Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 170 - Dan Severn

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

UFC Hall of Fame Inductee, Dan “The Beast” Severn is a world class fighter, coach, and speaker. Severn is considered one of the leading pioneers of Mixed Martial Arts and the first true world-class wrestler to compete in the UFC. He is best known for his success in the early years of the UFC where he became the first and only UFC Triple Crown champion and the only man to win a world title and a tournament, having won the UFC Superfight Championship and the 1995 Ultimate Ultimate tournament. In professional wrestling, Severn is a two-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, with his first reign lasting for over four years, and an NWA Hall of Fame member. Today, Dan travels the globe giving seminars, instructing law enforcement officials, and making appearances at various sporting events. Link to sign up for the ST Classic: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/super-training-classic-2019-tickets-53251741392 ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

Hey, when we actually go live, you're going to have to behave yourself, sir. Nope. That was never in the contract. Smokey, get the restraints. Going to have to figure out what to do with this guy over here, huh, Andrew? Who do we got today, Mark? We're going to have fun. We're here today.

We're joined by the great Don Fry. Appreciate it. I'm sorry that Don couldn't be here today. I'm just a mustache imposter. That's right. We're here with Dan the Beast Severn. And I first became aware of him when he stepped foot inside the octagon some, what, probably close to 20 years ago, 15 years ago?

Well, actually, closer to 25 years now. Oh, my God. Because we just had the 25th anniversary show what in uh november or december there yep it was the 25th anniversary show so yeah time time marches on and uh you were a part of ufc4 and then you participated in some other ufcs after that when was the first time that you even became aware of uh mixed martial arts because you he got that collegiate wrestling background. Well, I became aware of it. A friend of mine happened to watch the very first couple UFC pay-per-views. Again, just kind of like to educate your audience because right now, if you're thinking just in

present terms, pay-per-views are very prevalent. I mean, you can watch the pay-per-view off of the comfort of your cell phone. At the time that I became aware of it, I mean, pay-per-views were only being shown at the major metropolitan areas. And me living out in little old Coldwater, Michigan, we did not have pay-per-views that extended out that far. So I was oblivious to it.

So a friend of mine watched the first couple, copied them on an old VHS tape, and said, hey, I think you ought to try this. I'm seeing people being soccer kicked in the face. I'm seeing teeth flying out at the crowd. I'm thinking, you know, these are not exactly skills that I possess. But then we said, hey,

look at this skinny little guy doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Of course, he's referring to Hoyce Gracie. I kept thinking, well, gosh, a guy's got to be within arm's distance in order to punch me, kick me, or knee me or something like this. I simply will stay out of range. And after they throw and they recoil back, I

simply slide on up, clinch him or take him down and go, welcome to my world. Yeah, Hoist Gracie kind of revolutionized the sport with some of the with jiu-jitsu. Were you aware of Brazilian jiu-jitsu or were you aware of it only after he, uh, he got around your throat?

Well, I mean, well, again, I'll, let me, I'll, I'll set the, I'll set the record straight. I've actually done this in a number of other interviews, stuff like that, that, uh, um, I thought I was supposed to say, sure. I tapped out that night, but I go, did I tap out because a man beat me? Or did I tap out because I was unwilling to do what I had to do to another man? You go back and watch that match. Even now you go back and watch this match. You'll see how long do I wait in order to throw any kind of strikes?

I mean, I usually take twice down. I'm in again. I didn't even know what a guard was. I was inside. To me, it's like, I just had a double leg takedown. I took him down. I got on his back. I mean, he was pinned in the sense of my amateur wrestling world, but I goes, pinning doesn't exactly win here in this no holds barred arena.

And, you know, I only trained for five days and an hour and a half a day at the El Snow's Body Slammers Gym there in Lima, Ohio. I mean, it was a very comedic training camp I had there. So I didn't learn any submission holds. I did not learn any striking aspects. I simply just used my amateuristic skills. And so it wasn't until several minutes into this match that I'm realizing, you know, what crude

and primitive submission skills that I, I possessed now out of this five day training camp are not exactly working here against Hoyes. I'm thinking to myself, I think, I think I have to hit this guy, but I had to hit, I had to think about it. And I always tell people that I was more torn probably with my conscience than I ever was with an opponent.

And even then, when I finally did throw a strike, did I throw something like dead center? Like now, I mean, like now, fast forward today, take you down, Donkey Kong. And it's on. And that's my mindset would be for nowadays. But back then, you know, I had to go against 26 years of rules, 26 years of regulations, sportsmanlike conduct. You can't punch in amateur wrestling.

You're disqualified and stuff like that. So even when I did finally throw the first couple of strikes, it was all peripheral. Like, well, maybe that hurt a little bit. I don't know. Let's try another one over on this side. But again, you know, the match, I lost all aspect of how long the match even went. I just know that we got to some point.

He's got a hold on me. I'm thinking this probably looks good. And I tapped. Right. So to me, it's like, you know, a lot of people say, well, that's bullshit or something like that. I go, you're not in my mindset. There's very few people that will ever understand me

or who I am or what I'm all about. I go, but the last, had I known more about what really was going down with that company and manipulation of that nature, oh, there'd be a whole different thing. But as I got educated, in my last probably four, five, six years of competition, four, five, six years of competition, I was planning my own exiting strategy because I was typically always giving up 20 years of age to younger opponents. When I started hitting the 30-plus year margin,

I might go on, when I'm older than most of my opponent's fathers, and I even saw in my own skill set that I'm slowing down. In my mind I'm like going move, move, move but by the time my wiring goes from my mind to my body my body says okay that's not a good

combination so I knew that I needed to start planning my own exiting strategy. And I was trying to get, you know, one more big match to go on out there. And I made it very clear that I really was looking for three different opponents. And the three opponents in line would have been Mark Coleman, Ken Shamrock, and Ahoy Scracia. If I could have had those being the last three matches, that would have been it.

Mark has had a lot of some health issues and stuff like that. They had to have some surgeries and stuff like that. So, I mean, I've made peace with him and we went on, but I still had two other viable candidates between both Ken and Hoyce. So I really pursued them and it just did not materialize. Yeah, it would be nice to get a rematch against uh hoist gracie huh that would have been that would have been good you know you um you you spent many many years in uh amateur wrestling and then you also uh were in in professional wrestling

and um you know some like i remember when uh kurt angle he started getting involved in uh professional wrestling and a lot of a lot of of people were like, this is kind of bullshit. Like, why, why is this guy who's got this great amateur career doing this phony wrestling, you know? And so. Don't say that. We got so big, a bigger urge that are wrestling. Okay.

Yeah. There's amateur wrestling and there's professional wrestling. Yeah. So did you ever feel that you were, uh, you know, like, I don't know, turn your back on some of your hardcore wrestling friends and buddies and stuff that were in the sport? I did take some heat from some, well, actually from a number of my buddies because they know me and I kept thinking, I'm not doing, this is not professional wrestling. This is professional wrestling. I go, you got to understand the difference here right now. I go, one is a legitimate sport.

The other one is actually just a legitimate sports entertainment product. I go, there is a script. There's Vince McMahon himself is the person who exposed the business so that he did not have to go underneath the scrutiny of all of these state athletic commissions, because at that point in time that them trying to say that it was all legit, you know, now they have to go through these,

uh, state athletic commissions. There has to be blood testers, have to be all these kinds of things that are taking place. And it was costing Vince a lot of money. So basically by him saying that, Hey, it's a sports entertainment product.

Now we bypass the athletic commissions because most States don't have athletic commissions that regulate professional wrestling. Right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What was your experience like in professional wrestling? Did you like it a lot? I enjoy it for what it is. I mean, it's for anything can and will happen. I mean, but you see some of the most unique technique.

I mean, it's like the punch. It's not like you see real face. They just throw it out here. In professional wrestling, it's the wind up and delivery system or the wind up like this. Right, right. The lip back up and delivery. Dusty Rhodes. Yes, exactly.

So it's, I actually, I enjoy professional wrestling for the bigger than life characters that get out there. The flamboyant coloration. You got like the Ric Flair that get out there that, you know, the flamboyant, uh, coloration you got, like the Ric Flair's going out there. Woo. Some days this nature, but then you got,

you know, macho man, Randy Savage with, Ooh, yeah. Snap into a slim Jim. I mean, just,

I like those bigger than life characters. That was fun for you then. Oh, it was. I mean, I, you know, it was easy to differentiate who is the bad guy,

the heel, who is the bad guy, the heel, who is the good guy, the baby face, you know, is like, will good prevail over evil or will evil prevail over good? And who's going to interfere

from the outside because there's so many different ways to win and there's so many other ways to lose because you may win, but then someone runs out through the curtain

and attacks you and all of a sudden, you know, you got this bad guy tag team and another good guy runs out there to run off the other people with the chairs or with this. And now you got, you go from being involved in singles matches to now tag team matches. I think a UFC could use some of this,

you know, I do believe it's already there. Yeah. It kind of has been a last couple of years, people calling each other out after the matches and stuff like that It could be done in a little bit more Tasteful way, I actually think there's a lot of MMA guys, and I actually have offered this up

Even at my own training facility To bring in, I have the only training facility I'm aware of that, underneath the same Roof, I have amateur Wrestlers, professional Wrestlers, and cage Fighters, and cage fighters. And they appreciate and respect each other because they see how hard each other has to work.

And I bring in a lot of MMA guys that go, a fighter is a dime a dozen. What's going to really differentiate you than anybody else is charisma. You've got to set yourself apart. There's so many of these guys, it's like they went to the F-bomb school and that's all they know how to do is go F-bomb, F-bomb, F-bomb, F-bomb. Now that, you know.

Can't use that even. To me, I'd almost like to say, this is called a book and this is an encyclopedia. There's a few other words that you could use other than just the F-bomb to get your point across. I go, expand your horizon. I think even when

I was with professional wrestling, the biggest company, I worked for WWF at the time, the course of a professional wrestling career, they're going to resect you from a good guy, the baby face to the heel, the bad guy. I was kind of looked upon as a baby

face, just a known nonsense. I kind of had this, you know, I intimidated a lot of people with just my sheer appearance. And I just, I didn't wear no colorful outfits. I wore the same outfit that I wore inside the Ultimate Fighting Championships when I did that.

And I kept thinking, okay, they want me to be a heel now. So I came up with some ideas of what I could live with. I wanted to wear a suit and tie. And I wanted to pull out the old easel. And I wanted to say, here is you, the common person.

It just shows you a little house, a little car, and you drive to work. It shows a little factory page. I'll flip over these pages, and you work hard, put in your $8 or $10 a day, so that you can buy tickets to come and watch me perform.

And then see the big house and the limousine and stuff like this, where people are going to kind of hate you, because you're rubbing their nose in reality. And I could live with that one, because I am a real reality based type individual. So I go, I have no future in politics because if you wanted me to know my

opinion, I may say sometimes, well, Mark, you know, maybe I should just plead the fifth on that one because you just realized it probably wasn't going to be a positive response. Some people need to have their face rubbed in some poop every now and then because that's their wake-up call. You got to get them fired. I could have lived with that character, but now

this creative team is pitching this, well, we'd like to put 666 across your forehead. Mark of the beast. And want to make you an undertaker's disciple. And as they're telling this to me, I'm like holding up my hands. Not going to happen. I live in small town USA.

I'm not going to have any repercussions against my family. Right. Nor against my businesses. Nor against me because you don't understand how many people actually believe in this. Yeah. So. They're going to take it way too far. They're going to be like, why'd you sign up with

the undertaker? Exactly. You know, I love the, uh, I love the, what the attire that you had come into the ring. You're always all sweaty. Your, uh, shirt was all, you had like that sweatshirt on and just in the black tights, keeping it simple.

Well, I get it. It worked for black and white television. It always really showed up quite well, but no, I just, to me, the gray sweaty t-shirt was symbolic. When you go to, you go to any university and you go to the

athlete department, they will issue you your set of grays. And I used to grade my workouts by how many shirts I would soak through. And of course, so my standard was two. I'd soak through two, two shirts. And a really good day, three. And I'm not talking with just a little ring here or there or something like that.

I'm talking about something to stop what you throw there. It sounds like it just came out of the washing machine or something like that. So, and for me, you know, during my amateur wrestling career, to lose between seven and 10 pounds in a workout was standard. And that's while drinking through practice, I'm still going to lose seven to 10 pounds because most of these rooms are like 90 some degrees and you're going to be working out for the next two, two and a half hours.

So, yep, that's, uh, that was symbolic of, uh, I'm going to, my results are going to be by the sweat of my brow. Wrestling takes an insane amount of discipline. And, you know, where did some of this discipline come from? You know, is it early upbringing or you just always kind of had a drive from the time you were really young? No, probably being a kid, like any other kids who just wants to watch this cartoon to not do anything, but being, you know, growing up on a farm and having responsibilities early on towards kind of like, you know, you named the animals, we raised them on our farm. And you learn real quickly that you don't give them names because sooner or later they're going to end up on your plate, you know.

And so, you know, we had rabbits, chickens, pigs, goats, lambs, cattle. chickens, pigs, goats, lambs, cattle. And, you know, one of my jobs for, I think, six, seven years there was milking Peggy, the family milk cow, you know, so that was one of my chores was milking the cow. But then, you know, doing other stuff like, you know, going in and getting the water for the cattle or getting water for the pigs, things of that nature. And like I said, just growing up here, those responsibilities of knowing that you have to get up by a certain time in the morning. You've got to go out there and get those chores done before you get ready and get your own breakfast and stuff like this done

before you have to take the half-mile walk up to the bus stop. So those responsibilities were there for in the morning, but then you've got to feed those animals again at night. It's not a normal school day to where you just go to school and come back because now what season are you in? Are you in your football season? Are you in your wrestling season? Are you in your track season?

Was it a home game versus an away game? So I may not be getting back until, say, 10, 11 o'clock at night. I still have to go out there and milk Peggy the milk cow. I still have to go out there and feed animals and then give the animals their water, stuff like that. So you, you learn real quick. I have to do this.

I can't just say, I'll catch it tomorrow. Not going to happen. Was a lot of that kind of led by like your dad and your siblings, like you saw them kind of going out and doing it. And so you just kind of went along and everybody was doing it. Or, you know,

was your dad like, you better get your ass out there kind of thing. Well, I would say my dad was, was, was, uh, an author,

an authoritarian to where I knew the theories, the threes. Uh, we would, uh, he will ask you, he will ask you, he will come down upon you. Don't ever let it get to the

third time of asking there right now. Otherwise there are going to be repercussions, which that theory really would do a lot of good in today's society because there's, there's no repercussions for most people, what they say or what they do. And that's, uh, we'll leave that away, but it worked well for my brothers, my sisters, and I growing on up. I mean, it was my father would yell up the steps, hey, Dave Dan, my old brother's

name is Dave. I mean, the responsibilities came upon us really quick. And the fact that being on a 120-acre farm, my father was not a farmer by trade. He worked in the automotive industry, and he would be known as the hobby farmer, because that being on a 120-acre farm. My father was not a farmer by trade. He worked in the automotive industry. And he would be known as the hobby farmer because if you want to make any real money farming,

you have to have several hundred acres and you have to have the big rigs and stuff like that. So the farming was kind of for the family. Yeah, basically for the family. My father, basically, he was the baby of his 12 brothers and sisters. So he was the baby, in his words, he. So he was a baby in his words. He was probably the last twinkle in his father's eyes.

So, so, you know, my father basically purchased the farm from my grandparents. And like I said, we just, you know, going up, it's like, like a Tom Sawyer type of childhood right there. Now it's 120 acres, but there's so many of this acreage. It's all in the forest. And there's a couple of creeks that are going through the place. So fishing and hunting. I didn't even know you needed a license when you go out there. Because we were hunting with guns at a very early age. And shoot rabbits, nature.

And anything else that we wanted to go after game wise. So it's like, I've eaten almost every type of animal that there's possible and, and this, uh, you know, just growing up on that, it was just a great, just a great childhood. I mean, you automatically learn that, like everything that you have, everything that you get, you have to go get, you have to physically,

it's a. You have to work hard. It's going to be labor. You got to go for it. Yeah. It's a, you know, everything that you get, you have to go get, you have to physically, it's a. You have to work hard. It's going to be labor. You got to go for it. Yeah. It's a, you know, the garden, we never had like a little, a little 10 by 10 garden. It was like, you know, we're planting half an acre of sweet corn.

We're planting, you know, uh, one of our things that took, and this was my, my older brother and I, I did there. We're going to make, we're going to get rich're going to get rich by growing pickles, growing cucumbers. And so we had basically about an acre of cucumbers. And here, like the first time we're picking all these cucumbers, what people don't realize is picking cucumbers, cucumbers actually has a sharp barb all over the body of this to where we'd have our thumb duct tape and our finger duct tape

so each time you grab that cucumber, you simply just break it off, break it off, and you keep on going. There's no easy money. Oh, and now we've got all these big bushel baskets of these big cucumbers and we go to the local Aunt James pickle factory. They don't want those big old cucumbers. They want these little skinny things about the size of your pinky known as sweet gherkins. You know how many sweet gherkins you have to pick

in order to get a bushel basket? A shitload. So we learned real quick, this was not a good investment, but we actually still made money and bought a couple of motorcycles. And you grew up in Michigan, is that right? Yeah, born and raised in Michigan, and then lived in Arizona for a decade of my life

because I was recruited by Arizona State University. So I went there to wrestle. So I was about the first five years as a student athlete, and then the second five years as an assistant wrestling coach to Bobby Douglas. And then a job opportunity came up at Michigan State, and then I took the job there at Michigan State and the Michigan Wrestling Club. But I've been teaching timetables.

I started my amateur wrestling career in 1969, seventh grade. And then by my freshman, sophomore year at school, I started actually teaching wrestling in 1971. 1981, I graduated out of college. So I always, and I got to teach my sheepskin at that point in time that, hey, you are a teacher and stuff like that. So I always, and I got to teach my sheepskin at that point in time that, hey, you are a teacher and stuff like that.

And I just kind of smiled when I got my certificate and thinking I've already been doing this for a decade already. But that is my skillset. And that's the thing that even fast forward to today, I travel around and I still do a lot of instructional type of seminars. I do a lot of things with first responders,

like anything from law enforcement corrections, air marshal, border patrol, military. And just because I understand the body mechanics and realizing that, you know, it changes up a great deal if I'm just wearing a pair of trunks out there versus now I've got all this gear on and I've got guns and tasers and, you know, or a rucksack on my back. I'm like a tourist. So I actually, I put the gear right on with them. And if there's a better widget to be made, that is my skill set. I'll make that widget for you. A lot of people end up with high levels of success like you've had in both MMA and collegiate wrestling.

A lot of people have setbacks. Did you have some setbacks early on, that uh that just made you kind of dive all into this or or do you just dive into everything just regardless well no i i say that um i've always i've always had goals set for my life to where i don't just let life life happen to me i i've always been very meticulous about setting goals for myself knowing that while i reach all my goals no hopefully i come somewhat close for them. But as the saying goes, I mean, life happens. And every now and then you hit a dead end road

or a couple of U-turns and things of that nature. So we wouldn't be here talking like right now. The only reason that you know about me, Mark, is through either my MMA career or through my professional wrestling career. Now, you being involved in amateur wrestling might know me a little bit, maybe, from the amateur wrestling, but I'm older and stuff like that than what you are,

so probably not. It's only because one of my goals was I was going to retire in 1984. I was going to retire as the Olympic gold medalist. But instead retire as the Olympic gold medalist. But instead of being the Olympic gold medalist, I was the Olympic alternate. And I had to sit up in the stands and watch the man ahead of me, Lou Bannick, win the

gold medal without giving up a single point. Everyone that he wrestled, I had pinned and underneath one minute. So it was going to be an easy gold medal for me to have won, but didn't even, even at the heavyweight weight class, Bruce Baumgartner was the heavyweight gold medalist. Everyone that he wrestled, I had pinned at underneath one minute. So I could have won it at two different weight classes. So I'll say that because of

this injustice, I had to perform my own human exorcism. A lot of people were impressed with what I did did starting in that 1984 period and on. In the UFC.

If they really wanted to see a real monster, they should have seen me from 1984 to 1986 because I ended several people's careers because I was never going to let it be close in my wrestle matches ever again that politics could ever prevail. People's shoulders, people's knees, you know, all legal moves, just knowing that the body parameters only been so far.

Did that hurt to have to watch it from the stands? It hurt. No, I mean, to watch it from the stands, you know, did that, did that experience like. Oh, it did. Just light a fire underneath. Yeah, yes, it did. I had issues and I had to perform my own exorcism at the expense of other people's expense.

Did you start training harder and stuff or, you know, how did you apply yourself differently? It did not have anything to do with my training and things of that nature. Just, you know, just some politics that prevailed. And there's nothing that's that's why I hate politics even to this day forward. It's not, is it always in the best interest? No. It's how good of a politician are you? And it's I'm not a good politician. I'm a straight shooter on things and that's where I stay incredibly busy

With all the things that I do But then I tend to under promise And over deliver Where most people over promise And they under deliver And it's like As a general consensus Anyone that really knows me

Knows that I think people suck Because whatever they say Dilute it with about nine parts of water, you might be close to the truth now. And I hate to say that like they'd be negative towards people, but that's how I deal with most people anymore. Because I, and it's getting worse with the younger generations.

They're just, it's not, their word means less and less. It's hard to know who to trust because there's just so many people, so many more people have come to the surface because of social media. You know, you probably wouldn't have been aware of someone three states over, or, you know, you wouldn't be aware of somebody in Las Vegas, you know, if you lived here in California and vice versa.

And so I think that that has maybe amplified some things. What are some things that happened today that maybe are going on today that maybe kind of scare you? Like do cell phones and things like that. Like a lot of kids spend a lot of time on their cell phones. A lot of kids spend a lot of time on social media.

I know that you work with a lot of kids with wrestling and stuff. What are some things that kind of maybe bother you that you think maybe people should be looking to change or trying to improve upon? Well, again, some days it's, well, for example, walk to the mall. I mean, not walk, but go to the mall on any given day and just stand out in the courtyard someplace and do a quick 360.

Find the person that doesn't have a cell phone in their hand. Younger kids right now, it's in their hand so much, you almost have to use a putty knife to pry it loose. It's throwing roots right into them because they're just so dependent.

Now, I see this all the time. I'm a people that, I see that there was like that's always in their self their their hand and even i i look at the cell phone it's only it's a tool but then i also look at the social media outlets it's just a tool for me for either acquiring work or uh helping others to find me that are looking for certain things that they have goals and aspirations. So I look at these only as tools. Any of the people that I really am, that are involved in my life, I'm in contact with them in some type of form

and not being posted to the Facebook. I do when people are, even it just boggles my mind when they will be airing their laundry in a social media format. I'm like going, does anyone really care? No. And I don't know who you are or anything. They're just sharing things that should not be shared in public whatsoever. So I only let people, it's kind of like you and me,

we're talking right now. If you were to ask me something that I don't think that I want to ask, well, I'm not going to answer. I'll just simply say, let's move on to the next subject. But I'll do it in a nice way. I'm still a big believer in the golden rule.

Treat everybody else the way you want to be treated. And then, and, uh, and they're just, I said, I'll keep with that rule, but there's a lot of people that they just don't understand certain basic elements of human survival and just being nice. What do you maybe think is the actual problem with social media or with the phone? Because while maybe you're not paying attention to people in the room, you are perhaps paying attention to other people,

period. So what do you think the fundamental maybe issue might be? Discipline. Started at a young age. No parents don't discipline anymore. Well, let's do a timeout. Ooh, Ooh, that really hurt me.

A timeout. Oh, I took my toilet. Ooh. Now, I'm not saying that you have to beat your child within an inch of your life. But if you keep saying, warning, warning, and there's no repercussions. You failed as a parent. You had to follow through with something. And that's where I learned this trait from my father.

The three is the threes. I ask you. I ask you. I come down upon you. Strike three. you're out. Not I'm even a baseball player. But no, there's my kids know there's repercussions. Even

my one son, he was well beyond the age of, you know, give him a swat on a hind end or something like that. And again, I'm not going to be doing a brutal but there would have been a follow through or something like that. He's at the age where he's driving and stuff like that right now, and now he's getting

a little lippy and stuff like that. I see him driving on in. I wave him right on up to me. And he pulls out the window and I go, what's up? Still give me a hat or something. I go, I need you to park my car

out by my facility. I also need you to park my car out by my facility. I also need you to get all of your stuff out of my car. The car I've been allowing you to drive. The privilege of driving. I need you to get all of your stuff out of my car. You need to call your buddies to pick you up and to drop you off. And then, because

these are the privileges I have allowed you in my car. So, he's doing all this, and then as he's walking by, and he's grumbling stuff like this, and I let him get a little way, and I go, oh, son, I also need you to give me my cell phone. It me my cell phone.

It's his cell. No, I pay for that cell. It's not yours. You're not paying for it. I need you to give me that cell phone as well. So I took away his wheels. I took away his cell phone. And I just turned it off because I could care less what was going to be on there. So being a couple of days without wheels and communication, how

many of these young people will know how to communicate or survive? And those are so minute. Right. But it would crush most of these young people today not to have that cell phone. And even, like my youngest son was born, you know, seven years kind of after the fact of, we thought we were done with the first four. So he comes along and he wants a cell phone at a younger age. I go, son, I go, you don't need a cell phone. You're dropped off and you're picked up. You don't need a cell phone. You're dropped off and you're picked up. You don't need a cell phone. Once you become mobile, well, I'm going to want to know where you're at.

That's when you need a cell phone. And I go, that cell phone has a GPS onto it. So you best be honest with me. I go, the one thing I can handle is I can't handle a lie. I said, I may not like what you tell me, but I can handle that. But if I had to come back and that went well, now we're going to have a real issue with that. So again, that's young people in general. There's no repercussions. There's no discipline. But I'll take that as a broad aspect, not just for our kids, but adults as well. When you look at

the squabbling that's taking place in the news almost all the time, you've got adults that are worse acting than children. Once again, they need more than a good timeout. Well, it's not only. They should be going to the Ed Severn School of Discipline right now. That's what they'd be doing right there. Right. It's not only kids and it's not only the next generation that's probably on the phone too much. And it's not, you know, it's not just younger people that are on social media too much. It's all of us, I think, are guilty of it.

And if I say, Andrew, you're on your damn phone too much, what's your response? It's because I'm working. Yeah, yeah, right. It's I'm working or everyone has their own excuse. Like my daughter might be like, I might say, Hey, you know, I don't want you on social media or something. And she'll be like, I'm playing a video game. Like there's always some excuse to it, but I agree a hundred percent with what you're

saying. I do think that, you know, we've had a lot of people on this podcast over the years. And one of the things that I've found really, really, uh, just an awesome message was from, uh, uh, we had, uh, Tony Seminette on the podcast, Real World Tactical. He deals with these tactical situations in life that no one wants to deal with. These school shootings and these different things and tries to prep people for these hellacious things that can happen in our world today. And what he said is like, it comes down to parenting. It's like, hey, how do we solve this problem?

We get more guns in the street or we do this or we do that. And he's like, you know, it comes down to like people being good parents. And sometimes the best way that you can be a parent is to say, I love you, but I hate your actions. These actions are not, they're not tolerated in this house. This is not a, this is not a discussion. This is not, uh, open for some sort of debate. These are the rules that we have.

We've got certain rules for certain reasons and who even cares on why we have them, but we, we have these rules. They're in place. They need to be followed. And if you can't follow them, then, uh, we'll have to figure out, you know, a way to go our separate ways as you get older or something like that. But I agree a hundred percent that you do have to, you got to kind of crack the whip, you know, and whatever that means for you as a, as a person, I think that is the greatest way that you can show someone that you love them is to give them some discipline and give them some real insight. I think what you're doing, taking away the phone and taking away the car. Yeah. He's going to be like, my dad's a dick, man.

He's telling his buddies, oh man, my, you don't understand. My dad's a jerk. And, and all his buddies know who you are too. So I'm sure, I'm sure like, yeah, it was gotta be rough having Dan Severn as your, as your old man. But, you know, I, I think that that that's important, you know, it's an important message. Well, on that note, to be kind of right there, cause I, I always, I protect my kids and the fact that they, they really did not, they didn't know what I did. They found out through their friends. So, I mean, for example, like when my oldest son was in third grade, a couple of his friends happened to bring in a professional magazine

and a group of young boys were all standing around there and they're flipping over the pages. And I was thinking through this one page and my son just points to it and goes, that's my dad. And the teacher's right there and he's going, sure, sure, sure, Michael, that's your father. Well, show and tell was a couple weeks later and my son brought me in as show and tell. And the teacher tells me, he goes, your son said he was you, but I didn't think it was. I go, well, then the last name kind of clued in a little bit there.

But, you know, I've done a lot of things there, but I wanted, they just simply knew that dad went off to work. I'm like a traveling salesman. So I would go off and, and I, even in my very first MMA match ever, I did not tell a single family member. I even told my wife, oh, I'm going to go off and wrestle this weekend.

Based on my skillset, I really wasn't telling why, based on my skillset, that's really all I was going to go off and do. So. Based on my skill set, I really wasn't telling why. Based on my skill set, that's really all I was going to go off and do. So it's got like that gray area of lying, okay? So I go off and lo and behold, two of my uncles happen to catch UFC 4. And they're watching this. And one of my uncles calls over to my parents' home. My dad's name is Marvin, and my uncle's like,

Marv, he goes, do you know where your boy's at? And first off, I have four other brothers. I go, which one? He goes, well, Danny. And my dad's like, well, isn't he down in cold water? And my dad's like, I mean, my uncle's like, no, he's about to climb in this cage, and he's about to do this. And my dad's like, I mean, my uncle's like, no, he's about to climb in this cage and he's about to do this. And my dad's like, what the hell?

You know? And so, uh, all I know is that after each match, uh, my uncles would call back and say, okay, he, uh, he, he won. He's okay. Okay. He lost, but he's still okay. Well, I get home and I have a message to call

your father. So I call my dad. You're probably more nervous for that than any fight you've ever been in, I bet, right? Well, not that it's on phone. If I had a sleeping person, I would have been a whole lot more nervous. But this is long distance.

This is a little bit harder to reach out and touch someone. But, you know, it was just kind of cool because here he is, he's bitching me out for making him nervous. And I'm 37 years of age. So it just goes to show that it don't matter how big a bad you are, you're still mama's little boy or daddy's little boy. It's how they look upon you. So that was, it was actually, you know, very, very much a term of endearment.

Were your parents supportive of your, of your wrestling? The amateur wrestling stuff. uh, of your wrestling, uh, when you're doing the amateur wrestling stuff. I mean, everything I did in high school, that, that, that was, uh, parents liked the fact that we were, we were just engaged instead of just, you know, being bumps along. But I mean, I, I didn't, we didn't think about

that kind of stuff. We didn't think that way back in that time period. You know, we were always involved in something and it was kind of tough because, uh, even my, my father made a comment that, uh, you comment that eight children. So there might be a basketball game happening inside the gymnasium. There might be a football game happening out in the football field. My father said he spent more time in the parking lot because walking between the high school

gym and the football field, the parking lot saw more of him than either one going back and forth. And it was tough on him because the fact that they're working automotive industry on top of that, because I, you know, when you, you know, fast forward to when you now have your own family, stuff like that, and you keep wondering, gosh, how did my dad do it with eight kids feeding clothing in the whole nine yards? How did he do that with K eight?

And then you realize, you know, cause you're just trying to do it with much less numbers than what he had to deal with. It's like, how did they do it without going crazy? Well, he did it the way you're doing it, probably just by working all the time, you know, by just staying busy, just working and working, working, working and working some more.

Right. It's the only way to get it done. That's, that's how I look at it. That, uh, you know, I live a very rigid lifestyle and I mean, I'm, I'm very disciplined, you know, but even to point that, yeah, if, if I get six to seven hours of sleep, I mean, six is what I hope for. Yeah. And, but if, and then that's what I do do on average.

And, but if I, if I get that day that I can lounge around a little bit or that there are few and far between, but I enjoy a day like that. It feels good, right? I'm knowing that I am a couch potato. I think this is your first ever UFC fight that we put up here on YouTube. This looks like an unfair fight. You're fighting a guy who's pretty darn skinny over there. What's going on here?

There's no weight classes back then? Yeah, but look at who I've got in the corner. I've got Al Snow in my corner right now. Professional wrestling extraordinaire from Rhyme Ohio. Body Slammers gym, Al Snow, Big John

McCarthy. Big John McCarthy. Not, not nearly as jacked as he is nowadays. Yeah. Well, which one are you talking

about right now? What's that? McCarthy. Oh, McCarthy. He's a, well, I don't know if he's, if he's big anymore, but he used to be

really big for a while. Yeah. I mean, Al's, Al's was extremely big. Now this was, all I knew is, if he's big anymore, but he used to be really big for a while. Yeah. I mean, Al was, Al was extremely big. Now this was, all I knew was that I'm going to get a Muay Thai guy. So I'm looking for these, uh, watch how many elbows. Shit, man, you're quick. Yeah.

But watch how many elbows I'm taking here in a shot. He, uh, this is Anthony Macias. He hit me with a lot of elbows. Now, what I tried to do there was, was a, a belly to belly throw, but because he had baby oil on him, my arms slipped from around his waist all the way up to his armpits in the process. Are those, uh, you know, he, he's a lighter guy, but I mean, are those pretty good elbows he's getting you with or is not affecting you much?

Well, it's ragged on with him. Because I'm in the adrenaline dump. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That, uh, at this point. He knows he's in a lot of trouble now. And after the second, after the second suple,

he was what is known, professionally known as German suplex, he shakes his head, but I'm seeing, I'm seeing blood is hitting the mat, drip, drip, drip. But I don't know, is it him or is it me? Because I ate so many elbows in the process. Am I just simply running on pure adrenaline at this point? I'm not going to know if my head's split wide open. Well, it turns out as I watched the replays afterwards,

he folded up so much that it was his own knee that struck himself in that forehead. He split his own forehead open in the process. From that suplex, huh? So I used to always say that, yeah, this was my very first match ever. One of the things. And I made quite the impression about it. One of the things I remember, and I think that, man, I think, I don't want to say that I think that you got scrutinized more than anybody else.

The announcers were, the announcers were always on you. I remember like it was one fight that you did against, uh, I think it was chemo. And, uh, you guys are going back and forth. And I think boss Rootin is one of the commentators. And those guys are just, they're ripping, ripping you guys apart. They're like, man, these guys are not very skilled when it comes to MMA. And they're talking about your wrestling background and stuff like that. But I,

I was just, I was just watching it the other day again. Cause I was like, I remember like people used to always rip on them, but you didn't have a, a vast, a striking ability, right?

Walking into, okay, this, this was USC four. Right. I always tell people that I only, I, I had a training camp that lasted for four days.

Find someone else in the world that could do a four-day training camp for an hour and a half a day. I drove basically about a two-hour drive to Lima, Ohio. And the training was all done inside of a professional wrestling ring. But you can realize at that time, there was only one cage and it was owned by the UFC. Fast forward to today, you can go to almost any community, no matter how large or small, and you'll find either a full cage or a section of the cage in there. And that gym will say, yeah, we work on MMA, wall fencing skills and stuff of that nature. But at that time, that's where it's at.

So I have El Snow and i have uh two other professional wrestlers wannabes and an old pair of boxer gloves and i mean it just literally it was like slap six comedy because after a while because i i didn't i didn't learn a single strike i did not uh learn a single submission i just stood out there wearing my amateur wrestling shoes and wearing a shirt and stuff like this, gray shirts at that time as well. And then these guys would be fighting after a while, throwing the gloves at each other like, you go after. No, no, no, I'm not going to be up there cursing each other. No, it's your turn and stuff like that.

Because all I did was I just let them throw things and I would simply clench them, take them down. Or at that time, either shove them up against the ropes or the turnbuckle actions, and I would take them down. And then I would just simply slap on amateur wrestling moves, but then turn the amateur wrestling moves illegal because the rule set was only two rules, no biting, no eye gouging. So I would go through actions, and that's all I did. So the training camp was a joke,

even when I showed up to the UFC for the press conference, not the weigh-in because there was no weigh-ins. Again, that's going to educate the folks. This is back during the era that there were no weigh classes. So how'd you even get into the UFC? So I would imagine at this point you already have some, you already have some fights or no? No, no, no, no. I have no. No fights, just amateur wrestling.

No, there was no, no. I have no. No fights, just amateur wrestling. No, no, no. There was no, no amateur, uh, had that taken place. There was, there was only, you had just the shotgun of UFC one, two, and three had taken place. I didn't know it even existed until I think really it was after UFC number two, but it was so close.

So you never did a no holds barred fight until you got in the UFC ring. Is that right? For me, yes. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. That's crazy. And then like, did you just like submit some information and they're like, oh yeah, it's Dan Severn.

He's got a pretty good wrestling background. They just said, come on in or something. No, no, no. I mean, there were, well, the UFC took out several ads in various magazines like Karate Kung Fu, or some of the martial arts ads that they had. And as a full-page ad, do you want to be a, I think it was like, do you want to be a no-holds-barred fighter? I filled out the application. I sent it in.

But nothing, no response was ever given back to me. So, Phyllis Lee, what was her name? She was a professional wrestling, lady professional wrestler back in the day, but she kept coming, going down to Alice in the Woods school. So she saw my athletic resume. She started making phone calls to the UFC and got a hold of Art Davey. I happened to be going to Los Angeles or something like this for a professionalist show. So she got Art Davey to come on down

to check me out and to talk with me. So as I'm out there, I do a professionalist match with Hawk from Legion of Doom. I don't know if, okay, Legion of Doom. I'm doing my match with Hawk. Legion of Doom. I don't know if, okay, Legion of Doom, I'm doing my match with Hawk. And then after match, I'm being introduced into Art Davey. The first words out of Art Davey's mouth is,

you do realize what we do is real, don't you? Not to get, not to expose anything about the professionalist in industry. I don't want no one, you know, crying on their, I don't want anyone crying on their John Cena doll or nothing like that over here. So it's, yeah, that was aimed at you over there. So having some fun in the studio here right now.

Might as well, right? Otherwise it's work. But I said, well, yes, I do. And he said, well, what's your, he goes, what's your professional fight record? Well, I what's your, he goes, what's your professional fight record? Well, I don't have one. Well, what's your amateur fight record? Well, I don't have one of those either.

And now he's like condescending, talking down to me. He goes, what are, what is your skill set? Well, I'm an amateur wrestler. He goes, well, I'm dressed and has a lot of rules and regulations. And the way that he's talking to me, I can tell conversations almost over. He's trying to weed you out almost. And so I basically said, well, that is true there, Mr. Davey. There are a lot of rules and regulations. I said, obviously you have never seen international wrestling competition

for freestyle ground crew woman. It'll be the closest thing you'll ever see to one of your UFC style matches. He goes, what do you mean? So I reiterated to him my very first international experience ever. At 17 years at the age, I go to Istanbul, Turkey, part of a U.S. all-star team. And we're supposed to be wrestling against other juniors 18 years or younger. And my first opponent is a 35-year-old military man. This guy's been competing longer than I've been alive. And he's got this buzz haircut, all muscled up, kind of a combination of meanness, ugliness,

and aggression all built into one. And this is early 70s. Mo, my hair is a whole lot longer at this point in time as well. So when the referee starts to match, he comes out and he reaches up, does a collar tie, grabs the back of my head, and he grabs a wad of hair, and then he goes, boom, he headbutts me, splitting my eyebrow open. And now to add insult to injury, he pulls a wad of hair out of my head and flings it on the ground.

So as I'm backpedaling, my hands up against my eyebrow as blood is trickling down, I look at the referee thinking to myself, well, my opponent should be disqualified right now for unsportsmanlike conduct. Well, we're not in Kansas City anymore, Toto. We're in his backyard. He's probably related to, my opponent's probably related to the referee. Referee steps between us, kicks the tough of hair out of the way, and cautions me for passivity. I'm stalling and you did that you

did that stop matches back then for blood pathogen because i was not aware of you actually wrestle with the handkerchief the side of your cinclet sore if you had a bloody nose bloody lip you reach you wipe you shove back you keep on going you don't take time off otherwise you're known as stalling you get two stalling calls, then you start losing points. So I grab, I wipe, I shove back in, but now I'm motivated. So when I hit my double leg takedown, oh, it's extra hard. Boom, he hits the ground. He rolls over

onto his belly. Technique known as a crossface. Bony portion across soft facial tissue. Very effective tool. Bam! I hit his face as hard as I could. I break his nose, and I got blood pouring out of my arm, But then all of a sudden I feel this pain in my arm Because he is biting

Into my forearm Trying to take a chunk of meat out of me And this is where my cheese slides off my cracker And I wanted to kill him And they can bury him out in the sand dunes I don't care at this point in time I reach on down And I start rolling up

Because I'm going to shove that chunk of cartilage To the black hole of space And they can bury his carcass out there And. I reach on down, and I start rolling up, because I'm going to shove that chunk of cartilage to the black hole of space, and they can bury his carcass out there. And as I'm here, a snap, crackle, pop, and, you know, the referee is seeing me, he's blowing the whistle. He's trying to pull my arm out of the address. So as we're standing up, the referee's penalizing me for an illegal move, and I'm showing them the fang marks,

and my arm penalizes my opponent for illegal maneuver. This is all in the first period. We got three, three minutes to go. At the end of the first period, referee sends me back to my corner. I'm a bloody mess. Referee sends my Turkish opponent back to his corner. He's a bloody mess. His coach is so angry at his athlete because he's losing to a weenie-looking American.

Turkish coach pulls out a stick about the size and thickness of a broom handle and proceeds to beat his athlete to motivate him. And I go, and people say, weren't you nervous walking into that? I go, no. I can speak the language. And I know what you nervous walking into the octagon? I go, no. I can speak the language. And I know what I'm walking into. Not like in my international, my international wrestling experience prepared me.

Also, I've been hurt far worse. I've been hurt far worse in my amateur wrestling career. I've been hurt far worse in my professional wrestling career. The safest thing I've ever done in my three careers is walking and doing cage fighting. Yeah.

What takes longer to recover from a pro wrestling match or a MMA? I guess it depends on how long the MMA match goes, right? Depends on the match, but then also depends what happens to it. I've had, I've had a lot of matches where I swear, it's like, I got guys looking at me

like, dude, your hair, you don't even need to comb your hair. You know, you just, nothing happened to you in a match. But then there's other matches that look like you got pulled through a knot hole backwards. Were you able to win that fight or that match, that wrestling match? Yes.

Yeah, I actually, I did win that match. And one of the fans out of the audience actually, actually the fans, but one of the spectators came out and actually gave me a medal. For, because I, just the way that, I mean spectators came out and actually gave me a medal for because I, just the way that, I mean, I was just going up

against like surmountable odds and stuff like that and I still actually have that in my trophy case. I was going to say, that's probably one of the things you're most proud of,

huh? Oh, it is. It's those weird things that you're not expecting, right? Well, that, or like,

you know, I was in Russia before and I went up against an opponent there that realistically I should have have beaten, never beaten. And I did an article about that, about how to beat an opponent that you should never have beaten. And it's this guy, you have to come up.

That's when you've lacked the skill sets of this. Now it comes up with the mind. You basically have to rise up, and you have to impose yourself to know everybody has a weakness. And the only weakness that the Russians were known for, and I didn't know if it was going to pertain to this guy, but they were known to phenomenal technicians, greatest technicians in the world. But their Achilles heel, the weakness was cardiovascular. And I honestly knew that the longer I can keep this match going and the more physically active I can keep this going,

if there's going to be a kink in his armor that'll be the kink right there into where I basically I was like like down nine or ten points to nothing and uh before I scored my first point and then I scored my next point and now the referees are starting to get after him because he's tired and he's being slow to get back to the ring and I'm the first guy being back there and I again I learned a lot of stuff in amateur wrestling too, how to help sway these referees to be by showing, just by

showing that your aggression or your willingness or get back to the rings quicker, just so that they'll be on that more. So again, that's just my amateur wrestling career is something that I said, you know, the fact that my professional, excuse me, my cage fight career was the safest thing I ever did. That's, that's irony there too, but I've, I've, I've enjoyed all of them just for different reasons.

You know, competition is still that, that model, a model. Now I like that. I like the risk factors and the reward factors because I, well, just that's my cup of tea, I guess. You mentioned conditioning. Obviously there's a huge physical component to it. You have to train hard and there's certain things you got to do in training. You got to run and there's lots of stuff that you probably have to do or had to do that maybe not everyone loves to do. But aside from the physical side of it, do you think it's a, it's a huge mental part of it,

or is it the physical preparation that really gets you there? Again, I can always speak on, on my behalf and what I did. I mean, the psychological aspect is huge. I know from a coaching perspective, because a lot of people, they simply just look across at their opponent and they see he's got muscles. Well, again, the younger they are, I mean, especially if you're looking young, oh my gosh, he's got hair on his chest. You know, he's got, he's got, he's got muscles. Well, again, the younger they are, I mean, especially if you're looking young, oh my gosh, he's got hair on his chest. You know, he's got, he's got, he's got, you know, stubble on his face or something like this.

I remember that in football, you get in your three-point stance and you look up and the other guy's got like a full beard. You're like, holy shit. Yeah, exactly. You're like freaking 15 years old. What's going on with this guy? Yeah, no, I mean, it just all depends

on the phase of life of where you're at. But even as an adult and compete in, you know, like the mixed martial arts, you start sizing up the guy to where it's like going, well, gosh, look, he's ripped, he's shredded. And it's like going, man, you realize, well, this might be a little bit more than I bargained for here right now. Those social video clips I studied didn't do any justice. He's been doing some trainings at that time. But so the, the psychological aspect is huge, but anything you do with training and preparation, you should, um, I would say that, uh, I did things a little bit opposite on, on that aspect because I was, uh, I was doing so many different things simultaneously.

Um, I had a mixed martial arts career. I had a professional wrestling career. And the way the timetable was, I began professional wrestling as of the 1992 Olympics. United States Olympic Committee came down with a new rule at that time that allowed athletes to be both amateur and professional simultaneously as long as you weren't involved in high school athletics or collegiate athletics because you'd still be governed by high school athletic association rules or the ncaa rules i

was well past my collegiate eligibility so i could have my cake and eat it too i could still coach at a university and i could still be a professional wrestler i could still be a cage fighter and there would be no repercussions to me whatsoever andrew you got a question over there, buddy? Well, somebody was asking what your training looked like when you were in the UFC, but you told us earlier that you weren't really going as hard as what people would think, right? Yeah.

No, it's, I tell people it's kind of hard for them to fathom. I only ever did two true training camps for my cage fighting career i only say cage fighting because uh mixed martial arts you know the term of mixed martial arts didn't not come about until you know probably uh 2003 four or five somewhere in that range and uh, I don't know. I just, just didn't, didn't have the opportunity of all the things I was doing. Cause there was no real money though, either. And, and this, so, I mean, I, I made probably the most money at the time, but it wasn't like, you know, you fast forward to today when you can make a million plus dollars for a match. Right. That makes, makes a world of difference. And that's what I was going to ask you.

I know it's a totally different time, but which organization did you make more money in the WWE or UFC? I made more money in professional wrestling. Yeah. That's, that's kind of sad that I even say that, but it's, it's the truth. It's, uh, you know, my very first time walking

out into UFC, I signed a contract. you know, my very first time walking out into UFC, I signed a contract. My guarantee to walk into that cage was $1,000. And for $1,000, I signed a contract that the only two things you couldn't do to a person was bite them or eye gouge them. And even in small print at the bottom of that contract, it stated in the event of your accidental death. Well, gosh, don't stick a finger in your eye.

Don't bite him. There's a whole lot of other ways you can take someone apart without ever violating those two rules. Because as you heard me say a little earlier, even as I was rolling around doing when I would do some of these, a little bit of training, I'd be rolling around down on the mat. And I would go through, I'd go through the actions without ever striking the person. I would go, hammer strike. And I'd go up, but I'd go to touch. Not follow. I'd go, hammer strike.

Hammer, elbow smash. Back at, hammer strike. But they feel me moving across and they feel the touch. They just couldn't believe the control I had when I was going through these motions because I'm trying to do. I knew that I had no cardiovascular because I wasn't training. But I simply knew that if I could go through the motions, stuff like this, because I was doing mechanically going through the motions, but then physically going through the motions. So I'm trying to train my body to do this. And there'd be times when I'd be just driving down the road

or I'd be in my hotel or something like this. I'm using the mental mind of training, going to this, going to this, even to the point that as I'm walking out into a cage, what's my game plan? Because I didn't just let things happen. I mean, yeah, things are going to happen, but I have a game plan.

But how that game plan unfolded for me was the moment that that match started, as we moved towards each other, very rarely did they just simply just keep marching in this clash. You get so close, and then people stop, and they take their stance. The moment that you take your stance, I went into autopilot, because the moment I saw that stance, I knew exactly what to do. Amateur wrestling, for example, the moment they take their stance, you move, always you circle towards the trail leg because if I go the other way, I move into the power.

But in MMA, it's just the opposite. In MMA, you want to circle in towards the lead leg because I'd rather get hit with a jab than get hit with that power. So there's some things that wrestling gel was just fine. And there's other aspects I had to rewire my mind. And then to be doing MMA at the same time as doing professional wrestling, or maybe I should be saying this by doing amateur wrestling because I'm doing amateur wrestling because I'm still, I was still trying to make the 1994 Olympic team on

top of all this. So I'm doing amateur wrestling things. I'm doing professional wrestling things. I'm doing mixed martial arts on top of, oh, I have a wrestling clinic here today. Oh no, I'm going to be working with law enforcement. There'll be some days I'd be on the road for

20 some odd days as I'm waking up, I'm rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and I'm looking around I'm in another hotel. What's my function there? I actually have to look at my book to see what am I doing today? But even when I

work for the WWF, I knew my schedule at least a month ahead of time. So I would, and I could actually, I worked with their travel coordinator so that I would simply contact them and I would fly in early. I'd fly in early and I'd go conduct a seminar someplace.

Then I'd go and work for the WWF. And then afterwards I'd go and do a meet and greet and appearance or a Q&A or something else later that night. So in the same 24 hours that's gone out of my life, I'm pulling down three checks instead of one. The guys in the locker room must have thought you were absolutely nuts in the WWF, right? Because you must have been, it sounds to me like you,

especially at the time, you must have been quite a bit different than a lot of the other, a lot of the other wrestlers. Well, I was, that's an understatement. I mean, these guys are, these guys are day to day, you know, and, and, uh, you know, a lot of, they get involved in a lot of drugs and women and everything else. And, and here you are, you know, systematically being in all these different places, making appointments, pulling down three different checks. That's, I mean, they must have thought you were a nutcase.

They didn't know, though. I mean, a lot of them actually, because they did not know me and stuff like that, they would have never known. Even at that point in time, I traveled by myself. I stayed by myself. Once I would actually find out where all the other wrestlers are staying. I mean, at first, I tried to- You hotel, but I had to wait till I tried it the first couple of times.

But after the first couple of times I saw all the people that were down in the lobbies waiting to glob on just somebody just kind of going, no, I don't want that. I would always try to, okay, I find out where they're at. And then I went to the opposite type of thing. But a lot of the guys probably thought, well, Dan's really stuck up, or he just, you know, I don't understand, the guy's not friendly at all. No. They don't understand

the fact that I've got a couple other jobs doing, and the fact is, I was underneath a two-year contract, and they didn't, most of my, the guys I'm working with, they don't know how old I am. They were even shocked when they found out how old

I was, stuff like that. And I'm not thinking. Did you say you're 48? I was 48, yeah. In the office here, I got Jim Ross and Vince McMahon and a couple other people that are in the office. And, you know, the contracts are all beside, stuff like they're up there slapping, feel back, shaking hands,

stuff like this. And through slapping fill back shaking hands up like this and through just idle conversation was taking place some timetables were thrown up there and I answered right there and then Vince is kind of like going well well how old are you exactly and I go well 48 and it's like why in the hell do we just sign a guy who's

48 years old trust me that's one of the things I held back but Vince turns right to Jim Ross and goes, Jim, he goes, who's our oldest rookie ever? And Jim Ross goes, Dan. But I did not look like I was 48 years of age. I didn't move like a 48-year-old guy. And I took care of myself.

I mean, it was, I had a crazy schedule. And I'm saying I'm not doing a training. I'm not doing conventional training, but I'm trying to train wherever I possibly can. So I would be, there'd be a lot of times like on a Thursday night, I would leave Coldwater, Michigan, you know, 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night. And I would drive through the night and get to New Jersey or something like that, knowing that that's about a 10-hour drive down the road.

And I'd get there sometime by, you know, still in the morning hours knowing that, okay, I get checked into my hotel. I'm going to get a couple hours of sleep, but then I'm going to go hit the gym. And there's always going to be some high school nearby to where there's a track, there's a field. I'm going to go run someplace. And it was always, I'll say that's the lonely aspect

because I'm doing this all by myself. I didn't have, there were no cheerleaders there to go, come on, Dan, let's go, let's do this. There's no coach there to tell us. No, it's that internal self of doing things because that was, you know, because other people say,

well, have you had, do you have your, has anyone in your children like that had tried to follow in your footsteps? I go, no. I did not even know all the, the word for it is called sacrifice. In order to achieve success, I think everybody is capable of achieving success. It's what are you willing to sacrifice along the way?

Just recently, there's been a couple of movies that have come out. One is with Clint Eastwood, The Mule. Great movie. Okay. I loved it. I saw this, but in the beginning, as he's being shown as a scientist,

I'm like going, man, can I ever relate to this character? I'm like going, it's like I'm watching myself. You know, in the process, it was hard. And I think, you know, there was a couple different movies just like that, just recently. And I'm thinking, I have lived that because I have been an absentee parent at best. Even though I have a 10,000 square foot train, let's say, on my property in Coldwater, Michigan. It's only about 50 yards from my house. But, you know, I used to always did the daddy deal in the morning.

I'd make the breakfast and stuff like that then. And, but that was that, that golden, uh, maybe half hour, maybe 45 minutes I would have with them half the time. They're just, they're asleep. They're rubbing their eyes as I'm whipping up pancakes or scrambled eggs or whatever else. It's like dad's French toast is still, still, still pretty killer. But then they go to school.

By the time they come back home from school, my classes are starting. And by the time my last class ends at 9 o'clock, I always thought that I could just turn off the light and we're done by 9 o'clock. No. Owning the gym stuff like this, you've gone through the same thing.

You have to talk to people about, oh, they have financial problems. They can't pay this month. They're having girlfriend problems. They're having boyfriend problems. They're just having problems. You are a psychiatrist.

You're a financial counselor. You're so much more than just being an instructor, stuff like this. So instead of just 9 o'clock, I'm done, it'd be 9.30. It'd be 10 o'clock by the time I finally get to walk into my house just to know that my kids are asleep. So all I do is I walk in, I check in on them, I might give them that quick little kiss on the cheek

or something like this, forehead, and boom, I'm done. And then come the weekends when they're off dad is off dad's off working now he's off professional wrestling he's off cage fighting he's off but even on a cage fight i'm going a day earlier knocking off a seminar i'm i'm doing a speaking engagement again doing something else because i'm not just there for the fight i'm there picking up two and three other paychecks along the way because this is what I got to do. You have any regrets on that? Well, I mean, it's just to, well, the regrets is no. I mean, I can't, I can't go back.

You can't go back in time. So I can't have regrets about this. It's kind of like, you know, I tell you you about 1984 I can't turn back the clock time and correct the injustice that happened to me there you simply have to you have to move forward so I mean it's I probably have a better rapport with my children for example now because as they're getting older now they're starting to realize how did dad do it I'd also you know

explain to a lot of parents that it's it's okay to be it's okay to be gone you know like it's you know each parent's going to have their own or each you know family's going to go through their own thing but um it's you don't have to always be there for every single thing that your child does. You know, my, my dad worked very hard when I was a kid and there was a time period where there was a couple of years and it was probably like when I was between the age of like 12 and like 15 where he was starting to work a lot. And my mom, you know, was the one who kind of slowed him down. She's like, Hey, I don't think the kids are seeing you, you know? And so then he kind of, he was starting to be around a little bit more, but

the point is, is like a lot of people have it that way where sometimes both parents are working or sometimes they have a single parent that has to work a lot and they're just not, not always going to be there every single second of every single day. Right. Today's, today's employee doesn't not have a guarantee of that. I'm going to work for this one company for 30 years, and I'm going to retire with the gold watch. That company may not be in existence for

30 years. You're seeing a lot more people. We have to be a very mobile society. Even with my own children, as I tell them, I go, they've all have taken the road trip from hell with dad. Because I want them to realize it's not all glamorous what dad does. To know that you have to lay down maybe a 12-hour drive.

No sleep. Again, my youngest son just got witness to a 37-hour drive. No sleep. Driving through on that. And he just, he just, you know, war, he's, you know, he's over in a pasture seat, you know, his head's bobbing up against the wall, the window, stuff like this. He's drooling down his chin and he's waking up because dad, I'm hungry. Well, yeah, we'll eat at the next gas stop. You know, and they go, you, you gotta find me a truck stop that has food, gas, and bathroom all in one sweep because we're not stopped

because we have to be there by such a time. And that's where they find out, and they realize they can't hang with dad. I had my daughter, and what turned out to be my future son-in-law, I mean, as they both graduated at the same time, my graduation present with them was that, come on, I took them out to Arizona, took them to the Grand Canyon,

stuff like this. But for five days, I mean, I was balls to the wall to the point that they're like, Dad, we need a day off. And I'm looking at him, weenies. I go, I'll do this. I'll do a workout and teach a seminar on top of all of this. But I'm used to that. I'm used to that.

They just go with the roll of those things that you have to be, you can't put all your eggs in one basket. You better have other sets of skill sets. And one of those skill sets is communication. And that was, as I shared with you kind of off the air, you asked me what were some of the obstacles that I had to overcome earlier in my childhood. And that's like speaking in front of people. I could never have gone up in front and just want to read a paper or something like this because I just got too shy.

I couldn't do that kind of thing right there. So my senior year in high school, I took a speech class. And even my freshman year in college, I took another speech class to get used to, even though I despised it. But the more and more I did it, the better I got with it. I work better in that environment when you ask me questions. but, uh, you know, the comfort margins, it's hard to get me to stop talking now. You mentioned, uh, isolation, you know, do you think that you need some isolation in order to be great? Um, has that been something that's always worked, worked well for you? Cause you mentioned that like, you know, hitting the track and like, nobody wants to do that stuff, but you gotta, you know, you gotta push your brain, you gotta push your mind through it. Otherwise you're not going to get the things that you want.

The isolation has been, I'll say it's been easy for me because I just, the schedule alone. Nobody else. I've had other people, buddies of mine are like, dude, when are you going to go on the road again? Well, this coming weekend. And they're like, well, when are you leaving? And when are you coming back? Oh, I'm sorry, I'd like to go with you, but I can't because of this or this.

I'm like, well, okay. The hardest part, I can't find another person that comes close to my schedule, because once, I usually have a primary reason to go into an area. Once I have the primary schedule, now i go for secondaries thirds fourths and fifths because why go into one area it's like here i was at the stockton comic-con yesterday and i might be in san diego at another uh person at another dojo doing a uh a youth grappling program the gentleman's just trying, he's a stand-up

martial artist and he wants to add a ground game to his thing. And he, I've known him for a number of years and he called upon me. He goes, can you help me out? Yeah. It's only a nine hour drive from Sacramento to San Diego.

Might as well just swing on by. Only probably two cups of coffee and I'll be there, you know. But then, you know, that's how I look at it. Once I go into an area, if I know I, you know, within a couple hours I could be at another location, well, I'll knock that on off. Because I always tell people that I've got a phenomenal database built now.

At one point in time, and this happened probably about 12 to 15 years ago, I accidentally deleted 11,000 contacts. Oh, no. I mean, over 11,000 contacts. The cloud. It's in the cloud. Yeah, well, the cloud did not exist then. So even now, I've had several of my buddies that really into computers,

they keep trying to explain the same, the cloud to me. And I'm like going, no, this is the paper. It's tangible. I don't understand this cloud. I understand this main box that it all should be into, but how can it be in the cloud? I don't get it. Neither do we.

No. We have no idea. We've been trying to figure it out. I just refer to myself, I'm that dinosaur, knuckle-dragger type of a person right there. I'm not, you know, I won't be, I'll be lucky if I could have invented the wheel. Okay. I would have never invented the wheel, but I would have invented air conditioning.

It might have been blocks of ice and fan prongs. Oh, there were some people waving over. But I would have invented air conditioning because living in Arizona, wow, you need, you need air conditioning in Arizona, but, you know,

not as bad in Michigan. Did losing to Hoyce Gracie, was that something that motivated you as well? Kind of like, you know, the 1984, you know, Olympic field,

a little fire underneath you. Not as, not as much. I mean, it was, you know, I, again,

as I always tell people and it's hard because some people yeah i always i've had a lot of backlash like oh dude you know he submitted you i go really really go back and watch watch match see if he really did submit me or something like that i go i know where i was at i said you i've had other people try to do certain things to me. I said, well, granted, I'll tell you, I did tap. But did I tap because someone beat me? Or did I tap simply because I was unwilling to do what I had to do? To me, it's like going, let's just do the best two out of three. I said, I'll give him that one.

I'll give him that one. I had his manager on. I forget his name now, man. But he talked for like 45 minutes. And I finally got to the point that I just cut him off. And I'm like, Mark, I don't mean to be rude, but simply just to summarize all this this may match ain't gonna happen oh damn that's not what i said i i know you went off and did all

these elaborate tangents of how mars and venus and jupiter have to all come into alignment let's just cut the chase it ain't gonna happen because he and his family have too much to lose. I should have simply just done what I know I'm capable of doing. But if I ever do get this match, I shall justify it. And I want to treat him like a pile of kindling wood. Because that's what I should have done the first time. But because I was a nice guy, I didn't. So, you know, I'm still a nice guy,

but because I have to keep listening to a lot of this bullshit, I go, you don't know me. You don't know my mindset. You don't know my skill set. I know what I'm capable of doing, and I'm capable of doing the incredible, because I have lived the life. Early on in my career, I did what I'm capable of doing, and I'm capable of doing the incredible because I have lived the life. Early on in my career, I did things.

I set barriers at a young age, 70 years of age. I'm in my first Olympic trials as a senior in high school and stuff like that. And I'm out there beating the Olympic gold and silver medalists. gold and silver medalists. And yet I'm being screwed on over by the referees because they're like, we can't have a 17-year-old kid beating our current Olympic gold and silver medalists out here right now.

Yeah, but they did bring me into the Olympic training camp at 70 years of age. So I actually set some goals. I broke some barriers even at that age. But then my very first Hall of Fame, I was put into in 1984 at Arizona State. And I'm like, oh, don't they usually wait until you're done with your sport? I go, guys, I'm still competing.

But I've been that way. I've set a lot of unique goals. I've done a lot of unique things. And I tell people, I'm not that way. I've set a lot of unique goals. I've done a lot of unique things. And I tell people, I'm not done yet. I have to jump to a whole lot more hoops. I actually think there's merit to having the Senior Citizen MMA Tour. I think you could get a lot of comical sponsors on board right there for that stuff. Be kind of comical.

Maybe a few new sets of rules. But is there a market for it? Yes. Would the matches live up to the hype? Oh, probably not. Maybe slow down the channel or something like this, or speed it on up. It might look a little bit better, but no. I'm into, again,

this is, like you say, I'm into Twilight of McCrea or well on the other side of the mountain where I'm sliding that down, but I still do occasional professionals matches. I still probably do more than anything. I just, uh, I do a lot of seminars again for all the different first responders,

but then, uh, or amateur wrestling will still be my, my first level of which later today, I'll get a chance to go do that and watch what they're doing and interject a little bit, something here, interject those up to there,

but then talk about the impossible is possible. You mentioned in your career you haven't really done many camps, but going into UFC 5, you did, but it was your own camp. 32 days. I took a whole 32 days of my life right there. And again, I just, but I relocated myself from Coldwater, Michigan. I had to, I could not be at my training facility. I could not be a husband to, I couldn't be a father of,

because I just knew that I'm going to put all my eggs into this one basket. For 32 days, I went to train to become a no-holds-barred fighter. I stayed by myself. I ate by myself. There was no real interaction with other people i mean it basically a very spartan existence of having just a crate with a black and white tv and a couple vhs tapes that was the only thing i could watch and it was only of the first two ufcs that i could get just to watch to see and get this mindset but then i kept writing had a notepad i

was putting together types of uh things of techniques and strategies of what to do. But a buddy of mine, he was working at Grand Canyon University and he ended up introducing me to a gentleman that actually was putting together an actual no-holds-barred program where if you wanted to be a gym owner or stuff like this that you'd have an accounting class, you'd have different things like this. Well, he found out I was in town and he actually got us up to work. I was staying, I was staying because at first I was actually in just one of these little apartment units that you rent by the week.

So now I am staying right on Grand Canyon University's campus, again, by myself with the crates of my debt. And he goes, you know what, you don't want to coach me? No, I don't need it. I i go i won't be entertaining anybody i go because right now i'm isolated and he actually even lined up towards like uh michael i came in to see what his class is like well he's got like 30 some people in there i go well do you care because they were going over different techniques and with it you can't i just roll with them all so like one after the other so like for like an hour straight, I go for one person, next person, next person.

But I would actually would just get the point that I would just lay down in different positions and just say that the moment that you touch, we go at that point. But they're all just two,

nothing to deal with what's striking or like this, but it's all just doing the two quick submissions grapplers and stuff like that. So I just did that. And then he would line up. It was really kind of wild.

He ended up, he knew a number of boxers and kickboxers. So a couple nights a week, he would line up this sparring night there for me to work. On one side of the room, you'd have about 10 or 12 chairs. You'd have these 10 or 12 guys. And then there was just my one buddy and me. And I had my, I'd have my water net with me. And I keep on going. Each time I kept getting the advantage of the person,

he would, he'd let them go one or two times with me. Then he'd pull out, pull them out. Then he'd throw the next fresh guy in on me. And then to where it, it helped me to learn how to avoid being kicked. Because even though I'm wearing headgear and I'm wearing pads and stuff like this, you know, these guys are still zinging in. In boxing, sure, they wear headgear.

But when that glove hits that headgear, it still hurts. It may not cut you and things of that nature, but that piece of jello called the brain that's being sloshed and sloshed and sloshed, you're still taking impacts like that. And that's where I tried to avoid being struck because I wanted to know that when my career would come to an end, I didn't want to be sit there being a babbling idiot, drooling down my chin. UFC 5 was a tournament, right? Yes, the eight-man tournament where you have to win three matches, yes. And then you ended up being victorious in that, and then you went on and did

some other things in UFC as well. What was that like, fighting three matches in one night? I think as an amateur wrestler, it really prepares you quite well. I kind of regaled you in a story there afterwards that currently in high school amateur wrestling and collegiate amateur wrestling, you are allowed to do a maximum of five

matches in a day. So think about that. Now that's over the course of a long day. Usually at a tournament. But when I go back to my high school days and I was trying to get some kind of recognition because I already had a couple of college coaches that were over contacting me and I thought, well, by

my junior year, how can I get the amateur wrestling world buzzing that much more? So basically I entered my age group, which is junior, 18 years and younger. And I went three weight classes, 198, 220, and heavyweight. Again, these are things you can't do today,

but you could at that time. But then I did in the next age group up, which was called open, anything above 18 years of age, three weight classes, 198, 220, heavyweight. So in one day, I did two age groups, six weight classes, 17 matches later, I walked out of that gymnasium with six gold medals. And the hard part about that was most high school wrestling mats only have, most high

school wrestling gyms only have enough room to put down three wrestling mats. So I could be on mat number one and they could call me on deck on mat number two and in the hole on mat number three. And the moment that my match would come on up, they would announce, Dan Severin, please report to mat number two. I might be on mat number one, still wrestling. But they make this announcement. And as soon as they say, please report to mat number two, the stopwatch starts. You have five minutes to report.

And if you don't make it in five minutes, automatic disqualification. So I literally would be finishing off one opponent on mat number one, wiping down, grab a quick sip of water as I walked to mat number two, knowing that in another 10 minutes or less, I'm going to be on mat number three over there. So I was a machine at that point. I'm used to doing multiple matches. But I said, you know, by that day, I had all of the college coaches talking.

So it was cool by my senior year to know that you're the number one recruit in the country and you can go to any university. You got the academics to go along there with it. But then I even had a congressional nomination so I could have gone to the Air Force Academy on top of that. You know, it sounds like you made a lot of sacrifices like you mentioned earlier. But when you were younger, did you even really know that it was a sacrifice? Because it seemed like you were just maybe drawn to this or wrestling was kind of like almost like a calling for you of some sorts. Well, I'll say that in the beginning, it fit into the school system.

You know, you're riding a school bus, that nature, that was good. system. You know, you're riding a school bus to St. Ted's Nature, that was good. As time started to progress a little bit longer, like during the summertime, now these turned into family vacations. If your family vacation is, well, we're driving out to, you know, Iowa here right now for the

National Wrestling Freestyle and Greco-Roman Championships, and you realize that a family aid doesn't fit into the station wagon all that well, and when you've got, you've got, you know, because I have a total of four other brothers. So there's five of us that we were wrestling at some point in time or another. And then there's my three sisters on top of that. So you've got eight kids, you've got 10 people.

How are they going to fit into a station wagon? So again, you have to, it was very comical how we had to travel. And they weren't like all right then and there at once because as my older brother and I, there's a big age difference between the oldest to the youngest to where, you know, a lot of ways my, the youngest two or three siblings really don't know the older ones because by the time they were old enough to go into kindergarten, my older brother and I were gone. So do they really know us? No, we're like a stranger to them, but we're, we're their brother in a sense. So again, it just, it's just the way that things were.

But it was very comical in the essence of traveling together, and these are the things that she had to do. It seemed like wrestling really saved you in a lot of ways because MMA is such a brutal sport, but you still got your mind, you still are sharp. Did you suffer some injuries from MMA that still are kind of around, like something to your shoulder or your neck or anything like that? No, not really. Not in mixed martial arts or the Nohose Bard era.

Mark, when I walked to that arena, I simply knew that I was going to walk in there being very lopsided in skills. I started an amateur wrestling career in 1969. I started a cage fighting career in 1994. The scale was never going to balance out. I could have stopped wrestling and the scale was never going to balance out. And I looked up on it. Even the UFC, it shows like the tell the tape, it shows an

age, but it's wrong. UFC just, they never had my age correct. Like I said, I was, I was 37 when I first began my career and they got me down sometimes to 35, stuff like this. Then I started telling them I was even older yet, uh, just to get a rise out of them and stuff of that nature.

Cause they're just, just kind of comical. Cause I, you know, I, I never, I never looked at the age and I was simply, am I capable of doing? And I've had some very unique matches. I mean, when you think about UCD number what was the number? Ron Van Cleef, I think was number four. I think he was involved in that. Well, I happened to

sit next to Ron Van Cleef. Yeah, he was like 50, wasn't he? Yeah. Yep. And I really enjoyed speaking to myself like that. And I'm thinking to myself, I hope it's me that draws Ron. Not because I want to compete against him. I go because in my mindset, I think that I'm going to be the nicest person to him. Which goes to, I was involved in a very interesting bout.

It turned out to be the oldest ever no holds barred match in history. And I'm going up against a gentleman that at the time he is 63 years of age. And I'm probably, I don't know, late 40s or early 50s at the time and the promoter called me on three different occasions and he's like going you know dan he goes uh you know this guy really wants to fight you about this and i turned it down and and finally it's kind of like going well well why i go i go, I said, this guy, he's great. I've been on a car before. He's a great guy.

I love this guy. I don't want to do a match against him. So now the opponent himself, he calls me up. He goes, you know, Dan, before I retire, he goes, I would really like to do a match with someone like you. He goes, I really respect what you do and stuff like that. And I'm like, I mean, literally, by the time I'm hanging up the phone, I realized I just agreed to do a match with someone like you? He goes, I really respect what you do and stuff like that. And I'm like, I mean, literally, by the time I'm hanging up the phone, I realized I just agreed to do a match with him. And I'm thinking.

Listen, you old geezer, I'm going to pound your face. It's a no-win situation. If I beat him, whoop-de-doo-dah, you beat a 63-0 guy. But if you lose to him, you just lost to a 63-0 guy. So it's a no-win situation. So here it is, no-win situation. So here it is, day of the fight. I mean, he's ripped and shred.

He's looking really good, stuff like this. And when the fighter, when referee says, well, let's go, I mean, he's throwing all pistons off and stuff like this. And I'm thinking, what do we do? I just, I clinch him real quick. So I'm holding him. I'm holding him. He's trying to wiggle around. But I got him.

And I'm thinking, OK, what to do next? I go, no, I would sweep the legs up like this, and as I'm dropping him down, I would become airborne. Because when we make impact, I want to land on the rib cage, because I'm either going to break ribs, crack ribs, or knock the wind right out of him, because as they lay on their back and they're going, they can't get that breath.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to take other positions out to them real quickly. I mean, I did things in a very authoritative mindset type of way. Least amount of work, maximum results, because I had no, I didn't have training camp. I simply knew that whatever I do, I had to expend the least amount of energy possible. So I sweep, boom, as I drop my mind down,

I did like a professional scene. You know, what they know as the splash. I land on my knees, I land on my elbows, he didn't take no impact whatsoever. Boom, he's down on the ground, I'm holding him on down, and he's wiggling all around there underneath me at this point in time. I'm thinking, how do I finish this match off here real quick? Oh, got it. So I raise my hand

up like I'm about to drop this big old hammer strike to his face. As I slam him on down, I stop just before, and he throws a hand up like I'm about to drop this big old hammer strike to face. As I slam on down, I stop just before, and he throws a hand up to block it. I pull his arm across, simple little scarf hold, taps on me, and we both just choke. We both stand up. He looks at me, he goes, that was the nicest

beating I have ever taken. I go, I didn't want to do the match. You know, we go out to dinner Stuff like this It was You know like I said These are some of the people That I've met

Even like In that match To see those Belly back suplexes That's Anthony Macias I You know Anthony and I

Were friends Now He would post things Every now and then In his Facebook Because he's really Proud of his son In his amateur wrestling career.

And then I'll make a couple of notes there. Have your son do this. Have your son do that. It'll help in his position. And he's just so cool that I've given him coaching tips for his son. And these are all legitimate tips that I give to him. Most high school coaches are not aware of.

But I just want to see him succeed. It's still an area of controversy. I went down and saw the UFC fight that went, went on in Los Angeles and Bones Jones returned and stuff. And you got a lot of guys that, you know, test positive and they, they get banned and fined and whatever, and they come in and out. And what are some of your thoughts on some of this? I mean, some of these guys are, are using performance enhancing drugs. It's, it's quite obvious in some out. And what are some of your thoughts on some of this? I mean, some of these guys are, are using performance enhancing drugs.

It's, it's quite obvious in some cases. In other cases, you got guys like Anderson Silva who've been popped or you can't really tell, you know, he's six one or six two and he's like 200 pounds. It doesn't really look like much. Even,

even Hoyt Spears has popped for before that. I guess I weighed pop for it. Must not be used the very good stuff there. But no, that I don't mean to be critical like that. There's, well, it's like bodybuilding. There's a pro division bodybuilding, and then there's the amateur division of bodybuilding.

And when you look at the bodybuilders and amateur, and you look at the guys at the pro level, wow. World of difference of the sheer amount of muscle mass these guys are carrying. Pro division, they're using all the good stuff at that point in time, but it's their career and they're hoping to get these certain types of

endorsements. There's not a lot of money there, though. I mean, only for, you think, it's just like professional wrestling. There's only a few people that are going to make any real money in that industry. And so, I mean, only for, you think. For a few, yeah. Yeah, I can see. It's just like professional wrestling. There's only a few people that are going to make any real money in that industry. And so, I mean, you really have to stand out to me. It's just, you know, to have, you know, 60 some odd inch chest and to have, you know,

a 20 some odd inch bicep or something, you know, that's not normal by any means. But, you know, it's, I don't know. What was the actual original question? Just kind of some of your thoughts on it. You know, you got. I was going off in the story land right now. Really, I haven't been hit the hard head, okay. You got guys like Bones Jones, you know, come

back and they win another, you know, win the belt again. And it's. You know, I, I think there should be a pro level that let, let, go ahead and let's use all of the good stuff that you want to. And then they'll have the other, that level that let, let, go ahead and let's use all of the good stuff that you want to. And then they'll have the other, that, that, this, this, it is discerning of what they

do. It's. Cause like pride fighting. I don't, I don't think they had. Oh. I think it was just, you know, there's no rules. There was no testing there whatsoever. It's literally, that's where you saw soccer kicks to the face.

So when a downed opponent stuff like this, it it was, uh, that, that actually was a crazy, crazy, but only in, only in Japan where we have Godzilla versus Mothra connection, you know, but, uh, it have the rule set to where everyone plays by the same rules. You have to have something like that. I pride myself back that I have lifetime chemical free. So you think these guys should just be out? Like if they test positive, you get kind of one and done? Well, I'm a big believer in the theory of threes.

There are certain things like, for example, being involved in amateur, there's a lot of rules that the Olympic Committee follows by. Yet you have to watch out that even there's certain antihistamines. Right. That will test you positive. And you're thinking, gosh, I just have a stuffy nose. I just try to get, so I could breathe out there and you'll get pop.

So some of it could be, they're not looking for to be a big monster or something like this. I mean, I know guys that have done coke and stuff like this to go out there and do things. So it's like, well, you know, is that good to give you advantage? Well, heck yeah. I had some other guy there asked me the other day, he's like, Dan, I've tried all these different kinds of diets.

He goes, nothing seems to really work. What should I do? I go, well, I go, Coke is a pretty good diet, but it's a very expensive diet. It doesn't work. I said, almost every way I see it, their skin is around, but now they have itchy habits and they do other stuff right there, the

legitimacy, but you know, it's a great diet. The results just don't know if you can afford the habit here now. And I got to just say that because even what's going to work for you may not work for me because body type differences, stuff like that. You know, age factors, all this stuff kind of goes into play as to what you have to do.

I mean, I'm the aging athlete now, so I have to listen to my body more and more to where some days it's like going, hey, we're good to go. There's other days they're like, oh, no, no, no. I don't think so today. Would you like to show your skill set against people regardless of what they do, or would you rather have them play

in the same rules that you do? I guess elaborate. If a fighter were to come out and say, yes, I am tested and I am testing positive for X and Y and Z versus this other fighter who's like, no, I'm 100% clean, but

let's do this fight anyways. For example, in my final couple years, I was trying to get one more match between the Mark Colbert, the Ken Shadrach, the Hoist Gracie. Ken Shadrach, and the Hoist Gracie. Ken Shadrach was one of the matches that did come up. It was run by this

company known as UR Network. They were not an MMA company whatsoever. They're just like a social media presence, but they were trying to gain... They wanted to do this very unique fighting type event where they were going to have a grappler match, a boxing match, a MMA match. And they first contacted Ken, and they threw me out as one of the other viable candidates.

They said, sure. And so this was all set up ahead of time. And I know that this is something that is not going to be tested. And I'm going, but I want this match no matter what. But I want to have testing on the day of

not that he'll be disqualified but I want people to know that I fought a man who tested positive for third or fourth time here now, but I'm still going to see the match through because I don't think it's going to help him because it's going to be the third match.

It's going to be the rubber match. And I actually did my third and what should have been my final training camp. So I took out 32 days for my first one So I took out 32 days for my first one. I took out 35 days for my second one. I took out three and a half months. I was down to, I mean, literally, I get the phone call on Friday that, you know, Tank Abbott's out because, I mean, through the series of that, you know,

Ken backed out nine days before. They're doing a mad dash trying to find somebody else. And they said, Tank Abbott. And I go, you better contact him quickly. And I really really didn't want that match because that i already done that one before and so but he uh did not clear the medical aspect and so this all happens on a friday and the show was on a sunday and like well then you're off the car i go well the hell i am i said i will be at weigh-ins. I said, I have busted my ass. I go, knowing that this was possibly going to be the last time that they were ever going to see Dan Severn. They're going to see the best Dan Severn I could possibly muster up.

And I go, I had almost a four-month training camp. I stepped on the scales, and I stepped on the scales at 236. I haven't at 236. I haven't seen 236 pounds in the last two decades. I was always about 250 to 275 pound range most of the time. And I was hiking up my trunks half the time trying to hide my love handles. I actually had abs, plural, instead of a smooth ab, you know. So I trade hard for this. I go, I want to step on the scales and let the people see I was here.

I prepared the best ever I could. And that was going to be done at 58 years of age is what that match should take place. And it did not happen. So now I have to simply just walk away from the industry knowing that I'll still help people in that industry because there's still a skill set that is not being utilized. There's a lot of wrestlers, amateur wrestlers,

that they think that their only ability to show their skill set is by striking and things of that nature. And they're not using the grappling. They don't know how to make the grappling exciting. But there's a lot of things that you can do if you bring people or whatever. Because a lot of people did not realize in that clinch, all the little evil things that I was doing to my opponent there. One day when the video games advanced far enough to where you could sit in the

comfort or stand in the comfort of your living room and you've got UFC, UFC, whatever, 1052 event here taking place. But now you have this interactive fight game where you've got these little circular electronic patches that you can place on your body. You have that little diagram that says, place this one here, this one there,

the whole nine yards. And so that now you're standing out there, and your dad's standing, and several little panty, you have fight gears up like this, and you're ready to fight. All of a sudden, the guy throws a roundhouse kick, and all of a sudden, it fires off these three electrodes,

and you feel your whole body go, like, just like, what was that? That whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Whoa! Because it's like, it's firing off your muscles that it's making it contract. And then you have some, you know, 450 pound dude who's eating pork rinds and drinking his beers up like this. You know, grabs his chest and falls over and dies and is living from there.

Then you'll see the lawsuit from that same, that same way. They go, dude, you killed me. Yeah, no, you killed yourself there, but it's what you did. That game sounds awesome. You killed me. Yeah, no, you killed yourself there, but it's what you did. That game sounds awesome. But you have those games already, the interactive type of things where you could, you know, you got these virtual glasses.

Eventually, it's going to be more than that. I've been to movies before where they actually have that mist and stuff like this come out. So it'll come. But I think you'll have that in these games or somehow you're going to be feeling certain percussions of that nature. Yeah. Have you seen any royalties from being in the UFC games? No.

No? At the time that I did that, I basically had to more or less sign my life away in order just to be inside of that. So I'll just say that I have way more, once my contract expires, I have way more control over my life now than I ever had. Oh, good. Yeah.

And you touched on it earlier. You said you got paid $1,000. No, that was my bare bones. Oh, okay. My minimum guarantee. That's the downsize. The upsize was $50,000. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know today it's, it's something still crazy. It's still under like $10,000 for like the very bare minimum. Yeah. But what do you think about how the UFC, you know, they have hundreds of fighters, they make tons of money, but yet only the top, like I think 3% are making enough to really make a life out of it.

I think you're being generous there with that 3%. I mean, yeah, I am being generous. It's more like 1%, but I don't know the actual numbers. Typically, it's just the main event that's making the real money. Because now these athletes are making a certain percentage off of the pay-per-view. So they understand that if they can stir the pot, do some of this smack talk and stuff like this, somehow they get to, you know, to stir the fans to want to tune in,

to have a reason to care. And that's where a lot of MMA guys should study professional wrestling because you are a character. And that's where, bottom line, you are a character when you, whether they show training clips of you or whether they show you, you know, at home doing whatever

or as you're walking on out there. I knew this coming in. I'm nothing but a character. I was doing my professional wrestling already. I already knew what I was going to wear when I walked out there. I knew what I was going to do if I won. I knew what I was going to do if I lost. I'm not a smack talker.

I'm not going to do this. Probably the picture that I'm best known for is having this crazy look on my face with my arms raised after victory. best known for is having this crazy look on my face with my arms raised after victory stuff but the where that came from was my very first match there where I'm going against Oleg Tatarov and I'm dropping these knees on his forehead stuff like this, I mean I stopped three

times of course this match, they finally get stopped and as I stand on up I got blood all over my arms and splashed up on my face and my chest, stuff like this, and the crowd is going just freaking nuts the way they're screaming and ho chest, stuff like this. And the crowd is going just freaking nuts the way they're screaming and hollering, stuff like this.

And I'm like, you people came out here to see, but I got you, got it. And as I'm up there like this, boom, that's when the pictures got taken place and people, they could rejoice. I'm like, no, I was actually kind of pissed. Yeah, there you go. There you go.

I can get that same look again if I stub my toes off. you go. There you go. I can, I can get that same look again if I stub my toes all the way. What, uh, how long would it take you to get in shape now for a, uh, MMA fight if you were to do one? Well, I mean, I mean, honestly.

Do you have decent conditioning now still or no? Oh, no, no, no, no. It's, uh, no. You just haven't, yeah. But I'm, I'm, but I'm a bonehead. So, so to me, it's like, I say that I have no condition, but, oh, I'll still will myself upon.

I mean, there's, I hate to say this, but I actually was, I thought of this idea a couple of years back, but, uh, there are, there's a lot of MMA companies across the United States. Uh, most that, that, uh, you know, people will never know about. Yeah, smaller leagues and stuff. Yeah, people will never know about. Smaller leagues. Yeah. Just the local regional type of event right there. I actually thought about doing 52 matches in one year. And I was going to call it the turd tour.

Cause I was going to expose all these guys. Beat the crap out of all the bums. Well, yeah, that turd tour could represent a lot of different things right there. But, but you know, it's just,

yeah, there's a lot of guys things right there. But, you know, just, yeah, there's a lot of guys that, I tell people that, you know, this mixed martial arts, the no holds barred, it's not for the faint of heart. Yeah, I've got my own MMA company called Danger Zone, I called it, because I want people to realize that this is not for the faint of heart. And I formed that during the no holds barred era where again, just the two rules of nobody, no hangout, no weight classes and I just wanted people

to realize that, you know, don't walk in there thinking this is professional wrestling or things of nature. Now again, you know,

when you fast forward, yeah, there is a place for that to become that character. You know, Conor McGregor probably understood it

the best and he did not realize this. If you want to go back, if you looked at his very first promos he cut, he was so happy just to be in the UFC. He was so happy to just have won his match. 50 Gs, Dana, you know, you owe me stuff like that. He was so happy to be off Ireland's version of welfare. The guy owns two mansions now, one in Ireland, one in California or someplace.

He's driving around in a nice, big, elaborate vehicle, stuff like this. Boy, in a couple of years, Ty, I hope he's being a little bit charitable somewhere along the way with that and be thankful for some of the things he does have. away with that and be thankful for some of the things he does have because, you know, I like to see when people who deserve to have success, because these are not, I always tell people that, you know, if I was a multimeter, would that really change Dan Severn? No. I might drive a little bit nicer vehicle, but I gotta say, Dan Severn has never owned a new vehicle yet.

Only new to me. Right. Okay. But that's just the way I am. I got different buddies that are like, oh, Dan, you're, you're, you're a little on the frugal side. I go, um, almost the point that, that they say,

Dan, you're, they use the C word. I have a hard, oh, don't watch, watch, watch, watch. And they're like, I say, I go, I go, I said, don't ever say that word. I said, I said, I've had to watch out for my own welfare being. I go, and I go, even for my, for my children and stuff like this. Again, my kids don't know what I had to sacrifice along the way and doing all these two and three paydays all in the same 24 hours. They, they sure what I've sacrificed, but it's kind of going.

24 hours, nature, what I've sacrificed, but it's kind of going, but upon high school graduation, they will have a good used vehicle, is that, but upon them being born,

I open up a, an account for them, so that when they're ready, upon high school graduation, I will turn over however good the markets have been. So if I discount it, it'll range between $15,000 and $20,000.

Good use vehicle and $15,000 and $20,000 is your start in life. There you go. Spend it and you, or use it wisely. I learned a really quick over time that you don't turn over that kind of money to an 18 year old because they don't understand how long you have to work in order to save up that kind of money or having the due diligence to just save that kind of money because I have buddies that are my age

they still don't understand how to save two bucks. What are you most proud of in your career? I don't know. I mean it's, I'll call it moments in time. There's just different things through my career, just in life in general. And I mean, it's, you know, just to have done certain things at a young, to have success early in life, witness success late in life. To be, if I talk about just the athletic aspect alone, to know that I've had a 40-plus year career. I mean, it's closing in on 50 years of competition, terrorizing athletes for 50 years.

How many people could say that and say, lifetime chemical free? Then you start adding up. It's like, oh, yeah, start amateur wrestling here. Most people, again, they only know the MMA. They only know the professional wrestling side. But there's Dan Seven, the wrestler, who was a three-time high school all-american a two-time state champion i set and held eight national records simultaneously which is a national record still held to this date

and i did that back in 1976 you know so i've done a lot of fun on with things it's just a sport of wrestling tour even you know fast forward to today do the calculations on up i have just over 100 state national and or international titles and or records to my credit find another human being alive or deceased that can make my claims and all that being lifetime chemical free and i'm not saying it'd be braggos. I'm saying that I'm like throwing, dropping down the mic, find someone that can do that. There's a lot of athletes

that have had a good run for a short period of time. I mean, but I have to find odds early on and then late in my life or people are like, oh, what's next for Dan Severn? I'm not sure yet, but I rest assured I'm not done.

I'm not going to be sitting in a rocket chair anytime soon and letting life pass me by. I'm still going to be engaged in the game. I've been thinking about starting my submission grappling career. The bad part is I have to already start to give up 20 plus years of age. I'm like going, come on, guys. Isn't there

another senior citizen that's just as wacky as what I am here right now? Anything else, Andrew? How cool was it to see the UFC on ESPN? I mean, it's the sheer inevitability. When it first began back in the dark days, the pioneer days, the spectacle days, in the dark days, the pioneer days, the spectacle days, a lot of people say,

did you ever think that it would grow to the magnitude? I go, yes. I said, the only reason I know that is because I had two VHS tapes. And I had a couple of my buddies that were, they were running a quick errand. They swung by my place to pick something up. And I wanted to do this test. So just before they got there, I shoved the VHS tape in.

So I'm sitting on the couch and they're like, Dan, Dan, I need to get, and I'm like, well, yeah, just come over here. I go, I said, I'll get it for you in just a second. I'm going, I'm trying to watch this match real quick. They come on in and they're standing there and they're watching it. They start watching. They were only supposed to be there standing there and they're watching it. They start watching.

They were only supposed to be there for like one minute just to grab whatever and go. Two hours later, they're sitting on my couch screaming how, I'm not even on the couch anymore, I'm watching these two guys yelling and screaming at the TV set here right now because it's disgusting. I go,

wow, look what this is doing to a couple of my buds right now. I'm thinking it had everyone, well, most people enjoy watching a spectacle of violence. But there's also this certain element of a possible to witness death in the process. Why does everyone slow down when they see an accident? They don't have to. If they're over a couple of lanes, they just. Yeah.

Or you could be at a professional football game and there's a fight in the stands. And everybody watches that. And there's, these guys are paid millions of dollars to. Exactly. They're professional football players, but they want to see these two amateurs who are drunk. Yeah. Swing at each other.

You could be at an MMA show and see the same fight. Absolutely. And more people are watching this up on the stand than are watching what they paid, you know, a couple hundred dollars for a ticket for. Yeah, because the unknown could happen. Yes. So, I mean, there is something about this physical violence. I mean, that's why football, I mean, it's control, but again,

it's physical violence that you're watching out there boxing kickboxing You know the the UFC if you could run the same platform today because there are so many more Social media outlets there for it. I think it would be even that much more stronger, you know Bare knuckle boxing it's starting to come make bring a comeback So again people are drawn this because I come two men, bare knuckles here right now. Although they're sort of anti-climatic matches, they don't last real long. It's because they don't take too many shots before someone's done in bare knuckle type of boxing.

So there is an attraction to it. And I knew that if it could survive the legislators and the politicians, there's been four different ownerships of the UFCF. I've been very fortunate to work for all four ownerships. The guy who owned it during the

worst time was Bob Meyerowitz of the Semaphore Entertainment Group. That's when Senator John McCain was rallying a lot of the policies to let you lay legislators to do away with this, this barbaric human cockfighting event that's taken place. And that's when they started to implement a little bit more rules and weight classes and things, which I think is good.

No, it did. It's got to be something. It's got to be something. As it was progressing, when, you know, like today it's the unified rules, but they didn't have to be announced the unified rules like a light switch. It changed overnight all across the United States. I could be up in Wyoming or something like that,

and I'll be in a cage mashup like this, and I'm like, I don't know if I'm allowed to do this technique. So I actually, as I'm holding my opponent down on the cage, against the cage, I'm like, hey, Raph, am I allowed to? I'm tipping my hat to my opponent, what I'm about to opponent down on the cage against cage or something like that. I'm like, Hey Rafa, am I allowed to, I'm tipping my hat to my point, what I'm about to do to him,

but I'm not doing any illegal moves or techniques to him there as well. Cause they're like, said they like the, I would even, it was kind of funny. Cause as I got to know John McCarthy more and more as new rules were being added, he would come to me and go,

okay, Severn, how do you beat this rule? And I like, well, it's easy, John. You just do this. And he looks at me and goes, who thinks that way? I go, John, I'm not a fighter. I'm a competitor.

You're going to give me rules? I'm going to show you how to use those rules to your benefit, just like we showed a little bit earlier. That clinch, rule says I can't strike you with my fist to the throat, but I can pop that shoulder just out the way. It'll pop it to where you'll start to choke. You may not be able to breathe properly, but if I pop it here and then draw a jacket to where now you, and now I do add that center of infraction,

but now you bite your tongue, you bite the side of your mouth, your eyes start to water out and up, stuff like this. Your mind's not thinking about the fight, you're thinking about that instant pain that I just put you into, or a quick stomp on the foot, you could do that, break a guy's foot with a good stomp on the arch or something like this, but then there's lots of these same things that I've now incorporated into, I do stuff with also with females, I do a female self-defense class, I do stuff also with females. I do a female self-defense class, but then also a rape defense class.

One class is all on your feet, and one class is all down underground. So I've used all these different skill sets to where it keeps Dan Severin rather busy, you know, traveling around to where it's like, you know, I got other guys that are like from the MMA category that they're like, dude, how do you stay out there how do you come up with this how do you come down go i go i use my mind i said your

your athlete career is only going to be so long i wouldn't be here sharing time with you guys here today just to talk about that because just here to talk and to share you you guys will have a different thought of dance and dance seven wasn't just a brute beast inside this cage. The guy actually is methodical. He's thinking. And I was always thinking of what's next because your, your, your athletic career,

I don't care what sport you will always be just small compare in comparison of what your life is all about. I think Apollo Creed said it best. He said, be a thinker, not a stinker. There you go. Although there were different times where I thought that as a professional

wrestler, so like this, the greatest gimmick of all is being known like the human onion or something like this, where you, you know, you're, you're,

you're, you're pregame meals. I'm eating garlic and onions and stuff. They make it gassy and band camps, pork and beans and stuff like this. It's kind of like the fishing movie. It's like stuff that can make you gassy. And then band camps, pork and beans and stuff like this. It's kind of like the finishing movie is like, here, pull my finger. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, but that character is something I thought of almost 20 years ago. Uh-oh. Recto Fury. Could be making a comeback. See, you like that though, don't you? That's great. Yeah.

Because you see all these, they've got these foam fingers for all football boards. Like, we're number one. I just want to grab that same thing, paint a character life and it says, pull my finger. Same foam hand. The merchandising rights,

come on, hello, are great. It's selling itself. Now you're going to see that character probably file somewhere the next year. For sure. You heard it here first. Dan to be said of all people.

Where can people find out more information about you, more information about where you train people and stuff like that, the seminars, stuff like that? The best place is just the website at danseverin.com. I mean, they go there. There's all the different social media outlets that I have, you know, the Facebook pages and other social media outlets. So that's probably the best way of contacting me.

That website is under construction right now. I mean, there is information that's there, but I'm having my website revamped and it's going to be brought into the 21st century here now. So thank goodness for all the people that have these skill sets because, you know, if it was up

to me, no, I'd still have probably the, the tin can and the string and had to like, I can't hear you. I got to pull the string a little tighter here right now. Yeah. I like that you're doing seminars and I like that you're sharing a lot of information with people. And, uh, I'd like to see on more podcasts because I think more people need to hear from you.

So thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. It's such an honor to have you in here today. I've looked up to you for a long time. Thank you so much. It's just good just being here. Just better share your story a little bit more because there's so many people that they're like,

oh, geez, I could never be like this guy. And I'm thinking, well, no, I never thought I'd be like this guy here either. But I just tell three, even with the kids when I run these kid classes, I can't do this. I can't do this. I go, don't say I can't.

Simply say, I'll try. There's nothing wrong with trying I go Have I been successful In everything No But it's kind of like Going know that you at least

Tried and put forth effort One of the hardest things I ever did was I'm at a wrestling camp right now And I just couldn't get I couldn't get to this camp This kid At all

I approached All the different approaches I've tried before Nothing was working Out Out of blue, I think to myself, do you play video games? He's like, oh. I mean, I hit his brain. Oh, I love

video games. And I go like, well, well, how good were you at those video games when you first started playing them? Oh, terrible. I kept getting beaten and stuff like this. How did you get better? Oh, I kept playing it again and again and again. Oh, terrible. I kept getting beaten. Stuff like this. How did you get better? Oh, I kept playing it again and again and again. Oh, you mean like

drilling and trying to do it again and again? And I got to him by using a video game. As I'm walking away, I'm almost like kicking myself that I had to use a video game as an example, but it's a new generation and you have to look at, you have to kind of think outside the box at times because

one thing to be, I'm talking about sacrifice, but I think we're a rather isolated society because of all these electronics. A lot of people don't have to interact with people at all. I can order my groceries online and they'll be delivered. All it is a credit card or whatever type of electronic transaction. I don't have to leave my home at all. I can work from my home office and stuff like that and put out this. So less and less people you're going to really see it. You're going to see less and less bricks and

mortar of training. More and more people are training people online training and things of that nature. So it's, it's really interesting how the electronic era is really advancing and taking over to where a lot of people just don't have those social skills anymore. Yeah. And in trying to communicate and in trying to get to somebody, sometimes you have to, you have to kind of go back in time. And so for you, you might have to think about like things that were hard for you when you were a kid or things that you didn't want to do.

I mean, maybe when you were like six or seven, maybe you cried because your dad was making you do something that you really, you wanted to play with your buddies and you couldn't go over to their house or whatever. And it's like, I think it's easy for us to,

as adults to think that we're like this bad-ass person. And we forget we were really sensitive and we really struggled with a lot of these things too. And it's kind of that conversation of you talk to like a seven-year person. We forget we were really sensitive and we really struggled with a lot of these things too. And it's kind of that conversation of you talk to like a seven-year-old kid and you say, Hey, you know what? You got, you got to clean up your room. And they, they say something, they mumble something.

Well, then you get down, you know, you get down close to them. You come down on their level, literally come down, get on one knee and say, son, I need you to clean your room. This is, this is what we do. And you, you speak to them that way. And hopefully they, you get a better response. But normally when you kind of go down to where someone is at that point and you kind of have

perspective on where they're at in their life at that moment, then you can bring them back up. But if you're trying to be like, Hey, just come with me, that it's kind of hard for them to understand that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, that's like, that's too hard.

Yeah. I don't want to come. I don't want to come with you, Dan Severin, and travel for 37 hours on the road. I'm going to get my butt kicked. Funny, I'm going to say Mass Perfect there. Just recently, a gentleman, he interacted with me through Facebook.

He goes, I forget what he started off with there. He goes, but I try to use the analogy. He goes, what would Jesus do? He goes, I can't really relate to this. What would Jesus do? He goes, I can't really relate to this. What would Jesus do? He says, I've never really met Jesus. He says, I have actually seen Dan Severin.

And now I go to, what would Dan Severin do? He says, you've had an extraordinary career in doing this, this, this. He goes, and then it was such a comical thing they sent me that I responded back to him. And he's like, I'm really shocked that you responded back to me. I go, really, anyone that actually does reach out to me, I'll get back to them eventually. But the key word there is eventually, because sometimes if I'm on the road for the next four or five days, it piles up. And it will take me several days, maybe a week or so, to try to window that pile down. And there are certain days that I haven't gotten back to that I still owe people responses from well over a year plus ago.

But I'll get to them eventually. But it's really got a kick out of the fact that I responded back to them. And just so that, no, I have my off days just like anybody else does. And I said, but for the most part, I win more days than I lose days. So that's all it boils down to. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later.