Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 102 - Founder of AKA Javier Mendez

Episode Date: August 28, 2018

Javier Mendez is the founder, head trainer and coach of one of the most decorated MMA gyms in the world, American Kickboxing Academy (AKA). Javier has been training in martial arts since 1978 and has built up AKA to be one of the more respected MMA camps in the world which is home to current UFC Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier and Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov who is scheduled to fight Conor McGregor at UFC 229. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

So let me know who am I looking at. You can just, yeah, whatever. Look at wherever. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Chat. Like this. Just chatting. Yep.

Blah, blah, blah. Okay. Let's start out with what's the connection with Hani Rambad and Eva Jin? My connection with Hani started maybe eight years ago. I didn't know him. My wife knew him, and he came into my years ago. I didn't know him. My wife knew him. And he came into my gym, and I just briefly met him. About fast forward about eight years, maybe seven and a half years or so,

he showed up this past December just to say hello. And I met him again for the second time and but this time around he wanted to talk we we went to a flames restaurant right across the street uh we were having a good time talking and uh you know he was just talking about nutrition and whatnot and uh you know he told me that uh if i you know if i wanted some help he'd give me some advice on how to do things and properly so i figured well shoot if i can't take advice from him who can i take advice from so i listened to what he said i followed his routine and uh actually about 30 pounds oh that's awesome i've lost 30 but I've probably put on about 10 or 15 a muscle

yeah he came on my podcast maybe about 6 weeks ago and he just put me on the spot and he was like hey there's a show at the end of August here in Sacramento and he's like you're doing it and I was like kind of the same thing as what you said though

if I'm going to get world class advice like if you're going to show me how to throw a kick, I'm going to pay attention. I want to learn stuff. And if somebody who's the best in the world at what they do, if they're going to show me something, I'm going to pay attention to it. Yeah. That's basically where it came down to. It's like I figured, well, Jesus Christ, if I don't listen to this guy, then I really don't want to ever get in shape. But he's on you. He's on you.

My God is on you. I'm like, sometimes I'm like, man, it's like, God won't leave me alone. It's like, did you get your prostate checked? No. It's like, I don't want to. He sends a lot of weird, questionable text messages. Yeah. Like, you need to have your prostate checked.

Dude, I was dreading that. Speaking of checking your prostate, he wants to see pictures of my glutes all the time he's even calling my other employees saying hey we need glute pictures and eat glute pictures i'm like what did i what have i gotten myself into well he goes to the flames restaurant when i'm where i eat all the time and he's asking the waiters what do i order oh no he goes hey what is on your order they tell the truth so i guess i'm fine but is he getting is he getting french fries what's going on he asked yeah he asked all those questions and they're

like yeah he asked about you he asked what you ate and i and i go what you guys tell him i go we told him the truth what you eat so i said okay don't lie to him how long have've been the coach at aka since well the official coach probably maybe 2000 okay but i've been coaching since 96 but the official coach probably 2000 and it's all because of uh josh thompson one of my fighters yeah uh he kind of pushed me out there to coach everybody instead of being individualized. When I first started coaching, I was only working with certain people. Like for instance, my first UFC fighter ever was Brian Johnston and he was in 1996. As a result of Brian Johnston, I met Frank Shamrock. And then Frank Shamrock came to train with me in like 97, I believe, or something like

that. Well, then Frank Shamrock became the first UFC middleweight champion. Yeah. You know, and as a result of Frank Shamrock, you know, BJ Penn came to me, you know, and from BJ, you know, more and more. So it's just, yeah, it just keeps going and going and going, you know more and more so it's just yeah it just keeps going going and going you know and the names keep piling up frank shamrock is regarded by some people as one of the better mma fighters of all time who would you put in those categories i know you worked with so many

people so it's got to be kind of hard but you know who if you had kind of a top three or top five to kind of break it down from the things you've seen over the years who are some of the best cream of the crop i definitely would put him in there uh you know as a result of what he's done uh you know daniel cormier john jones gsp you know uh those are some of the people i would put up there daniel cormier is a machine and uh some of the stuff i've been seeing from him you know where he's announcing and I think he's married I think he's got kids and he's just like all over the place and he's winning championships left and right how is this guy able to how is he able to to have that kind of work ethic and compete at such a high level I think it just comes down

from all the wrestling he's done his whole years and being a two-time olympian you know he's had that discipline in him and uh yeah no he's all over the board he keeps telling everybody yes people ask him hey dan you can do this yes he rarely says no to anybody before you know it he's all stretched himself you know yeah he's everywhere you know have you as a coach have you uh kind of looked at that and and maybe been a little worried about it at times where you're like, hmm? I mean, now it's different because you kind of proved he can do it. But maybe before you were like, ah, I've seen other fighters get into that and it can be a trap.

No, myself and Crazy Bob have been worried about that from the beginning. We still are. We still look at him and say, what are you doing? Don't you got enough on your plate now? He goes, yeah, I know. I go, but stop it. But no, he still does it. No, we're still concerned about it. don't you got enough on your plate now he goes yeah i know i go but stop it you know but no he still does it no we're still concerned about it uh you know bob always talks to him about it you

know like what are you doing this you shouldn't be doing this we we can't blah blah blah etc etc so he does it all the time i mean could you imagine if tom brady in whatever debt whatever little bit of downtime he has he he's sitting there analyzing football. You know, he's not only analyzing football and breaking down tape the way that they do, but then going on TV and explaining to the audience what's happening and stuff. It's unbelievable what he's able to do. Well, not only that, I mean, and on the weekend,

this guy here, before he's getting ready for the biggest fights of his life, right, his kids have a wrestling tournament. And that son of a gun's out there coaching his kids wrestling. He goes, how am I not going to come train with you? Because he trains with me on Saturdays. He half the time doesn't train with me if his kids are doing a wrestling

tournament. He has to go help these kids wrestle. Forget about him fighting for a world title. Forget about him defending the world title. No, his kids are more important. He's going to be there as their coach. And one time he was injured, and he goes to this tournament injured, letting people know that he's

injured so they can, they go, oh, I didn't saw Daniel. He's limping. Something's wrong with his leg and stuff. And he didn't care. He didn't care. He cared about those kids. I mean, he's for real.

I mean, you don't get any more real than that. He's coaching like high school kids or something now too, right? He's coaching the Gilroy High School and he does the kids here too. That's wild. And then while he's here, he's also a coach for a lot of the people here too, right? He's the team captain for the team. So yeah, he handles a lot of the issues that normally would come to me. He takes care of them for me before I even go there.

That must help a lot. Yeah. I went to his first fight. I went to, it just kind of happened. I threw Kyle Kingsbury. He gave tickets to a buddy of mine, Jesse Burdick, and we went to San Jose kind of on a whim, and we saw him fight Josh Barnett.

And people just assumed Josh Barnett's a veteran and you know he's he's kind of making a strong comeback and a strong surge and they're like oh he's gonna kick the crap out of this guy I guess people that knew knew what was gonna happen and uh Daniel Cormier just threw him on his head about 70 times and that was that yeah that was pretty impressive what was more impressive is uh he broke his hand oh shit and uh josh broke his hand too but josh let it be known that he broke his hand earlier on daniel didn't let anybody know right didn't even tell us the after broke it like during the fight during the fight he broke it during the fight and he wouldn't tell us and we're like why the freak didn't you tell us you broke your hand?

He goes, because if I would have told you guys, you guys are afraid you guys were going to stop the fight. Oh, okay. Good point. What separates some of these guys out? You know, I know you were a fighter yourself and you had some straps yourself. You're very accomplished. But what separates some of these guys out that you're working with that not only get to that next level but even stay there for a while? You know, what I find that they stay humble, you know,

and they stay focused on what's at task. It doesn't change them. That's what I noticed. The ones that stay there, it didn't change them. The title didn't change them. You know, when Cain Velasquez won the title, it didn't change him. You know, it didn't change them. The title didn't change them. You know, when Cain Velasquez won the title, it didn't change him. You know, Daniel didn't change him. You know, the guys that stay there longest, in my opinion, they don't change.

They continue asking questions. They continue asking. They continue doing the work that they did to get them there. You know, that's what I've noticed. Yeah. How does the nutrition play into some of this? I know that, you know, you mentioned, you know you mentioned you came in in the mid-90s. I would imagine nutrition has probably been a huge part of a huge change in MMA and even the training. I think that strength training wasn't really a huge part of it. Let's focus in on nutrition first. What are some changes that you've seen some people make? Well, you know, a lot of the guys that can afford it

are getting nutritionists, and they're helping them cut the weight. And it's been a huge impact. A nutritionist has become a really huge impact on these guys, especially some of these guys that drop an enormous amount of weight, you know. With the right nutritionists, they're able to do it, you know. Without the right nutritionists, you know, they'll make it to the fight, but they left their fight at the gym and at the table, you know, they, they didn't, uh, they didn't prepare properly.

So as a result of that, you know, they go in half of what they could be. Right. Yeah. It's gotta be hard to try to maintain that muscle mass and stuff as you're dropping weight. And it's important to have, you know, somebody in your corner that knows what's going on. What about strength training? You know, back in the day, a lot of these guys that, especially I'll start with BJ Penn, he used to do CrossFit and he'd come into the gym and he'd be wiped out. He'd be sparring. He couldn't even make three, four rounds and he'd be wiped out. He'd be sparring.

He couldn't even make three, four rounds. He'd get beat up. And normally BJ used to beat up everybody. And he'd always be getting beat up. And I'm going, what the hell are you doing? He goes, well, I do the CrossFit. This is before CrossFit was even CrossFit. This is with the original guys up in Santa Cruz.

So he'd be doing CrossFit with them. I said, well, what are you doing? Tell me what you're doing. He goes, well, we do these pull-ups. We do this and that. I'm like, look at him. I go, okay, that has nothing to do with cardio. The only thing you're telling me that's cardio related is riding the bike. Everything else is anaerobic.

It's not aerobic. So you're killing yourself doing that stuff. That's stupid. From that point i think people have changed and modified that now they're doing things that actually are correct now they're doing more things in line with the strength training the one type relax take a lot of time off and you know uh you know pull maximum weight without putting on much muscle and so it's it's really working now the weight training uh it's a big deal now.

Whereas before, when it first started, it was stupid, the way they were doing it. Now it's not. They were going at it too hard. Way too hard. Killed themselves for the training. Now it's different. Now it's different.

Now they're doing it proper. And with the right individuals, they know what they're doing. It's a good thing. CrossFit was not, it's not a good thing for, for MMA the way it was back then. How does somebody become a champion in this sport without overdoing it? Or, or does it have to be overdone? Like, is this, is this a 10, 12 hour day? Almost every, I mean, it might even be more, it might be more like bodybuilding where it's

24 seven, where the sleep has to be accounted for, the food has to be accounted for, the hydration has to be accounted for. The food has to be accounted for. The hydration has to be accounted for. There's a lot involved in that. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it is a, like a job basically because you can't screw up. Yeah. You know, you have to have the right proper sleep.

Think about it. If you don't get the right proper sleep, then the next day, how are you going to perform? You know, you're not going to perform right. You know, and so the partying, you can't be partying, can't be doing any of that stuff. It's basically, I would say that the best of the best always do everything proper. So if you're going to be Mr. Olympia, you're probably doing everything correctly.

But if you're a UFC champion or whatnot, you're doing the same thing. You have to. That must help a lot since you have previous champions. You got people like Cain Velasquez that have set the tone here for a long time. and then you have other guys coming in and saying hey you know this is how we do it around here we don't you know we don't go out we don't do that but we win belts we win championships basically yeah i think a lot of the guys talk amongst themselves and they see what it is what they're doing you know and they're maintaining you know like my recent guy uh habib you know he he more or less you know he talks about uh being humble while he won the title and staying humble

that how important it is and and uh he is he's stayed the same person he was uh he was on that bus when uh mcgregor kind of lost his and threw through whatever the hell he threw at the bus and kind of kind of lost his mind um does that have any impact on the fight like sometimes guys go in and they're maybe too pissed off you think that has anything uh with the strategy or you think he'll just be fine he'll just take care of business like normal it's hard to say because habib has been known to quite you know kind of not do what we want him to do. The last fight with Aliquinta, we didn't know what was going on. We didn't know who we were going to get.

And finally, when we got Al, finally I looked up Al's video and to see what we're looking at. So this is what I tell Habib. I go, look, listen, I watched this guy's fights. He's very, very tough. He's one of the tougher guys for us stylistically that we could have gotten. And you're going to find you're going to hit this guy's fights. He's very, very tough. He's one of the tougher guys for us stylistically that we could have gotten. And you're going to find you're going to hit this guy fairly easy. But please don't get stuck just hitting him because, you know, he's got power.

He can take a good shot. And, you know, I don't want you getting caught with anything. Let's not get stupid. He goes, okay, coach. So first two rounds, he does exactly what we wanted him to do. Took him to the ground boring you know blah blah blah and he smashes him the third round nope he got comfortable he liked hitting them so he decided to pull muhammad ali act on him stares out jabbing him

and i'm like losing myself i go what the hell are you doing i go let's go back to father's plan uh and he goes yes fourth round does the same thing same damn thing he goes, yes, fourth round, does the same thing. Same damn thing. He goes on and tries to make him take down, but he didn't really want to take him down. And he does the same thing, starts striking with him. And then all of a sudden, fourth round comes out, and I say, hey, listen, it's obviously not going to do what I want you to do, but do me a favor.

Do what you want to do and then do half of what we want. So he goes, okay. So then he goes out there and does half of that. So there's more stories I can go on, and I'll he's done that to us so that's why i'm bringing it up will he listen to what we want yes but will he do what he wants yes right well and i'm sure the pressure is going to be on that's going to be an insane fight people are going to be going absolutely crazy for it uh all the hype leading up to the fight it's going to be hard not to let the emotions get the best of you it's going to be hard and and uh you know connor's a master you know at that instigating and starting right but habiba ain't so bad himself so you might be surprised that

they might be equals there habiba's does it in a different way yeah but they're they're both really good at creating attention and not letting it get to him i don't see it getting to habiba at all i really don't. He's very calm. He's collected. He's different than Conor in a sense, but they're both masters at it, in my opinion. Yeah, I'm excited to see the fight.

I'm excited to see what happens. It's a great clash between a striker and Khabib's got such a great ground game. It's going to be interesting to see who's able to come out on top. And Khabib is undefeated, right? Yeah, he's undefeated. He's 26-0. And if you can remember, too, watching his fights where he's beating up on the guy

and he's talking to Dana, you know, he's telling Dana, hey, Dana, he goes, don't send me no more bullshit contracts. You know, next time you want me to beat your boy up, send me the right contract. While he's beating the guy up. He's talking to Dana about don't send me no more bullshit contracts. He does stuff like that. Or one of the opponents, he's telling them, come on, give up. You know I deserve this title.

Just quit. He does funny things like that. That's great. But that's who he is. I'm a huge football fan. I'm a football nut. And so I saw, you know, the, the poster of Herschel Walker in there and you know, what an amazing athlete he was. You have an opportunity to work with him? I worked with him for about two years. You know, he's an incredible athlete. Probably had he been 20 years old and decided to do this,

he might have been the greatest of all time. He's that good. That's insane. He's just an incredible athlete that picked up things as we went along. I think he was 46 or 48 when he started with us. My God, yeah, he shouldn't be doing what he was doing. Should not be doing what he was doing. Yeah, it's crazy.

I remember when he was playing football and he was just in tip-top shape. He was probably 230, 240 pounds. He was jacked as hell. And they were like, you know, what kind of training are you doing? And he's like, I do push-ups and sit-ups. I remember he would talk about doing like 1,000 push-ups and 1,000 sit-ups. So there I was watching TV, banging out push-ups while i was watching commercials all the time as a kid you know it's amazing you know everybody thinks so the push-ups

are well about a lot so anyways when i was training with him i said oh he does a thousand push-ups i'll do 300 so here i am i'm doing 300 all of a sudden my elbows are just killing me and i'm like what the hell's wrong with me you know and it's like i said her show i go man i was trying to push up thing and i was only doing 300 but my elbows are like shot he goes hob you can't do that you got to work into that i go well i thought i was working into it but apparently not it's like man that thing ain't no joke you gotta take your time with it yeah yeah and i was only doing 300 in two weeks of that. And all of a sudden, man, I couldn't hardly do anything

because my elbows were just blown out. It was amazing. I was like, you know, and he's doing 1,000 a day? What's the hardest part of this job, of being a fighter, do you think? Being a fighter? Staying focused and injury-free. For the MMA, that seems to be one of the biggest deals, is staying focused and injury-free.

Yeah, it's day in and day out, and there's a lot of things to work on. Are there some things you hear sometimes some people say, like punching power or maybe toughness or grit or some of these qualities. Sometimes you hear a coach saying you can't really coach that. The guy had it when he came through the door. What are some of your thoughts on that? Can some of these things be built and coached? Some can.

Some are just natural. Some they need help on and others they just come. Like killer instinct. That's the one I've yet to be able to coach to teach some of these guys just have to be a little bit mean i mean they're just flat out mean someone just have it you know and uh uh you can tell them you should be meaner but it's it's got to be in you you know i think that's the one thing that i don't think i can teach is the killer instinct either have it or you don't you know right and uh i think everything else we can work on the power and and this and that that you can work on some

people have natural power but you can still define it refine it excuse me you can refine it and then you know get it more focused you know so you could definitely work on the power but but uh the killer instinct no no i think you either have it or you don't how'd you get into all this in the first place oh it's all by accident you personally yeah me i got all this into an accident um i was one of those kids that was in high school and i never played sports we're too poor you know and so i never did anything other than played one year of high school football and i used to be one of these kids i used to would have, could have, should have guy. So I used to always talk. I would have, I could have, I should have.

And one good friend of mine who died most recently, I was running with him on the track, and he stopped when we were running, and he told me. Can you guys maybe grab him some water? Sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. Well, anyways, he stopped me from running, and he goes, I need you to shut the F up.

He goes, all you keep talking is you keep talking about what you could have, what you should have, this and that. I'm tired of hearing it. Either you go do something or shut the hell up. I don't want to hear you talk anymore. Right. And I was like, I was kind of upset that he told me that, right? I'm like, well, screw you in my mind. I'm telling you, screw you.

I didn't do it. So anyways. It didn't sit well with you. Yeah yeah it didn't sit well with me so fast forward two weeks later i'm sitting at a denny's with scott coker who's uh the president of bella tornell but back then he used to do pka fights uh it was on i think espn i'm not sure but i think it was espn well anyways i used to help him throw the fights and uh he needed someone to step in to do an exhibition with this, uh, famous fighter called Bill Superfoot Wallace. And he goes, I need someone to come and do the exhibition with Bill. Cause the last person got knocked out, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, I'll do it. You know, but I was joking. I wasn't serious. I wasn't, you know, and he goes, you're on. And all of a sudden I was about to back out and I hear those words, could have, should have, would have. And I'm like, okay. So I decided I'm going to do it. So I got into it with Bill, and he took care of me in the sense that he took easy on me.

The first round took real easy on me, and he made me look good, right? And then the second round, the stupid announcer says, who do you guys think is winning this exhibition, Bill or me? And Bill's got his hands out like for people to clap. Nobody clapped. So Scott Coker runs in the ring. He goes, hey, you want out? And I'm like thinking, no, I'm good.

I'm good. No big deal. No big deal. So I'm thinking, this is fun, right? That wasn't fun the second round he he proceeded he came in he gave his sidekick me sent me back about three feet man i was like oh this is a real fight now before it was like fun fun he let me made me look good now it's a real fight so he hit me i hit him he hit me i hit him and all of a sudden i went from one round being so

like i can do it again to i don't want to do this shit no more you know because i really felt if he would have went one more round he would have hurt me because he was trying to hurt me and and it's just a matter of being in their amount of rounds right you can probably go in one round with a lot of people right yeah but going two three or four or five that's a whole different story oh yeah you got every intention of being this badass you're like oh you know we're gonna do this thing and then the second that it hurts or there's a ton of resistance there you're like oh wait a second the guy starts nailing you in the stomach and the head and you're like oh i don't know

and bill did that to me he was hitting me the thing that hurt the most was he hit me with the left hook to the body i felt it come out the other side. I was like, holy shit. And you're like, come on, dude. He hit me hard. He wanted to go another round, and he wanted to push me into another round because I bloodied him up a little bit. And I don't think he expected that from me.

So I guarantee you if we'd have gone a second round, he would have beat the living hell out of me. I've been watching Pride over the years and ufc over the years and uh it's been amazing to to watch the kind of evolution of the sport but whenever i watch it on tv uh even from when i was younger and had at least a little bit more aggression in me i would watch it and kind of halfway think like oh this would be fun to kind of do some of it i'm like maybe like jujitsu or i messed around with some boxing. And then I'd think to myself, you know what? The guy would kick me like in the inner thigh and I would freaking run out of the ring. I'd be like,

that shit fucking hurt. How does some of these guys get past some of this pain threshold of, what always amazes me is when these guys fight somebody and they lose. And it's not like they just got caught with something. They just kind of get, they get their ass kicked sometimes. How do they come back and fight that same guy? How do they have, like,

that's gotta be a tough thing. That's the guy. He's standing right across from you. You don't think he can kick your ass. You know, he can, he already kicked your ass, everything he did hurt. And now you're fighting him again.

Yeah, that's a tough one. That's a real tough one. That seems crazy. Because if he's beat the hell out of you like that, the likelihood of it happening again is fairly good, unless there was something wrong with you the first time. But if he literally whooped your ass and there's really nothing you can do, it's kind of hard.

I've yet to have one of my guys come back and be able to beat a guy that's whooped their ass like that, like what you're talking about. I mean, we've been beat, but we've been beat to the point where we can get him the next time. We've never been beat to that point unless something was wrong. For instance, when Cain Velasquez defended his title the very first time against Junior Dos Santos, he had a torn meniscus, you know, and we shouldn't have been fighting at all, period. Should not have been fighting because he couldn't kick, couldn't wrestle. All he could do was box. So we are entering a fight with Junior Dos Santos, who is a better boxer than us, and we couldn't do our number one thing.

We couldn't wrestle with him. All we could do is box so it was like that's the kind of stuff that's crazy right you go in there so you fight a junior dos santos and all of a sudden you know he gets knocked out you know uh the fight didn't even get started a minute something he could hit with the overhand right it gets knocked out so in a situation like that, that's one where he wasn't 100%, right? So you can come back in a rematch, which is what he did,

and then he annihilated him, and then he did a third fight, and then he took care of him again. But the difference was the first fight, he had a torn meniscus. The second two fights he had, he was healthy, 100%. So in those respects, yeah,

you can come back after guys whooped you. But if you going into a fight and the guy just whoops you and there's nothing wrong. Oh man. I don't know. That's going to be a tough one. That's a tough one. That's a tough one. How do you coach these guys?

You know, as, as the fight gets closer, like maybe, you know, maybe you're kind of recognizing like that, they're a little bit off. Do you still just stay positive or, or are to give it give it to them straight like maybe they're injured maybe they're off a little bit you know like that you know they don't want to pull the plug but you're all in it together do you just say fuck it we're all in we're behind you we're here for you let's let's go i never ignore the obvious. If there's something wrong, we have to address it. You have to address it, and you have to discuss it. The guy could get injured severely, right?

He could get injured worse in the fight. They're the drivers. They decide to take the fight. They decide to do it. I'll tell you another one, and it just happened with Junior Dos Santos again. I've taken on this new fighter named Bogoy Aimanov. We just fought Junior Dos Santos in Boise, Idaho. And he tore his meniscus in two spots.

Oh, my God. Okay, so no one knows this, right? I'm just saying you guys are the first ones hearing about it. Tears the meniscus in two spots. I say cancel the fight. Get your your surgery it's a simple fix you'll be you'll be back in three weeks whatnot then you you'll get another fight two months down the line he had five weeks to prepare you know uh left right and i said well it's only going to cost you three weeks so we'll get another opponent or maybe it'll be junior. So it's all scheduled. He decides he's going to have surgery.

Changes his mind over the weekend. He goes, no, coach, I'm fighting. I said, all right. Well, then I guess we're going to have to beat him then. Because that's when the mind has to go, I got to be behind you. We got to work on it. So we didn't even discuss anymore about the injury. Did not discuss it.

So what we did on that fight is, again, no wrestling, no kicking, just boxing. So we went up against Junior Dos Santos again, a better boxer. And my guy's the first time in the UFC. So we go into that situation again. And I'm like, it's like deja vu. Here we go again. And I'm trying to keep my fingers crossed, trying to be positive, you know. But at the end, you know, you got a great fighter like Junior. He's a great fighter. What are you going to do?

It's tough to beat him. Who knows if we would have beat him with the good knees, but at least we would have had a better chance. Right. Everybody wants to see uh kane velasquez come back how's he doing he's doing great you know he's been he's been training off and on you know he's been coming here he's been helping daniel a lot when he got him ready for stipe uh daniel uh and kane kane was probably his number one guy to help him with that one

um but now it's just a matter of them getting a deal with him. He's been ready to fight since January. Right. You know, so he's here. He may be here today. I don't know. But he's been ready to go. And Cormier is going to be fighting Brock Lesnar.

Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. Daniel's going to be fighting Brock. It'll probably, hopefully, that Brock, you know, stays clean, you know, and then January and I, I, you know, then when he gets cleared in January, so you saw to clears them cause he goes into the six month, uh, testing pool. Once he's clear for six months, then the fight will happen and it'll probably be before Daniel's

birthday, which is in March. So somewhere around that time he fights Brock, But I think Daniel might want to fight, defend the light heavyweight title against whoever they put in front of him. He might want to do that if it's possible, meaning his hand has to heal. He broke his hand. So if his hand heals, then he would like to, I think, defend the title once light heavyweight. He wants to be active.

Well, not only wants to be active, but he just wants to prove that he's a real champion. He didn't just win that title and at light heavyweight. He wants to be active. He wants to be. Well, not only wants to be active, but he just wants to prove that he's a real champion. Right. He didn't just win that title and didn't defend it. He wants to defend him. So for as long as he has left, which is not that long, because he said, 40th birthday, I'm done. And so far, Daniel's done everything he said he was going to do.

Yeah. And so I'm expecting that's going to happen. Come his 40th birthday, he'll be done. In the Pride Fighting Championships, they definitely seem to be more lax on their PED testing, right, back in the day. A lot of those guys were really, really jacked. What's your thoughts on, you know,

that style versus what the UFC has tried to do coming together with USADA? Well, I like personally what the UFC is doing more so because it's an equal playing field. If every fighter on earth decided they want to be on PEDs, then it's equal playing field, then okay, I'm fine with that too. But being that not every fighter wants to do that, I prefer the clean way. Yeah, it just adds a whole other element to the sport too

where somebody in your corner now has to know about all these crazy drugs. You know, there's like, there's, you know, growth hormone and all these different things, right? Yeah, you know, I don't know much about them. I actually don't know anything about them. I hear say stuff. I hear now that they got new stuff that you inject,

and it lasts anywhere from three to eight hours. You know, as far as testing, after that, it's good for a whole month, and they can't test for it. Wow. So from what I told from other friends of mine, that USADA is catching all these things, but there's always these chemists guys that are one step ahead. And supposedly there was stuff in Germany that is undetectable and they're using.

It's good in Germany though. Sounds great. Yeah. So I don't know what it is. I just know that it's always, there's changes. So there's always ways of beating the system. And I've been told that certain people are doing that. And I don't know what to say.

It's just that people are doing it. There's also the mental health side of things in the sport too. And I think that the more exposed these guys are to drugs, maybe the possibility, uh, maybe there'd be more possibility of, of them getting hurt worse or them, you know, causing more brain damage. I mean, if just the thought of, uh, you know, one guy being more powerful or one guy being able to last, you know, deeper into the fourth round or the fifth round, or if the other guy's not taking the same stuff and he's fatigued, I mean, he could end up with a potential brain injury that could be life-altering.

You know what I mean? Yeah, correct. All those things are definitely reality. They're all reality. And it's just a matter of getting it all under control. And like I say, I think the UFC is doing a great job of working towards that. And I think that out of anybody, you know,

in the striking arts, boxing, kickboxing, I think that they're the leaders in trying to correct it. And I think they're doing a great job. Yeah, the other sports, they don't seem like they've taken on the same principles, right? Well, and let me give you the reason why. Right. Yeah.

The other sports are like, they got to fit the bill for that, you know? Right. You know, it's not like USADA is free. You know, USADA is being paid by the UFC to take care and regulate, you know, and they do a lot of things that have hurt shows. You know, main events have been canceled because people popped. So obviously it's not what the UFC wants. And they've had major shows being canceled because the main event has popped dirty. And so USADA does their job, you know.

And unfortunately, a lot of other shows don't have that kind of money available where they can pay for such a big deal. It's a big ordeal. I see USADA's here almost all the time for my guys, two or three times. They were just here this Friday, you know, and for one of the guys, they're here all the time. Yeah, they got to be checking in. Do you feel that fighters have to have like a fighting background?

You know, like you mentioned the aggression. Do you think they have to be guys that get into some fights as kids? Like, did you get into some fights as kids like did you get into some fights as kids or as a kid or no i didn't get into any fights as a kid per se i mean past 12 years of age i never fought still to this day in the street um but as kids we know we did little stuff but yeah uh you know no to be successful in mma I think that you have to have a great jiu-jitsu background or a great wrestling background. You could be a great striker. You can be the world champion boxer.

But if you don't have a sound jiu-jitsu or wrestling game, you're not going to be anything in MMA. Not going to happen. Too many people come in, well, I've been striking 15 years. And I said, OK, how much jiu-jitsu do you have? I don't have any. And I'm just like, OK. I just ignore them per se because I'm going to spend the time with somebody. I want to spend the time with somebody that has maybe done two or three years of wrestling

or two or three years of jiu-jitsu because he already understands what is needed to become successful in mma yeah you look at how successful someone like chuck liddell was you know people think of the striking but they also forget that no one could take him down at the time right they kind of forget that or uh john jones uh is also a great wrestler and obviously daniel cormier is a great wrestler. Dan the Beast Severin, you know, he would just out-wrestle people so much he didn't even have to apply like a finisher. He didn't need to choke anybody out or get him an arm bar. He'd just out-wrestle them. He wrestled so well that the other guy couldn't do anything against him.

Yep, yep, yep, and that's why I say that because, you know, you got individuals like that. Yep, yep, and that's why I say that because, you know, you got individuals like that. They come in and, you know, like I said, you could be a world champion boxer, but you come in against just any kind of collegiate wrestler, even a high school wrestler, for God's sake.

All of a sudden it takes you down. All of a sudden, where's your boxing? It's gone. You know, you're on the ground. You know, you can't do nothing. You can't get up, you know. So if you have a ground game, it's gone. You're on the ground. You can't do nothing. You can't get up. So if you have a ground game, it's different. But if you don't, it doesn't matter what you have stand up. How has somebody like Daniel Cormier been able to adapt to MMA so quickly?

I mean, I know it's been several years now, but it seemed like his learning was really, really fast. And to go from being a collegiate wrestler to having somebody throwing punches and kicks at your legs and at your stomach and at your head is just a way different thing it seemed like uh for brock lesnar it seemed like that's a harder thing for him to deal with maybe because of uh his uh collegiate style wrestling background it might be that or it might be just bro Brock himself as a person. Right.

You know, cause the way I hear he runs it the way he wants to run it. He doesn't really have anybody run him. So it may very well be that he just does whatever the hell he wants, you know, and he's such a badass. He could do it. You do need a coach. You need a mentor, don't you? I think you do.

And I think he has one, but I don't think he has one is like this really you know i think he calls his shots i think i could be wrong right but i think he calls the shots and uh with daniel no way he doesn't call the shots it's it's a crazy bob and myself that that take care of what he needs to be taken care of when we talk to him about in regards to fighting and training he listens to all our coaches but but specifically Crazy Bob and myself. Well, it helps when you guys have a track record. So I'm sure some of the other athletes too are going to encourage them, hey, you know what, stick to the plan, stick to the game.

Look, it's worked for three other guys, five other guys, eight other guys, ten other guys. Just don't be dumb. Just don't be trying to go outside and look for other stuff. Stay here. Roll with us, and you're going to get to where you want to get to. We've done it before. That is one of the things that's helped us tremendously

is that people, our track record speaks for itself. So we don't have to try to get you to come on board. I mean, you either do or you don't. And the majority of them that come here now want to because they already know what Bob and I have done and they want to be with us. So, yeah, it's much easier. What are you most proud of that's happened

throughout the course of all this? You know, I get asked that all the time and it's the stupidest response that I always get, but I always have to say the same thing. We're still together as a team. Oh, that though yeah people are always looking at well it's when you win this title no we're still together as a team right people don't understand how important it is we we've been around the longest out of anybody in the history of the sport to steal this a strong team you know you have all the tough with all. It's going to be tough with all the personalities. Yeah. You got Shoe to Box.

You had Miletic Fighting Systems. You had all these previous people that were great at some time and they're no longer there. The Shamrock, you know, the Couture system, they're all gone. Right. They're all gone. And we're still here.

You know, we're still here. We're still, actually, we're stronger than ever. Yeah. You know, we've've never no one's ever held three titles in the ufc at one particular time when we've actually in that position right now because daniel has two titles and habib has the other so we were always supposed to have four and i was like yeah well that's so well sure we're supposed to have four but you know something always happens But, you know, having three is amazing. You know, so we're doing well. We're doing well with that. Yeah, it's amazing.

I mean, with all the different personalities and stuff, it's going to be tough to hold everything together. I shot Kyle Kingsbury a message telling him I was coming here, and he's so excited. He's like, please give him my love. Tell everybody there. I said, what's up and that's that's a really cool atmosphere because a lot of times people will leave a gym or they'll leave a company and they'll be bad blood but in this situation anyone who's been a part of this um they're kind of forever branded yeah i'm from aka and it's a it's a badge of courage rather than like yeah yeah, fuck those guys. Yeah.

It's, it's, that's what we'd like to keep doing, but you know what? Unfortunately there is one that got away from me. So the majority of my guys, like a Kyle Kingsbury, I love Kyle. He's always my boy. It doesn't matter where he's at. People. There's always going to be disagreements. Like Luke Rockhold, Luke Rockhold, you know, has left us also,

but he's still my boy. People, they try to create something. I go, what are you talking about? What happened between you guys? Yeah, there's nothing happened between us. He had a situation that works for him. He's still with me, still AK for life for me. He's my boy. How can you turn your back on someone that was there for you when you needed help and you didn't know you needed help and he's there for you?

How do you turn your back on that? I mean, why would you? It's like people have their own life. They have things they have to do. It's not, look, the team's the team, but we're not a real, real team like a football team or basketball team. This is an individual sport. So for me, that's why I say it's a great honor and the greatest achievement for me is that

we're still together. And people like Luke Rockhold still and Kyle Kingsbury are still family. King Mo, you know, these are all guys that they're in my heart, you know, and they'll never leave. It's always going to be that way. And like I said, I have screwed up with one person. And, you know, if I had to do that all over again, I would redo that all over again. But the whole idea is to keep us together always. Oh, and you learn from it.

Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah. You learn from it. And it gives you new perspective. Like, okay, that was not the right way to handle that. I need to work on that. No.

And, you know, I learned that, number one, that I'm the head of the ship. So if that damn ship, for whatever reason, sinks, it's my fault. Right. It's my fault. Regardless of whether I knew about it, it's my fault. Right. It's my fault, regardless of whether I knew about it. It's my fault. I used to think that tell the truth. I'd be with the media, and they ask me a question,

and so I'd give them the truth. But the truth would get me in trouble quite a bit. And then I realized, I go, what am I doing? I go, no, you can tell the truth, but you don't have to tell the whole truth. So now I tell the truth, but I don't tell the whole truth. Now I'll say, no, it's this, it's that, it's me, it's blah, blah, blah. Well, your words can be really damaging.

Oh, big time. Especially because these guys, you're a mentor to them. So you could say, hey, you know what? He would be on the next level if he just worked a little harder. That'll devastate a guy. Devastate. Right? Just crush him.

Yeah. Even if it's the truth. Yeah. The truth is a dangerous weapon done at the wrong time. It's done at the right time, it's good. Done at the wrong time, it's good. So telling the person himself in person, that's okay. Telling somebody else, that's not okay.

That's not okay. So there's the time to use it and there's a time not to use it. Yeah. Not everybody's deserving of knowing everything that goes on too you know like not everybody has the right to know you know what happens uh all the way through and through and yes this is sacred ground sacred territory this is territory of uh champions yeah well like i'll give you for instance uh something that just happened uh the news guys are calling me up and and they want to know uh hey we want to know the story and i'm like what story i don't know what the hell they're

talking about and they go do you have anything to say i go about what story you know and and and i'm thinking finally i go oh i know what you're doing you son of a bitch you're trying to get me to talk about habib and and and and the thing that's going on that was hit the news recently and i'm like i don't know anything about it. So then I talked to Habib. I go, Habib, what's this thing about these people? You guys make them do push-ups. He goes, oh, no, we know those guys.

They're friends. We've known them for years. Every time we go to San Francisco, we're always screwing around with them or they'll screw around with us. But nobody knows that. But the media painted it like he's such a bad guy. And I tell Habib, I go, you should fix that. You're getting a lot of hate.

He goes, no, I'm not going to do anything. If they're going to hate, they're going to hate. It's okay. I can't please everybody. I mean, we did it in fun. Those guys, we play with those guys. We go to San Francisco every weekend, and they're always there, and we always go around with each other.

So it was in fun. But no, I'm not going to explain it. And I said, well, you're right. If you don't have to, you don't have to. You can't be perfect for everybody. What are some of the most valuable lessons that you've learned or something that a fighter said to you where you were like, holy shit, I'm keeping that one in my back pocket,

and it's something that you still refer to to this day, going through a situation, going through a fight or something? I'll give that one in my back pocket and it's something that you still refer to to this day going through a situation going through a fight or something I'll give you one there's a lot more but it's one that sticks to this day and I still think it's the stupidest effing thing I heard in my whole entire life there's one fighter I won't say the name but he's a famous guy, and he comes to my gym, and I tell him, hey, if you ever learn anything from me, I go, learn not to get hit. You don't want to get hit. And he goes, okay, all right. And I said, you know, years go on.

I see him freaking get hit all the time. And one day he says to me, he goes, hey, yeah, you remember, you know, it's about seven years later. He goes, you know, remember that time you asked me? I go, yeah. And he goes, well, you know, the reason why I let people hit me is because I wanted to show how tough I am. I said, you what? He said, I want to show how tough.

I go, you know what? All the years I've been involved in this business, that's got to be the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard in my whole entire life. Why would you let somebody purposely hit you to show how tough you are? That shows me how stupid you are. I go, you'd never let nobody hit you. You want to be tough? Never let somebody touch you.

Now you're tough. Stupid is letting yourself get your brain cells knocked in right you know so that to me will always stick in my mind there's more but that one in particular is like how does that make sense that's a good thing to share with the young fighters because maybe they get in exchanges right and they get hyped up and they want to take a couple shots i won't share who because i love the guy but but uh it's, that's the stupidest goddamn thing ever. Who has surprised you? Has there been somebody who's come through the doors

where you're like, maybe the athleticism wasn't there, maybe the skill set wasn't there, but they just kept showing up, and they kept talking about these things they wanted to do, and slowly but surely, some of these things kind of unfolded before your very eyes, and you're like, oh my God god this guy's a machine or girl that's um one of my other proudest moments is john fitch yeah uh no talent compared to the other guys he was an animal though no talent as far as like a

josh koscheck or mike swick you know he didn't have any of those attributes, but what he had was the mental fortitude and the strength to persevere and go through. I didn't even choose to train him. He wasn't even with me. And that's why I'm so proud of him because he accomplished greatness without me being involved with him one-on-one. You know, everybody else has accomplished that in my gym has done it with my help. John Fitch has done it with the minimal amount of help because I didn't choose him to work with him.

And he didn't let that stop him. You know, for God's sake, he was working out when we had a one-legged guy as his partner. That was the only guy he had to work with. And he didn't let that stop him. You know, he, on the first Ultimate Fighter, he was chosen to go also, you know, to be an Ultimate Fighter with Mike Swick, Josh Kosciuk, and Bobby Southworth, my other three guys. Fitch was also on the plane. His luggage was already on his way to Vegas. And while he's at the airport, they call him and tell him that he's not needed.

Now, you tell me, how many times you got to get kicked down and then you come back and you win the freaking world title. He failed with GSP. He fought a great fight, but he failed. Nothing he ever did stopped him from going after what he wanted. Yeah, that's crazy. Nothing. And then look, he's accomplished it.

He become the Pro Fight League World Champion, the WSFL. And he did that. And for me, that's an extremely, extremely proud moment because he didn't do it like everybody else. He didn't have the talent like everybody else, but he never would say never. When it comes to lifting, it helps us in my gym a lot. We have a gym in West Sacramento that we've had for the

last 10 plus years. And it always helps us when the guy has like some sort of background, you know, obviously, you know, where somebody starts, it's going to, it's going to make us look better being able to assist him and be able to help him to get to a 700 pound deadlift when they come in already deadlifting like 500 or something like that. But it also just helps that they just try to lift. They just lift weights. They go out, they have some trial and error. They do three sets of 10 and this program over here and that program over there. And then they come to us. Do you feel this place is similar to that or do you guys work better if someone's just kind of a complete uh blank slate no it it's to be honest with you right now as it stands it's best for us if they have wrestling right they have wrestling that that

that is such a key component because he he controls where the fight goes is usually who ends up doing the best in the fight are we talking about kind of like four or five years at least or so? At least, you know, to really, really become successful here, you're guaranteed to be a Division I wrestler or even Division III. You know, like I have a kid here who's a Division III All-American. Somebody who's really went through a program though. Yeah, Division III All-American that I have here who i think is going to be great you know um but without that wrestling it would have taken so many more years you know that

wrestling is is is so so important you know so if they're going to have anything uh i i really prefer wrestling if not wrestling then yeah good jiu-jitsu base uh you know is really important without those two um it's great if they have stand-up it's great don't get me wrong it's it's fantastic but the person that has the most advantage is always the ground guys right you know they have the most advantage you're talking a little earlier about toughness and how that one guy had the bad perception of uh you know he wants somebody to hit him to show how tough he was um have you seen people be able to build upon their toughness their mental toughness uh i'm sure you got to push these guys like crazy with their conditioning um do people get better at

that or they or is that something that's kind of stagnant? On the, on the mental side, they definitely get better. Um, it's, it just depends. Uh, the same formula doesn't work for every person. You have to figure out how they are as a person. Uh, you know, I'm going to use, uh, Habib's cousin who's fighting this Thursday for a pro fight league up in Atlantic City. When he came in here, he kind of gave up on himself, you know, and he would kind of quit and stuff.

And I figured Habib's dad told me to be careful with him. He has a way of not putting in what he could do and this and that. So I paid attention to what he said. So what I did with him is I did the total opposite of what everybody does, yelling at him and this and that. So what I started doing to him is he'd be running the track like everybody else and he's failing, right? And I look at him.

I said, hey, I call him man up. I go, man up. I go, hey, just sit down. Rest. Don't worry about it. Don't do that with those guys. Just rest. Don't be there. He goes, hey, I call him man up. I go, man up. I go, hey, just sit down, rest. Don't worry about it. Don't do that with those guys. Just rest. Don't be there.

He goes, no, coach. I go, no, no, just rest. Don't worry. Don't worry. So I do things like that for him. All of a sudden, he's like sitting there. Beans up. He's like going, oh, this is bullshit.

He goes, no. He goes, coach, let me do it. I go, no, no, no, no. You rest. You rest. Don't. Stay there. Don't worry about it.

So I started working with him on things like that. And little by little, he started breaking that habit, you know, of quitting. And now he's mentally super strong. So we built on that. And it took a little while. It took a little while. Huge attribute.

Yeah, being a coach, you got to learn who's going to, who needs what, right? Yeah. And the thing is, it doesn't work on everybody though. Some just no matter what take a break okay yeah take a break okay uh okay yeah you want to quit fighting okay yeah it doesn't work on everybody but it he did uh uh what he's one person that i can say, man, he really picked it up. I think being in better physical condition too helps your brain because you're more okay with going there. You know, your heart rate's not going as crazy.

Your body's not going as crazy. And it just feels, even just a tiny bit, if there's just even a little bit more comfort there then it'll be that much easier to keep pushing 100 100 the the better the cardio the the stronger the mind how many days a week are you guys working on conditioning with with most of these guys uh usually i want them doing six days uh usually they do the airdyne back here uh monday wednesday friday um and then different different styles of workouts for different days what they do is they get in the airdyne here and they'll do one minute on the airdyne and then they'll get off to hit the bag or they'll punch something or they'll do some

pummeling with each other and then they get back a minute on minute off minute on minute off we've been doing that for years and it's it's brutal yeah it's brutal if i tried that i'd probably faint um but they do that three times a week. And then on their off days, I usually want them running the hills like one day, like probably a Saturday would be one team. And the other day, I'd like them doing sprints, you know, Tuesdays and Thursdays. So you've got a good mix of energy systems and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Does anybody help kind of manage all that overall? Like a strength coach or anybody? Does anybody kind of, or you guys have so much fight experience that you kind of got a really good understanding of it? No, some have that. DC has that. He has people that come in,

help him with that all the time. Cain Velasquez has that. He's a good friend of mine. Tony Castro that was a power lifter and does everything for him. Oh, cool. Yeah, so a lot of these guys have someone that helps them with that. What should some of these new guys that are coming into the sport,

what should they know before they get themselves in too deep? Just know that this is something they really want to do. Because it's like anything, right? You've got to jump in. You can't just touch the water. You've got to jump in. So they just have to know that? You got to jump in. You can't just touch the water. You got to jump in. So they just have to know that they're willing to jump in. Thank you so much for your time.

Really appreciate it. What's coming up? What's your main focus in the next two, three weeks? Well, this Thursday we're going to Atlantic City for Habib's cousin. He's fighting. And then from there it's all about Habib and the press conference between him and Conor. There's a lot happening coming real soon because they're going to have to start building the fight. You know, we only have, what, eight weeks left?

So I don't know what the UFC's plan plan but they're not doing any world tour because they don't have enough time to prepare for that right so i'm sure there's going to be a uh you know a couple days here a couple days there we got to go do things and i'm sure it'll be wild it's happening yeah it's gonna be wild all right man thank you so much for your time really appreciate it thanks no problem thanks for having me on strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later