Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 26 - Chuck Liddell

Episode Date: March 28, 2018

Today's guest is the one and only, Chuck The Iceman Liddell. A walking legend in combat sports and probably one of your favorite fighters of all time. This is every fight fan's dream of a podcast. Chuck talking about fighting. Mark Bell asked Chuck how he go into MMA and where he got his start. Chuck would later tell us some amazing octagon and street fights. ➢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 ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell

into a story. Yeah. Well, my thing is I get excited. I jump to the net. That's the hard thing. I get excited about the part of the story I want to tell. Yeah. And I get too lazy to do the...

I get too lazy about the... The rest of it. Yeah, the beginning. The setup. Don't have the patience for it. Well, yeah. That's my ADD kicking in. All right.

Well, we're here today with the Iceman. We're here today in his house. I really appreciate you making the time for us today. Um, you know, you're, when I started to talk to some people and, and tell them that I was having Chuck Liddell on the podcast,

they were just flipping out. And it made me just kind of think back to some of your fights from back in the day. And it also made me recognize I've already kind of knew this, but I was like, man, Chuck is like legitimately like everyone's favorite. It's like a,

it's a consensus across the board. I mean, I'm sure you probably have a couple of guys you knocked out that don't, don't like you very much. But in general, people are like, man, I,

it, it brought back memories for them. Some people even like got chills. They were like, so moved by, you know, me just mentioning your name to like, I remember back memories for them. Some people even got chills. They were so moved by me just mentioning your name. They're like, I remember when he did this. I remember when he did that. Is some of this kind of weird to you? How did this all come to be?

I mean, just a kid that grows up that maybe liking fighting more than the next guy, and then now here we are. You know, it really is kind of strange how it all happened. For me, I started, you know, back in high school, I actually used to say, make this comment, you know, the thing that really sucks is I can't make a living doing what I'm best at.

And that was street fighting. I mean, I fought all the time. No, I wasn't a bully. I wasn't mean. I mean, if you don't want to fight me, you didn't have to. Were you angry? I wasn't angry either. I just liked to fight.

I liked the competition of it. I was doing martial arts. I'd done martial arts since I was 12, wrestled since I was 14. And I didn't like, actually, I really didn't like bullies. I'd go to guys that wanted to fight a guy, and they'd get in a guy's face, and the guy's trying to walk away, and they're still trying to fight him. And I'd just step in the middle and go, hey, he doesn't want to fight you, but I will.

And they're, oh man, I ain't got no problem with you. I say, eh, yeah, you kind of do, you know. Yeah, you got a problem with him, you got a problem with me. Yeah, you got a problem with him and now you got one with me. And you know, he still had the option to back out. But you know, when I turned about 22, 23,

I kind of figured out, I really wasn't giving you many outs. You know what I mean? Other than putting your tail between your legs and crawling out the door looking like the biggest. Right. Gotcha. Yeah. And so at that point in my life, I actually started giving guys a lot more outs.

You know, it was just a little better. It just wasn't worth the hassle anymore. But back to, back to the fighting, you know, I was doing, I do in martial arts and I did, I did martial arts.

What was the first martial art that you? Koi con karate do. It's my first one. I was just, I kind of got lucky with that too. We were walking down. I begged my mom to let me join martial arts and been watching I was watching

Kung Fu Theater and they had those demonstrations in between like the commercials and I was like man that's cool I want to learn that you know

and I was like everyone else I thought there was some magic tricks I was going to learn and turn into a complete badass I remember those old

karate magazines back in the day with the Chinese stars in it and all that stuff oh yeah I had every one of those. I had all that stuff. The nunchucks and all that shit.

The master ninja. Remember that show? The master. Yeah. The guy kicks the roof and the whole roof caves in in the house. I remember that in the beginning of the show. But, yeah, so I was going, doing the martial arts all the time. And I actually, when we were walking,

she was taking me to this school. We went by this, actually, we went by a Kempo school, which is kind of interesting because I ended up in Kempo. But a Kempo school, we went by there twice, and it was closed during open hours. So my mom was like, my mom got fresh out, we're not going there. And on the way back, we just walked by this,

there's this little dojo. I was walking back home, and it was, you know, we walked in, and the traditional Japanese karate dojo, and my mom liked it, and I wound up going there, and it turned out great because there was a bunch of guys. He had a bunch of tough, like, blue-collar just brawlers that liked to fight. We had a group of about, you know brawlers that like to fight. We had a bunch of, we had a group of about,

you know, 40 guys that would like, that liked to fight. And we'd get in there and we'd just get in and go at it. Now, a lot of times with martial arts, what they'll teach you, you know, they'll say, well, now that you know, now that you've like, you know, mastered something,

now that you've learned a skill, now we're going to use this for good and not to beat the crap out of people. And that's still what you're looking for. You know, you're training to get internal peace and prosperity is kind of what we're looking for. I don't think people recognize that with weightlifting, with weight training.

You're training for the same thing. I think it's kind of a lost thing that I think is, I appreciate that from martial arts. I think it's cool. Yeah, and for me, that was always, and it is, I did figure out, i had a hand surgery because i had a freak accident with some glass and cut my thing i had i wasn't able to hit a bag for a year and i was i was on edge i mean i got a little bit i got a little bit edgy that year and i couldn't figure out why and i i finally when i got back to being

allowed to hit a bag i'm like hey this is what what I was missing. This is what mellows me out. As you're meant to do. I need something. I need a release. I need to be time away from everything. For me, going into the gym and going into even hitting the bag or especially sparring or doing jiu-jitsu, wrestling, all those things allow me to shut down.

Otherwise, my brain's running a mile a minute. It's going all the time. It's a time to shut down and it just lets me concentrate on one thing and relax. It just calms me down. What year was it when you got into some martial arts? What year? I was 12 years old.

So that would make it, what, 81 maybe? Oh, okay. Yeah. So 1981 is light years behind when somebody started. I mean, people have been talking about the debate forever What would happen if you got a wrestler In there with a boxer You know what would happen if Mike Tyson

Fought this collegiate guy What would happen if this Jiu Jitsu practitioner People didn't even really know what Jiu Jitsu was What would happen if this martial art was paired What if Bruce Lee Went against Muhammad Ali or something like that People weren't really talking about that yet at that point, right? Right.

No, they weren't. Well, they always talked about that a little bit. A little bit. But there was no place to do it. There was no place to actually have it happen. The first UFC was in 93. So, I mean, I had done a key jiu-jitsu in college. We actually did throws, and we did some judo

and some in my karate style. My original karate style, koi kan, karate do. Did you happen to have really good coaches right from the beginning? Some of the people that you ran into?

Were they? My grandpa was the first one to teach me how to fight. Really? He taught me how to street fight when I was a kid. I was really young. Just like. We had boxing gloves.

Me and my brother would box in the backyard. He wanted you to know how to protect yourself. Yeah, he wanted us to know how to protect ourselves. That's awesome. Then I went on to start doing the karate. I think I had a great group of guys. I had a great mentality in there, just the mentality in there. And then I wasn't, but it was also my hunger to learn fighting

because we had a, you know, it's a closed system. They have that kind of where you don't go learn other styles because your style is the best. It's that old school style like just train here, just train here. Can't do their stuff. That'll dilute your style and that won't make you worse. I didn't buy into that

and so I used to go down to, there's a Kung Fu school that had open sparring night on Friday nights and people just from anywhere could come in and spar. And so I used to go there and I learned a lot there

because the first time you go in there, you had a bunch of guys coming at come in and spar. And so I used to go there, and I learned a lot there because the first time you go in there, you had a bunch of guys coming at you in different ways. They got a different style. They come at you. It looks different. When the first, if all you've been doing in your life is doing the straight karate type fighting, then all of a sudden,

it's all the guys coming in these weird different ways. Right. And that's really what you need to be prepared for. That became your trademark. Those bombs that you'd throw. Yeah. They're unorthodox. Yeah, well, that's the thing.

I throw from a lot of angles. People think, oh, he's throwing these wild punches. I'm not throwing anything wild. I've got great accuracy. From a boxing perspective, they would look wild. Do you know what I mean? Yes, of course. But in an MMA setting.

But I'm accurate, and I throw them for the purpose. I'm setting you up. Certainly, they're there for a purpose. I'm setting you up. I do it for a purpose. Certainly for a purpose. I'm setting you up. I thought it was funny when the second time I fought Jeremy Horn afterwards, he said, man, I didn't know you had a straight right. I dropped him with a straight right on me. He was all prepared for me to throw all these looping punches.

So he was all prepared for it. So, hey, right down the middle was open. Yeah, he was ready for a big guy, a big guy. Yeah, but he's ready for all that. It opened up that. So if I'm throwing these, if you're blocking these, I'll shoot it straight down the middle. It works.

And that's kind of what I always did. I was always throwing. It's difficult to fight a guy that throws from a lot of angles. Yeah, I mean, they say, it's often said you can't stop crazy. You know, if someone's just wild and they don't run out of energy, it's like, what the hell do you do? That's when your form and technique and your conditioning and your training can kind of come in handy

when you do fight someone crazy, right? Exactly, yeah. So when did the uh ultimate fighting not just ufc but when did mma start to kind of mold because it sounds like you were sort of almost dabbling in it by going to some different places i know there's like there's pat miletic and a few others who are kind of recognized as ones to kind of start coaching it you know once the ufc came here uh all the provided championship in 93 and then everyone figured out hey what's that what's this jiu-jitsu stuff you gotta learn it

and i think and i think in the beginning at first at first it started out with just the guys it was this style versus that style this time you know everyone and there's people oh my style is the best but the guys that started becoming great were the guys that went, hey, I need to learn how to put all these things together. And that was one of the neat things about starting out in the sport back then was we were all learning how to train, how to learn this. It's amazing to watch that time. I've seen every UFC there is, and it was really cool to watch the evolution of the sport.

Yeah, I mean, and for me, I came in with, I actually came in with an advantage because most guys, okay, you had wrestling, you had jiu-jitsu, and you had striking, okay? And most guys came in with one. Most of the guys that were really good at that time would come in with one of those three that they're really good at

and had to learn the other two. Well, I came in with at and had to learn the other two well i came in with two and i had to learn one and so i came in with the wrestling i had wrestling back i wrestled in college i was a decent wrestler um i came in with striking and i just had to learn how to do jujitsu so um which became probably the most fun for me to train. I enjoy training in jiu-jitsu probably more than anything now. But it is, but putting all three together was, we were trying to learn how to train. Like, when we first started sparring, we'd spar, you know, I'd spar like I'm kickboxing. Right.

And then I'd wrestle like I'm wrestling. So, you have your stances in between. There's two different stances. So we had to learn that, okay, I've got to wrestle the way I strike. And when I'm striking, I've got to still stand like I can wrestle. So we actually made fun of it. We got around to it. We're like, okay, anybody can shoot a double.

Yeah. Anytime, anytime. You know, anybody can shoot. You can shoot when we're sparring. I remember you had a really wide stance. And so did Randy Couture. A very wide base. Very wide stance. Yeah can shoot more sparring. I remember you had a really wide stance. So did Randy Couture. A very wide base. Very wide stance.

Yeah. Well, two things. That's about, for me, that wide base is to block leg kicks and to stop shots. For me,

that's the way I could counter those things the best. you know, you can't really stand. If you stand, I always tell people, if you come in

and stand in boxing stance, traditional boxing stance, you can't really stand. If you stand, I always tell people, if you just come in and stand in boxing stands, traditional boxing stands, you're going to last about one round. Or at the end of one round, you're going to have a hard time standing up. You're going to get your legs kicked a lot, right? Yeah, because I'll kick the hell out of your leg, and you can't block it that way. You're not going to block it in time. I mean, look at that last, Euromero.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I couldn't believe that after he got dropped, he wobbled in the first round. Right. And then I was waiting for that kick to come the second round, and it never came all second round out i found out afterwards i guess he'd hurt his leg real bad yeah that's why i wasn't throwing it because i was i was going crazy like you dropped him with the leg i mean how are you not just

kicking that leg if i drop someone like that i turn into a tie fighter i put my hands up high and start kicking how because he was he was done is it uh hard for you to go to the fights in some way because you want to get in that ring? No, that makes it fun. I always want to get in. I don't know if you've ever seen me watch a fight. People think I'm nuts. Yeah, they put the camera on you.

I get into it. You're air fighting. I'm trying to help him. Especially if I know the guy's fighting. I mean, to help him. I need to, you know, it gets, especially if I know the guy's fighting. I mean, that always helps. You know, a lot of the guys I have friends with or, you know, or I either like or don't like, which can make a difference when I'm watching a fight.

Right. But even other than that, like, if I don't know the guys, it's kind of funny because you'll be seeing me cheering for the different guy at different times. Just because I want a good fight. I want to okay get out of that go go you more oh go that way okay no go that way you kind of rooting for both of them i'm just working rooting for action yeah we're rooting for guys trying to finish fights when the ufc first started to come around what was your first what was the first time you became aware of how did you become

aware i was i was a martial artist and we were all into it. We watched UFC 1. Someone said it was coming on. Oh yeah, let's go check it out. That's where that big sumo wrestler gets kicked in the face. Yeah. I remember one, I don't know if it was one or two, when Ken

Shamrock leg locked a guy. My buddy said, man, what is that? That's nothing. It looks like bullshit, kind of. I said, you know what? Come here. I can figure this out. Come over here.

Let me see that. OK, hold on. OK. Ow, ow, ow. And I barely even knew how to do it. Right. Just watching what they did. But actually, when you look back at it, though, it's like those guys back then barely knew

how to do leg locks. Yeah. You know what I mean? But no one knew how to counter it. I remember Tank Abbott. He used to say, it's not real fighting, you know,

but he would get caught in a hold all the time. But, but, but like, like if I look back at those guys and that the, the leg locks that they were using back then, that were working back then, they wouldn't work against anybody now.

Yeah. Cause people, people know how to counter them. They got better. Um, it's just, but guys like sports moved a lot. I remember when

I remember I was at pride when I was Randleman and Coleman were warming up the day before

the fight but they were just yeah but they but they just one of those guys that didn't ever really kind of learn

the other side of it they never learned the jiu-jitsu and great guys and I was packed there and i remember they didn't have a strategy for the fight they're asking me well how do you think i should fight this guy and he's fighting crow cop and i'm actually saying i told him i'm like i'm a random man uh okay just do me a favor when you're fighting all the way in or all the way out don't stand in that neutral zone where he can kick you you're not going to be happy at the end of the day so you rush all the way in or get all the way out. Don't stand in that neutral zone where he can kick you. You're not going to be happy at the end of the day.

So you rush all the way in or get all the way the hell away from him. One of the two. Just do that the rest of the fight. And he went in and he actually knocked him out. Yeah. He got clubbed him with that. It was just kind of, it was fun. I cornered him in that fight.

But Coleman, I think he was fighting Fedor, if I remember correctly, and he was asking me how to defend a leg lock. I said, okay, I have a heel hook. I'm okay, I'll show you. Okay, put me in the heel hook. And he looked at me like I just asked him to do applied mathematics. I mean, I was like, you've been in been in the sport how long how do you not know how

to do a heel hook i mean it's like you're a wrestler right you've been in the sport this long how have you not taken the time to learn a heel hook you know like if because for me i i i learned most of the jujitsu you know i had to do a crash course when we first started fighting. So I was learning, and that's, I learned how to defend everything. But to learn how to defend something, you have to learn how to do it. So I have to understand what you, because I need to understand

what you're trying to get from me. Right, yeah. So I need to understand where, what you need to get your move to work to understand how I should get out of it and what to watch for. Even the little bit that I've done, I'm like, oh, I got you in this hold? I don't even know why I got you in. If you're walking me through it, I'm like, oh, shit, okay, there's an arm bar.

Yeah. But the same thing, I used to get asked all the time how to stop a takedown. There's no simple answer. Like move out of the fucking way. No, but there's no simple answer. move out of the fucking way no well it's no there but there's no simple answer i mean it's how do you stop a single leg well there's it depends on what they're doing a good i'm a good college wrestler is going is going to flow between the transition between different moves and go you know they'll start here if you counter that way they'll go this way then you counter that way they'll go this way. Then you counter that way, they'll go that way.

So you have to learn what they're trying to get. What do they need? What do I got to, what do they want? Because if you just stop them from getting what they want, then kind of is a good way to figure out how to counter something. Yeah, you neutralize them. Yeah. So, but it was baffling to me back then,

like the guy, and those were like kind of the example, like the guys that, they did great because they're sheer beasts and they fought hard. They're tough guys. That documentary was amazing. Smashing Machine. Yeah, yeah. That's like one of my favorites. And they're just tough, mean.

Yeah. And, you know, all heart, all balls. Who's the meanest guy you've been around? All heart, all balls. Is there anybody you've been around that's just flat out just, they're just kind of always mean, like even when they're training, like just. You know, I haven't dealt with too many guys like that, but I know quite a few guys that are just like on and off.

Right. Actually, Glover was talking about Hector Lombard. He has a reputation for being sparring real hard. Yeah. But he actually said, That's not really being mean necessarily. He just said, he just said,

you know, just you know when you're going to go spar with him, just you know you're going in for a fight. Right. He said, I actually, he said, I actually hate the guys that come in

and say they want to go light and then they hit you hard and then, oh, and then you start hitting them hard back. Oh, wait, I thought we were going light.

Well, he wanted us to go light, go light. Yeah, which one was it? Which one was it? He actually, at least with Hector, he said, you know what you're getting into. He was going to be ready for a fight. You think some guys have a tendency to get a little too technical sometimes

and just flat out forget that they're in a fight? If you want to ask scenarios, people have done everything. I mean, I think sometimes you overthink things. Sometimes you don't, you know, I think when I got, Jeremy Orton got me with that arm triangle, one, I didn't know what it was back then.

I'd just learned in jiu-jitsu. But two, if there wasn't 10 seconds left, I would have got out. Because when he first started cinching it up, I looked up and there was only 10 seconds left. I said, the only reason I struggled out is I was waiting for seconds left. I said, no reason to struggle. I'll just wait for the bell. They always did overtime. You always did an overtime, so I might as well

just breathe. I'll just leave it right here. I still think I didn't go out before the bell, but that's another story. Because John goes, oh, you went out before the bell. Well, then why didn't you stop it before the bell? You didn't move until after the bell hit. You didn't move to stop until after the bell.

If you saw me out, not that it the bell. So if I went out, if you saw me out, not that it matters, I mean, I still technically, I don't think I would've been able to do that overtime, but it's still.

What has some losses like that done for you? Because that was pretty, that was early on in UFC. Oh yeah, just, hey man, it just was a learning curve.

I knew, I knew I'd do well, but I got caught in something. It was just something I, like I said, I was still on my crash course learning jujitsu. And you find a guy that's got really slick submission. Yeah, he was amazing. Yeah, slick submissions.

And I got caught. But that was one of the things I learned from that. I learned don't get too comfortable anywhere. If you don't know it, if you don't know what they got, get out. Yeah, scramble. Keep moving, scramble, and get out. and i've said that about getting off the bottom one of my biggest thing biggest pet peeves for guys to get taken down is that that moment where they get taken down they go okay now you let them get sat on top of you. I mean, the time to get up is right when he takes you down. Yeah.

Go. Now you don't stop until you get in a better position. That's what I'm always most impressed with is how quick they do that, how quick they get up off the mat. Well, that's the time. Because once a guy gets settled on you and tight and a good judiciar, a good guy, good control guy on top, it's a lot of work to get them off you. It's a lot of work.

I mean, you need space, and you have to create space. Now you've got to wait for them to kind of give you a chance to move and get some space. Or you have to spend a lot of energy to create that space. Right. When UFC came around, were you just kind of like licking your chops? You're like, oh, this is amazing.

Or were you already in pride at the time? No. UFC, when UFC was going, when it first started, we were like, man, this would be good for me. All my friends, oh, you should do that. Did you already know Dana White at the time? No, no, no, no. Okay.

He wasn't involved in it, UFC? I mean, maybe later than that, too. I don't know when he got in because he was managing me. I think he started managing me in 99 or 2000. Guy, Wayne Harriman, a mutual friend in Vegas. Actually, Tito was being managed by Dana at the time, and Wayne told Dana, man, you got this guy. You should watch Chuck fight, man. You got to get Chuck.

You managed Chuck. So Dana started managing me. That was before they – that's how I think they got the idea to start to buy the Open Fighting Championship. Yeah, he started managing a few guys like you, and then he started getting a little bit more into it, right? And then they started doing it. I think they kind of saw the things they were doing wrong

and thought they could make a big sport out of it. Right. The first UFC fight that you were involved in, is that the one that was supposed to happen in Wisconsin and supposed to happen in like Wisconsin and then it got canceled no that wasn't that one mine was uh UFC 17 my lat was uh was the first one was the first one who'd you fight uh Noe Hernandez what was that experience like oh it was interesting because so I'll back up because you were asking about how I got into UFC so um we talked about for a long time about, oh, man, I should be in this. And you heard all the stories from people about, oh, my buddy went to the tryouts,

but he's hurting people too bad, so he didn't get in. And I go, oh, really? He's too tough for fighting. Everyone would always talk about these tryouts. And there was no tryouts back then. It was all BS. But, and I actually,

my buddy Lorenzo Neal was always on me. So. The football player? Yeah, football player. He's a buddy of mine. Oh my God. He played wrestling.

I love Lorenzo Neal. And he, he'd be like, man, you should fight in the UFC. I'll sponsor you. You gotta, you gotta,

how do we, how do we get you in there? Cause you, man, you'd be crazy. It'd be great. And he's, he's always trying to get you in there? Because, man, you'd be crazy. You'd be great. So he was trying to get me in there, and he actually wound up, you know, it's funny, he came out and helped me spar one time.

I'll tell that story later. Lorenzo Neal, Hall of Fame football player. Well, if he's not in the Hall of Fame, he needs to be. Yeah, for sure. He's amazing. He's one of the best fullbacks of all time. Absolutely. But, you know, so we've been talking about trying to get in,

trying to do that forever. And then when I finally – so I finally got a shot. Like I was asked, well, should I get back to – I'll go – I'll start – I don't know, you say a lot of these people don't know my history. So why don't we go all the way back and I'll walk you through from how I got into kickboxing into – Stay on the mic there a little bit. Oh, sorry.

I'll walk back all the way back to how I got into kickboxing, go through how I got into MMA, and that will lead right into where that story – my first experience in the UFC. So Alfie Alcarez, a friend of mine, wrestled in college with me. And while he was wrestling in college, he wanted to learn how to kick. He had boxed a little bit when he was younger. He wanted to learn how to kick,

so I was showing him kicks all the time at wrestling practice. We were working out all the time. And then when he left and went home to Vegas, he was looking for a karate school. He wanted to keep doing karate and learning it. And he ended up meeting up with Nick Blomgren, one kick, and started coaching him.

And he started fighting. So he was fighting kickboxing. He was a kickboxing champion, lightweight. I think 125s, I think. He actually fought in the UFC. He lost a split decision to Jens Pulver, but a tough kid. So anyway, so I'm going out to watch him fight in Vegas. And Nick goes, Nick comes up to me.

I'm at the weigh-ins. And Nick comes up to me and goes, Alfie says you're pretty tough. You want to fight? I said, sure, why not? Okay, so he goes to give me weight. So I'm getting weighed in and I'm weighing in for a fight.

His heavyweight, the heavyweight main event had fallen out. So he needed a replacement. So I got on there and the guy, the guy was, he was having a fight,

was 15 and 0 or 15 and 1 and the commissioner asked me, the guy asked me, so what's your record? I'm like, I've never fought before. And he just kind of goes, looked at Nick and goes,

uh, no. He's not fighting, you're not doing that. And so he says, hey, they're not going to let it happen. So, you know what, but why don't you go home and train

and then come back and my next fight, I'll put you on there if you want to do it. I said, sure, sounds good. So weird, weird coincidence. I just met, so the week before, my old karate school had called me and asked me to come in because they had some outside black belt coming in to spar, and they needed someone, and I wasn't training there anymore,

but they wanted someone to spar with them, and they didn't have anybody to spar with them. They were confident it would be tough or beat them. So I show up, and we're sparring. We're doing, like, wall sparring and some other point sparring. And, you know, it's all gone. He gives me his card, and he leaves. I say, hey, man, thanks for everything, And he gives me his card, and he leaves.

And they're all in the office. Oh, man, you kicked his ass and this and that. I'm going, I don't know what fight you guys are watching, but I didn't get that same feeling. But all right. So I go out to Vegas and do the thing with the weigh-ins, and I come back. I'm on my way back.

I'm like, man, his cards say kickboxing world champion. I'm like, you know, maybe I'll go see if he wants to train. So I called him. He said, so I come up to John's house. John Hackleman is the guy. He calls me up. I come to his house to go sparring and go train.

And we go up, and he's got, Jesus Sanchez is there. It's a karate instructor down there, and he's got, Jesus Sanchez is there. It's a karate instructor down there. And he's there watching. And me and John, John always put these boxing gloves on. We just sparred. We wanted to spar. So I've never boxed, straight boxed in my life at this point. I'd always done karate.

I'd always been able to kick and punch. Now, so we go in there to spar. Now, so we go in there to spar, and John hands me, John was a pro boxer, pro kickboxer, had over 200 amateur boxing matches in the Army and wherever else. He handed me a beating for 19 straight minutes. Unofficially, he just said,

it was the guy that cut it. He said, hey man, come on guys, can we just stop? I think he stopped. I think he was tired of seeing me get hit. But,

you know, I was tough and I kept coming and I didn't go down, which is a lot considering John. I've watched him spar a lot of guys since then.

Almost every single one of them has hit the floor. I mean, he's got one great. And you were with him like your whole career. Yeah, well, then we went. Right that day, I drove up on a motorcycle and it started raining while we were up there. I was sparring. I came down.

I'm like, okay, this is going to suck, but all right. I'm going to go home. So I was going to go to get on my motorcycle. I was like, hey, man, you coming back tomorrow? Yeah, I'll come back tomorrow. All right, here. Throws me his keys to his truck, brand new, barrel-lifted truck. And I'm like, no, man, it's cool.

He's like, no, no, push your bike in the garage, and I'll just take my truck. You're coming back tomorrow, right? Yeah, I'll be here. And then the wind-up, up I think was there for, I think it was probably about before he opened the gym and we started having gym and going to other places. I think it was his house six or seven days a week

for about seven years or so. Like every successful person has a story like that where somebody, for some reason, at a certain point in their life was looking out for them. them like you were just you're just working hard you just had your head down and for some reason he just came along and just was able to give you a little boost yeah and then that came in there and we went in and you know he had he'd always have rice and beans chili and rice up there come in early sit down eat, eat food, and watch Dream On. Was it Dream On?

Was that the show on HBO? Yeah. He's always on there. We'd be sitting there. We were supposed to be training. The guy would have all the flashbacks of other TV shows. Yeah, yeah. But we'd have to do it.

We'd be sitting there, and it'd be like, we'll train in a minute. Hold on. We'll just watch the rest of the show. Then I'd get started. Okay. All right, John. We got to go. Let's go work out.

That's hilarious. It was great. It was great times, man. We had a good time out there. So from that point. So then from there, I was doing kickboxing for a while. And then fast forward to Nick's decides to do a few mixed fights on his next kickboxing card.

So he comes to me again. He's kind of funny. He goes, Chuck,fie says you used to wrestle so yeah yeah do you want to do a mixed fight so i'm like sure why not let's do it um so i'm fighting a jujitsu guy so i i started training with uh scott adams was doing some some submission stuff so we were working trying to it. Both of us just trying to learn how to do it from places. We went down to Beverly Hills Jiu-Jitsu and took two classes.

One from Marco Huas and one from a layman, Mark Lehman. And then it was my first two submission classes. And then we went, me and him trained together and I went and fought this guy. Now this guy didn't do much. I went up. It was by the time we got there, by the way,

it started out with the open hand strikes, like a pancreas kind of like open hand strikes. By the time we got there, it was like open hand slaps. Like with this part of the, this part of the hand, you couldn't even use your palm with a slap. But like,

okay, I guess we're like, we're already there. I're like, okay, I guess. But we're like, we're already there. I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever. And then you couldn't strike on the ground. Once they hit the ground, you couldn't strike anymore

because they're going to have to open air strikes and they probably couldn't do that now. It's just a submission game. So, I mean, I really don't know what the guy's skill level was that I fought,

but I mean, he might have been a good jiu-jitsu guy on the ground, but he never got to find out because he's one of those guys trying to come back like this and shoot you're not going to get it he but for me he didn't make it enough of an attempt to shoot at all but i wound up kicking him in the face you know did one of those face plant knockouts and a guy comes up to me um on the side of the ring and goes uh hey man you want to fight in the ufc yeah i do sure so you know about a month later you know i that was gonna go fight in ufc 17 now it was an alternate to the tournament that a four-man tournament um which i think dan henderson

ended up winning tried to talk him out of, but I'll explain that in a minute. But anyway, so we go, but I'm an alternate to the tournament. I'm fighting Noe Hernandez. So I get there. I'm all excited. We get there, and they used to fly you in the day of weigh-ins. So you're flying on your day you're cutting weight. So I'm cutting weight on the airplane, um on the airplane right which really you'd really love

sitting next to me because i i started the cut on my layover because i had a short layover so i put plastics on started to cut and so i'm still sitting my plastic sweating in the plane you're sweating your ass off you got to get up and pee every five seconds yeah Someone, I don't know who you are, but whoever was sitting next to me, I'm sorry. You tripped all of them. It was a necessity. I had to do it. Sorry. But so then we get there, and I get in.

You know, I'm thinking I hit the big time. It's a big show. I was getting $1,000 per show. But if I got into the tournament, they said, I think the number they gave me was five out of the last seven alternates were used. So if I got in the show, it was 10 grand for a second. If I got in, I'd get at least another 10 grand.

If not, if I won, then I'd get 20. Which for me at that point would have been a lot of money. Holy shit. Yeah. And so I get in there, and we're going in the wayans and the guy and they i couldn't it is the bathroom scale they're using i was like i'm from wrestling it's a bathroom scale you know ones with a little not like a digital bathroom scale yeah i guess a bathroom scale with a little little bumpy thing and i'm like

i go get on and get make weight and they go, no way it was two pounds over. Is that okay? And I just looked at them like, on that scale? Yeah, I'm a wrestler, bro. I can get them back on. I'll show them how to be on weight. And lean to the side a little bit. I've had a few of those.

Yeah, yeah. Plenty of them. I'm like, okay. But funny because I made that comment, right? So I didn't know that I was known as a kickboxer. John Peretti was the matchmaker back then. And he actually came in the back before the fight and said, hey, man, if you want to come back, you better keep this fight on your feet.

I'm like, because he found out I was a wrestler and I was fighting a boxer. They wanted a striking fight. Another thing, too, the kid, the only research I had on the kid was he had a good overhand right. I was so mad at myself. He hit me with it the first 10 seconds of the fight. I was like, motherfucker. I'm'm sorry but uh that's fine but but um i was like did i really i knew that was coming i i was but but you know it probably helped me a little bit too because probably i heard his comment he had

two 10 second knockouts before and so but it you know, it didn't phase me at all, but it just blew up my eye a little bit. Not even a little bit, I had a huge knot. But yeah, but then I went on, you know, I won that fight and I went and went back and Dan was back there and he got hit real hard with leg kicks

in the first round of the fight, first round of the tournament. And so I'm sitting there and he asked me, hey man, you kickboxed. Is this okay? What should I do? I was like, you know, I really think you should probably pull out. It's probably safer if you just.

It does not look good. It does not look good. Yeah, no, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do that, Dan. I mean, it's just not safe. I mean, you could really get hurt. Not a smart move. Come back another day move come back another day

come back another day but it didn't work so he went back and he won he won he's tough man he was unbelievable yeah

he uh you know he's just tough man he was such a good wrestler that's no fun to start a fight like that with a hurt leg like that that's no fun

yeah yeah it looks it looks brutal. So what was your evolution to end up in pride fighting and fighting in Japan? Actually, what happened was, for me being in pride, I was at UFC, and I had my contract was coming up with UFC. So I was kind of, after that fight with Randleman, I was going to negotiate my next contract. Well, what happened was I knocked him out in a minute 18.

And Pride needed somebody right then. Randleman was a son of a bitch, man. He could come flying out of the gate right away. So it's amazing you were able to catch him so quick. Yeah. And, yeah, I caught him. It was one of those things. I worked on some stuff and I knew

a little bit about his wrestling his jiu jitsu game and I really wasn't that worried because I thought a lot of the stuff that I do would throw him off and I'd be able to get out if he did take me down but that was the one thing that allowed for me being a heavy hitter

having heavy hands and you get someone worried about getting punched, they take that shot from a little bit further back. You know, if me and him wrestled, we wrestled the same time in college. I mean, he was national champ and I was about 50-50. I win some, lose some. So it was one of those things,

like if we wrestled a wrestling match, he'd beat me. He'd take me down no problem but when you give me that extra space and a cage and different things to use

against him right you know it was it was easy to what was the biggest difference going from UFC to Pride

you know like the I know the ring is different some of the rules are a little different the ring's different the rules didn't bother me much but different rules didn't bother me much, but different rules didn't bother me much.

And I was comfortable with the ring, too, because I had kickboxed for five years. I fought in a ring a bunch of times. Was the pay similar? I actually don't. For me, it was kind of like I was in a... Well, I doubled the most I've been paid the first time I went to Pride but they doubled what I made to fight Randleman gotcha

but then my during that time it was an interesting negotiation because it was a three way negotiation between the UFC my lawyer and Pride because we were doing a deal with them but the UFC was allowing me to fight there but they were bringing me I was coming

back winning the draw so but then I had a two-tier contract my contract depending on if I won over there if I won over there I had this road right like if I lost over there I had my fight deal was over here so uh it was very important for me to win that but you know that that was the start of like i mean i i went over there and i i um i knocked out i got two great knockouts in three weeks and made more money in one month than i made in my whole career wow so i mean it was pretty what was some of that like i, for you personally? Was there just like absolutely no decision? You're like, I'm just going to Japan. And did you just put anything else you had in your life on hold

to continue to be a pro fighter? Well, you know, when I was kickboxing, in between kickboxing and MMA, is when we were really deciding there was a chance for me. That was where I almost made the choice to go get a real job. I had a degree in accounting. I was getting a lot of pressure from my grandma to get a real job. As she would put it, go get a real job. Can you get a real job now?

Stop playing around and get a real job. I think we had Josh Everett I think on the podcast I can't remember if it was him or if it was somebody else but I think you were

like someone's tutor at San Luis Obispo one of the people that we had on the show that's funny yeah I was like

what the hell yeah an interesting tutor yeah well I mean there's certain things I'd help with you know

I could help guys with, but anyway. But that was a lot of fun back then. But yeah, I was, you know, I was in that transition where I was like, you know, I got to either get a real job, you know, and then my decision became, you know, like, you know, I decided I did that. I did that mixed fight with. Right. With. That was a huge turning point.

With one kick. And then we're talking about maybe getting UFC. And then, you know, I decided, you know what? I'm going to open a gym. You know, me and Scott Adams opened a gym. And I maybe. So I'd have, you know, I was bartending, working. So I first started fighting.

I was teaching every class, every kickboxing class in our school. Right. I was training full time, and I was working four nights a week at the bar. Wow. Do you ever stop and think, shit, this is a lot? And that was kind of you were maybe thinking of getting a more real job? No, that was after I decided to go for fighting.

And I was done. I was going to open the school and go for fighting. But the thing is, my dream when I was a kid, like I'd sit there and no matter what I was doing, I used to doodle like gym, like make the gym I was going to make at some point and be teaching karate. I always wanted to be a martial arts instructor. So, you know, but it was always not, it was that, that's not a real job. You gotta get a real job.

That's for me. Did you always want to be a fighter as a kid? Or you just didn't maybe even realize that that was a thing? I didn't think it was a thing. I thought, I thought, like I said earlier, like I thought, man, it would be great if that was a way to make a living,

but it's not one to make one. So it's a. It'd be super cool if one day you could have a license plate that says UFC champion on it. Right. That would be awesome. I saw that out front. I thought that was pretty awesome.

Yeah, that's what I do. I mean, I would never get it for myself. Of course. But a buddy of mine got it for me. Right. And it's like, oh, I kind of like having it now. It's unbelievable. It's an unbelievable accomplishment.

Right. It's awesome to have but it's kind of like it's one of the reasons I really liked when they gave

after the first Ultimate Fighter they gave us the H2s yeah which is funny because I was thinking I was going to buy a new car

and so but Dana didn't want to give away that he was giving it to us but he was talking to my friends going hey man don't don't let him hey man, don't,

don't let him buy a car. Don't let him buy a car. Because we were getting one, but he didn't want to give up the secret that we're getting one in a couple months. What's the biggest difference the way the guys come up now? You know, like you were kickboxing

and you're bartending and you're doing all this stuff. Well, there's still a lot of guys doing that. The sport hasn't gotten there yet where you don't have to. There's still a lot of guys doing that. This sport hasn't gotten there yet where you don't have to. There's still a lot of guys got full-time jobs and going out there and fighting and training and doing that stuff. That's a sacrifice a lot of guys got.

If you want to take a shot, most guys have to make that sacrifice. But the difference now is that you come in and it's like I was explaining earlier. We were trying to figure out how to train, how to do stuff. Now you go, I mean, if you want, you can go to one gym that's got, it's got coaches for everything. You know, it's got, you know, guys that, and they know, they know how to train mixed martial arts. They know how to train boxing for mixed martial arts, kick striking, kickboxing for, for mixed martial arts, which is different. It's,

I get into it a lot of times because a lot of these boxing guys, oh, their technique's not this, it's not that. It's different. You can't do everything the same way you do in boxing in MMA. I mean, a boxer goes straight, and he's talking about boxers going to fight in mixed martial arts. It's impossible. Now, don't get me wrong.

If you've got some background that I don't know about, that you got great wrestling, or you take the time to learn the wrestling and the jiu-jitsu, and you got that much better hands than everybody, great. That can happen. But you're not going to go from boxing and just go, you know what, I want to fight a mixed martial arts guy. Yeah.

You got one, I mean, if know what? I want to fight a mixed martial arts guy. Yeah. You got one. I mean, if it's. Who did Randy fight? I can't remember. He fought a legendary boxer. He took him down in one second. It was over. Yeah.

I mean, it makes no sense to stand there and strike with him. I mean, just close the distance. Get a hold of him and it's over. Yeah. People have been talking about Mayweather coming in. If you don't know what you're doing on the ground, it'll be ugly. There's not much you can do. Yeah, you don't have the knowledge.

You don't have the knowledge to stop it. You just don't know what to do. I mean, you'll get taken down and then you're going to be like a turtle. Down there, I can do, I can start to hit you as much as I want or as little as I want. Yeah, we've, you know, in my gym, super training gym is in West Sacramento, California. And we got some big guys there.

And years ago, we had guys that were even bigger. We had a bunch of guys that were up over 300 pounds. And Team Alpha Male is in town. You know, I had one guy who was always a tough guy. He was always super hothead. I was like, you know what? You think you're tough? That's where you should go.

That's, you know, that's where they fight, you know? And he's like, oh, I would stomp on those guys because he thinks they're smaller. I'm like, dude, you don't know. These guys practice fighting all the time. It wouldn't be any different if they tried to load up the bar with 800 pounds. I'm trying to think of the guy's name. I'm trying to think of the guy's name right now. But they had, I remember they did it in a ballroom one time, one of the UFC things.

He came in. He was a, he was a defense. I don't remember his name. I can't remember either guy's name. So I don't know how good a story this is going to be. But it was a, it was a defensive tackle from Tampa Bay. He came in to wrestle and he was going to do one, one five minute round of jujitsu with the guy he fought.

I can't think of his name right now. He fought, he fought out of, he fought out of C Caesar Gracie's. The guy fought Matt Hughes at one point. But anyway, he was a 170-pounder. Yeah. And he's going to do jiu-jitsu with this guy. He's got 30 pounds. He tapped him like five times in a couple minutes.

And the guy was like, okay, I'm done. I'm done. It's over. Yeah, and if that was a real fight, I mean, you just, you know, break your arm, break your leg, break your ankle or whatever else. But, you know, and I've worked with a lot of football players actually since the time I work at Unbreakable, and I do stuff with the NFL guys doing off-season.

We do, and don't get me wrong, these guys got great learning curve. They're great athletes. They're great. They're fun to teach because they pick it up. They're like sponges. They learn. But right away, the first time I'm working with Clay Matthews

and I got him pushed up against the wall. We're just doing a pummeling drill, but I've got him pushed up against the wall and he can't get off and you can see in his eyes like how is this little guy pushing me around you know but it's just technique you know and he's been doing a long time now and he's it's it's fun like i was working with mercedes lewis and one day and he caught me with a foot sweep that I taught him. And I'm like, you can see me. But it's like, everyone was like, oh, we're like, I was mad. I'm like, why am I mad?

I taught it to him. I mean, he did an awesome job at it. But they have that good learning curve. We had these big athletes. Mercedes is a big boy, man. Tall, long, strong, and tough. And he's been training a long time. When did this first start get on your radar to maybe be UFC champion?

Like, well, you won a couple fights, and then are you thinking about it? I think that's just part of who I was. I thought, hey, I can beat any of these guys. And I want to prove to the world that I'm the best in the world at this sport. You think at that time you were a little ignorant or you were just confident in your skill? I was just confident. I mean, I thought I could beat anybody. I thought you'd give me a chance.

I had a shot at beating anybody. And I did. I mean, I thought I could beat anybody at my weight for sure and I thought I could beat, I thought I shot anybody at heavyweight too. What was that like when you first won that belt? Did it put more pressure on you?

I never had, I don't think I could have put any more pressure on me to succeed than I already had. I mean, having the belt, the belt didn't matter. Every time I fought anybody

for anything, I was that bad. I mean, I needed, I was, I'm ultra competitive. I mean, I needed – I'm ultra-competitive. I have a hard time losing at anything. But, you know, as I've gotten older, I've gotten to accept that there's certain things I'm not really good at. Right. That I don't practice enough to be really good at, and you're not going to be able to be competitive.

But anything that I work at and I work on i don't like to lose or anything that i you know that i should be competitive at losing is not an option yeah what would you like to see the ufc uh do with some of the fighters you know you've been a retired fighter at least for now i think um you've been semi most part maybe i've been retired for about eight years so yeah you know but you know someone might tease me back out he keeps who are you talking about this guy we know um uh if you don't man like i said what what sparked that you know I think it all started with that we did a charity event and

they asked us if we'd square off because we were both happened to be at the square and I said and I'm cool okay yeah whatever you know that's cool

and I said hey man let me get one on my camera and I'm gonna post it and just goof around and you know just you know for the media

like and so we I put one of us squaring off and I'm just all I it and just goof around. And, you know, just, you know, for the media. And so I put one of us squaring off. And I just, all I put on it was, why not? And, you know, it was a big thing. But then he went up and started making some comments about me needing money. And he'd loan it to me if I wanted to. And I went back and I, you know, went back and replied to his comment and basically saying, you know, telling people, hey, I see he's,

because all you guys have told me he's changed. It was kind of more towards his friends that told me he's changed, he's not the same guy anymore. And I kind of went after, I just went back after him. And at the end I said, I threw in, and by the way, I'm in Huntington right now,

where the hell's my money and so uh and i just it was it was funny it made me laugh but uh he actually came he actually came back in a ball he actually apologized and it seemed like he meant it enough that he said like i got a little hot-headed about it but you can tell so people started going back and forth and talking about me fighting him and And then he said in another, I saw an interview where he said he'd beat me now, but he's retired and he's not fighting anymore. Right. And I was seeing that.

And, you know, so then when people asked me about fighting, I said, you know, are you fighting again? And I was kind of like, yeah, you know, if Tito, you know, Tito won't fight me. So that's the one that makes the most sense. And I'd love to fight him if he would, but he'll never do it. So I don't know who I'd fight if I came back. People ask the would-if question.

Who would you want to fight if you came back? And so just because of all that little stuff that happened, I'd always throw his name out there saying, if he'd come back, I'd fight because I would. I mean, I got his number. He's had no shot of beating me. It'll be ugly. But now maybe I think maybe he needs the money.

I don't know. He says he's doing a favor for me if I need it, if I need the money to do it. But I'm guessing the only reason he would fight me is because he needs the money. He's always liked to talk trash about you, right? Yeah. another reason he would fight me is because he needs the money he's always like to talk trash about you right yeah well he's he's he's had a history of talking trash about for no apparent

reason like we're i think he was fighting v toward belfort back in the day and he was in san diego doing an interview or doing an interview i don't know it was a phone interview or whatever but he did that interview and he said i don't date if it was a phone interview or whatever, but he did that interview, and he said, I don't date white trash bitches like Chuck. On a radio interview, and my friends Lorenzo and Kasim both played for the Chargers, and they lived down there. And they're like, hey, tell me what you said. And I'm like, okay. And I was going to that fight and wasn't happy,

and his manager came over and said something. And I'm like, I'm going something until i got to watch his mouth and um and so we went on and and then i went they went to uh went to after party and my john huntington a friend of mine was throwing it and so we were both both tito's camp and people with me were there different spots and i guess everyone knew there was tension. So Huntington came over and was worried that my guys were going to fight with his guys. Oh, I got you. So he said, man, you need to squash this with Tito.

And I'm like, okay. And somehow the conversation was brokered by Vin Diesel, of all people. But he came over and was like, in part, somehow he was brokered by Vin Diesel, of all people. But he came over and was like, in part, somehow he was brokering the conversation. But I don't know what happened with that. I don't know how that happened. He's a cool guy.

I like him, so all good. Sounds cool. And then, so I got in Diesel's face and I said, first off, this is my girlfriend. I apologize. Secondly, you ever talk about my family or friends on a radio interview again? I'll come to your house and beat you in your fucking liver.

He's like, I'm so sorry. I wasn't talking about her. I was talking about Julia Lewis. First off, because I was in Star Magazine at a stadium because I think I saw her on a show in New York. And then she came to a fight. because they, I think I saw it on a show in New York. And so when she, you know, and then she came to a fight and she's like,

Oh, I'm with Chuck, you know, but like, she's rooting for me. Well, that's cause she met me. She probably didn't know who to say. They were asking her and okay,

I know him. I met him. So I'll go for him. But anyway, she, and I knew her. She's nice. She's sweet.

But I'm like, by the way, Tito, um, she's not a white trash girl. She plays them on TV. She plays them in movies. She's an actress.

But so I got into it. It's funny because he knows me. And to me, he's not a fighter. He's not a fighter fighter. There's different. There's a lot of. And I was surprised not a fighter, fighter. You know, there's different, you know, there's a lot of, and I was surprised, actually, to find out over the years, there's a lot of really talented fighters that haven't,

that aren't really street fighters. They're not, they haven't been in one or, a couple guys have been in one or two street fights their whole life. They've just learned the skill and the art of MMA. They've learned their skill, and they got heart. They're good fighters. There's nothing wrong with them. I'm sure they just never ran into that problem or never grew up that way. I'm sure you weren't at the bar.

You've probably been in a couple. Oh, I've been in quite a few. How many fights do you think you've been in? I couldn't tell you. Growing up, we fought all the time. I mean, it was a different time. My oldest brother, he was real reckless. He's passed on.

He had drug addiction problems and stuff like that but he you know probably growing up i would say uh he must have been in at least 50 or 60 fights i mean he just fought all that he would fight with people all the time littlest thing i i i laughed we i so it's a story it's actually in my book if you want to read it but i won't get into the whole story what's the name of the book? Iceman, My Fighting Life. There we go. But if you, but my, there's a fight in there, and these guys were really talking shit to me and my friends. Why?

I don't understand. Well, they had these guys. This was before. I was 19. I mean, you were intimidated. I was 19. No, I wasn't there. 19. Oh, okay. We were pulling up was before. I was 19. I mean, you look intimidated. I was 19. No, I wasn't there. 19.

Oh, okay. We were pulling up the street. Oh, we were pulling up the street. Oh, I guess I'll tell a story. So we're pulling up the street, and my roommate's brother, who has one hand, but he's a tall, skinny guy. I mean, he's a tall, skinny guy. Played soccer at Poly, but he's there, and these five guys around him,

and a bunch of other guys, too, that weren't with those guys, I guess. We weren't sure, but whatever. There's a bunch of big group of people, and they got him, and they're yelling at him. They kind of got him cornered. So we jump out, me, Eric, and one of my other buddies. So there's three of us got out. We all wrestled at Poly. We had to wrestle the next day. me, Eric, and one of my other buddies, those three of us got out.

We all wrestled at Poly. We had a wrestle the next day. I was about 185 at the time. And I come up, and these guys start screaming at me. Talking to me, oh, you think you're done? My friend Eric keeps telling me, Chuck, don't fight. You got stitches. I had stitches under my eye.

If they break open, we won't be able to wrestle tomorrow. Don't fight, don't fight. These guys, oh I had stitches under my eye. If they break up, we won't be able to wrestle tomorrow. Don't fight. Don't fight. These guys, oh, go home and nurse your stitches. What, what do you think you bet? Like,

but their big thing was, one of them said, I'm 18 and 0 in the street. One of them was telling me, I'm 23 and 0 in the street, and I'm thinking to myself, like, was that last month?

Or, I mean, you're trying to impress me, right? Which, I've, I mean, I did more than that. Like the Diaz brothers, huh?

I fought more than that in the summer. Growing up, because I was back still, I was 18, 19, 17, 16. We used to fight in Isla Vista all the time. So your high school kids and the college kids think they're, what college would try to pick on us, or what they think they could beat us up. Bad choice. But it was a lot of fun.

And so it ended up, the whole thing ended up, I wound up, the guy, I wound up having, they wouldn't give me a, they didn't give me a choice really. My buddy had talked me into sucking it up. I was, so I was a fewuming because they just wouldn't shut up. I'm like, oh, please let me hit these guys. And, but I'm like, all right, all right, let's go. Greg, let's go.

Let's go, let's get out of here. You know, they've been insulting me all the time. And they go, oh no, he's got to stay. Thank you. You know, I'm like, oh, thank you. We're not going anywhere without him. So so what and he stepped in my face well what do you what are you gonna i'm like dude i backed up i said don't step to me again he stepped in again i dropped him with elbow out cold his big buddy the 23 and 0 guy was probably about i'm 245 23 and 0 in the Ripped his shirt off. Started flexing and running at me.

I'm like, dude, did you really just rip your shirt off and start flexing? I hit him with a front kick, dropped him, went for an axe kick. Just missed his face. He's like, just go, man. Just get out of here. Okay. See you guys later. Bye.

So we left. Funny part of that story was, so I wrote my book. I'm doing a signing in San Luis Obispo guy comes up he's like hey man could you sign this

on this page and it was there's stories in there and he goes that was me man I'm sorry man I was a real asshole back then

I said he waited three hours in line with him with his girlfriend signed a book on that page I mean it's great man youed a book on that page. I mean, it's great, man.

You know, at least. Yeah. You know how long that guy's told that story for and no one's ever believed him. And then you printed it. And he's like, see, I told you motherfuckers. Chuck Liddell kicked my ass. That was actually pretty cool. He actually came up and apologized.

I mean, I did everything I could to walk away. I mean, I was like, dude, come on. I'm like, are you really going to do this that much? Let us go, man. You ever end up on a losing end of one of those, one of those street fights? No. I mean, the worst I ever had. They get scrappy. You can get just hit.

The worst I ever had, I came out because a couple of my buddies were going to be beat up by about 20 guys. Came out and started hitting people. And then there was a big guy coming. He took a swing at me. I ducked him and put him in the room naked and just jumped on his back. And then a guy came and kicked me right in the face. Yeah, it's tough because there's so many people going at you.

That's the thing. I never used to do that, but I just started getting into doing submission stuff. It was still way back when I was still wrestling in college, but I just started doing

some chokes. I was trying this choke. I went back to street fighting after that. I won't wrestle anybody.

I always just strike because I like being off. I might throw someone around and move them around to get a kick in or whatever. Cleaner, yeah. But the cops just happened to come right then, so I got kicked in the face.

I got up and took off. I got black eyes. That's probably the worst I've ever had in a street fight. What was it like walking away from UFC at the end after all the fights, all the ups and downs? I think one thing that people really love about you is you have avenged or at least come back and fought anyone who's ever beat you. You at least tried. And in most cases, I think maybe except for Rampage, possibly, right? I think you avenged all your losses.

And I think that's what people really have admired about you so how hard was it to ever step away from it well i mean that that part wasn't i mean obviously i always wanted to get some of those back especially the later ones um but you know it is something i've talked about a lot recently because we've talked i've talked to other athletes and and it's a common problem. And I was actually talking to a company that was working on doing stuff with just retired people, retired from jobs. Same kind of thing is transitioning into their next phase in their life and doing this. The hardest thing to understand for people to understand is I've had something coming up my whole life, the next week, the next month. Um, I was always, I had, and I always,

I mean, since I can remember, I was trying to be champion at something, you know, like, you know, wrestling. And then, you know, then I want it then when that was done, I was kickboxing. I wanted to be in the world. I wanted to be the world champ. I wanted to be the best kickboxer in the world. That was always up here. That was the main goal. Everything was a subsidiary to that. That was my main goal.

And then I started fighting UFC. I wanted to be a UFC champ. I wanted to be the best in the world. Everything else, and it's a drive. It's a focus it's a focus for you that that you when all of a sudden for the first time in your life you wake up and there's nothing that makes you have to do anything yeah you know there's not there's no you you I mean you still have all the it's a crazy thing it ruins a lot of people's lives because you go from having all these fans cheering for you going crazy for you lives because you go from having all these fans

cheering for you, going crazy for you, and you go home and you got to- Well, I think more so than that, that's another side of it, the fans and the changing of life. I think I can handle that. I don't mind that as much. I mean, some people-

There's got to be nothing like- A lot of guys have had- Yeah. Hey, there's not- There's got to be nothing like that, though, when you knock people out and you celebrate. There's nothing like that, though, when you knock people out and you celebrate. There's nothing like that, Russ. There's nothing that will get you that.

There's nothing that will get you that much of a rush. Yeah. But aside from that, I mean, but the other side of that, for me, the big side was just not having that thing binding me to something. You're kind of lost and your energy's gone. I was doing a lot. I'm doing a lot of things, but my energy is lost and going into so many different directions.

And then it's hard to get focused on. It's like you don't know what you need. You're trying this a little bit, trying that a little bit. Do you have to work out? You're not. It's like before it was like, even when I was off, you know, I was still working out. I would just say, oh, you know, I take off a couple months after a fight, before that.

But taking off for me meant I was doing a strength phase in my lifting, and I was working out five days a week at the gym, but it wasn't concentrated on me. I was concentrated on helping somebody else get ready for a fight. So that was what I meant by taking a couple months off. It wasn't like I was sitting on the beach drinking cocktails. We'd take about a week of that. It's interesting as you try to transition, though,

in different aspects of your life. You know, powerlifting, no one's ever given a shit about powerlifting. So the sport, unfortunately, never really has grown to where I think it should. But you kind of end up with a similar scenario where when you retire from anything, whether it be a hobby or something that you love and you pour your heart and soul into it and then you try to move into something else,

you're like, if you're trying to be the best dad in the world, which is a very admirable thing, then all you really get is a slam door in your face from your teenager whenever that time comes that your kid becomes a teenager. So you don't get your hand raised. You don't get, you know, I think about people talk about greatness all the time. They talk about wanting to be great, and they talk about these desires they have to be the best at these certain things.

And there's some people that just will never get the credit for being great. But meanwhile, they were great. It's just a society hasn't deemed them to be great they don't have a social meet like your grandfather teaching you how to fight it's interesting you say that because i've always said i'm the best guy i've ever met i'm a big fan of greatness right whatever it is and i don't give you the best doctor the best uh your best gardener gardener. I'm a big fan of people that are really good at what they do, and they all have a lot of similarities. And, you know, it's watching how, because you know, when you've been there, you know what it takes to be that good.

You know what it takes. It's not easy for anybody. I mean, i always talk about people at the top any sport for sure the thing of a nice thing about a sport it's something people like to watch right like i would say i just happen to be good really good at something that people really like to watch so i get right get credit for it but being being great at things is at anything takes a lot of work it takes discipline it takes you know training it takes uh you know a desire to be better it's a dedication over a long

period of time i always try to explain to people that uh when you're trying to be great towards something uh the main thing is that you're just good on a consistent basis for a really long time exactly yeah and that's that's but like what we're talking about with like going from being in a sport or being in the limelight like that for a lot of guys and a lot of sports where most these guys aren't set for life when they're done i mean there's not a whole lot of guys that fight and there's not a whole lot of guys that fight, and there's not a whole lot of guys that fight and make enough money to be set the rest of their life. I mean, it's very few.

And so, you know, and then as a football player, same thing. There's still a lot of guys that don't, it's a lot really hard on their bodies, and most of them don't last a long time. And then also, you're retiring at a young age for the most part and then now what do you do for a lot of guys a lot of guys have a hard time and there's that transition period and they struggle with that transition and being and like you said they're not you know now they're not as well known or they're not being

yeah it goes from being everyone cheering for you to now you're just doing whatever. That's a big thing with professional wrestling, which I did for several years, is a lot of the wrestlers, when they get done, they have all these fans screaming for them and it's hard for them to go home and to kind of have, hey, I gotta take out the garbage or I gotta do the dishes

or it's kind of that normal home domestic life gets to be a little weird because everyone else is putting you up on a pedestal. Hey, Chuck, how's it going? Can I get you something? Can I buy you something? You know, that's the other thing that I, that's different for me. I'm not used to, you know, like for me, like when we were training, I was training too, you're training for fights.

I always had extra people around that were training. What do you need, champ? What's going on, champ? What are you doing? What do you need? Do you need this? You know, I got people to run errands for me. I got,

because, you know, I was, you know, I had stuff to do. I was busy. I mean, I'm like,

People want to at least try to make it a little easier for you. They're easy for you because you have. They want to be part of it too. Yeah. And, you know, and I was, you know,

making great money. I was, I was helping, and I'd help them out with their stuff and, you know, give them a little money. They got a place to stay. You know, they, Oh, that's cool, I'm training with them and, you know,

they would, they, but they take care of all my stuff. I had someone taking care of my house stuff. I had, if I need an air, I need someone to go, I need you to run this by here and run by there. You know, I didn't have to do those little things. And that's a lot of, a lot of help. You know, I know people have big families and we're around like a lot, half my time is spent driving the kids from this, this event to that event to that event and running by the grocery store. It's kind of funny. I get people like, man, what are you doing at Costco? Yeah, I need stuff at Costco too.

Chocolate L's buying tuna fish. What is he doing? People get so surprised, man. What are you doing at Costco? I like big stuff too. So recently you switched to a ketogenic diet, right? Yeah. You know, I think that's another thing we were talking about, the sport, right?

That's another difference. You've got guys getting nutritionists. They've got, you know, nowadays they've got strength coaches. They've got everybody in their camp. They've got everybody in the camp. They've got everybody doing something. And for me, I think I devolved as I got older, too. Like, you know, when you're 25, I mean, my warm-up to...

There we go. Let's go. You know, and your diet didn't matter as much. I mean, I was... So I'll tell you the story about my diet. So, so in, uh, was it 98 friends of mine, they were doing, uh, they, they came in and do the strength and conditioning for me. Asked what they could do. The guys were training at my gym.

They had a part, they had a, they're doing a open and a new thing. They were doing a straight strength and conditioning and nutrition. One guy did nutrition. a new thing they were doing strength conditioning and nutrition one guy did nutrition so he he had me write down everything that i put through my mouth in a week on a piece of paper i'll never forget the expression on his face when he started reading it what two to three liters of mountain do a day what is wrong with you? You're a professional athlete. Probably not even anything you thought about. Not even thinking about it.

He's like, okay, first off, I'm not even going to work with you if you don't stop that. But after that, we went through. But, and then, you know, and then just things you don't even think about. Like, I used to cut weight, and you cut weight,

and you're dieting to cut weight and lose weight. And wrestlers got a real certain way of doing it. And as soon as you make your weight, you'd eat whatever, like, fuck. And I'll never forget the first time we went through and did the thing, he goes, all right, man, you've been giving me eight weeks. Give me one more day.

One more. Just eat right. Don't eat anything. You can eat as much as you want, but just eat. But eat clean. Eat the clean stuff because we've been eating clean. It's like, okay.

But I really started to notice when I eat clean, we used to do a cheat day on Sunday. And first I'd let me do a cheat day. Oh, yeah, I can eat anything. Eat a bunch of stuff. Monday, you feel like... It's like a hangover, yeah. Yeah, you're hungover and you feel feel, oh man, that's terrible.

Then you never want to do that again. Yeah, right. But, you know, during my career, I went to diet, like I do three cheat meals a week. Because I like to better split up that way because I like. Grab a hold of whatever you want, any cravings you want. Yeah, that way there's no cravings you have to really have because you can have anything you want. You just, you know, if you use it all up in the beginning of the week. Yeah, it's just three meals.

And if we go out to eat now, but along the lines of how you feel the next day, when I go out to eat, I still wouldn't, it wouldn't, I wouldn't be bad. I just wouldn't, I don't have to worry about it. Like I can try that and not have to feel guilty about it. I can try that. You know, I can eat that. I can eat, but I still get fairly healthy food. I still, I'm not gonna, if I'm training, I'm not gonna, you know, eat a whole,

a whole loaf of bread at Morton's. It's making me hungry. Yeah, Morton's Steakhouse. It's back to what you were saying about training. When you said when you were off, you would train like five days a week. It the same thing with your diet once you start to clean up your diet you cheating is still a way better representation of what you used to do and what your average american does yeah oh yeah no when you're i i my wife jokes around she says she's

like oh man i don't eat that healthy you You always say eat healthy. I'm like, babe, you eat healthy 80% of the time. Maybe when you're not doing well, 75%. It doesn't matter. That's why you can get away with it whenever you do. Plus, you're just a genetic freak. That's another thing. If you eat right most of the time, it's not going to kill you when you cheat. Right. Now to, to get to the top and to have the belt multiple times, the way that you did, do you, do you feel that you made a lot of sacrifices or has, was it just a natural

progression? Cause sometimes you'll hear people talking about how they had to sacrifice this or that and how they had to really grunt it out. But I think from what I'm gathering, from what you're saying, it's almost like you just had your head down and you were just fighting so hard towards stuff. Right. But the thing is, now looking back,

now people ask me like, well, I'd always, if you asked me before, like a couple years ago, I would have just said no. I just did what I wanted to do and I would do it all. But if you look back, it's like even back in high school,

I did karate year-round. I mean, I went to football practice and then karate. I went to wrestling practice, then karate. I only missed for games, and I missed for a tournament on the weekends, but I did it year-round. And I passed on a lot of things, not just because I didn't want to get behind wrestling or I didn't want to get behind training for this

or training for that. And I think all that paid off. That's part of what made me who I was. I always thought, I can't miss this for that yeah it's just it's it's uh it was all choices and it was all stuff that you wanted to do right so it was all choices oh yeah it was all i wanted i had this drive to get to here and it was and whatever i need whatever choice i need to make to get there was okay you know it's like whatever sacrifice i had to make to get there was okay. You know, it was like whatever sacrifice I had to make, okay, I can do that, I can do that. So it just, it, I mean, were there sacrifices?

Yeah, there's a lot of things I passed on, but I think they're all worth it. And, you know, there was no question. It was not like, man, I can't believe I can't do this or I can't do that. You know, it was just kind of like, oh, I can't do that right now. I can't do this or I can't do that. It was just kind of like, oh, I can't do that right now. I can't do this right now.

Anyway, my man, I've taken up enough of your time. It was a real honor to have you on the show. I appreciate you letting us come into your house. This is an amazing opportunity. I've always been a huge fan of yours. I've watched your whole career. I think I've seen every single fight, except for maybe a couple of those Street fights you got into

So thank you so much I really appreciate it Thanks for having me Anything coming up That you want to Just plug before we Before we get out of here Just follow me on

Any of the social media You know At Chuck Linnell Is pretty much All mine I think He's the guy with the mohawk That looks like he can Kick your head off

And he can actually Kick your head off So don't talk shit to him Alright man Thank you Appreciate it Thank you so much that looks like he can kick your head off, and he can actually kick your head off. So don't talk shit to him. All right, man, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. That was awesome, man.