.

They have no cell phones. They get out there. They get lost and they get found. Heroes and Horses.org. Also, thanks to Bo Nickel for joining us. And just a great guy, as you could tell. We wish him the best. and we will enjoy watching him in pursuit of UFC gold

and representing America and American fighters. So thanks once again to Bo. If you want to connect with us, by the way, Bo is bownickel.com. He's at Instagram at No Bickle 1. He's on Twitter at No Bickle. He's on Facebook at Bo Nickel. Of course, that goes out of Coachell.

I'm at Jockle Willink. Just be careful because there's an algorithm on there. And you might accidentally follow somebody that you didn't mean to. And now all of a sudden you're following random people. So just be careful. Yeah. Watch out. Just watch out for that one.

Then what do you do? What do you do? When you accidentally follow someone? I don't know, man. That happened to me two times. So I'm following. And, you know, I'm not going to say the name, obviously. But I just let it ride, you know, whatever.

And if, thankfully, great people, you know, normal people, whatever. So, but yeah, if they got annoying, I don't know, maybe unfollow me. I don't even know where the follow button is. Yeah. I don't even know where it is. But somehow I must have hit it. Yeah. And so now we're following.

Here, this is how it, because I did that I reversed engineered it. And if you click on like your alerts or whatever, you know, the heart with the alerts, it'll say like this guy did this. And then, but if you're not following it, it'll say follow. Like you'll have a question mark. So you can easily accidentally press follow. Yes. Check. Okay.

Well, just watch out because your algorithm. We'll have people that you may end up following by accident. All right. Well, like I said, thanks to Bo for coming out. Thanks to our military. The members are of our military who represent America around the world and who keep us safe and protect our way of life. And also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers,

correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, and all first responders. Thank you for keeping us safe and protecting us. here at home and to everyone else out there. Let's just think about those J-7, the J-Robinson, wrestler, coach, soldier, ranger, Vietnam veteran. His seven fundamentals that he would teach to young wrestlers, discipline, dedication, sacrifice, hard work, responsibility, accountability, and of course, service.

And if you're doing those things, If you're doing those things, you can do anything. And you can definitely stay on the path. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.