Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Kerr on Fighting, Addiction, Redemption & The Smashing Machine

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Mark Kerr sits down with Mark Bell for a raw conversation about fighting at the highest level, the mindset it took to become one of the most feared men in MMA, and the personal battles that nearly broke him.In this episode, Mark Kerr talks about his rise through wrestling and early mixed martial arts, the brutal reality of no-time-limit fights, what made Pride and Japan so different, and how he approached training like a true professional. He also opens up about addiction, sobriety, rebuilding the relationship with his son, and why redemption and resilience have become such a huge part of his story.They also get into The Smashing Machine, Kerr’s legacy in combat sports, the Hall of Fame moment that caught him off guard, and what it was like seeing his life brought to the screen.If you want a conversation about toughness, suffering, growth, and what it really means to fight both in and out of the ring, this one delivers.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!

I could tell my son, I go, you didn't sign a contract that says life will be easy. You sign the other contract that says life's going to be really hard. It's going to hand you a bunch of it at times you don't want to do. But you know what? You're going to suck it up and you're going to do it. That duality is my strength because I could harness stuff from that emotional part of me. People watch me beat the fuck out of somebody and then watch me in a totally different format and go, is that the same dude? What this is and what you are outside of the ring are computer.

completely two different things. You can be this inside the ring, but when it's over, it's over, you leave it there. Every single thing I did had to have intention. And that intention

when it's all focused and driven in one direction is powerful. You seem like a nice guy coming here with a smile and everything, but your nickname is the smashing machine.

Right. What's the deal with this nickname? Oh, gosh, man. So, let me, I tell you, McKenna, the Portuguese, they said it's, the you're the machine that smashes.

And when the reporter looked at it, when the, so when the reporter looked at it, when you looked at my fight, uh, third fight that night against Fabio Gajel, it was, it was,

it was a beating. You know, like, like sometimes it's even hard for me to watch it. Because it's one where I'm like, oh God, like, like I know that hurt.

And he's just, the dude wouldn't give up. And you know this. Like when you're, when you're competing. grappling and doing jiu-jitsu of like trying to take somebody's will yeah it's sometimes somebody just doesn't fuck him want to give it to you but fighting and competing in jiu-jitsu are like different things different thing same objective though i'm trying to take your will right just at a different

a different mechanism right different mechanism right but but that intensity of what you're trying to do because when you're competing against me um i don't want to i don't want to give you that yeah i don't So this is, I think, is this in the movie? This, this, this is, yes. This fight in particular. Because I remember people talking about this fight and this is, Oh, it's, I'm head budding him and. Oh, I break his orbital, I fracture as orbital.

You ever think about how people are doing now? So I ran, I ran into him when they did the first class of induction in ADCC in Vegas. I got it and I ran into Fabio. Nicest dude in the world. I got a great story. So you imagine this, right? Like this is like 15 minutes. Yeah.

Of me just. And literally I'm going, just give up in my head. I'm like at some point, I'm like, just give the fuck up, dude. But everybody in that crowd is there to support him. Right? They're from his dojo. He's the sensei at the dojo. Yeah.

So there's no way he would rather he'd rather get choked unconscious break a leg break an arm Fractured fit it doesn't matter so I mean you see here it's just like like I'm I'm like mauling him yeah, yeah right So they that's supposed to be no time limits and so the referee looks at sees his Orbitals broke and stop the fight they award the victory to me and then the next day His wife calls me. He doesn't speak English back then. It speaks perfect English now.

And so his wife's like, Bobby wants to have you up to the house for lunch. This is the next day. Yeah. And I'm like, no, thank you. Like you thinking he's going to have like 20 of his boys.

Just camped out, just waiting for me going, oh, when he gets here, boys, we're going to. And I finally agree. I said,

okay, I'll go. And so I go up there. and I sit down with him and it was the coolest experience in the world. Because it sets the standard of like what this is and what you are outside the ring are completely two different things. Yeah. You can be this inside the ring, right? But when it's over, it's over, you leave it there.

And that's the message that Fabio gave to me. It gave me this just great insight at the beginning of my fighting career to know that there's a distinct. difference between that and when you're outside during. You mentioned no no time limit. Yeah. How do you prepare? You know what? Being 250, 260 pounds.

How do you prepare for no time limit? Is there any breaks at all? No. You fight until somebody gives up. You don't give you like 30 seconds. No. Take a sip of water or something. I mean, you can't even do the fake poke in the eye.

Like hang on, hang on a second. Hang on. There's not. It's like, oh, he pokes you in the eye? I keep going. I think you even get in pride, you'd get like fined or something, right? You do get like docked pay. Like if you're not active.

Yeah, they give you like in soccer. They give you a yellow card. Give you a yellow card. And they give you a red card. The first yellow card I think is like, I think it was like 15% of your pay. Second one, it goes to 25, a red card 50% of your pay. Yeah, that's, oh, it's not right. You're not fighting hard enough.

You're being like that. Oh, my God. Holy crap. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it turned it in, like I was saying earlier, it's like when you have in pride, it was a 10 minute first round.

10 minute. That's a diminished product after five minutes. You're not getting, you're getting two dudes just kind of hanging out because it's just like you don't have the cardiovascular system to do that. So that's when they started doing the cards. I'm like, I'm like, oh,

they're only making it worse. Oh, making it's way worse, way worse. What do your cardio training look like, though? Like, how did you... I mean, I know you have a long history of being a wrestler, and wrestlers are always in great condition, but in wrestling, you get breaks? You do.

You do, like, in Collegian, it was a three-minute first period, two-minute, second, two-minute third. You know, and there was always that kind of break in between, like, once the first period was over, there was like this lull that you had to get your bearings, right? So cardiovascularly, the closest system that mirrored what I wanted was was hockey and that's where

T.R. Goodman came in. That's where the whole pro camp thing came in. That's where he was taking these hockey players because it's burst recover, burst recover, burst recover, burst recover, burst recover. And so the whole point was like how do I, like I didn't know this language back then, but like how do I increase my capacity? How to increase my cardiovascular? So my VOTU capacity and then my heart rate capacity to be able to carry that hockey player burst recover burst recover and that's one where you can get through like the training camp of that and not be beat up that was the other one like you could you could get people that could cardiovascularly train for a five minute round five five minute rounds just they couldn't get through the training camp that was the whole thing it's like

because you it was this puzzle that needed to be solved you know that who else actually started solving the puzzle? Frank Shamrock. Frank Shamrock and I had conversations 25 years ago about heart rate training and all this other stuff. And he was the only person I could talk to about it. He realized

he can't just redline this thing. No, no. Because there's too much different types of training. I mean, you're in the gym, you're lifting, you're doing cardiovascular training on bikes. You're probably doing a little bit of running. I mean, a list of stuff. What's that? Did you do some broker? So I did. So I did.

it was limited because it was it was really hard on my you're big you're heavier yeah yeah it's like gravity and my joints just don't agree sprints though probably right sprints a ton yeah sprints hills inclines bleachers like as u on the track and field has got bleachers that are like i i think it's probably a 30% grade damn and literally they go okay run the bleachers and i go i ain't running i'm just walking. I'm walking. I'm good. I'm just good walking them because you spiked your heart rate and then on the way down you could

recover. And on the way up, you spiked it again. And on the way down, you're a recover. And it was this up down, up down. Same thing. cardiovascularly, it's this. But, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, too, I was talking about this a couple weeks ago, how many calories

I had to take in per day so I wasn't catabolic. It was like one of those where it's like now, I still have food issues because I had a force. So I had to do, I had to do four, I called them soft meals and four hard meals. That was a minimum minimum. And the movie is see you making shakes all the time. I was like, because I couldn't physically eat like going, I couldn't physically eat like going,

oh my God, I need to eat again. But I had to, right? So food became this, this thing where I still get hang up to you know, going all the back to wrestling and cutting weight and doing all the stuff. It was one where, you know, like, still this day, I just have food issues. You were doing like what, two, three workouts a day though, right? Yeah.

That's, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So, no, I was going to say in the morning, it would get up and I would do my first soft meal, like get right up and have. And soft meals like a blended meal. A blended meal. Yep. And that would be first.

And then it would be like, okay, get my routine. Sometimes we would lay back down, get up, eat a hard meal, right? And then head to the gym. and then another meal, either a hard meal or a soft meal, depending on what the day looked like. And then it would be just repeating all day long. Wow. Get up repeat.

Get up repeat. Get up repeat. Yeah. You know, going back to what you were mentioning here with how, like, he was really good at separating the fight from, you know, just being a chill human being. Did you all, were you good at that before or did it take you time to be able to, like,

compartmentalize? No. this was this was what I was talking to Mark about earlier no like I didn't know what a professional mixed martial artists look like nobody did yeah nobody did because look at the early UFC you had a boxer walking one glove on one glove off right

that's that's the confusion so like the worst of city never by the guy can you imagine this corner guy going all right bill it's a good thing one glove on and one off You're like, like, and afterward, I guarantee you goes, you don't like me, do you? Because if somebody liked me, but tell me, take the other glove off too. Right. It's so, like, such a handicap.

Oh, my God. It's like, I can't imagine the thought process that went into that. Because somebody thought of that, you know, so that gave you an idea at the beginning, like what a mixed martial artist was. Like, nobody knew. Yeah. Nobody knew. So where Fabio helped. helped me in this direction was to understand like this is this is how you carry yourself right

and so you know for me it made it clear like you know if a guy fouled me and kicked me in the nuts and poked me in the eye i'm not going to be friendly with him outside the running because there's just no there's no reason to but i'm not going to go after him i'm not going to be an antagonist that i'm I can be Anna. It's just that's who you are. That's fine because I'm going to carry myself at a much higher level. Yeah. You know, because up here is a professional, down here's everything else. Like I told you, I wanted to be paid like a professional. So if I looked like, and I've said this in interviews before, like if you look at like one of the pride interviews, you'll see everybody in a sweatsuit, track suit. And you'll see me, I couldn't afford a thousand dollar Calvin Klein suit.

Right. Because I'm like, I'm going to be paid. You're going to pay me. Yeah. You know, it was this whole narrative that I didn't, I didn't let in retrospect, I can look back on it and going, I understood what I was doing, but I didn't understand what I was doing. You mentioned having like food issues. What are the issues that you still have with food? You have like a battle about like what's healthy and what's not healthy kind of thing.

Yeah. Because you know, a lot of it, a lot of it turned into, like most people, you know, food of convenience. convenience, right? Low nutritional, low density, nutritional food, quick grab easy, you know, where I know that those choices are the worst thing I can do, right? Instead of just taking the time because food, it was a tool, you know, it was a tool to be able to get to where I wanted to get to. So, you know, a lot of times I go, ah, it's just easy. I'm going to grab a fucking twinkies. even though my glycemic index goes through the fucking roof

all this other shit and I go, man, I can't why do I feel like shit? Oh, because you're just, you're missing like Casey means and Cody means. Right? Like the book Casey means and Casey They wrote a book, she wrote a book called Good Energy. Okay.

Right? And so the book talks about like if your phone required 20 volts, right? And you were putting nine volts in it every day and going, my phone's not working right, it would make sense. Yeah. Your body, she goes, your body's the same way.

If your cells require a certain amount of energy and you're feeding it this crap and your body's not responding, it's not a mystery. Still calories, but it's maybe not efficient. They're not efficient. Exactly. And she talks about it.

I mean, the book is, it's interesting because the first like three, four chapters of it are scientific. So I'm like, okay, if I can just get something. And then you get to the point where it's like the whole thing. She's actually went through a nomination process. She was brilliant. She did a bunch of stuff with like RFK.

Yeah, yeah, she is. She's partner right now. I think she's actually trying to. She was at the University of Stanford. And I think she was very upset with her education from there because she was like, I didn't really learn anything about nutrition. So, so she, exactly. You know, part part of her story and I might get a lot of,

this wrong but she like graduated high school when she's like 15 16 years old graduated pre-med when she was like 18 done with medical by the time she was in her mid-20s done with a residency by the time she's like done like brilliant brilliant and her brother is a doctor as well and she walked away wow in her 30s yeah she just goes i quit medical system does not want anybody to get well you know she would see it In the book, she talks about seeing a patient every six months. And it's just repeat. And she goes, she got rewarded for billing, not for results. And she was just like, I can't do this.

I can't. Good conscience. I just can't do it. When you were fighting, it seemed like you were eating pretty clean? I was eating really clean, really clean, obsessively clean. I mean, you see in the movie, it's like, no, that's, I'm not eating half a banana anymore. It's a whole banana and dumped the whole fucking shake out because it was like, It was like I had my plan.

Yeah. Right? You're fucking with my plan. Like I can't have those extra fucking potassium gall. You know, it's like just because, I mean, I was trying to do it the right way. I was. And you know what? You know this, the internet wasn't the internet.

This was like talking to nine guys at the gym and picking out the big ones going, what's you doing? Like, what's you doing? Okay, you're in how many sets and you're eating how much? Okay, good. Hang on a second. Let me write that now. You're also a wrestler too. Yeah.

Wrestling background of like coach said to do it this. Why would I do it the wrong? Why would I do it the coach just told me the wrong way? Oh, my, the guy that actually like changed my whole life was a guy named Chris Campbell. He was, when Dan Gable became a coach at Iowa, Chris Campbell was Dan Gable's first NCAA chand. Wow. A black brother. right and just unbelievable make me the 19 i think he was a he was a two-time NCAA champ

he made the 1980 olympic team that was boycotted won the 1981 world championship voted as best clinician and that's voted on by your peers uh gets injured walks away from wrestling decides at some point he's going to come back and wrestle and then starts training for the 92 Olympics like in 1989. Wow. And made the Olympics at 37 years old and won a bronze medal. Chris Campbell? Chris Campbell, yeah.

And so he was meticulous. Because he had no margin for error. He had no margin for era. Like what he did was so deliberate. I call, he created in me intention. Like every single thing I did had to have intention. Like when you went to the gym, you trained for this, you did this.

When you drilled in wrestling, you drilled like this, like this, like this. Very intentional and that intention, when it's all focused and driven in one direction, is powerful. Question about Chris, because you worked with so many people, but winning at 37 or getting a bronze 37, a lot of guys are like, at that age, nah, like a lot of guys,

maybe run down, et cetera. Outside of maybe the intention, is there any things that Chris did in training that you think were also separators? Tai Chi. Ha! That's awesome. Okay, please.

So seriously, so, so me, I'm young. He's 14 years older than me. And I'm watching him go, and I'm like, Chris, what the fuck are you doing, man? And so he would do Tai Chi. He would meditate. He was a vegetarian.

He was vegetarian. Now he's a vegan. Now he's a vegan. Wow. And back then that was like, like it wasn't like it is now. And so it was like this beacon of like, of, of like, whoa, like, what are you doing? Like, but it was just, it was, it stuff everybody's into now. Yeah.

Right. Like he was teaching me Tai Chi and it was like one of those things where I'm like, okay, I get it energy internal shifting motion you know all these different things and I'm like it would come in into play when we would wrestle like you would see like this whole flow in this whole it was like okay all right spending time spending time with yourself you know yeah even just that yeah and spent and and practicing particular movements seeing how you feel with particular movements maybe he's flowing real well and maybe you go oh my knee kind of hurts doing this right and you got to learn how flow better move better he turned me on to so much uh kalil jabran you know book uh called the prophet

you know like just turn me on to this deeper thinking as a human being this introspective part of like searching for stuff yeah you know internally you know not an external search right like like like search internally and um you know i look at it and i'm like he was so far he introduced me to to Dave Schultz. Who's Dave Schultz? I'm sorry, I should probably know. No, no. Dave Schultz was murdered by John DuPont, Demir.

Right? Fox Catcher. Yeah, Fox Catcher. So after the 92, after the 92 Olympic run, Chris is going to retire. And so Chris said, I've taken you as far as I can take you. The next person he handed to me was handed me to was Dave Schultz. Introduced me to Dave.

Introduced me to Foxcatcher. I started wrestling for Foxcatcher in 1990. 93, 94, 95, and then January 96 is when Dave was murdered. Yeah. Yeah, there's me and Kurt. What was that like being part of that? Because like that was like all paid for and stuff, right? Yeah, yeah.

So that's kind of nice because like wrestling doesn't really have much money behind it. So back then you were so desperate. I was so desperate to have a club team pick me up because because when you're under scholarship, things are taken care of, right? And then you get done and you want to wrestle Olympic style freestyle wrestling. Nothing's paid for. And so you have to hook up with the club team. And so when I started talking to Dave in 1992, Dave was like, you know, you make Fox Catcher.

You beat everybody that's at your weight on Fox Catcher. And that year, from 92 to 93 at the world team trials, I beat everybody on Fox Catcher's team to make my first world team in 93. This is you and Kurt Engel? Yeah, yeah. You're right, Kurt Angle is fast as shit. Oh, he's quick, quick, quick, quick. Like he could change levels and he could explode. So here I still had a little bit more horsepower than him.

He had a little bit better conditioning. And at the end, in 95, when he beat me in 96, he had a combination of the power he missed and the conditioning just was off the charts. He could just wear you into the ground. He's a little lighter than you? Yeah. Yeah. He's, so he wrestled heavyweight all his years in college. Yeah. All his years. Yeah. He wrestled this guy, uh, I think his senior year. I think it was Sylvester Tarka. I know Sylvester. Sylvester's like six foot six. He's got hands that

lap my hands. They're ginormous. Yeah, bring up some video. Sylvester. He's massive. Oh, he's ginormous. I, I mean ginormous. So Kurt beat him. And so Kurt, Kurt, against the heavyweights. Kurt just was so much faster. So much faster. That was like part of his advantage. Oh, huge advantage. Huge. You wrestled Sylvester as well, right?

Yeah, I did. Look at that jaw. I wrestle Sylvester my senior year. I didn't cut down the 190 until the end of the year. And he got on top of me and just he just mowed me over. He's just wrenching that guy's face. It's a second time in college I had been pinned. was by him.

You know, this makes me wonder, since we're on the topic of, like, wrestling, you mentioned that the way a lot of, the way that you learned when you're younger was that right foot in front, right shoulder in front. Do you think that there's merit to a level of symmetry in getting young athletes to, like, maybe lead with the other foot sometimes? Oh, they're, like, Kurt was a left leg lead.

Okay. And it's just as an anomaly. It wasn't, it's, it, I don't know how common it is now. know when I was wrestling it's just how it was taught yeah it was taught that goofy foot right leg for your dominant leg forward and then all your attacks you know would be out of that leg forward um you know I see guys now that actually can wrestle both both legs you know because square stance usually doesn't work you know because you can't you can't generate um I call them power generators like if I if I'm stagger stagger step I can I can skip step and I can generate power close

in like I call it fighting in the phone booth. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right. Like these power steps by grabbing and pulling and shucking and, you know, so, you know, some guys do it now. It's interesting. I wouldn't even know, like now I haven't looked at it at that level.

I got you. Yeah. Wrestling, you know, it's a sport that's been around for a long, long time, right? Yeah. And people get exposed to it in high school and some people wrestle. Some people play football. Some people play basketball and so on. But fighting is like a whole different category thing.

And I realize fighting has even been around forever too. And there's even been organized fighting. It's been around. And I know in Japan, it's been popular for many years. And then here in the U.S., we had the UFC that popped up. But what was the jump? What was the leap like into like now I'm going to like be punching and kicking and all the other things? I mean, at first it, you got to feel confident.

you can protect yourself really well. So that I, that I had. I had the confidence I had was, I know that I was going to be well conditioned, right? I know that like with wrestling, what it allows you to do, what it allowed me to do is you can conserve energy in certain spots, right?

Like standing on my feet, kicking and punching, I don't know where I can conserve energy because I just haven't done it for 20 years, right? I wrestle for 20 years. I know where I can need to apply pressure and I know where I can relax in the plop. So I knew those are some of the advantages. Everything else was just like,

I didn't know what I was going to do when I got in there. How was you going to react? Because training and in an actual event, but it's one where it's like it was just this natural transition of like, of like not thinking about it. It's like, oh, his face is there. I'm going to need it. There's somebody like, hey, we're going to go to this,

go to this thing and it's going to, if you win, you get like five grand or something was oh no the first this is what enticed me like 25,000 the fight wow but they're like hey listen we're going on in brazil and then i didn't hear anything else after the 25 000 because it was because it's like oh yeah you're going to fight three times one night oh there's going to be no no time limits there's going to be it's going to be bare knuckle it's going to be in the basement of a hotel and uh we're going to slot where where one side is we want this guy fabio in the final

finals and are you good with it? Wow. All I heard was 25,000. Yeah. And everything else I didn't hear. I didn't hear any of that. How'd that go? I won.

That's the fight. That's that's an incredible part about like. And you didn't have much striking. No, no. How much do you train for? A couple weeks, months? No, I trained probably like, three months, but three months of like still,

you're not going to pick up much in three months. Maybe just to hold your hands up and move your head a little bit. That's it. And understand like there's so many other different ways that you can strike, you know, with my knees and with my elbows, with my head, you know, and things like that because it's all legal, you know. So it's just one of those where, you know, those elements were brought out. Like I was saying earlier,

it's like I feel way more comfortable kneeing or kicking you. Because I can just feel, I feel like I can just generate so much more. No. Try it on in Seema. And Seema. I think you can handle himself too. I know. I think, yeah, I mean, there's a big age gap here.

So let me ask you this. Like, as you were progressing as a fighter, when was it that like you met Boss Rutan and then all of that story? Oh gosh, man. How, that's a God sent. I mean, so I did. let's see it'd be UFC 14

which I won that I won that yeah I won UFC 15 after UFC 15 is when I met boss and it's just this really weird connection of a friend of mine saying hey there's this guy in Beverly Hills who has a

jiu jitsu school called Beverly Hills and he wants you to come out to do a wrestling clinic I'm like, okay, because back then you were trying to pick up as much money from his little things. I think it was like $250 to come out. He'd fly you out. And I was like, okay, for a weekend, yeah. And then it changed from that to like, hey, he wants you to come out and teach wrestling.

Like on Fridays and Saturdays, like Friday evening and Saturday morning. And then you can fly home on Saturday. And I'm like, okay, we can talk about it. This guy's, his name's Avi Rubin. Yeah. And I'm like, okay. So I go out there. I don't know boss is there.

I don't know. Yeah. I don't know Marco Huaz is there, Pedro Ezzo, and Olecta Tahr off. Oh, shit. Yeah. And it ended up being like one of those, like, I wouldn't be here if it was anything different. Because boss took an interest, immediately boss took an interest in, in me. And, I mean, that's literally, literally, it was like this, oh, my God.

And Boss is aging well, man. Yeah, he is. I know. And this is Rico. Yeah, it's Rico Rodriguez. Yeah. And he, I think he won a, he beat Randy Couture. Yeah.

He beat Randy Couture. Yeah. He beat Randy Couture. It's amazing when you watch some of the stuff and you're like, oh, that guy did this. And this guy did that because all you guys are around each other. Yeah. It's small, small circle. Right.

You know, the first time I met Rico Rodriguez, he was 300 and, 20 pounds and fat he was his his his instructors Higgin Machado yeah and so he's got his black belt from Higah Machado wow and so he's 20 years old I'm like 30 at the time or 28 and uh you know he comes in he's just this round and it was just one of those weird things where I was like okay you want to wrestle and he know he knew a little bit of wrestling so we start wrestling I'm like Wow. Okay. And so we start training together and I literally say to him, I go, you can tell you this, I go, probably two years, maybe a year and a half. And he goes, what? A year and a half I go before you can take me down. And he's like, no, fuck you. I'm like, no, maybe two years. And it was probably two years before he fucking took me down. I didn't care if I fucking was running across the. Matt, he was going to take me now. I don't care if I had to like take a grip a leg off.

It's like it was this like war of attrition some days. Yeah, yeah. Because it was like, I just go, you're not going to, until your technique is up to a level where you're not going to be successful at it, just not. And you had a lot of like accelerated learning with all the different people that you were around. It seemed like even in your wrestling career was difficult for anyone to even get a point on you, much less be able to beat you. Yeah.

that was all that was Chris I mean that was part of what what he enabled me to do because part of the understanding is like with my mentor Chris Campbell right like him saying almost the same thing to me like saying it without words like it's going to be it's going to be a minute before you and understanding like my technique had to rise to this level of like take the pebble right and it was like you're not going to get it until you actually put the work in right it's not just gonna you're not just going to take it and so it was like this understanding of like when i finally got it it was like that belief that like oh like i can do this yeah at a very high level very high level so let me ask you this too like what else do you think kind of separated you in terms from other fighters because

everyone trains. Yeah. Right. I don't know if it's common for a lot of guys to watch a lot of tape, but maybe that. But what else do you think

were the things that really kind of put you at a different level? That maybe other guys weren't doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, part of part of the continuation was meeting T.R. Goodman. And being at that forefront of understanding like what functional training was

and what heart rate training was. And it wasn't just like before. It was just like, I don't know, go punch the bag until you hear the best. bell ring. Yeah. You know, it didn't have this intention of like,

no, this is what we're going to do. We're building a thousand foot building. We've got to make sure it's level at the bottom, right? Or it's off 10 feet at the top, right? We're going to do,

we're going to do this, this and this and this. And understanding like, like I believed him. Because it was different. Yeah. It was just different than anything. Because before it was just like,

I don't know, lift that and lift that, squat that, pick that up, do this, do this. You said first couple times you trained with him,

you were like, oh God. Man, we were doing like rotator. Like my arm's shaking. Like, like, and getting up from the bench and going, that, that's just that, I don't, what is that? Like, doing hip movements, you know, open up your hips and you're like, like, like at first you're like, why is my leg shaking? Yeah. Like, why?

Because my quads are this big, right? Right. But everything internally just isn't fucking working. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm going, we're building a thousand foot building, bro. we need to get all that little stuff, we need to get it working.

Because otherwise all this muscle is just useless. What is it, what it means to be a pro is like so different than maybe what you expected. Being a pro means like, yeah, actually paying attention to like where your heart rate is in these particular training sessions so you can actually recover.

Yeah. Like I think that people don't realize that side of it. You know, being a professional means you're going to go to bed at 9 p.m. Yeah. Being professional means you're going to wake up at 6A or whatever the. Yeah, whatever the protocol is, right? Whatever the prescription of like what you're doing at the time frame.

It's not just the stuff you like. It's a lot of stuff you don't. It's all of it. You know, exactly. You know, it's one where it's like you can't pick and choose. Right. Going, oh, I want to do this and I'm not going to do that. Like I'm the smashing machine.

I'm just going to keep wrestling and keep lifting and I'm going to be bulky and throw people around. Yeah. It's like if that worked, that would be the protocol, right? But it was just something totally contrary. Like my first, first fights, I was too big, obviously. I mean, 275, you know, 6%. I thought you looked amazing. I know, right?

For a pose off, right? For literally a pose off. But you got done with one of your fights and you're like walking in the back. No, no, no. It was a waddle. It was a waddle. It was not a walk. That's for sure.

Hey, the Rock did a good job getting some traps popping. Oh, my God, man. He secluded himself. You know, he, so. He had a lot of realizations. He did. He did. So, you know, a lot of it was shot in Vancouver just because there's a, for a lot of

different reasons, but there's also a huge, um, uh, Asian population. And so a lot of the fight stuff was in Japan. So it was shot in Vancouver. And so DJ went up and, you know, rented a house and didn't bring his family up, didn't bring his daughters up, just treated it like it was a training camp. Like period, like a training camp. Got up, would get his morning workout, do all that. Because days where he'd shoot where he's me, it was a three-hour process of putting makeup on. So it was like you get up, you do your thing, work out in the morning.

I mean, it took him three hours because he's all, you know he's sleeved, right? And so just to get the tattoos to wear. And then he's got my little cheesy tattoos and my two little spiders and my little congee, you know, and this is one where it's like, so I gave him major props, man, just for, you know, the commitment that he made. He was all in. He like, he like broke his nose or something almost like right off the bat, right? Oh my God, man. He's asking these guys to do.

something that no production schedule wants to hear is like punch me in the face it's like because you break something and production has to shut down it's it's hundreds of thousands of dollars yeah a day yeah and so he's he's telling usick this is alexander usick right undisputed heavyweight champ undisputed four belt held at one time you know how many rounds he trained to fight uh the gypsy how many 600 fucking rounds oh my god with three different different training partner. So he had first round partner, second round partner, third round, repeat. First round. So he had a fresh person coming on him every third round. Wow. Yeah, that's what I said. I'm like, okay, because he's not that guy to punch you. Oh my gosh. No, you don't. So he had,

he said he had to do rounds. He had days where he wasn't allowed to punch back. Wasn't allowed to punch back. Only defensive fighting. Like he would do, I don't know how many rounds. of just defensive fighting. I'm like, because he's not, he's not the biggest dude in the world. Yeah. And you look at him like,

like there has to be side. You're like work. That's just straight up work. How did you like first? My understanding was there was a screenplay and there were some ideas about smashing machine, the theatrical movie for like a while.

Yeah. It was actually sold way back. in 2006. Oh, wow. And so it just kind of, originally, John Himes, who's the director

of the original documentary, his father has produced a bunch of stuff in Hollywood. His father was working at the time with John Claude Van Damme, and John Claude Van Damme's production company. So one of his associates acquired the rights

and was going to make it with John Claude Van Dam way back then. As in John Claude Van Dam. that and playing you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. And so, um, you had everything moving forward and for whatever reason, everything just fell apart. And so, uh, the original screenplay, which is crazy, ends up with this guy named Musha, and I'm going to butcher his name Musha,

uh, who's this retired 75 year old, Israeli tank commander who's been in Hollywood forever in a day. And so in 2019, Bradge Slater, who's Dwayne's agent, his office

reaches out to me. I'm like, I think it's a prank. It's like July 29. I'm put this way, this is even crazier. I've been sober for like 10 months. Right? Not even a year of sobriety from alcohol, right? And so I think,

I'm like, okay, whatever. I like, look the number up. I'm like, oh, I'm like, this is actually to call it. Brad gets on the phone, he's like, you're not going to remember this. And I'm like, okay, I'm not going to remember what he goes. You and I've met before. And I'm like, we have?

And he goes, we had lunch at the cheesecake factory next to the Beverly Hills Mall when I was just out of school, he went to U of A. And I was working in the mail room at William Morris. Wow. And a friend introduced me to Brad. Yeah. And this is what Brad looks at me. He's like, I'm in the mail room.

Like, what do you want me to do? He still sets a meeting up where I sit in front of a bunch of agents. This is like in 2000. Yeah. And explain to them what. I do for a living, all of them. Like you do what? Yeah.

Like, hang on, hang on, hang on. So you got hot pants on. And you go out and you and you, and you fight another dude. Does he have hot pants on too? Like that's, that's the, like, that's the filter of like, yeah, of like everybody in the room going, uh. So fast. fast forward the clock. Brad says it to me. I'm like,

fuck you. Like, oh my God, dude. Like, you're kidding me. And he pauses and he goes, I told you. One day I would be able to help you. This is your day. Now I'm like, he goes, do you know who has your rights? I said, here's where I think they are.

Thinking, you know, probably three, four, five months before he calls me back like a month later is like, we got the rights. We're moving. forward with this. I'm like, okay. He goes, Duane's going to call you over the weekend. DJ reaches out to Mrs. A-list and here's what we're going to do. And we have this like 45-minute conversation on the phone. He makes the announcement in November 2019, pandemic happens.

Right? So it goes away. Like my wife, she's like, this is what's crazy. So So it goes 2020, 2020, 2021, 2022. And then you end up with a writer strike in 23, right? And it's like one of those things at the end of 2023. I go, the run of joke for me was I had Duane's cell phone number for four years. I didn't text her call him one. Right?

Yeah. Because I'm not going to affect anything. I'm not going to call them. I go, are we making it yet? Are we making it now? Are you making it now? Now? Hurry up, Dwayne.

Yeah, hurry up, DJ. You know, it's like nothing. It's like this whole thing of like, so, so at the fall of 2023, my wife goes, I think you ought to call Brad. And I'm like, okay. You know, I think you're right. It's like October. Call Brad up. And it's literally like one of those things where you're like, you know, I call him up.

and he goes, bro, your ears must have been ringing. I'm like, what? And he goes, I can't say anything. You're going to have to talk to Duane. I'm like, okay. Like, okay. He goes, Duane will call you over the weekend. I'm like, okay.

So it's like, I think it was like a Thursday. Duane text me in the next day. He says, hey, I'll call you over the weekend. So it's like Saturday, Sunday, no call. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. text me again. I'll call you over the weekend. Now you imagine like waiting that whole entire time.

Like bro, like what the fuck? So it gets to that Friday. And it's like Saturday. And then it's Sunday. And I get a text. Hey, you're available? And we have this conversation,

not understanding for the last six weeks. He's had a team of 300 people working to get production in line to get everybody in line that wants to work on it, that he wants to work on it, that he wants to work on it, and he's like, hey, listen, this thing's moving forward. He goes, when the train leaves the station, leaves station. And so that was November, 23. We talked through that whole month, you know,

and then he's like, Emily's on board, Benny's on board. Benny's going to reach out, you know, in January. And it's this whole thing of like It was like full steam ahead It was like It was like one of those experiences Like God I wish I would enjoy it more Because it happened so quick

You know it felt it's like It took so long with that happened It's so quick Yeah you know it's like it's like four play And then you get to the actual act And it's like oh my God Sorry I'm like excuse me Sorry about that

You know it's like that's It doesn't normally happen to me No it's usually perform better I mean, it's like this whole thing, right? Like, it's this craziness of like, all of a sudden it's like, because I wrote it off. And I said, my life, I need to just live my life. When I first talked to Brad Slater, I go, I'm going to live my life. And if that becomes a part of it, that's awesome.

But if it doesn't, I'm good with it too, right? Yeah. Because there's nothing else I can do. Yeah. right so just living my life living my life so when all this stuff came together it's like oh my god it just happened so quick and it was this experience that you know it's indescribable you know we're talking about um you know part of that whole like healing process was um uh so the ufc said hey listen we want to have you out to new work new jersey as a soft

off reintroduction to the UFC fans. You know, as this thing progresses and moves forward, we want the UFC community to embrace it. Yeah, right? And like, okay, awesome. So I fly out with my son and one of his friends, and we have this great, like, meet and greet picture taking and all this stuff and then get into the arena.

We're sitting there. And John, the announcer, gets on the mic, and the camera comes over, and I'm like, oh, this is unusual. like and they go now this Hall of Fame induction and da da and it was like oh my god you didn't know you're about to be in that's great total false premise yeah yeah like totally load me up like I'm sitting there I'm like it was so like I was selling Mark I go you know I didn't I didn't know I needed that you know like genuinely like it's one of those things that you never compete with the idea that

competing because you want to be in the Hall of Fame. You're just competing, like, I was competing to be the best at what I was doing and to raise the standard of what it was. And it was like one of those things when it was announced, it was like this, you know, it hit me that night. And then Dwayne's like, hey, listen, I'm going to do your induction speech. I'm like, oh, like, if all the people in the world that I want to try to follow a speech with It's probably not you, bro.

But, you know, so it was like, it was so cool because they had, it's International Fight Week in Vegas. And they had, it was me, my brother, my other brother, my wife, my sister-in-law, my son, Emily Blunt was there, Dave Copeland, the producer, and Dwayne. And it was, it was, it was freaking awesome. Having your son there, like, does that, you know, like with my own son, you know, I share certain things with them. I try to expose them to as many different people as I can.

Yeah. Especially the people in my life that are like on a good path. And then sometimes you get like a little validation of some of the things that you mentioned to your kid. Like, do you feel like that, you feel like that week was kind of like that? Not that you need validation like that from. No. Like it's a lot of, it's a culmination of so many things you talked about having a championship mindset. Yeah.

And going and doing things and trying new things. I'm sure there's a lot of things you shared your son over the years. That probably, you know, part of it and this is just part of my story, you know, it's like I've, this year would be eight years of sobriety. So it was like one of those days where my mom died September 3rd, 1996. You know, it was like, my son was like 14. And he's like, hey, dad, you know what I know. And I know today's a bad day for it. I know you need to drink, but would you stop tomorrow?

Yeah, heavy. That's a big one. Yeah. So it still hits me. And so it's like one of those things were, you know, all the other times, it had been like this empty promise, right? Like, sure, yeah, yeah, gotcha. Yeah, why is he going to, yeah, maybe you're thinking sometimes

why is he going to listen to me? He's seen me not doing well. Not doing well. And so it's like one of those things where I'm like, yeah. Yeah, I'll stop tomorrow. And the next day came around. And at that point, I probably had not. I drank probably every day for 10 years.

You know, every day. And excessively. And next day came in, it was like, I'll try. It was eight years ago. You know. So, you know, this was the, like, these, this of every event and everything that's happened has helped bridge that gap of, you know, as a kid, and you know this, like, the thing that you're trying, like, the innocence of my, my son, he grew up way too fast because he had to face a lot of adult topics at a young age, right? dysfunction between me and his mom you know addiction you know all these other things so so i had to grow up too fast so you know what it creates is it creates this um environment where he doesn't trust

he doesn't trust me so through all these um through this and through the process of everything that he went through you know it helps build that bridge back you know where i i talk to my son sometimes two, three times a day. Awesome. You know, so it's a good thing. Yeah, I think maybe he's, you know, has seen you at your worst, right? But he's also seen you be able to like still hang on and still persevere and still, I guess still make an attempt.

Yeah. You know, maybe I don't, you know, I don't know the relationship 100% but maybe he'll just look back and be like, he was doing the best he could. You ran into an addiction. Addiction. Oh, addiction. It does. It's a scourge.

You know, it's one of the reasons now. It's like, you know, like me personally now, like the causes and the things that I'm involved in. You know, like my story's redemption and resiliency, right? It's just part of it, you know, and it's life. You know, I can tell my son, I go, you didn't get, you didn't exit the womb. get born and sign a contract that says life will be easy. You sign the other contract that says life's going to be really fucking hard. It's going to hand you a bunch of shit at times you don't want to do.

But you know what? You're going to fucking suck it up and you're going to do it. I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they want to do is put you on pills. Really well said there by Dana White. Couldn't agree with them more. A lot of us are trying to get jacked and tan. A lot of us just want to look good, feel good.

and a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have, high cholesterol or these various things, it's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing, they can look at your cholesterol,

they can look at the various markers that you have, and they can kind of see where you're at, and they can help guide you through that. And there's a few aspects, too, where it's like, yes, I mean, no, no shades, to doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this. Merrick Health, these patient care coronators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things

you might be doing that if you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone. And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that? They're very curious. And they think that testosterone is going all of a sudden kind of turn them into the Hulk. But that's not really what happens. It can be something that can be really great for your health because you can just basically live your life a little stronger, just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s. And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys, when you get your blood work done at a hospital,

they're just looking at like these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels for everything you're working with. Whereas if you go into a hospital and you have 300 nanograms, for a deciliter of test, you're good, bro. Even though you're probably feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out what things you can do in terms of your lifestyle. And if you're a candidate, potentially TRT.

So these are things to pay attention to to get you to your best self. And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator. They're dissecting your blood work. It's not like if you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five things. Somebody's actually on the phone with you

going over every. step and what you should do. Sometimes it's supplementation, sometimes it's TRT, and sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels, heads to Merrickhealth.com and use code power project for 10% off any panel of your choice. Because it's life. It's just the challenges of the human condition, right? And we all experience it in a different way. So, you know, through the process of watching me, you know, get just one step further down

the road, you know, like a saying for myself is just what a difference sometimes the second makes. Like a thought I could have just a second ago and get one more second down the road. And I'm like, okay, I'm better. You know, I'm better. You know, and then you just keep multiplying out what a difference a minute can make. what a difference an hour can make or a day can make or a week or a month you never fucking know you know so just you know for me it's like how you say moments it's like just holding on

for one more fucking second there's not a lot of mMA movies no um there's i guess handful yeah there's a couple um and two of them are you you know a documentary and a feature film um why you thought about that you can't ponder that one oh man i haven't shoot on that nugget um i mean you watched the smashing i mean people hopefully people have already seen it but yeah you know spoiler alert yeah you know mark coleman yeah ends up winning that yeah that's filmed in japan yeah what do you why do you think you know i think that there's always been this level of of you know what i discovered through the whole entire process uh uh you know what i discovered through the whole entire process of you know i've always looked for connection i didn't understand it like it was the thing that

i was missing like um you can try to connect with things right like buying a house buying a car buying fancy this buying jewelry buy much but that's not connection because it's an inanimate object right it's not the connection so what i've understood my whole life is that the human connection is the thing that I've tried to, and that requires, though, it requires a certain amount of honesty for me, emotional honesty to be able to be vulnerable, but knowing I can be vulnerable and still kick the living fuck out of a few if I needed to, right? But it's having that, knowing that that duality is my strength.

It's my secret sauce. It's my superpower, right? Because I could harness stuff from that emotional part of me. that other people, when they're not in touch with it, they can't dig into it. You know? And so just understanding like that, um,

because, because that's part of me, it's, it's compelling. Because people watch me beat the fuck out of somebody and then watch me in a totally different format and go, is that the same dude? And I,

so I think that's part of, like just really digging into like, just the, just the condition of being human being, you know. Yeah. Going back to the alcohol addiction that you were mentioning, you've dealt with different aspects of addiction during, you know, during fighting with pain, et cetera.

What have you, because there's a lot of people that are dealing with things and they can't figure out the way to kick it. Yeah. Oh, man. So what have you learned about yourself in terms of the things that have helped you be able to overcome these consistently? Oh.

You know, as far as a recovery tool, this is going to get a little bit deep. But so you have like AA, right? Yeah, you know, 12-step recovery program and stuff like that. But I figured for myself that has helped with long-term recovery is that I dug into my family of origin, right? There's another program that's called AC, adult child of an alcoholic and dysfunctional family. and understanding like the root of like how I'm built, why I react the way I react, why I respond emotionally the way I respond,

how I grew up. Because as a child, your parents are your gods. Yeah. Right? As an addict, you're usually the one that's inflicting and perpetrating and the one that's causing all this stuff.

As a kid, you're just involved in a family system. my parents did the best they could do i know that like my parents didn't have me and go all right let's see how bad we can fuck this one up right i know they did right so understanding my family of origin understanding like why i'm built the way i'm built why react to things i do it's helped unravel some of those things that you know the alcohol you know i used to cover up because i don't want to feel those things like some of those deep deep deep things like uh you know inadequacies and feeling less than you know it's like i like i said before it's like you know like

how i was built is i didn't even want to feel i didn't even feel better than you i wanted to feel at least equal to you like i always felt like i just wasn't smart enough yeah you know wasn't wasn't in my skin didn't have the right skin color you know didn't have i always felt less than So all my efforts were to try to feel equal to. I didn't want to be better than, you know, understanding those complexities and digging into like the roots of that stuff. And it's just some of that stuff is like, oh, it's deep. Like it's deep.

And, you know, like it, you know, realistically what I figured out is, is I'm either a six-year-old or I'm just agreeable, right? This non-confrontational. Yep, I'll do it. Confrontational. Yep, I'll do it. You know, like people pleaser, right? Like, uh-huh. Yep, yep, yep. Even though I have no intention to doing it. Like Mark, you're going to go lift? Yep. Going to be there on Tuesday? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. I don't want the conflict, right? Or I'm a 13-year-old where I'm like, you know what? Fuck you. I'm not going to lift on fuck. Fuck you. I'm not doing it. I go, if I can understand, I'm in those two states of mine most of the time when I'm in conflict, I'm good. Okay.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, I mean, that's over simplified, but it's just one of those things where it's like those are my two reactive states. You know, and understanding like I don't want a six-year-old or a 13-year-old run in my life. So I need to be an adult about it.

And I need to look at those aspects and understand when I'm reacting to stuff in my, in my ecosystem, right? Like going, oh, man, okay, I got it. You know, so. Having this measure of like doing better. or being better in like a sport, do you think that helped fill in gaps? Because maybe ultimately

where you were trying to do is just be a better person which you didn't really know that. I didn't, you know, I think some of that's true. I think some of that, you know, I mean, it's always, and again, it goes back to where I looked at the connection, right? Because in order to connect with another human being, you've got to be a good human being. You know, you can't have this, you know,

agenda that's just so far off on one side because it's just like then you're not a good human being right you know it's like understanding like you know like you know my willingness to be vulnerable or express myself emotionally and and have that connection it's always been something that um you know at times i thought it was a weakness so i'd hide it you know it's like yeah i cry a lot so what you know it's a good thing right I get emotional. It's a good thing. Right?

I don't pack them and wait until they explode. Right? It's like, you know, if I tell you, I love you, I love you. You know, if I go, hey, I'm a hugger. I'm not a hands shaker. You know, it's like, it's just who I am. You know, and it's one of those, like I said, because on the other side of that,

I can drag you out to the parking lot. And I can beat the fucking brakes off of you. And I'm okay with that deal. Just smile afterward and ask if you're okay. Ask if you're okay going do you need a band-aid for that? I know how to wake you back up too if you need that. It's just interesting. I mean, life has brought like, like I told you, I mean,

watching Big or Faster, Stronger, right? That whole thing, like it was like a bootleg. I think he had a bootleg copy. Sorry about that. I'll give you 12. I'll give you 12 bucks when I get out here. But you know what I mean? So it was one of those words like,

Because we talked about there wasn't that information out in the general public, right? You know, and I told you like going into Gold's Jimmy, you just sit there and go, oh, that's the guy I need to talk to. Like the guy that's like squat and red in the face, you know, in the corner. Like that's the guy I need to talk to you, right? It's like, then you go have these conversations that are like, yeah, what are you on? You know, like, are you taking protein shakes? You know, because back then it was like, it was like, and then it'd be like, no,

I got some sauce, you know, I got some D-Bol and so you know, nobody's talking about it. Right. It was underground. That's why they wrote the underground steroid handbook. Yeah, I had a copy of that. In seemingly, I think Bill Phillips might have been part of it. I can't remember who wrote it. But Bill Phillips later went on to create EAS and he's brought the first, we've had him on

on the podcast before. He brought the first batches of creatine to the country and stuff like that and made creatine famous and all this. but him and somebody else wrote the underground steroid handbook, and they just printed it in their, like, in their, like, parents' basement or something. Yeah. And they were like, how many people are on steroids? Like, you just make, like, I don't know, 10,000 copies or something.

They end up selling, like, 250,000 copies or something, like, absolutely insane. It might have been over a couple years, but it had no idea how many people were interested or on steroids. It just, you know, explaining it to my son, I go, I always say this. internet wasn't the internet right you know there's there's no there's no information out there um to be able to understand like what what you were doing you know because i i literally it was like when i first started fighting i didn't know what is getting into but i knew one thing um a friend said hey it's a gun fight you're not bringing a knife so gear up you know i'm like okay What is it?

Many different ways. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're going to give you some armor. I'm like, okay. You know, and it's just one where it's like at that point when I started fight and I was coming off in the Olympic testing cycle, you know, so there was like zero tolerance for anything.

And so literally my body is 27 years old when the first time I tried anabolic. And it was like, my body goes about time. Like, bro. You've been training so hard. Oh, yeah, like about time. You know, it's like literally, it's like my body just went, and it was like, it literally did, like, it's crazy. Question for you about that.

Do you, like, you know, you gain all the size. Were there any, because you were a wrestler who was fast dynamic and you were still fast dynamic as a fighter, but were there any drawbacks to all of that game? Besides the cardio, besides the cardio pool, you know, there was, you know, I had lost some of the flexibility that I had, which I, which you need, you need. It's not like a, like an option. Like there are certain, certain things competing where you, where you need to be,

you have to have flexibility to be able to do that. So some of that loss of flexibility and the cardiovascular part of it. Because as I progressed in fighting, I eventually thinned out where I was like, my ideal fighting weight was like 240. Like I knew like I had this barometer like if I was close to 250. I didn't train hard enough. I was under 240. I overtrained. Right. It was like this whole like this is the sweet spot. Yeah. You know 238 to 243. That was. We were watching a documentary last night. My wife and I. And when you went with Boss Rout and he had you lose a bunch of weight it looked like. Yeah. And she goes, holy cow, he got ripped. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, because Boss Rood was like he was like he was. kind of fat last time he fought. He's like, I don't want him being fat on my watch. Yeah, his definition of fat's different.

I know, because I was like, he doesn't look fat to me. Have you seen Boss Ruin recently, by the way? He looks great, man. Yeah. Unbelievable. It's just, I don't, like, he's one of those where normally you would age out where they couldn't cast you in the smashing machine. And so one of my first conversations, one of my first conversations with DJ was,

at the end of it he goes hey uh what's boss doing and i just reconnected with boss and i'm like uh he's good kind of like where like where's this going right and he goes oh just kind of like like uh do you think you'd want to be involved i'm like uh yeah as as what like a consultant he goes no playing boss we already decided no we can't cast anybody as him like and it was like oh Okay, immediately I hung up. Like when we got done with the call, I immediately called boss and I'm like, okay, dude. He was so like, oh my God, he was so excited.

So excited. You know, he does look amazing. He does. Yeah. Earlier you mentioned, you didn't necessarily want to feel better than somebody else. Yeah. Just wanted to feel as good as.

And I find that to be interesting because you got no idea how someone else feels. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And I've heard this before. And somebody said, you know, if you went, you know, like, in your neighborhood and just had everybody come out on the street and you put all your problems out on the street and everyone could see all the different problems. Yeah. You probably walk back to your house with the problem.

Oh, I'll take the problems I have. Versus like, you know, somebody else has like these, you know, life threatening diseases and all these different things. Yeah. Yeah. So it's an interesting thing. Because we are, it's like, it's impossible not to compare yourself to other people. But I am curious about like, did you feel like, did you feel like, did you. feel like the stuff that you were doing wasn't that big of a deal when you were doing it? Did you feel like,

like, I know you probably knew you were good because you won all the time. Yeah, yeah. But did you kind of feel? I think there was a, a feeling of like it wasn't significant, you know, the only, and I, and I know this, the ADCC stuff I did, that I knew was significant because at that point, there wasn't an elite wrestler involved. And I consciously was like, I'm going to show them what an elite wrestler can do to a black belt jiu-jitsu guy without a ghee. Yeah.

Right? And against every other discipline out there. And that was like my determination of like, I'm going to show them. Because they had like, like Tita was involved, but he's not elite, elite wrestler. You had Mike Van Arsdale, I think, did one year. He was a great wrestler, but not elite. Then you had Jeff Munson, not elite.

You had, you know, a couple other. Did Dan Severin do it? No, no, no. It's just one of those where it's like, I'm going to, I'm like, was determined to demonstrate, like, like this is the shit. This is like one of these things where I don't care what you know. I'm going to turn you into a route. I'm going to make you wrestle me.

Were you able to submit people? I did actually. With just like. No, I did. So the first, first year, there's no. First year is no. Second, second year. And still to this day he hates it.

Josh Burnett. I got him in a Camarlock. And he was pissed. Oh, he's legendary. Oh, he was pissed. He was pet, but he was young. Yeah. And so I know this.

I competed against him both years, my first and second year. And my first year, I go, oh, like this kid had potential. I could feel it. I knew that he knew what he was doing. And the second year, I'm like, I do not want to face him two years down the road. Yeah. I just don't. I just know that from one year to the next year.

I'm like, oh, he just made a silly mistake. Silly mistake. Literally, I'm on him, cross body on him, and he posted up. Take it. Posted up on his arm. And all his body weight was on his arm. He posted it. And it was like, dude.

It was like too easy. And once I got it away from him, it was like, dude. Yeah. You know, because he didn't have the physicality, physique. You know, he had flexibility. He had quickness. He had conditioning, but he didn't have the horsepower. And Seema, can anybody do that now?

Or is jihitsu too far along, you think? What do you mean? Can somebody come into jiu-jitsu or can a wrestler just go into jiu-jitsu and win the way that he was able to win? With a gie, no way. With a gie, no, no-gee-gis-gis-to-any-gis-tall-a-ghi-gis-a-ggy-gues. It does. But like no-gey, a wrestler, will still give jiu-jitsu guys a lot of issues. But a lot of jiu-jitsu guys that are like do no-gi-jitsu get some levels of wrestling.

They have to. That's what I mean. Maybe it's too advanced at this point for someone to come in. It's always come along because when I was doing it, there was like there was like to give you an idea. Beverly Jiu Jitsu is when I went out and taught wrestling. You had all the jihitsu guys sitting on the outside of the mat not participating. Right. The second the class was over, this is no shit.

They would go pull the blinds, lock the door and they would go, Show me. Show us the forbidden. Show me. Show me the forbidden fruit, right? Like it, because if they got caught showing me how to defend like a Comorlock or an arm bar or a triangle, they would be barred from their, from their dojo's. This is no shit. Wow.

It was that archaic back then. And so there was guys going, okay, how do you, how do you do double? What's the finishes? They just wanted a little bit, a little bit, because you can take that little bit of information and they can make it. own yeah right and so still there is like this whole thing about defending elite jiu jitsu guys like how do you not get caught that was the big like how do you how do you at that level not get caught in an arm bar or not get caught in the sequence of chest moves where it's like slip here move here hip here slide here push here triangle choke it's like because you could see the elite guys just move

this fluidity of like pull here push here pull here push here and all the sudden you go what the fuck this happened like you you know it's like it's this it's this chain in wrestling they call it chain wrestling like it's just chain movements of like everything they're doing is deliberate because it leads you to the end they want it was just it was like one of those things where like looking at it going okay i need to try to understand this Remember, like, early UFC, people would tap and, like, the ref barely knew what was going on. I was saying earlier, it's like, uh, what, I think the ref maybe wasn't in position. And the guy's, like, tapping.

And he's like, I like, I'm done. And I watched, I watch, I watch that VHS tape, but Dan Severin getting triangle choked. Yeah. I don't know, probably 50 times rewinding it. And I still was like, because the camera angle sucked. Yeah. Right. It was like, okay, I still don't understand what he did.

Like, like, you looked at it in real time and you go, because you hear. He was beating the crap out of him to that point. He was just manhandling him, right? And so when Hoyce caught him in the triangle show, everybody was like, why did he tap? Yeah. What, like, what was he doing? Because his ghee was covering a lot of the stuff up so you couldn't see, right? Mm-hmm.

And it was like, Dan, just quit out of another. Yeah, I quit. Like, dude, I wouldn't have quit. You know, it's like, no, you were getting choked the fuck out. You would have, you would have tapped out or you would have blacked out. I remember Ken Shamrock when he lost. to hoist gracey he when he actually said

I need to learn this yeah like he goes obviously I don't know I don't understand what jiu jitsu is I thought that was really awesome that he said that rather than being like this is bullshit yeah caught me in something weird and I'm gonna fight him next time he's like no I need to learn this oh gosh it was yeah

there's so much and they made it deliberately they made it where it was like mysterious you know it's like it's a magic art of choke him out you know it's like okay you know but they made it deliberately

where it had this mystique behind it had this like I need to look into this you know and it also had like that that goal of a martial art where like a guy that doesn't look the part yeah right is able to beat somebody huge or something you know what I mean it it had a yeah

I think this like one of the stories I've heard was Hickson who looked apart. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So his dad said, no, no, no, no, no. We're not, we're not putting you out there, putting skinny little hoists out there, you know? Because the idea behind it is they wanted to sell more instructional tapes.

Yeah. Right. So they could show this skinny guy beating these bigger guys. It's like, well, I want to learn that, right? And so that's, that's, I've heard that story a bunch of. bunch of different times. I'm like that. Like you're looking at it going, what the, he, he tapped.

Yeah, so he tapped in like no. He tapped in, in the ref. Yeah, the ref's like, um, did they say he was. This is how strange this is. Yeah. And Hoyce was like yelling at him. He's like, you effing quit. Yeah.

You tapped or whatever. I think he's saying. Yeah. And he did. Yeah. I mean, he tapped three times on the mat. Yeah. And then I.

guess nowadays in the UFC these guys are taught don't let go until the ref like oh yeah yeah there are people who try to like fake tap yeah kind of weird stuff going they'll do like this yeah i was i was trying to get different position it's like no you yeah you were you were you were out yeah i mean this is such classic stuff it's incredible that you were undefeated in the ufc yeah yeah why didn't you uh fight more in the ufc did you get pulled did so i did so i mean this is again one of these unheard stories so um so i signed originally with the with the ufc for three tournaments right it was supposed to be 14 15 and then it's supposed to be another tournament and so after 15 the japanese saw my tapes from brazil

and they're like hey we want to make you um we want to make you huge here right and so they brought me over they signed me to fight hoist my original contract with pride or wasn't pride at the time it's called krs okay um was the fight hoist so him and i have a fight poster that i signed a couple years ago everything made up ticket prices all of that when i got back to the states about um maybe a week 10 days after the press conference we did in japan and the pictures and all that um i got to knock on the door and open the door and you've been served opened it up you've been sued by the US fee for breach contract and jurisdiction was there it is that's a fight poster I signed and I'm like so bitch I go I want one of these I don't have one

that would have been that would have been the fight yeah that because he was still peak he was still peak and I was I was I would just got to the point where I'm like okay I'm comfortable yeah Right. I'm comfortable with what I in that comfort allows me to train deliberately right like going okay it's not a mystery anymore. Okay. What he's trying to do. So I get back. They they sue me and Thankfully I went to school with a guy at Syracuse who was an attorney in New York City because that's where your jurisdiction was. So it stayed in court from November. It stayed in court from November till until my I did March 1998 was my first fight in Japan so it stayed November, December, January, February. UFC asked for my passport so I couldn't go over.

Wow. They said your skills are so unique that the amount of monetary damages can't be quantified. Because your skills worldwide are so unique. Yeah. We can't find them anywhere else. And because you're breaching the contract, that means it's just an insurmountable amount of money. They were assuming for like 10 million bucks. Jesus.

It was ridiculous. Wow. But it was under the old, old regime. It was Bob Meyerwitz. In Art Davies, the original. And so they eventually, so the three-fight deal that I did with the UFC was 25,000 for 14, 25,000 for 15, and 20. $25,000 for a third. And so in February, I ended up buying out that last event on the contract for $25,000.

And that freed me up to go fight and Chapman. But I mean, it was crazy because I didn't have money. Yeah. So when they sued me, that's cold. Oh, it was cold. It was really cold. It was really cold because it's just one where it's like the first motion that, the law firm filed as a counter to what the UFC said was $35,000.

And Frank, his name's Frank Ryan, his brother is the head coach of Ohio State wrestling, actually. I went to school with him. Yeah. Tom Ryan. Yeah. And so Frank's like, hey, listen, I'm going to have the paralegal do as much as she can. She's like 150 bucks an hour.

He goes, I'm $375. an hour and my boss is $1,200 an hour. Damn. So he goes, I'll try to keep things on my desk and my paralegal's desk. And so it's this, so the first motion, I get sent. It's like this thick. Damn. And it's like one of those things where it was like it was, it was one of those odd times.

So as it ends up progressing, I end up going to the, literally going to the Japanese and going, like, how bad do you want me? And they're like, we, we want this fight to go off. And so I said, you need to indemnify me against any legal action. They're like, okay. So I get a hold of Frank. And he's like, have him wire this amount over. And they wired that amount over.

And that was the retainer they needed. It was like $65,000. Yeah. To start the case. Wow. To start. And it ended up being like $175,000 in legal fees. Jeez.

And that's on my side. So I can't imagine what they spent on the other side. I just can't imagine. But it was prior to Dana's involvement, prior to TKO's involvement, prior to all that. And again, this is one of these things. At the very, very beginning, nobody knew. But at that point, the UFC was starting to run out of gas because they did, after 15, they did a fight in Japan. And that's what they wanted me for.

But the Japanese pride goes, you come over and you fight for them. You'll never fight for us. Because we need to introduce you to the Japanese fans through. us. Yeah. Not through them. And it was like, okay. And until the rest is history. What was that like going to Japan? I mean, I know the UFC like, you know, it built up and by 14, 15 and stuff like that. It's, it's kind of popular here, but a whole different world. Oh, completely. When you went to Japan, I saw like in the movie, uh, it shows you, you know, walking towards the crowd and everyone just goes absolutely bananas. Galistic. It's, um,

This gave me, so at the peak of my popularity in Japan, if I stood, they had an area which was called Rupungi, which is like Times Square. If I stood on a street corner for 15 minutes, I'd probably have 50 to 100 people. Wow. Standing there. Like my first couple times over, it was small stuff like this. It was like they had an electronic district, right? And I remember walking, going to the electronic district.

They were like three years in front of us, electronics. There's only a couple that were compatible with the United States. So everything was done in a different. And so I go into those electronics store, I'm probably in it for an hour. And I come back out and there's this two kids standing with a disposable, like, Kodak camera, right? And he's holding it there. And he explains like, hey, we've been waiting here. Can we take pictures with you?

And I'm like, for a lot. I'm like, you've been waiting here. Well, they didn't want to go in and bother me. They waited outside the door till I finished shopping and then said, please, can you have, even when you were sitting down eating, nobody would bother you, wait until you get up and went outside.

It was just a different kind of respect and reverence. And, you know, over there, I've been in, you know, arena, 65,000 people and boss talking this loud. Harder, left, right? Left. Quiet. and then you'd do something in the ring, you'd hear,

quiet. Yeah. Crazy. Like, first time you're in it, you're like, this is weird. But it's this reverence and respect they had. You know. Oh, go ahead.

I was going to say, did you make some good money? I did. They paid me cash. Yeah, you know, so that happens in professional wrestling. I mean, not with the, obviously, the big names, but I had a couple stints with doing some stuff with WWE and doing some stuff with zero one. And in, uh,

W. They just, they just had a briefcase. Yep. There was just a full of $100 bills. And, and they would just, you know,

I think I made like 500 bucks or something. Yeah. Yeah. Just for showing up. And if I did a match, I think I made like 700, 800, 800 bucks,

something like that. Um, and they just give you like this tiny little stack and you're just looking at all these stacks. Like, holy shit. And you know, how many briefcases do they have?

But I think it's from the gate from like the night before or something. Yeah. Yeah. So you have. So you have. had with like my first contract I got paid on, even though that hoist didn't participate, they still gave me the dollar amounts,

quarter million dollars, $250,000. Back then, that was unheard of. Yeah, that's so cool. Right. And so like going to a- 10 times the amount the UFC gave you for each. Oh, yeah. Isn't it crazy?

Wow. And guys don't really make that now. No. No. And it was like, like a totally different. It was a different, different feel. There's no pride fighting championships anymore. No, no. They have, um, I think it's one. Yeah. And then they have and it just they, they, they, they screwed the poach. I mean, they really did. I mean, pride, pride screwed up a contract they had

with Sky Perfect TV. Sky Perfect TV is Rupert Murdoch, you know, the Fox Corp and all that. And they, they screwed it up. I mean, it's, it's one where, um, you know, it was the Japanese yakuza involved in it. Mm-hmm.

From the very beginning, like my, my handler, like the guy that he, it was a request, but it was a demand, like for me to go over, after my first time over there,

uh, for Pride 2, um, Mr. Gizak, it was his name, uh, would request that I come over a couple days earlier.

So if I, so if I needed like five days, to, you know, so I'm not jet lagged and stuff. He would say come over eight days before because the first couple days he'd want to have dinner with me, hang out with me and stuff like that. Probably treating you really well. Oh my God. Good meals.

Incredible. Incredible. I mean, everything was like, okay, what do you want? It's like, oh, teppaniaki at that one place, it's like not knowing that sitting down is like $10,000 dinner, you know, like for six of us to sit down. You know, it's like California wines, you know, Kobe beef. There's like, you know, there's melon that you got, which is a special Japanese It's like a hundred bucks a slice.

Wow. It's crazy. You can look it up. It's the craziest stuff in the world. It's a Japanese, I always forget the name of it, but it's like one of those. Stuff like that's so cool. I mean, you grew up in Ohio. Yeah.

Oh my God. Yeah. A kid that loves wrestling and a blue collar. My dad was a pipe fitter. You know, there's Barri King. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy.

It's a specialty. It's growing. It's like I need nothing about it and then you eat it and you, you don't chew it. You just put it in your mouth. And it just melt. And it has this. It's, it's holding some of this stuff. Oh, dude.

It is absolutely just off the charts. You know, but it was, it was experiences like this. You know, it was things like this. And so at some point, they end up, end up installing, like, real figureheads to the company. Saki Kabara was one of the guys. And I don't remember the president, but the president hung himself in a hotel. room, supposedly over a mistress. And that was the beginning of the end.

That was a downfall. And so pride doesn't exist anymore, unfortunately. You know, seeing how like, I'm curious your thoughts, because fighters, when I think about, like, the violence of that sport, it's like maybe football is something that is somewhat comparative, but it's not because it's not getting struck in the face and ganges, et cetera. And when you look at like how fighters get paid, it's one of those things where do you think that there can be improvement in how fighters being taken care of?

So there's two things that have come up where it's changed the perspective that I've had. Okay. Okay. So back in January, I sat on a fireside chat at the Consumer Electronics Show. And I was put together by a company that I'm a brand ambassador for it called Ultra Human. They do wearables. Yeah, the rings. Okay, rings, right?

And it had Heather and Roman. Heather and Roman are the head doctors for the UFC Performance Institute. Okay. Okay. Forrest Griffin was on the panel too. And so the UFC is going to be the first major organization to have a cognitive center for their athletes during and post. Right? Mm-hmm.

Like you figure football would have had this 30 years ago. Yeah. Right. So that's one. The driving force behind a lot of that is forced. The driving force behind the Performance Institute has been a lot of forced driving to try to get the best of the best. So if you're under contract with the UFC, you have access to that facility. Year round, as long as you're under contract, training camp in, out, rehabilitative, nutritional, medical,

doing all kinds of state-of-the-art things training-wise to try to really bring everything up to a level that it's never been before. That's one. So that was kind of like a, okay, they're in the right direction. Pay is the other one.

It's not equivalent to the market. It's just not. I mean, I just looked at it and I don't know what the books looked like, but I had just seen an article the other day where they're supposedly going to take this year, $1.5 billion in cash and it goes back into the business, meaning the fighters, which I hope.

That's a new thing, right? They haven't done that before. Haven't. Haven't. So a lot of like, and you probably know this, like, WWE contract, like, pay-per-view events. Like if your main cards, you know, like, I don't know what they call it. Like, if you're in broadcast or not broadcast, you know, like they have. So there's like profit share that they do with some of the.

the buy rates and all this other stuff. Yeah, if you make it to a pay-per-view, you're making pretty good money. Yeah, yeah. Because you participate in a profit. You know, it's like if Duane's going out and he's the main event and they have a buy rate of like, you know, 10 million households, you know, at 100 bucks a household, it's like, okay, yeah, you're going to participate. So I think the UFC had some of that, you know, all the way around, I believe they're heading in the right direction. I hope because it's such a big dollar amount when you're talking like somebody buying your broadcast rights for $7.7 billion. You better invest in your product.

Yeah. And what they put their bodies through. It's the hardest shit in the world. There is not another equivalent because it's you. It's not a team of you. It's you. That's, that's it. So, I mean, it's, it's, it's one of those where I really hope they're heading in the

right direction. Yeah. because the sport is unique. It's unique in what it's been able to create. It's fan base. It's following. You know, everything that has opened up,

like right now, women's wrestling is the fastest growing thing in the United States. It saved men's wrestling. Yeah. It saved men's wrestling. How did it save men's wrestling? Men's wrestling was going to be X from the Olympics.

Oh. Like I think eight years ago, they said, here's why. The Olympic committee decides they want one in one. So if you have a women's volleyball team, you have a men's volleyball team.

If you have men swimming, you have women swimming. If you have men's wrestling, you have women's wrestling. But they didn't have it. Oh. They didn't have it. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. So if you don't have an equivalent to it, it goes bye-bye. Okay. Because the Paris Olympics apparently were the first one where it was equal, equal, all the way across to all the sports. first time.

And so they cut a couple weight classes from men's freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman and added women's wrestling. And so that's the makeup. But again, when you start at a senior level and you don't have all these bitty root feeder programs, it's hard. And so now they're starting to build those back in. And that's why it's fastest growing is. because they have all these, all this base needs to be built.

Because now there's a place for these women to go compete at a high level. Yeah. Besides UFC. Besides around arousees and stuff like that, right? It's, so there's a lot of really cool stuff that the UFC has helped that whole ecosystem. Yeah. And it's like, I go, you want to, you want to make life a little easier, wrestle. because it

redefines what heart is. Yeah. Right? Like, oh my God, I had to go to work eight hours today. Yeah. Well, fuck, come to wrestling practice, bro. Come to wrestling practice.

See which one you're going to pick. See which one you're going to pick you. Like, I'm going to work, man. You want 14 hours, bro? I'll give you 14 hours, right? I'm serious. It just redefines shit, right? And so, you know,

And whether it's the right thing or wrong, I go, if we'd have a completely different, United States, completely different thinking if you went, hey, you got to wrestle from seventh grade to 12th grade. Or combat sports. Are you got to do jih Tzu? Or you got to do samba or you got to do judo or you got to do something of that physicality because it develops character.

Well, wrestling is going to force you to be like kind of in shape, at least a little bit, right? It does. And that's a mechanism. Yeah. Right? That's a mechanism like I didn't know when I was going through all the shit I was going through that mechanism was missing and had been at such a huge part of my life for so long without it there it's this void and I'm trying to dump all this stuff into it to to figure out how to fill it and it's like there's only one thing that fills it is getting out there and doing something about it getting in the gym getting on a mountain bike getting on a road bike getting in whatever it is you still push yourself so Yeah, you saw them.

Yeah, you're still that you had on your mountain bike. You know, I need it. I need a little bit of challenge, right? Like my, it sounds so silly, but like I have these loops that I do, like a 12-mile loop or 10-mile loop. And then my watch through my earbuds, I can hear split, right? Like, so I know where I am on the trail when it gives me my split time. And I know, like, miles per hour, it's like, I'm like, oh.

you know like I'm not it's like I didn't hit the beginning of this hard I like right and it's just one where it's I still enjoy it I can still ride like two miles an hour and enjoy it because it's beautiful scenery right but there's this thing in me that goes you know like my my motto is like once I start I'm not allowed to stop like it's not like a like a mountain bike tour it does sucks you to get done with a workout and to go that wasn't that good of a workout so I'm there it's it's different if you're like newer with something But sometimes you're like, I, yeah, but if you're trying something, you know, that's, you know, maybe that's something that you're not used to. But you've been mountain biking for a little while.

Yeah, I've been doing it for a minute. I mean, I've, so on like, it has an app with a specialized bike that I can track it like a, like up to 1,600 miles, you know. And it's like 10 miles, eight miles at a time. Like, mountain bike is not road bike. I mean, you road bike 100 miles in a day. And you're fine. And it's, yeah. Not a huge deal.

Not a huge deal. This is like, like I've climbed, you know, 70,000 feet in elevation. Damn. You know, like up. But it's like up one day, you have 300 feet, you know, or 500 feet. And then down up. And it's just like it all adds up. Like in a week, if I'm out about five times a week, it's like all that little incremental stuff just adds up.

And it's one where it's like I really, it's like my catharsis. It's my meditation. What about when the 70 year old guy passes you? Oh, dude, I've had it. How you're like? All right, Mark, you're getting leaner and leaner, but you always enjoy the food you're eating. So how are you doing it?

I got a secret, man. It's called Good Life Protein. Okay, tell me about that. I've been doing some Good Life Protein. You know, we've been talking on the show for a really long time of certified Pied Montese beef, and you can get that under the umbrella of Good Life Proteins, which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs,

sausage, shrimp, scallops, all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapes, tilapia. The website has nearly any kind of meat that you can think of lamb. There's another one that comes of mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some different strategy, kind of depending on the way that I'm eating. So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat.

And that's where I might get the sausage and I might get their 80-20 grass-fed, grass-finish, ground beef. I might get bacon. And there's other days where I kind of do a little bit more bodybuilder style, where the fat is, you know, might be like 40 grams or something like that. Then I'll have some of the leaner cuts of the certified Piedmontese beef. This is one of the reasons why, like, neither of us find it hard to stay in shape because we're always enjoying the food we're eating. And protein, you talk about protein leverage at all the time.

It's satiating and helps you feel full. I look forward to every meal. And I can surf and turf, you know? I could cook up some, you know, chicken thighs or something like that and have some shrimp with it. Or I could have some steak. I would say, you know, the steak, it keeps going back and forth for me on my favorites. so it's hard for me to lock one down, but I really love the bovette steaks.

Yeah. And then I also love the rib-eyes as well. You can't go wrong with the rib-eyes. So, guys, if you guys want to get your hands on some really good meat, you can have to Good Life Proteins.com and use code power for 20% off any purchases made on the website.

Or you can use code Power Project to get an extra 5% off if you subscribe and save to any meats that are a recurring purchase. This is the best meat in the world. you know it's funny so i've been out i've been out like there's a couple there's a couple climbs where it's like rock rock rock and the first time this is this goes back a little bit it and when i first moved to arizona where you had this guy that would get past um it it looked

like it was a huffy bike like a like a target you know mountain bike like and he's just right right And he's going up like this, like guys are walking their bikes up and down it. They're getting, oh, no, I'm getting off. And this guy, little belly on him, straight up. It was the strangest stuff in the world. Like I've looked at him and go, yeah, fuck you. Yeah, it's not fair. Like, we're fighting, dude.

Yeah, I can't help. Like, put your bike down. You know, and again, it's in other times I've seen, you know, guys in the desert, you know, going, and going by him and thinking this, not saying it out loud, going, hey, you're taking your bike for a walk again, huh? It's like, is it just one worse? That's a trash talking in my head. Like, you're taking that $10,000 bike for a walk again, huh?

There you go. Good for you. Yeah. You look great in those tights too. You know, like, but sometimes that's the nature of me that I have to just, okay, I got to do my own thing. Tone it down. It tone it down a notch every once in a while.

Yeah. Yeah. You're still lifting and stuff I got here and there. I know you said your knee and. Yeah. My hip and shoulder. So, I mean, that's one of those where rehabilitative lifting, lifting functional for, you know, hips open, shoulders open, all of that stuff I'm getting back to next month.

And it's just one of those. I needed a little bit of a pause for my body to just do a little bit of a reset. I need to actually drop a few more pounds. I mean, walking around, I'm still 260. Oh. You know, yeah. Okay. It's one where it's like, it's one of those where it's like I need a little, because my bones just, they need, they need a little bit.

You know, and it's one where it's like, okay, like, and now, you know, I told my trainer, I go, yeah, I went away 235. And he's like, why? Like, because there's, where are we going to get it from? You know, so it's just one where it's like, I have this just. map in my head and it's not so I can wear skinny Calvin Klein jeans right it's it's not gonna fit in skinny no I'm not I've tried

I've tried it's just like muffin top you know comes up I'm like I'm like what's a fuck this is not a good look so it's all good though toughest opponent myself by far

by far tough still fighting with that bastard I know God sometimes you just won't let go. Who's the greatest fighter of all time? Man, you know what? pound for pound, there's two that come up. Sakarava. Oh.

Okay. And Hoyce. And they fought each other. They did. Hoist had to fight him four times before he finally beat him. And I'll tell you a quick story. So the Grand Prix that's in the dock and all that, right? so I'm warming up the fight in the ring at the time is hoist gracie and saccaraba hoist demanded that the rounds be 15 minute rounds

no time limit 15 minutes and then at the end of that 15 minutes but was a draw you fought for another 15 minutes so saccaraba and hoise fight for one hour and 30 minutes minutes. So I have a small little TV in my warm up in my locker room and I'm watching and Sakaraba gets him in a knee bar at the end of the first round and I'm like, okay, I'm looking let's get ding ding ding, I'm bet. Sit down another 15 minutes goes by hoist almost gets me our Sakarab onus gets again ding ding down. So I warm up three, four times and you get in adrenaline and then a dump. Adrenaline and dump. Adrenaline and dump. Adrenaline and and dump hour and a half later hoist couldn't answer the bell for the sixth round or seventh round or

whatever it was yeah if you get a chance to look at it it's like because saccaraba uh hockey jerseys him pulls the gie all the way over hoist's head got him in the corner was his deck name gracey killer yeah yep yep yeah hoise fought him i think i think the fourth time hoist fought him hoist beat him but he had he had beaten hoist he had beaten henso helia he'd beaten like every gracie that was added at the time he was just crazy just threw both fists all the time oh yeah oh yeah he did a baseball slide so you'd have like somebody watch this took his ghee pulled it up oh he's got it like like hockey like you do it like you do it a really right except reverse right unbelievable it just figures out really good leverages yep yeah who is the other

fighter you said saccarrabu saccaraba and hoist and hoist so i mean modern modern modern modern like now fighters i mean arguably john jones you know um you know perera you know i don't know what Alex's ground skills are like, but I know like when I met him in person and gave him like a bro hug going, dude, God made you for one purpose, one purpose, lean, lean, long muscle where you're like, dude, because he doesn't, oh, solid and he does things. So if you look at his kicks, he doesn't load. So there's no tell. Like he's, he's in a standing position.

Like normally have a tendency to want to cock. you're none and he can generate so much no idea it's coming no idea so his front leg you just go flip flip you're like whoa like he does stuff when you look at it and break it down you go oh that's unique i mean very unique you know incredible just quick it's just like a quick little snaps watch watch his front leg lead boom that's his back that's no load he doesn't load there's like zero load on it he'll do it boom he takes that little step boom and I'm just telling you

it inflicts so much damage would some of the guys so much damage would some of the guys from your era would they cause some major problems for some of the guys of today or has a sport advanced in a way to where they would be able to it's leap it's quantum leap

gotcha it really has because I mean back then fighters you can get away you're talking about like being strong you can get away with a lot of stuff right back then as just a you can have a fundamental foundation understanding of like wrestling or just

you can get away with a lot of stuff because a lot of the guys you were fighting didn't have that depth now like I've watched even a couple years difference you look at it and go oh my God man like in the couple years advanced down the road you're like wow these guys are like advancing the sport at a rate

which is incredible because again it goes back to the original thing how do you solve the problem how to get through a 10 week training camp or eight week training camp at the end of it and be whole that problem's been solved right now it's adding all the other components in there and polishing them yeah prayer of the dog just straight up dog yeah it sounds like him and john jones might fight oh i hope so i hope so that's like one of those where it's like um because they they show john jones against zero or um Ciro gone?

Cero gone, yeah. That's the card they announced on Saturday night. Really? Yeah. They announced a full White House card on Saturday night. I didn't see that. Yeah. It's June 14th, which is Trump's 80th birthday.

Okay. Right? And the 250 birthday of the United States. That's all celebrated that night. And John Jones is scheduled to fight already against... Yeah, Ciro. Again? Didn't he be...

Yeah. And he just, like, beat him, like, in a minute or something. Yeah. Choked him out. Choked him out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, maybe it'll be a little different this time.

Oh, wait, it's Pereira gone, right? It says Pereira versus gone. Okay. Oh, maybe he's, maybe that's it. Okay. Yeah, because I don't think John Jones said who he's fighting quite yet. Okay, maybe I just looked at it wrong. It's like one of those things where I was like, it looked like a card where my son

was standing next to me and he goes, oh my God. Like, oh, my God. I'm like, what? What? I'm like, every fight's going to be loaded up. Yeah, it's like, oh, my God. My God. It's in again, that's one of those where it's like, it should be. Tell me more about this ring that you're tracking some of your fitness stuff.

And then tell me about these patches. I got one on my neck right now. So ultra-human, they do, you know, there's wearables out there. I mean, Samsung does one, Orra does one, all that. Ultra-human does a little bit different because they, it's non-subscription. So you don't have to be a month-month-s subscription. It does. The interface and biometrics it does is awesome. it's really cool. Like my big thing I use it for is sleep, sleep tracking.

Like it has a little module that you can use that my alarm won't go off until I'm through five REM cycles. Nice. And then my alarm will wake me up. Oh, cool. Right? Or I can set it for six or I can set it for whatever I want. And so that's the big deal is me looking at that.

Then they do another thing where they do vision, which is a hundred different biomarkers. So they send a phlebotomist to your house. That's an additional cost. I think it's like 500 bucks. Okay. But they send a flubatomist to your house, draws the blood, and they give you a hundred different biomarkers. And it breaks them down so you can click on, like, if your cholesterol is high,

you can click in order to give you studies to say, hey, in this study, when you add this to your diet, it helps with, and they usually have a couple different references for each one. So you can click on a lot of it. It opens up. like just to follow because my big deal for me is is taking control of my health right now you got all this blood work now what the hell do you do yeah it's like okay yeah i got the information it's like because i want i want the information to be the mean not to my doctor and then to me and if i have

questions medically i can ask my doctor but i want to be able to look at it because nowadays there's so much information out there you know it this allows you to just compartmentalize it and And then they also have something called it's a home unit. So it's a unit that monitors like my blue light at home. It monitors my noise, my volatile organic compounds. Tell you like how much blue light is in your kitchen and whatever. All that. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not just a ring. It's also that. Yeah. It's vision. It's vision. And then it's home.

And then they're adding some other elements to it. They're coming out now. They have a new ring. It's called Ultra Human Pro. And so that's being released. right now it should have been released at the beginning of the year this is a diesel design on they partner with diesel and so it's a diesel design ring oh that's yeah diesel brothers um yeah so uh don't know if it is or not but it's one where it's it's one where um got you there there's

they're really um allowing you to actually have access what's crazy um like with medical records right like we don't own our medical records like if you want your medical records right now i think in the state of californ i think in 20 something states they're paying in the ass yeah well in 20 something states you don't own it it's either owned by your doctor or by the hospital but they're your personal medical records yeah right and so like there's there's technology out there that not this company but another company i'm working with called data vault they're trying to get where they have you can have on your phone all your medical records so if you go in doctor go hey here's my last three MRIs uh Here's my last, here's the last time I went to the dentist.

Here's the, because it allows you to take personal responsibility for your health. Because a lot of times people, like I was thinking health is just something, I need to go to the professional. Yeah, you can go to professionals. You can consult with them, but you have the ability to take control of your personal health. Yeah. You do. It's not some monumental thing. It's you have the ability with all the technology that's out there, take control of it.

When you go down the rabbit hole of China, find out. What medications, prescription medications help with your heart? What prescription medications help with mental illness? Yeah. There's really not much. I mean, depending on what data you're looking at. Well, I didn't even get into it, but I ended up doing therapeutic plasma exchange where I had all my plasma removed from my body because it has tau protein, which is a byproduct of concussions. It has microplastics in it.

It has heavy metals in it. as all this. Do a plasma exchange. It's called TPE therapy of plasma exchange. But prior to that, I did something called TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation. So they mapped all 19 parts of my brain, my executive brain, I had brainwave functioning

of less than five percent in my executive. Was that because of fighting or is that something just? They don't wanna draw that correlation, but there's, there's, you can draw that correlation. Okay, okay. Right, you can go, okay, so, This is a little bit deeper, but so you're sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, right? Like you train one, like I train my sympathetic nervous system to be reactive.

Like somebody like, oh, you're in a flow state. Yeah. That's because I'm not thinking about anything in my body just reacting because I train my nervous system to do that, right? And so when they tested my nervous system, there's no variation between the two. So when you're supposed to engage, now I'm confused, sympathetic, What's your autonomic? Parasympathetic is rest and relax.

Okay. Sympathetic is your fight, flight, and fuck, right? Yes. So sympathetic, right? So my sympathetic nervous system, there's no variation between that and my parasympathetic. Wow. No variation. So for the last 20 years, I've been locked in this.

And that's really normal for people that train hard. Yep. It is. But I didn't understand, like the analogy I use, it's like being comfortable walking with rocks in your shoes. because I just got used to it right like understanding like underneath me there's this irritation this agitation this anxiety this uneasiness you don't possess the ability to calm down even though you may feel calm you don't and it affects every aspect of my life right so they matted my brain and said okay you have areas of your brain where you have less than i had four areas that were less

than 5% brain from way functioning had other areas that were 20% and they went through I did 20 sessions of this is the magnet therapy and then what's the test called it's uh the test actually is just they need you use a neuro um the the place that I that I went to is in Scottsdale it's called biomed okay okay and you can look on their website and in there's there's a name for it I just can't remember it but they literally map my brain and from there they go, okay, the computer is going to tell us where we need to stimulate your brain because it creates the neuroplasticity that's missing for your brain to communicate and act like a brain, right? Like people use ketamine and all that stuff now to be able to do it, right?

This is a non-drug. It uses a magnet to stimulate those areas. So I did that. And it's, it's like a game changer. Because it allowed me to, when I use this, these now when I use patches like like the like the saying I have now is patches before pills because before it was a pill for everything they got ahead take a pill oh your heart's being too fat take a pill you need to sleep take a pill last time I took an ambient I ended up with two bottles of jack Daniels in the trash and missing ten thousand dollars damn yeah that was like last time I said because I couldn't remember couldn't remember a fucking thing yeah and like

so thankful like i didn't end up like going out to the garage and having like the front of my car dent it in you know and going oh my god so i mean you know part of the patches it's you know they work um you know skin touch vibration frequency um they're there for me they're just one of those things where they're habitual now like in the morning my morning routine you know it's i mean you know um amino acids, creatine, my vitamins, the thing shake it up, to have my patches up. It was not right.

Pour it out. Exactly. Right, but it's just one where it's like there's other options out there. There's a lot more stuff that's in the ecosystem about personal health and taking responsibility for it and really trying to have other alternatives other than pharmacicology. Is this just jewelry you're wearing? Or that's sort of quantum something. So this is,

this is, they have a lot of friends that wear that kind of stuff. Oh my God, this is called Rudy Harris, rudius, right? So on the back, it has this scrolling.

Oh, that's cool. That's a story of a Roman gladiator and you'll get this. You'll get this. So Roman gladiators were slaves. They weren't free. But through effort and through training,

through victories, you could earn, your freedom, right? Gladiator, I saw the movie. Right. And so when you earn your freedom, you got a wooden sword called a Rudius. Right. Okay.

And so the symbolic for me is that I've earned my freedom. Right. I don't have to be, I don't have to be in the Coliseum. I don't have to be fighting. I've earned. But if you were, if I was, yeah. You can handle yourself very well. I can handle another senior citizen just like me. So be careful, Mark. You know, because it's just one where it's like it's, you know, the, you know, the importance of, you know, you said it earlier.

Like sometimes I think, like when I look back on my career, I don't think it was significant. But it was significant because everything was built. And looking back on it, and I've said this before is like, I was trying to move it this much forward. That's it. I wasn't trying to move it here, but I was trying to move it just that much. much further because there was something there, right? So, you know, I think I've did my part. Yeah, you're a huge part of the history and he definitely shaped, which is what is now known as modern MMA. Yeah. I mean, you were one of the, there was a few other guys in there too. You mentioned

like Frank Shamrock. There was a couple other guys kind of mixing and melting things together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things where, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, right place, right time in, you know, in the history of, you know, the sport that I'll be here for a long time to come. Where can people find you? They can find me at mark cur.com simple. Me and my wife have a company also, which is called Absolute Wellness. You can find us on www.W.W.com and also part of that build absolute wellness is live absolute wellness. That's what I'm heading. You know, it's taken responsibility and with personal health, personal choices. What's absolute wellness?

What does it do? Absolute wellness builds gyms. Does gyms for multifamily. At one point, I mean, my wife's for 23 years. She's sold gym equipment, design, implemented, all kinds of stuff. And from multifamily's, municipalities, individual homes, you know, it's like, if you want some gym equipment, she's going to get up, you know. That's awesome. Yeah, we need, we need that.

Yeah, we need that kind of stuff. Well, this is the big part right now is live absolute wellness right now is, is that personal responsibility for your health because nobody else is going to do a fucking thing about it. Mm-hmm. Nobody is. Especially prevention. Especially prevention. And you know what? Part of me doing the therapeutic clasm exchange and the TMS is I don't want to be a burden.

I don't want to be a burden as I get older. Yeah. Right. like you know I look at it like as men were already burdens enough I know right my wife would agree with you so you know it's trying to have the the awareness at this point where I still have all my faculties to be able to make choices and decisions we can help help mitigate the the effects of age and tire right you know I know I was hard on my body and there's a price to pay and I'm willing to pay it I'm willing to pay it but there's ways to be able to go about it that makes sense, you know.

And I'm just thankful that, you know, Dwayne decided to make a movie about me. That is so awesome. I'm just telling you, Mark, that's like one of those where I'm like, some days I'm afraid to go to sleep because I'll wake up and I go, oh, you didn't happen? Like, oh, my God. I know we're about to end this show real quick, but I didn't get to ask you this.

When you first saw it and you saw him playing you all, like what was going through your mind when you're watching yourself, yourself on screen? So, so January of 2025, yeah, Benny and the producer said, hey,

listen, we got a first rough cut of this. We want you to come to California and see it. So I flew my brother, Michael, out with me. And, um,

we small like 50 seat movie theater and it's Benny to my right me and my brother and we sit down I don't know what to expect at all and I sit down and watch it and part of it was therapy like really like seeing myself in a capacity that I hadn't seen myself before and realizing like oh shit there's a bunch of stuff I still need to be responsible for you know even though it's in the past I still need to go, hey man, I'm sorry. That's, you know, it's entirely like in a, like just bad behavior. So it's therapeutic. Cried like a, like unbelievable.

And the cool part was, so that when the, you know, credit started rolling, like Benny gets up. I hug Benny and I'm hugging my brother. And I look out of the corner of my eye. And Dwayne and Emily had come in the movie. theater at the very end. Yes. And we sat there for 45 minutes in the movie theater just talking. And it was

this. Because Duane wanted to make sure he got it right. Yeah. You know, and Emily wanted to make sure they got right. Beni wanted to make sure they got it right. And it was like one of those things where I was like, like, dude, like look, talk, speech pattern, walk. The whole fucking thing. I go, you nailed it. And then confirmation was when my son

saw it in July, they flew him out to New York. York. Okay. And so my son saw it. Dwayne flew out. Emily was there. And this is what I picture, even though I picture like my son called me immediately afterward. And I picture him in the lobby of the movie theater going, dad, dad, he's got your, he's got your walk. He talks like you. And they got him, he looks like you. And then there was this big pause and this is what buckled me. He goes, dad, he's even got your heart. I'm like, oh my God, yeah. Wow.

I'm like, blessing. That's amazing. That's really cool. 15 minutes standing ovation I heard. Yeah, it was intense, man. Like, you imagine, like, that caliber of a human being what he's experienced. Like, Duane, what's he's experienced in his life is just, I mean, unbelievable. And for him to be in that moment, like, he's right next to me, right?

and him saying to me like this is I've never experienced this before and Emily saying the same thing like I've never like thinking like somewhere in their careers they would experience an ovation like this yeah but the the movie goers in the film industry in Europe is different it's a different appreciation for it so for them to get that kind of respect for that was It was a big deal. It's a big deal. It was like one of those things. And I've said it before I go,

Dwayne can be worth a billion dollars. The one thing he couldn't get or wanted was the respect of his peers. You can't buy it. That's an earned thing, right? And so that, that I think was the final loop for him to go, I'm good. The movie's coming out in Japan.

Are you going to fly over there? I hope so. I hope so. an interview last night and it was awesome it was like one of those things where i was like oh man this is awesome you haven't been in a while oh my god he said it in the area he goes oh you haven't been here and and then he paused for him and he goes in 20 plus years i'm like oh god like i like i told that like i said in the email i go i help build this you know i help build this you know and so um these are my people that I haven't been back to my people in a while.

That sounds. Yeah. So hopefully it'll be, it'll be interesting. Better be able to get down that. Yeah. If not, I'm buying a ticket.

Strength is never a week. This week, this never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye. Peace.