MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 186 - The Best of The MMA Hour

Episode Date: August 25, 2014

The MMA Hour crew is off this week, so please enjoy another "best of" edition of your favorite MMA program. On this episode, you'll hear classic interviews from Royce Gracie, Kyle Kingsbury, Stephan Bonnar, Forrest Griffin, Rampage Jackson, Pouya Rebek and Conor McGregor conducted over the past year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for the show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to talk to each other. Introducing O-DU. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier,

CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-U-4-3 at O-D-O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-O-com. It's the mixed martial arts hour with... The mixed martial arts hour back in your life on this Monday, June 24th, 2013.

And no, I am not a dirty bastard. I actually do change my clothes. But yes, you are right. I am wearing the same thing that I wore last week. That's because last week is this week. This week's episode of the MMA hour is a best of episode. We are off this week. We're not actually really here.

We taped this last week to show you this week. You understand what I'm saying? Sort of. We've done these before. Best stuff shows. When we're off, we still want to give you something. So we're going to give you some of our best interviews from the last year or so. Last time we did a Best Stuff show was around September of last year.

So we thought we'd compile some of the best interviews that we've done on this very show and put them here together for you to get your MMA hour fix. We know how much you guys love to hear from us every Monday afternoon. It's not the same without us. We get that, and that's why we put this together for you. And what's interesting is you may see a collection of different studios. We've bounced around a lot since last year. We've actually had three different looks since last year.

That's how much change there's been in our lives, and the one constant has been you. And that's why we couldn't leave. That's why we couldn't change things and not have a show today. Do you understand what I'm trying to say today on the show? On this best-of show, you're going to hear some fan-favorite interviews. How about when Connor McGregor was on the show, eating blueberries like a boss? He was just chilling.

He hadn't even been in the UFC. He didn't even have a pot to piss in, my friends. Eating blueberries like it was, ain't no thing, as they say. Not really in Ireland, but you know what I'm saying. Anyway, you'll hear from Connor, pre-UFC debut. Our man Prebeck will be stopping by. Tons of great stuff we got planned for you. So just sit back, relax,

strap on your seatbelt. This is the best of the MMA hour. You cannot talk about the ultimate fighting championship, the success of the UFC, without talking about this man. We've mentioned him several times. He is arguably one of, if not the most famous MMA fighter of all time.

Even still today, everyone knows who he is. Everyone knows his last name. Everyone knows his first name. It is a huge honor to be joined by the legend himself. Hoyce Gracie right now on the MMA hour. Hoyce, how are you? Good, man. I'm at Disneyland.

You know what? That's amazing that you are at Disneyland. Do we have that clip? Brendan, do we have that clip? I want to play this clip. Before we get to it, you're actually in Disneyland right now, right, Hoyce? I am. I'm trying to find a quiet spot, man.

I'm trying to talk to you. You sound great right now. Do we have this clip? Isaac, give me a thumbs up. Brendan? Anyone? Okay, we'll get to... Yeah, we do have it. Okay. We're going to play this clip before we get to the interview because I find it fascinating. You told me earlier today, Hoyce, that you are going to be in Disneyland. And at the end of the first ever UFC, back on November 12, 1993, you had won the tournament, you won all your fights, you did so in very impressive fashion.

They gave you this massive check of $50,000, and they asked you, we have it, Isaac? And they asked you, where are you going to do? What are you going to do? Where are you going? And this is what you said. If they don't know what to do, it's great jujuts all the way. There's no chance. What are you going to do with the money?

We're going to go to Disneyland. We're going to Disneyland? Unbelievable. You're still in Disneyland. Are you, do you go to Disneyland every year to celebrate the birth of the UFC? Man, I have four kids. I come over here at least about six, three times a year. Do you remember saying that in the cage?

Of course. My mother was in town, and I didn't spend any time with her before the fight. So I had to bring her to Disneyland to peace out a little bit. That is unbelievable, and in some ways you haven't left. So I want to ask you this, Hoysen, thank you so much for joining us. This being the 19th anniversary of the UFC, it's a huge honor for us, a real true honor for us to have you on the show. We had earlier Art Davy, who was one of the co-founders with your brother Horian,

and he was talking to us about how it all came about, and he said he figured that Horian was going to ask Hickson to be a part of the first ever UFC, but at the end of the day, he went with you. Why did he go with you over Hickson? I think because Higgs was too big, or I wouldn't be as impressive. 200 pounds, beating up of 220.

So me being 178, being up a 22nd, it was much more impressive. Do you remember when you first found out that they were going to put on this show? Yes. Take us back to that moment. Holden just came up to me. I called me his office and said, I mean, I knew he was setting up the show. I knew he was doing that.

He was organizing the whole thing. And then he called me his office and said, hey, I'm going to put you to do it. I was like, good. I can't wait. Having such a big family. Sometimes, I mean, I was wondering when it's going to be my turn. So there's always a brother that's older or younger, bigger, stronger, faster. So it's like, hey, give me a chance, guys.

So did you feel a bit at the time like you were kind of overlooked in the family? A little bit, a little bit. I mean, again, my family is very big. Right. So everybody's doing the same thing. sometimes you get a little overlooked. So that being said, were you surprised that he came to you? I wasn't surprised.

I was just, let's say, I was with him. I was teaching a lot of the classes of the Grace Academy. He knew me very well by then how I think because I'm not an aggressive person. I'm not a violent person. But I get the job done. And he tasked me before with people that came into the Grace Academy. So he thought that my character would have been perfect for the show. And why didn't Horian do it?

Why didn't he compete in the first show? He was a promoter. He can do everything. Come on, man. Well, you know, the Graces, I think they think that they could do everything. So was that even considered? Sometimes we do it. So that was never even a consideration, right, that he would fight in the first show representing the family?

No, no. It wasn't even consideration. I was the only shot He came up to me and hey You want to do it I'm going to put you to do it I was like perfect Now the fact of training

Yeah exactly That's actually my next question The first show was November 12th of 93 How many months or weeks Did you have to prepare for the event There was about three months Four months I haven't Three to four months notice

It was the same as everybody else As you was asking people And He asked him the number one boxer at the time, and he declined up number two, until he got, I think, Jimerson was number six of the rank at the time. And he accepted. Then he was going to kickboxing champions and combat champions and kung fu champions.

He was going for number one guys. So I saw he was making the list, and then he asked me. And what did you do to prepare for this? Because nowadays, I mean, this guy fights this guy. they know who they're fighting, they prepare. You're going in there to not only fight more than one guy, but you don't really know what to expect. What did you do in training to prepare for this event?

Well, on the first one, we had a sumo wrestler, and there was a random draw, and it was done at night before the fighting. So we didn't know who was going to fight them. So you've got to be prepared for everybody, for a grappler, for a sumo wrestler, for a kickboxer, You got to be ready for everybody. So did you bring in, like, a sumo wrestler or a boxer, a kickboxer?

Did you bring these guys in to train with you in the weeks leading up to the fight? Not a sumo wrestler, but I had enough students that I could choose from kickboxing, boxing, from very heavy, not exactly the sumo wrestler, but very heavy students that would have helped me out. So I can get used to body weight. The main thing is strategy for me. It's not just come in and duke it out and fight it. Okay, if he's a grappler, good for me. I know what to do.

If he's a kickboxer, I've got to get in a clinch. He moves such a way. If he's a karate man, he moves a different way, but I'm still going to have to get in a clinch. So a sum of a wrestler, eventually I've got to get in a clinch. It's just how I get there, how do they move him. And a lot of people have said that the UFC in some ways was going to be like an infomercial for the Gracies and for your brother and for the family. And I'm imagining that there was a lot of pressure on you

because your brother's involved. He's the promoter and you're trying to represent the family. They chose you. Did you feel that pressure? Were you even nervous before the fight? I didn't feel the pressure. If I felt that pressure, I wouldn't walk out. Wow.

And if I was nervous, I would definitely not walk out. But whoever says that this was an infomercial for the Gracie family, sure got in and thought catch some luck. to walk in and for Gerald Gordor. Hey, look what he did to Taylor Tulli. So it wasn't a sure thing that I was going to win. I was the light of opponent. If you look at the bracket,

I was the last man fighting on the bracket every single time. So there was no advantage at all. My brother never gave me advantage and put the first fight at the night so I can rest during the others. I was the last fight of the bracket. So my return for the second fight was much, faster.

You had your father, the late Helio Gracie there. You had your family, of course, there. No one came to you and said, Hoy, there's a lot on the line here. You know, we've been doing Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. We've been all over the world.

This is our big chance to, you know, reach another level. No one had that talk with you that, you know, you have to come through for the family here tonight? Nope. They didn't have to.

I knew it, but I ignore it. I'm just going to do it, trust, and do what I know. How many... Do what I can do it. How many family members were there that night in Denver? Do you recall approximately? O'Ele was there, Rooker, Hickson, Elson, Orion, all the brothers.

A couple cousins came in. And your first fight was against Art Jimerson. He had one boxing glove on. When you walked in there and found out that this guy was wearing one boxing glove against you, in hindsight, not the smartest move, what were you thinking? I mean, he was thinking about doing jazz jubbing. times he didn't want to break his hand. So he also kept me away.

And I thought, hey, he have a boxing glove. Good, but he's not going to be able to grab me. So you thought that that was an incredibly stupid move on his part, right? I thought, I think that was stupid. I think it was good. Well, good for you, maybe not for him. Did he hurt you at any point in the fight? He didn't even touch me.

So you... He didn't even touch me. He didn't even touch me. I got in a cringe, stoke him down. I mouth on him and he just waves to stop to quit I was actually surprised I was like but then again

I thought hey he's a boxer once he goes to the ground he has no idea what to do he was out of his game mine is all white taking of beating he just so you leave that fight

you leave the cage two minutes 18 seconds you're fine I noticed that and you said you know you're not an angry guy a violent guy but it seemed like you kind of held

on to some of those chokes a little longer. Were you trying to send a message like, oh, why exactly did you do that? I know it was kind of the Wild West, but watching it now,

it seems like they were held on a little long, no? That was because of Ken Shamrock. After my second fight in the UFC won, I fought Ken Shamrock. After I got him in a choker,

as soon as he's up, I let it go, and he continued. He tried to continue. So the rest got kind of stuck like, should I let it go or should I stop the fight?

That's when I look at the rest. And I said, let it go. We're going to continue. I talked to him in Portuguese, the Brazilian rap, and I said it in English. But then I look at Ken Shamrock, and I said, okay, I know you, that. You know you tap. But you want to continue. Let's go.

Go. Keep going. Because now I was going to hold the choke. I was going to put him out. That's when he decided, by the tone of voice, the way he came out, he decided, okay, yeah, no, no, you're right. I quit. So he stopped.

And when you looked at the bracket, did you think that Ken was your biggest threat? They're all big trap, man. Come on. Getting up front by our Jim and Sir Charles Gordor, especially watching single Gerald Gordaude, Ditt de Pellas-Ull. Everyone's a trap, man. But you didn't single out one guy as being like,

okay, this is the top guy, other than me. This is the guy that I think I'll meet in the finals. Like, did you have any sort of sense as to who these guys were going into the competition? I couldn't because we didn't pick the fight until the night before. So, I mean, Kesham Rocken's up on my side of the bracket. Of course, I'm not going to think he's going to go to the end. If he was on the other side, maybe he could have been on the end.

But we couldn't pick beforehand. He couldn't think who's going to win. And when I came back on the finals with Gerard Gordor, he beat my ear. Really? When I took him down, it wasn't allowed to bite. So he took a bite in my ear. look at him, I whispered on his ear, you bite, you beat me. If I look at him, he just gave me a look like, so what?

That's when I got the joke, thinking of what happened, Casham Rock, and with him cheating, one thing, one rule, I mean, two rules, no, I got, no biting. And he had to cheat on that. So that's why I kept the joke a little longer. He sent a message. Wow. Don't F with me. Because I am a nice guy because I smile and he goes from Philpon.

In a second. Do you remember what the vibe was like in the locker room, like in between the Shamrock fight and the Gordova fight? What are you doing to keep the adrenaline moving and getting ready for the fight? How did you pass that time? Man, there's not. There wasn't much.

It was most of the time comes to the locker room. Shake it. Take the key off. Shake it, get some air. All right, breathe, relax. Sit down and relax. Bring it down. Try to bring the heart rate down as much as you can.

but there wasn't enough time it was a live show and as soon as the fight went off we got to go back in the ring again sometimes we had about 15 minutes resting between one fight and the other basically me being on the

border of the bracket first fight happened he can rest because the second and the third fight might take a long time but then when I come back being the last fight there's only one fight above mine and I got to go back in again

and I win I go back to the locker room which is pretty much 10 15 minutes and I got to go back out to the finals again you have a much faster I'm on the bottom of the bracket how tired were you going into the to the finals

man that's one of my days endurance I can run all day I can train all day man I got long endurance So it said after UFC 2, there was four, five, five more nights. I remember telling my brother, man, four fights more nights, I'm tired now.

That got me tired. Wow. But the first one, finish everybody, it wasn't too tired. I mean, I'm not because of, I don't rely on strength. So, and I can pace myself. Do you remember how you celebrated after winning the day? first UFC, your whole family was there. You know, the show seemed to be some kind of a success.

Do you remember how you spent that night in Denver? That night in Denver. That night in Denver, they had a party, after party. And I was starving. So I didn't stay long. My wife and I came out. We went to a hotel when we changed. It was around the lobby, the hotel around the fall home of the hotel.

So I went up to my room. I changed. It was starting to snow, so I put a heavy seat jacket on, went outside to a liquid store and tried to grab some crackers, some red, some apple juice, something to it because there was nothing at the hotel. And I'm

walking back inside the hotel. My wife and I walking back in. It was just starting to snow. And Kevin was here. Kevin was here and his manager. He was by the elevator. They were both by the elevator.

and they look at me, and they ask, what are you doing? Out of nowhere, it looks like I was sweaty because those water coming out of my head. I said, I couldn't sleep, man, so I went for a run. Wow. The manager looked at him. See, and both of them had a big cigar and drinks on their hands, and that's why he's the chance. Wow. You went for a run after all that?

That's incredible. I didn't go for a run. I told them I was going for a run. I went to get some crackers and some Bapo juice because I was starving. There was nothing to me to the hotel. But when I came back, look like I was sweaty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't see the back inside my jacket.

So I feel like, what are you doing? I was like, I went for a run, man. That's good. Take to sleep. I'm tired enough. Let them think that. That's very good. Would you like to see the UFC have one-night tournaments or do you think it's better the way it is now?

Oh, one-night, I mean, one-night tournament. fighting three, four nights and one, four fights in one night, it's very difficult. Because everybody's level today is so even. From the beginning, it was a style against a style. Today is an athlete against an athlete. Both of them, both fighters are practicing, grappling, great sujitsu, wrestling. Both of them are practicing, boxing, kickboxing, the stand-up arts. So, very hard to do one night.

But I would like to do it. I was mine. Did you think that this would turn into what it is today when you, when you think back to that first day? Did you think that the UFC would become the power and the success story that it has become today? I knew it was going to get there again. I knew it was going to get there again. But what the Dana White and the Couture brothers did, man, they turned into an inspiration for the new generation. Now the new kids, it's like baseball.

like soccer. They grow up thinking one day I want to be a baseball player. I'm going to go practice. Little kids playing AYSO. One day I want to be a soccer player. Today they go train

thinking one day I want to be a UFC fighter. So they start young now, man. And Hoyt... And what was it? Like a year and a half ago, there were some rumors that you were going to come back to the UFC. You were there in Toronto.

I remember speaking to you. What? became of that? I'm getting old man, come on. So is the return is the comeback? Is that no longer on the table for you? Are you done

officially? No, no. You got to know when to stop on this business. So you have officially retired, but you didn't make a big thing about it. Why didn't you make a big announcement of some sort? Ah, don't need. It's hard, man. It's hard. Did you try? No, I'm not on the mark. I'm on the

market anymore. Did you even pitch the UFC to come back? Did you have that discussion with Dana? No, no, we have not. All right. I want to do one last thing before we let you go and you could go back to your family at Disneyland and it means so much to us that you're here and that you took the time out of your day on this 19th anniversary. You want to bring in our last guest of the day via the magic of Skype. We have your brother and his sons in the house, Hoyce. We've got Horian Gracie, Hannah Gracie, here on Gracie on Skype right now and they want to say hello to you. Guys, we've got Hoyce Gracie on the phone here. Uncle Hoyce. I was doing, guys.

What about? I'm a Tuesday, I just got home yesterday from Europe. And by the way, I was hanging out over there. I taught a seminar. And Gerard Cordo and Remko Pardu showed up to take my class. That's unbelievable. As they should. As they should.

Eric, I wanted to take this time since it was, I wanted to take this time. I was, I think, just turned 10 years old when the first UFC happened. I was so young that my dad didn't let me go. He didn't go. He said, Henner, you stay home for this one. I was pretty upset because it was two days after my birthday, and I thought I'd be old enough. But I never had a chance to personally thank Hoyce for winning.

Because if Hoyce would have lost the first UFC, we probably no one would be here today doing what they do. You wouldn't have a job. We wouldn't have a job. Everything will be messed up. So, Hoy, thanks for winning and for representing on the highest level. No one could have done it better, and we're forever grateful.

Thank you. It was my pleasure. Thank your father, man, for putting this whole show together and choosing me to do it. For sure. I'm glad I had someone like Hoyce, small little Hoyce,

and everybody looked up and said he couldn't do anything, but he went in there, like Henry said, and delivered the goods, which was even more impressed as I was hoping for as an example of what the techniques can do against big size and strength. So once again, congratulations, Hoyce. It's all what we learned from my father.

Hoist, well, let me ask you one last question before you go. Do you agree with Henner that if you didn't win that event, UFC won, that there would be no UFC? Man, gracious, I'm stubborn. So we will definitely find a way to come back and do it again. Well, thank you so much. Congratulations. Happy anniversary to you.

This is a huge moment for us having the whole family here. I have goosebumps right now. And we appreciate you taking the time out of your day, Hoyson, and especially as you are at Disneyland with your family. It's unbelievable. 19 years later, you're still at Disneyland. It's a great story, and it's a big honor for us. Thank you so much. Hi, guys.

Thanks. There he is. Kyle? Kyle, do you hear me? Yeah, I do. How are you, sir? I'm doing well. How are you doing?

Between the hair, the eye, the mustache, the, the, uh... the stubble. You are looking great, my friend. You've never looked better. I think I think it's called coming together finally. Now, how is that eye? We talked about, I mean, it looked, it looked, I got to say, it looked pretty bad. We're seeing you here. It's, yeah, it looks like it's a lot better. At least you can open it. How is it feeling right now? It feels great. I got full movement. You know, obviously I just still got the raccoon eyes, but I got to get checked out one more time to make sure that I don't need surgery. So that's,

That's pending the doctor visit with the last MRI. So what are they saying the injury is right now? Like no broken orbital bone or anything like that? It is a fractured orbital. It's actually right here. And it's also fractured. And right there right at the top of the beginning of the eyebrow. So multiple fractures there.

You know, thankfully it's closer to the surface of the orbital. So it's not, it doesn't impact the eye. and that's why I was able to fly for the last month. I didn't have to take a boat home from England, so I'm pretty thankful for that. Yeah, you've been traveling all over the place, doing stuff with the troops, right? I mean, were you kind of just, I don't know,

did you just want to go home and relax after, or was this something that you had agreed to prior to the fight? We had agreed to it prior, and, you know, they do these tours quite often, but with all the camps you have going on, if they have a tour and it's during your camp, there's no way you can go. So when the tour director called me up, he said he was planning it, he wanted to make sure I could go and he wanted to schedule something after my fight.

I said, I'm in for sure, you know, win-lose or draw, if I'm hurt or not, I'll make sure I can go on the tour. Was it tough? I mean, were you uncomfortable traveling with the eye in that kind of shape? You know, the doctor told me, just watch out for pressure. If I feel that pressure building in my eye, then there could be some serious complications. So flying from England back over to Amsterdam first before we came back to San Francisco for a day, that was kind of my little tester. You know, I got a test run for that hour-long flight, and it really didn't feel bad at all.

So I knew after that hour-long flight I'd be good to fly after that, and there were no problems then. Now, Kyle, as I mentioned earlier, you are a good-looking guy, but you just got a whole lot better looking because we lost your video, and now we just saw, see an icon of Natasha Wicks on the screen, which I'm sure a lot of people don't mind, but have you gotten a little shy on us or what? No, you know, I saw it freeze and then it went away, and now I'm trying to bring it back, and I'm just getting the circling icon, the timing icon. Now, did you hack her Skype account?

Because obviously a guy like you, and I mean, I can't imagine you even being friends with Natasha Wicks. Yeah. You know what? I actually became friends with her on a tour for the troops. So reason enough to go and give back to the troops. I got to meet a hot chick like her, and here we are today, living together. So quite nice. So you guys are more than just friends?

Yes, we are. Wow, look at you. Congratulations. In fact, when you guys were trying to get me on the line with my Skype, you couldn't hear me. So I literally just grabbed her laptop and signed on, and that's why you said. see her face when you can't see mine. Well, obviously, that worked out very well. So are we going to, are we going to, are we going to abort the plan?

Oh, something's moving here. Are we going to abort the plan and just go with this? I'm trying. I'm trying to get this going. Well, at least we saw, we can hear you, which is good. And we're looking at Natasha, so that's not bad as well. Let's talk about the fight, Natasha. No, I'm just kidding.

But seriously, in the fight, I mean, you took some heavy-duty shots. Were you willing to keep fighting going into the third round there? or were you kind of relieved that they did stop the fight when they did? No, I was relieved in hindsight, knowing I had the fractures. But in the moment, I wanted to fight so bad, I really felt the momentum switching. I felt like I had a second wind, I got my arms back. That first part of the round, I was going for, you know, really just a lot of control and trying to submit them with the different, you know, Anaconda Dar series back and forth.

and I remember telling myself, don't squeeze too hard, because I didn't want to gas my arms out. And when we stood back up in the first round, I felt like I had limp noodles for arms. I could barely hold him up, and then obviously he went to town on me. But coming out in the second,

I felt a shift. I felt like I got my wind back. I was able to get him to the ground quite a bit, and I felt like going to the third, he was spent, and I was going to get him. Was he tougher, though, than it did look like he was getting very tired? but prior to that, was he tougher than you thought he would be? Yes and no.

Yes. Yes, and that he hit harder than I thought he would hit. And I didn't think the guy was just going to fold after the first round just because he had never been into the second or third. But, I mean, you got to, I guess I was on point with my assessment of his cardio, and I was a little underestimating his power. You know, you hear from some UFC veterans, because that's what you are now.

You know, a lot of guys don't want to fight these guys like Glover Tashara and Jimmy Manoa, guys who are making their debut who are tough, but a lot of people, casual fans, don't know who they are. Why do you think the UFC has given you fights like this as of late? I have really no idea, you know, and it's funny because a lot of people ask me about that, like, oh, you know, why do you keep taking this? these fights with these guys, and it's really, it's not up to us. You know, I mean, some guys have the option.

Some guys can turn down fights or say, you know, who they want to fight, or I guess if you go out and you talk enough crap about somebody, they'll put the fight together, but that's never been my style. So it's just one of those things. They tell me who I got a fight, and I go out there and I do it. I was really bummed out watching the fight because the day before, I mean, I don't know if you know this, but I'm a beard officiato. I just love beards.

I can't get enough of them talking about them, looking at them. And you had my friend, I mean, we've seen some beers, Johnny Hendricks, Kimbo-slice, but that was the most distinguished, healthy-looking beard that we have seen in MMA in quite some time.

It just worked, and it worked in England with what you were wearing. And then the next day, you were all clean-shaven, and apparently Jimmy's camp had asked you to trim it, and you said, I'm not trimming this thing, I'm actually taking the whole damn thing off.

What was up with that? Did you at least try to fight it? Is that really what happened? Did they actually ask for you to trim that thing? Yeah, it's pretty unbelievable, but I was sitting in the fighter meeting with Dana White and Joe Silva. And we had gone through the wands and everything. You're talking, basically all you have to do now is just show up and fight. And Joe Silva came over at the very end of it.

You tapped me on the shoulder and he said, hey, Kyle, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're going to need to talk to Mark Ratner. They want you to shave or at least trim your beard, and it's in the rulebook. And I said, whoa, wait, with the rulebook, they got an MMA rulebook that says you can't have a beard? What about all these guys with great beards? You know, I was looking at big country Roy Nelson and thinking, maybe I should grow a beard. This guy's got a nice beard. And I talked to Ratner, and he told me, look, it is in the rulebook.

It's just if they complain about it. That's why most of these guys have been able to get away with it until now. and, you know, I was disappointed big time at first. And obviously I'd spent 10 weeks growing that beard, and I did think it looked great, and I liked the idea of it. But, yeah, you know, I didn't grow my facial hair for 10 weeks to come in with a 5 o'clock shadow. So there was no sense in trimming it down and going in there and fighting like that. Obviously, people just wouldn't have the same, so I just shaved the whole thing off.

Do you think that was a dirty move on their part? I honestly think there might have been a little bit of an intimidation factor with that beard. And I'm sure they just went up and said, hey, what the heck? You know, he can't have a beard that long. And all of a sudden, you know, somebody is like, well, actually, you're right if you do complain. And, you know, one thing led to another. Because I don't think Jimmy, I really can't see another fighter thinking to himself, hey, I'm going to make a complaint.

And it's going to go through. and everybody's going to love me for it. You know, I'm sure it was this cornerman that came up and said something and then it just kind of fell into place that way. When training with the beard, by the way, do you notice that there's... And if you could put it a little down

because I hear some feedback now, I think it's from the computer. When training with the beard, do you notice that it's easier on you? Like, you get a bit of padding on your... Like, does it help you out? Does it soften the blows, if you will? I feel, you know, with the big gloves

there might be a little bit of padding, but, you know, with little gloves, if a guy puts it in the right spot, you're still going down. I think if there's any real benefit from it, it might be in disguising the chin location, you know. But obviously, I've been putting some guillotines while you have that beard on,

and there's a definite downside to the beard. How so? Because actually Martin Catman was talking about this as he prepares for Johnny Hendricks. How is there a downside? Well, if I get put in a guillotine, it's, you know, and you've got a clean-shaven face, I can wiggle that chin out and it'll slide.

But with the beard, there's a lot of grip there that's going to keep that arm in place. So it's really hard to get out of a tight lock like that. Even if I'm doing everything right with my body to posture and create some distance there, it's still hard to get the choke completely out. Now, obviously, a tough loss, and you were coming off the loss to Sharon prior to that Bonner. Where do you go from here? Where do you think your career goes from here after those losses? You know, I have no idea.

I spoke a little bit. They asked me for a quote right after the fight, and I just said, you know, I've got some soul searching to do. I got to see where I met and mentally, emotionally and spiritually, and just kind of, you know, really digest the whole situation, you know, digest the career, digest everything that's going on in my life and see if this is something I want to continue to do. you know thankfully i got six months uh suspension to figure it out so it's not anything i have to

decide right off the bat but uh it is something where you know you look at you look at your career and and you know whether you know a lot of fans will look at me and they'll say hey that guy never had a shot at winning a title and maybe they're right but nobody gets into this sport thinking i'm going to be a millionaire by being a fire people get into the sport thinking i want to beat somebody's ass and I want to try to get the title. And, you know, getting to the UFC level and now being four and four as a UFC fighter, it was never my goal to come in and be a 500 fighter. You know, it was never my goal to come in and win one, lose one, win three, lose three,

that kind of deal. So whatever I end up choosing, you know, if I do end up wanting to fight again, I know there's going to be a period of time where I will work about trying to improve before I come back to the table to fight again. And you look at a guy like Dan Hardy, who took a lot of time after his losses, and he came back, and he's well again. So that's, you know, whatever the decision is,

there's definitely going to be some time between now and the next one. But you said that, you know, you gave that quote, that was September 29th, here we are a month later. Have you started to lean in one direction, or are you really going to take a lot of time

before starting to think about this? Well, to be honest with you, I'm leaning towards, you know, not doing it again. That's where I'm at right now. And there's a number of reasons why I wouldn't just come out and say, hey, I'm retiring. And some of that has to do with medical bills are still covered, and some of it has to do with not knowing when I'm going to get that itch again.

You know, I could wake up a month or two from now and just be as hungry as I've ever been. and then dealing with, oh, man, I shouldn't open my mouth a month ago. So, you know, there is no final decision here, but I am leaning towards not fighting again. I'm leaning towards moving on and becoming a fireman. Really? A fireman? Is that something you wanted to do for a while?

That's something I wanted to do since college, basically. When I first started an MMA, it was on my mind. I got my EMT, a friend of mine. out in Phoenix is a paramedic, firefire paramedic out there, and he was helping me along through the testing, and we had made it through the written exam, physical. My first interviews were on to the second interview. And I came in, I was studying with a couple of the captains,

and they saw me with a black eye from training, and said, look, man, we love what you do, but you could come in here in your probationary year with a black eye, and somebody just might not think that's the right look for a fireman, and all of a sudden you're canned with no excuses. So at that point, I just made the decision to go for MMA, you know, see how long, how far I can take it and how long it'll last, and then go back to trying to be a fireman afterwards. Okay. And just wondering, I mean, obviously you said you didn't want to be a 500 fighter and whatnot, but can you at least, if you do decide to walk away, a lot can change in the next six months, can you walk away with a smile on your face and say, I made it to the UFC, I was on the show, I had some good moments.

Like, are you content with what you did at least inside the octagon? Very much so, very much so. And that's a big conversation I had with my head trainer, I cook. You know, he said, if this ends up being your last fight, you know, look at the guy you ended with, you ended with a legend in Stefan Bonner. You ended with a guy who could potentially have the belt

at some point in Glover to Shera. And you ended with a great fight that had the whole crowd on their feet in England. You know, everybody was going crazy during that fight. And I've had, you know, so many compliments, so many nice things said to me since that fight. So really, I've got nothing to hang my head about. I've loved every second of it. I'm not bitter about anything, you know.

Fighting has changed me as a person. It's made me a better person. And every camp you go into, you learn something about yourself. There's so much personal growth that goes into each camp. Like I said, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally that I can never look at fighting about. that way, I'll just look back and love every second of it. And whether I continue or not, that's something that I'll have no matter what. And just to be clear, Kyle, you're still a member of the UFC, right?

Yes, that's true. They haven't cut me, so very, very grateful for that. And, yeah, you know, decide to stick around. It will be UFC fights that I'm coming back to. Let's end on this positive note, or I think it's a positive note. Not to say that the rest wasn't positive, but you'll see what I'm saying in a second. We've got a lot of people in the MMA community, thankfully, listening to the show. We got filthy Tom Lawler who just

tweeted us and asked me to ask you about the Bahrain Toilet Incident slash show. What is he talking about? Oh, God. That brings back some good memories. Well, I was just in Bahrain, and I told, I think, every single person I ran into

about this. So at the end of last year, Tom and I were on a tour together. and we got to Bahrain, and we both had to go to the bathroom really bad, so we're looking around. We asked one of the guys where the latrine is, and he's like, oh, it's right up here. So he points us in this direction, and we get up there. I'm not sure how radio-appropriate this is, but I'll try to tone it down a notch.

We get up there, and I got to go with the bathroom really bad, number one. He's got to go to the bathroom really bad, number two. Now, I didn't know this, but there's only one toilet up there, and he just drops his pants and jumps down on it. I'm like, dude, I got to go bad. You should have let me go first. And he goes, just go, just go. So I very carefully take a leak in between his legs

while he's sitting on the can dropping a dude. Oh, what? He goes, and squeezes as hard as he can. And the loudest fart comes out with a big complom. into the toilet and I start dying laughing and my stream starts moving up and down. So he's obviously nervous that I'm going to hit his junk. And somehow we managed to get it out with no mess on the table. I don't wee on him, but yeah, we were dying, dying about that.

And that's one of my favorite memories of my tour for the troops. So that was a new way of crossing the swords, if you will. Yeah, we didn't. We did not cross streams, though. No stream crossing there. That is disgusting. That is not a positive note. Let's end on this note.

I heard you actually was texted this picture. People are telling me that they're eating lunch right now, and thank you very much for ruining it. You were texted this picture of your Halloween costume. You dressed up as quite the school. Is this from this year? You were a Catholic schoolgirl, and you were wearing a thong, right? I don't know if you could see it, but here's the picture right here on my phone. that's from this year?

Oh, no, that's from 2005. The UFC's putting together a little Halloween thing, and they asked me for your favorite Halloween costume, so I sent Prescott Miller in that photo and told him this was the best Halloween costume I've had yet. And, yeah, that was a good one. Me and two of my buddies dressed up as Catholic schoolgirls, and my other friend was the priest,

and he kept spanking us the whole night. But it was a good show. Yes, as I can see. See, this is why we need you around, in MMA, at least for a couple more years. The costumes, the toilet stories, the beard, the fanny packs. I think you still have some work to do, my friend. Yeah, maybe there is some unfinished business. Maybe so. Maybe we left that door open a little wider today. Kyle, really appreciate it. Happy to hear the eyes feeling a little better. Keep us posted on the final

diagnosis. And if you can, let us know what you do decide in six or so months. It's been really great covering you and watching you and really enjoyed what you brought to the table. So I guess selfishly we hope it isn't the last we've seen of you in MMA in some capacity. Thank you very much, Ariel. I've had a great time talking with you, and it's always a pleasure. Thank you very much, Kyle. All the best. Say hi to Natasha, and we'll speak to you very soon. Sounds good, brother. Take care. Mr. Stephan Bonner joining us right now on the line right here on the MMA hour. Stefan, how are you?

Good. What's up, Ariel? I'm doing well. Did you have a good afternoon? Am I allowed to say where you were, or is that private? This afternoon. Yeah, or this morning, I should say. You're in the West Coast. I'm just at home. Oh, okay. You're just relaxing. Yeah, I'm back at home.

Okay. The pregnant wife. Right. How is that going, most importantly? Pretty good. I mean, she could have the baby any day now. She's ready. The baby was like seven and a half pounds last week and it's all healthy. and ready to go. That is very good to hear, and we wish you guys a lot of luck. It's a very exciting time for the family,

so wishing you guys the best and wishing all our good wishes your way. So obviously it was an interesting weekend for you, Stefan, and this is the first time that we've heard you speak since then. Have you been able to digest what happened in the cage, and if so, how do you feel about what transpired on Saturday night? I mean, of course it's disappointing to be taken out like that, and it hurts.

And, you know, I really thought I'd give him a better fight. And I felt that's the thing with M.M.A., especially fighting a great fighter like Anderson. I felt things were actually going pretty well according to game plan. And I make a little mistake, and he just, man, sent a knee the perfect location, right in my solarplex, the perfect timing. and even did a good job of after he tripped me when I was getting back up shoving me. So I kind of bounced off the cage and came into that, and made it extra hard. And yeah, and it did it sucks. It sucks.

You know, it's hard to swallow. Even he's a great fighter and the greatest and all that. It's still disappointing to me. What were you thinking when he was up against the cage and essentially letting you punch him in the face and telling his corner to be quiet, just doing all that stuff. What was going through your mind? All right.

You want to do this? Cool, I'll throw punches at you. And I'll just stick to my game plan, which is get off, throw punches, and then clenching before he could counter. So, yeah, I liked when he was doing that. But does that sort of play tricks on you because usually in a fight,

you're not expecting a guy to just stand up against the cage and let you punch him? So are you kind of wondering, like, okay, you're doing it, And you're landing, you know, you put a great picture on Twitter yesterday. You're connecting very well with his face. Are you thinking, like, what the heck is going on here? Well, I was just trying to stick to my game plan and, like, you know, get off.

And before he can land anything big back, get close and some of them. And, you know, look for take downs. Yeah. And then he did. He tied up my arm and landed a beautiful trip. and like the one regret I really had was when he tripped me there was a part of me that said you know just sit down he wants to fight on the ground you know let him come on top and start you know like the more he fights on the ground the better and then there's another part of me was oh you're all right just get up and then so he was getting up he pushed me I bounced off the cage and just perfect me in the perfect spot right when I had some air in my lungs and it just it just crippled me have you watched the fight since then? Yeah

And have you come to the conclusion that China get up was the wrong move At that point? Yeah, I mean, that's really common In that transition of getting up It's a nice push and launched me And yeah, this is a good shot You mentioned on Twitter that it paralyzed you

I've never been nude like that Yeah, you mentioned I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe at all. I couldn't move. I was just like crippled, just waiting for my body to be able to get some air. And it felt like an eternity. And then the rough stopped it.

And when I saw the fight, I was like, well, that was pretty quick. It felt like I was trying, down trying to breathe longer than that. How long did it take for you to actually, you know, try to get back to 100% and, like, feel like you're actually able to breathe on your own here? I don't remember. I mean, it's probably before we could really breathe, almost a good 30 seconds to a minute. And have you ever been hit like that before?

Have you ever felt that in training or in a fight? Well, I've been, you know, yeah, I've been training. I've been a fight in training. I've, you know, yeah, I've been doing this a long time. So there were a couple times I went down for body shots. and in training you know you go down and I always you know even from the old boxing days there's a habit for me to start counting and then when I get to eight make myself get up and but you know in MMA you can't feel like boxing you know you don't get that so right

when you go down he starts hitting you you know I was trying to protect my face but I couldn't move and like that was the key if I would have moved in a little bit I I probably would have got a little more time from the rest. But, man, I really couldn't. I was paralyzed. You know, obviously we know about Anderson and how good he is and all that, but after being in the cage with him,

was he better than you thought he would be? Just the fact that, like, the way he placed that and timed it is, I mean, and the little trip and the push, just the whole setup and transition. Yeah, I mean, there's a part of me that,

I'm in awe of him. How long, and maybe you haven't yet, but how long did it take, you know, you had a long trip home and you flew back with Dana and all that? How long did it take for you to get over the disappointment of the loss, or are you not over it yet? I mean, yeah, it's hard to get over, especially, you know, when I talk to someone like you is asking me, these questions about it that it brings it back up.

But, you know, once I start, you know, talking to some other friends about other projects that are going on are, you know, like putting in the car seat with my wife for the baby. And, you know, I find myself looking forward to other things and excited about other things in my life. That's the best in terms of coping and getting over it. You know, you just start thinking about, you know, the opportunities and, you know, things that are happening in your life that are positive and good. And, yeah, then you don't dwell on the fight so much. But, yeah, when you talk about it and go back to it and watch it. and relive it.

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. Now I feel like an ass. I'm sorry for bringing... What else we got to talk about? I just have a couple more questions about the fight, and then I'll get off and ask you about something else. Obviously, you told me the day before you had a very...

You know, you had a tough weight cut because you took this fight on short notice. You had to lose a lot of weight. Did that affect you at all in the fight on Saturday night? No, the weight cut was normal. I always feel like, you know, I cut a lot of water the day off, and you feel like crap so you get off that scale. It's normal. It was, I mean, in terms of weight cuts,

that was just a moderate one. It wasn't too, I've had worse. But no, not at all. I felt great in the fight. I just, yeah, like I said, in transition, like I was getting up, he used my momentum from bouncing off the cage. I had just taken a breath in. And, I mean, if that knee landed an inch higher in my sternum

or a little lower, more than that, abdomen. I might have been able to survive, but it just was landed perfectly in the solar flux. I mean, Anderson's got some powerful knees. I say his knees are harder than his punches. These punches have great accuracy, but, you know, a knee, that's your leg muscle, your hip flexures. It's like the most powerful part of your body. And with my momentum going into it, it just

it was a really beautiful knee and the perfect placement had a lot of power behind it. And I wanted to keep fighting and do better than that so bad. But it was just, it was so quick. The fight would stop before I could start moving or even get any air back into my lungs. I couldn't breathe. And obviously I know you're disappointed about the result,

but I'm wondering, can you look back at the week and the experience and getting that big fight that you had been asking for and up until that point unsuccessful in getting? can you look back at this experience as, you know, all right, you know, I was in Brazil fighting the biggest star there, you know, Ed was just telling us the number two star as far as sports are concerned in Brazil. Was it a fun ride leading up to Saturday night for you? Yeah, it really was.

It was a great experience. I know, I just, my mind was really convinced I'd do better, and that's just the hardest part. But, yeah, it's an honor to fight there in Brazil. That's where it all kind of started. you know, that's where, you know, Carlson, Sergio, both from Copacabana. I mean, I love Brazil and feels kind of a part of me as a fighter for sure, so it was really an honor to fight there, and I have a lot of respect for Anderson. It's great just being in there with such a great fighter.

Have you decided if that was your last UFC fight? I haven't decided, no. Yeah, I got to think about it. that one. Are you leaning in one direction or the other? No, I guess it depends on, it's hard. I'm not, you know, I just, I just lost.

I just got stopped. So I'm not, like, in a position where I could, you know, really ask for too much right now. That's how I feel. That's how I feel. So, you know, I'm going to see what my manager comes up with. You know, there's a rumor that came out over the last few hours. I don't know if you heard John Jones, Chelsenunin, are going to be coaches on the next season of the Ultimate Fighter,

and they're going to fight in April. And as a result, the Forrest Griffin versus Chelsen fight, which was supposed to happen on December 29th in Las Vegas is no longer happening. There's a rumor out there, at least fans are talking about it, you versus Forrest No, to maybe close out your careers. Have you heard about this? No, I just heard that Jones and Shale my coach I thought that was I just heard that

about a couple minutes ago for my wife Is that something that interests you You versus Forrest 3 In Vegas New Year's Eve card Oh, maybe Is this like the time that I called you and asked you If you were fighting Anderson You told me no but deep down you really were

No like It was funny because I didn't I got a text that said, like, what do you think of this? And I was like, yeah, right? And before I could respond to that text, you called me. That's what was like, wow. So here, he's going on here. But no, no one, I haven't talked to anyone about that.

I actually just heard that for my wife about Jones and Shale coach. And I was like, wow, really? Oh, wow, well, it makes sense because there's definitely going to be drama. And Shale is very good on TV. and, you know, he's, it's, people are going to want to tune in just to hear what he has to say, and, you know, the conflict between those two will be very interesting. So it's a good move on the UFC part. I like, I like the idea in terms of the TV entertainment trauma value.

Yeah. But as a, let's say, sporting value, as a guy who fights in the 205 pound division, you look at Chale, who's 0 and 1 in the UFC at 205. Does it bug you at all that he's getting a title shot? No, I like that match up. I mean, Jones has been really good with good wrestlers before, but he's been able to shut him all down. What happens if John Jones gets put on his back?

That's something we haven't seen him. That's an interesting scenario. And I think there's a good shot that Shale could do that. Does that mean he'll win? No, but that's the start. You know, you always always, want to see guys challenge and be put in positions. And that's, you know, why I'm a little disappointed.

I think Joe Anderson won't and take them in a deeper water. So, you know, it's disappointing for sure. But I think jail could make the fight interesting and put them on his back and put them somewhere where we haven't seen Jones and, you know, and give them a challenge. So obviously it sounds like for now you're not going to make a decision about your future. You obviously have a very big event happening. in your life with the soon-to-be birth of your first child. So outside, as far as MMA-related stuff, what else do you have?

Because I know you do the T-shirts. You always seem to have a lot of things going on. Like you seem to be one of those guys who really prepared himself for life after you do the TV work on fuel and all that stuff. What are the other things that you're excited about right now in your career outside of actual fighting? Some that I'm really excited about is I've been, you know, I've set up this charity called Garrett's fight. I'm sure you've heard of it. I have that fundraiser in July for it. Garrett, Holleyves, is a martial artist with Down syndrome,

and it's a really inspiring story how he was, after high school, kind of fat, lonely depressed kid playing video games, is David have to call people and beg them to take Garrett out or hang out with him? He really didn't have a life. He wasn't like a normal member society. Anyways, his dad invested in an ATT affiliate gym in Davis, Florida, right outside Fort Lauderdale area. And he brought Garrett to the gym, and Garrett was like, wow, this looks cool, you know? I want to give this a try. And, you know, he's really short.

Most people, because he went down in Z. He's around five feet tall. And he was, like, around 170 pounds. He was really overweight. And let's fast forward a couple of years. He's been training at the gym, and he's lost, like, 40 pounds. He's in good shape. He knows about good nutrition.

And, yeah, he's been training and competing. And what really inspired me. He's doing these Naga tournaments, San Chow matches, and competing in these martial arts against kids who aren't even disabled. And, I mean, that's just inspiring to me. And then they want to set something. I mean, he's got a life now. He plugs gym memberships there.

He teaches the kids' classes. Other teachers and students at the gym, he's made friends with, and they bring him out with them, and he's just got a life, and it's like, you know, and he's healthy now and happy and his confidence. And because, you know, he just was able to do martial arts and belonged to something. And that's the biggest crime. Kids like him face is just belonging and being included in stuff. And so the charity's way for so other kids especially needs like him could participate in martial arts.

And two, I want to, you know, campaign the Special Olympics to offer a little. little something more in terms of martial arch right now. They just offered judo. He doesn't like that. He doesn't like getting thrown hard and landing hard. He likes mission grappling. He likes him in May. So, yeah, I'd like to compete on a level playing field against kids, you know, who also have disabilities. Because, you know, he has a lot of heart by fighting kids without disabilities.

But it's not fair. A lot of these kids are, you know, he's fighting up a weight class, too. He naturally could probably make 125. He's fighting 135, 145 against bigger strong. or kids without disabilities. So I like to see the Special Olympics, you know, offer a little something more. But anyways, I've been talking to some directors, but we're working really close with Wally Razaki, the president,

to tap out films. And we're working on putting this into motion. My original plan was to make it a documentary. But he's really believed we got a director that's on board to make this a series. and put that in the motion. And I'm really excited about that. I just, Garrett's 22.

22, okay. Yeah, so, yeah, I was just emailing with Wally. Actually, right before you call, and I got a great email about that he's excited about this project, and his director is really excited about it too, and he thinks he can make that we could make this into a series, and that really helped me feel better about the fight. So I'm, you know, just really excited about taking steps forward on this project.

Well, it sounds like you were in a good place, and it sounds like for a second there, I took you a step back. I apologize for that. But now we end on a good note. That's an unbelievable project. Yeah, I knew. Don't worry about it. I knew who we can have to talk about the fight. And I appreciate you coming to us first.

It was a great effort, a great show. You did everything you could, and, you know, I guess sometimes that happens. And I may. And I think at the end of the day, if you look back on your career, Stefan, if that was your final fight, are you happy? Are you content now? Did you get the fight that you wanted? And was that enough to, if it was your last fight, was that enough to end your career on?

I'm definitely happy. I'm so thankful they gave me that fight. And, yeah, I had a little apologetic that I didn't give them. Yeah, I didn't do better. But, you know, whatever, I got to get over that. But, yeah, I'm happy with, I am, I'm happy. I got nothing to be ashamed of. It's losing sucks, and it's hard to swallow.

But, you know, I went in there with Anderson, and, you know, and I followed my game plan and, you know, did what I had to do. But that's an MAA. One little mistake, one little opening is all it takes. And with a guy like Anderson Silva, that's all he needs. And just landed his perfect me after a perfect kind. and got the victory. So hats off to Anderson.

And, yeah, I'm happy with, I'm happy with. I could honestly say I've never had a fight where I went, where I looked back and said like, oh, I choked or I didn't come to fight or mentally wasn't prepared or, you know, even through like terrible injuries and fighting sick before, like I still suck it up and do my best. and yeah I got nothing to be ashamed of by the way how was the flight back in that private plane with Dana oh the best

I have my own bed he got these uh this big mainframe database with just hundreds and hundreds of movies on them and so you got your own iPad with hundreds of movies you choose from your own bed and you you have a flight attendant waiting on your hand and foot making you food and it was so funny too she's like uh

because I was just eating and eat and eat She's like, oh my God, like, I'm having total deja vu. Like, after four is fought in Brazil, like his wife was having a baby too. And he was a bottomless pit as well. He was such a pig just like you. You guys are linked. But, yeah, I didn't want the flight to land. I remember in the Windows scene we were over the desert.

It would be like, oh, no, we're home already. Like, I'm so comfortable. You know, taking out and having chocolate and yogurt. Oh, it was great. By the way, have you decided whether or not you'll call your first child for us? It was never going to be for us. I'm thinking Griffin Brandon. Griffin, okay.

And my wife said if I won the fight, then I could name him Stefan. But I didn't. So maybe Stefan could be one of his. Yeah, the idea is like I like Brandon Griffin, Stefan, and maybe we'll name him all three. And when he's old enough, I think what he likes to best. So Griffin is going to be involved in the name somewhere. Well, you'll see. I'm not going to, like, promise you anything.

I'll be somewhat of a surprise. Okay. All right. Brandon Stephan, Stephen, Brandon Griffin. I like it. I'll... I'll... I'll see which one he likes around, like, kindergarten.

I'll leave you with this, Stefan, and then we'll let you go. This is a comment from our page here, where we have tons of comments on the site, and I don't usually do this. but it just caught my eye. A fan named Wise Toad, right? So honestly, the more I hear Stefan speak, the bigger fan I become, he's just so damn classy and such a big inspiration for me in terms of bringing MMA to the forefront.

So there you go. You may have lost the fight, but gaining fans, you continue to gain fans. A pleasure to work with you on the broadcast. Hopefully I could do it again in the future, and I tip my cap to you in what you did on Saturday night against the greatest of all time. And most importantly, wish you and your wife the very best. with the upcoming birth of your first child.

Awesome. What was his name again? Well, his name is Wise Toad. I doubt that's his real name, but that's where he goes by. Well, thank you, Ariel. I've got to say, you're a class act yourself. I mean, as hard as it is to talk about this, I'm glad I got to do it with you.

And thank you, Wise Toad. That really helped. Thanks so much, Stefan. Keep us posted, and good luck in the coming days with your wife. Appreciate it. No sign of Forrest? Oh, there he is. Oh, hey, Forrest. How are you?

Good. I didn't know what was on yet. Man, the slackers behind the glass on my show, they don't even tell me you're on. So I'm killing time, and there you are just waiting for me. So I apologize for that. How are you? I'm well. I'm well. It is so good to hear from you. It's been a while. Actually, I haven't seen or heard you do much since your win over Tito Ortiz.

Did you just feel like you need to take some time off? from us, from us dirty media? What was I supposed to be doing? I don't know. Some people like to, you know, like to have their face out there, be visible, be at fights. You know, I do media when I have a fight coming up in the U.S.A. suggests strongly that I do it. But here you are, what, two and a half months away from your next fight,

and you're on my show. What an honor that is once you preface it like that? I'm hoping when you get it out of the way. So then I won't have to do it like December. So this, meaning with me or this is just your one interview that you're going to do for this fight and that's it? I'm just talking you up the list. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm getting that out of the way.

I kind of feel like this is the interview before the interview, if you know what I mean? This is just a catch-up, how you doing? Oh, well, fair enough. Well, I'm going to get in a hot car, like a baby or a dog, just sitting in a hot car off. in front of the gym, about to go to work. Probably going to die in this car.

Well, I hope not. Possibly one interview goes. Have you, I saw that clip where Matt Sarah visited you, he's doing those video blogs. Your car, man, what is going on there? And have you cleaned it up? It was rather disgusting. I'm a guest called a teenage girl,

like my wife's friend's daughter, actually cleaned it up because she was just so disgusted by it. She had to clean it up. I was like begging her. I was like, don't bother. Seriously, don't bother. What's the point is starting?

It's not a lot. You know, at some point, I'm just hoping to sign. I'll give me a new car. How long have you had that car for? It's 2005, 2005, 2006. Whenever I won the show, that's what I got. Same car, the same car, the same car that you got off the Ultimate Fighter 1. I mean, it's pretty zippy.

It gets decent gas mileage. And the thing is you get to sit up straight in it. Hey, cars, we have to lay down. It's real small, so it still fits places, but you can kind of sit up in it. Like, I'll have to lay down to hurt my back. And how often do you clean it, other than when you have the 19-year-old girl come and do it? Check it out. Here's how often I clean it.

I leave town and my wife, for whatever reason, will get stuck using my car, and she'll actually take it and have it clean. Oh. But I've never seen it ever, I don't think. Wow. And you just had... It's not really a few pride.

You know, I realize I'm a pathetic human being, it's just the way it is. So this fight with Chale Sunnan, an interesting fight on many levels because you actually fought him and beat him back in 2003. We'll get to that in a second.

But it wasn't a fight that was on many people's radars, perhaps because we didn't know if Chale would move up to 205 and he was talking some smack about some other people. Did it surprise you when they offered you this fight?

No, well, Chale asked for it. It's my understanding. He had 40 asses of a age. And I think I was just the first one to pop up and say, sure, when. Why didn't say, sure, I said, when and where? Why? Because you liked it that much? No, no, I just, well, yeah, I mean, I think it stylistically a good matchup for me.

You know, obviously, the thing that's been getting me in trouble is guys that are quicker than me and, you know, beat me to the punch with something I don't necessarily see coming, you know. That's the problem I've had recently. And so I guess for you and you say when, it's because, like, if this fight was taking place in, you know, I don't know, Brazil or, I mean, it wouldn't make much sense. But the Las Vegas is the kicker for you, right? No, I've done. You know, yeah. No problem.

Now, what do you remember from that fight in 2003? You beat him. It was actually a one-night tournament, if you recall, for a promotion called IFC. Do you remember anything about that fight? Yeah, I remember everything about it. You know, it's so far on the past. It doesn't matter, you know? Okay, but what was it like?

I don't know. What the stuff, like, where people jumped off ropes. So that was, that was my experience with wrestling. And I was like, he was a good wrestler? I was like, well, he's going to, like, flying album? Is he going to, you know, doing a comic bomb drop or something? I didn't know. He submitted him via Triangle, which is kind of his, his kryptonite.

Are you going to look for that again here? I mean, you know, probably not. No. I think, you know, I'm trying not be on the ground too much, trying to get up, try and play different stuff. And I don't know, we'll see, we'll see how it's still going into it, you know. We're still a way out. Right.

Actually, two weeks. It's actually what? 12 weeks. Right. And when does training camp start? Today. Oh, wow, today. What good timing?

Just excellent timing, yeah. He was flirting with a John Jones fight. we thought, you know, he was going to get that fight. He'd been talking about him. Were you worried that you weren't going to get this fight, that he was going to be moved elsewhere? No, I wasn't. I mean, and he still might.

You know, he's, I don't know. He's kind of just run around and say, hey, want to fight you, want to put you, want to put you at you. You know, I was like, oh, sure, you know. But if something comes up, you know, I'll fight whoever on September 29. And that's not true. I won't fight whoever.

Actually, you know, a laundry list of people I want to fight and people I don't want to fight. I'm not going to watch. Who's on what? Oh, that was my next question. You knew what my next question would be. Yeah.

And so I'm wondering, I mean, are you a fan of the Chale Son and Persona? He has developed the persona. I don't know if you noticed that. Well, it's beautiful. I think it's great. Yeah. Do you think that he will try? Well, he's a grinder.

Nobody wants to fight him because he's a very tough fight. Fans don't, you know, they're not blown away by him, because a lot of them don't understand grappling, the wrestling, you know, they want to see a big knockout, whatever. You know, so, I mean, I appreciate this fighting style, but what he's done

is basically create this character, which is, you know, pretty much him personified. And now people want to see him, you know, now people are interested. So he sells the fight, even though, you know, guys don't want to have a fight trail, fine. Even if you beat him, it's going to be a grind, it's going to, you know, He's going to put his elbow in your face repeatedly.

You know, it's a tough fight. Do you think he's going to try to get on your skin with, you know, words and Twitter tactics and things like that? And are you susceptible to that kind of attack? No and yes. So, okay. So then it's good to know that he won't do it. Now, do you think he would have been John Jones if he would have gone in that fight? Like, do you think that highly of a skill?

Skill set? I don't know. It would have been a rough fight for Jones. The thing about Jones, he's got a great guillotine and great arms for it, and a good clenched is so tall with such long legs. You know, you've got to, you know, you think Chale coming in, man, those knees are going to be flying at you. That guillet team is going to be there.

So, you know, Jones is a tough guy to shoot on. He's got good wrestling reactions, babe. So I don't know. You know, you know what was interesting about them announcing this fight and the timing of it because just a couple of weeks earlier at a UFC on Fox 4 pre-fight press conference. Dana White told us, the reporter, this. He said, I would like Forrest Griffin to retire.

Nothing left for Forrest to prove either. He won the ultimate fighter. He won the title when people thought he couldn't. He became a huge star. He made expletive of money. He's got a beautiful wife. He's got a baby. You know, if you don't want to be world champion

and you're still in the mix, why? And then they give you this fight. Yeah. Well, where did that come from? I don't know. I mean, I understand what's saying, you know, a guy that talks like me. You know, that's the problem with being a realist. People don't want that shit.

They want you to say, I'm the best ever. This is the best thing ever. You know, my wife, my wife, my wife's thumbed it up for me. She said, you know, you ever heard one of them movie stars on a late night say, it's a pretty good movie. I'm the best movie out there right now, but it's pretty good, you know? Nobody ever goes and says, hey, I'm a top ten fighter. Well, maybe top 15.

I can beat a lot of guys. Not necessarily those guys, but I can beat a lot of guys. Nobody ever says that. Those are the best. But that's the thing with having a grasp on reality. I know I'm not the best. But I still really want to fight. I want to be on the Rich Franklin plan,

which apparently means I'm going to have to travel around the exotic countries and fight with the whole case. But, I mean, if I want to keep fighting, I guess that's what I've got to do. So did you talk to him after he said that and reassure him that you're not interested in retiring anytime soon? No, I mean, I just talked to him when you asked me about the jail fight. It was the only time I've talked to him since. Oh, really?

And what did he say? Because at one point, he's asking for you to retire, and then the next day he's offering you a huge fight against Chale Sunnan. Why did he change his mind? How would I know? That's a question, better suited for Mr. White, wouldn't you say? Yeah, but I'm wondering if you asked him that question, because he's coming out publicly and almost saying,

I want you to retire, and then he's offering you a big question. fight. So I was wondering if you were like, hey, why the change of mind? Well, I don't know. I took it as, you know, my own personal, do you want to be a fucking fighter speech? Ah, yeah. The day, you know, you talk, you know, you talk like you're old and you don't, you know. But the thing is that's a lot of fighting. I know, like, I know I'm not, like, I know I'm not the best, but I'm still pretty damn good.

And there's a lot of people I can go deep and, you know, what do you do? Like, what am I supposed to go do? I have no other skills. I enjoy doing this. There's nothing I'd really rather do, you know? They won't pay you to watch movies and Netflix all day, so we'll just probably do this, you know? Have you thought about how many more years you want to do it for, at least? Yeah, I mean, it's not long, and that's another thing, too, you know?

I'm saying you're not long for this sport is another thing people don't really want to hear. I mean, realistically, your body's only got so much, you know? It's not the numerical years, the time spent, you know, beating up your body. How many dares still going? I have no idea. Right. And you know, the guy's not even close to 40. I think he's like 34 or something.

Yeah, he's my age, but he's had 1,000 tough fights, you know? Yeah, I know, it is amazing. He's aging in reverse dog years, you know? Like, man, those are fighter years. One thing I watched that little, you know, the original. thing, a little documentary, cool thing. And Dana White, due the stress of his job,

has also aged like a fighter. Yeah, I look bad of years, but he's right there with the, you know, the stress, flying every day, you know, fights falling out, stuff like that. It's taken a toll on him, too. Yeah, and he has a Mnier's disease. He has an ear problem.

You're talking about the Forrest Griffin, the Ultimate Fighter documentary that aired on fuel, right? Yes. Yeah, that was really well done. I liked it. Did you like it? I did actually, considering we shot it in about no time at all, you know? Was it, did you shoot that during the Ortiz fight week?

No, right after, right after. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, it was very well done, and I highly recommend it. Just a couple more minutes with you and we'll let you go, and we appreciate the time for us to very, very much. Do you think you'll be one of those guys who will always have to stick around in MMA? Because, as you say, you don't really like or know how to do anything else, so do you think you'll have to be a coach, or maybe you'll come on the media side of things? That seems to be very in vogue these days, no?

None of that? It's not to crazy. You know, I would come on the media, a lot of things. There's so many good fighters that, you know, Rashad, Steph and Chale, Stan, Florian, they're already doing a, you know, a good job doing it. Well, you know, I'd never like to take the path that's already taken. That's not really my, that's not my interest. Okay.

So what do you think you'll do? You know, I could get a job working with the U.S.C. They do a lot of charitable stuff. I wouldn't mind, you know, learning, you know, what exactly they do. And, you know, being the guy that has to look for all the requests for stuff and decide, you know, who gets what, you know. So it's a tough job. But I like doing stuff like that.

You know, I wouldn't mind dedicating the rest of this life to try to help others. You know, I've been very fortunate. it. You know, it's weird. I just would like to help some other people. I used to think, like, when you hear movie stars and famous people talk about, like, helping others, and when they go to India and they do great stuff like that, I used to think that they were just kind of trying to buy public favor. Like, oh, they think I'm nice to go pay 12 bucks to my next movie, which is going to suck. But, you know, there's a point where, like, if you're a decent person and you realize, like, your belly's full, you have what you need, your needs are met.

You kind of look around and you say, man, you know, I'm doing great, but not everybody around me isn't. You know, I should probably do something about this, you know? The long story, I actually, so I started praying a couple years back. Okay. And, you know, this guy's sound crazy, but God answered me. And so I thought, well, I might be schizophrenic. I've always been a little off.

So I prayed to my neighbor's dog, and he did not tell him to shoot people in parked cars. In fact, all he said was like squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. He just said that again and again, it was horrible. So, anyway, God told me to do stuff. I asked him, like, tough questions, and they gave me answers, and I really hated the answers he gave me, or he or she, I don't know. Right, right. I have power the imaginary head friend, whatever.

Because it was all like, you know, why is this? And it was like, oh, you know, there's enough food for everybody. We just don't distribute it equally. You know, it's like, well, why do these people out to have diseases? You know, I want a kid's a disease, and they're like, you know, so you can help them. You're supposed to help them. That's why you're here. And so I quit praying right away.

I was like, whoa, this guy wants me to help sick people and hungry people. That's what I was just like, I was over something different. Those are the answers they gave me. And so you stopped praying right after that? No, I'm kidding. I didn't. I didn't. I just, now I just feel crap there.

Now I'm at the point where I actually, you know, most of my life I was kind of agnostic. No, I'm actually at the point where I do believe in, you know, the something more and the higher power. And I just, I still don't live my life recording, you know? What was the turning point? How does someone go from not believing there's a God to believing there's a God? Like, did something happen? Did you talk to someone? Something happened to you that? Oh, man. You know, who doesn't, don't you want, everybody wants their God. You know, you want, you want, you want bad people to suffer. You want people that are suffering to do well, you know, everybody wants that.

You want therapy. God, it's just, I mean, they need in us. You know, because we're the only fentioned being ever to exist. We want to know why. We start thinking why our own mortality. We're the only creature that ever realizes that they're going to die. For me, you know, it was always a thing.

And then that was a weird story. I was really kind of at the apex of my life. And I said, hey, God, don't you all me in your thing? I, you know, I got the sport. I'm a champ. I got a wife or a girlfriend, a very good relationship, them, stable, and, you know, like, I was trying to bargain, like, hey, pick me first. Oh, you want me in your team. And I don't know, it's starting out, and then, right after that, everything went to shit.

It's weird, like, health, everything, my family, like, my best friend, I like, crazy stuff start happening, you know? Wow. And so, you know, I've prayed some more to why is this, you know, I just, I come over to the good side and then you throw the stuff. But it was like, the answer he gave me with, I had you come over so you could deal with all this stuff. About him, you know, I'm still there. I'm just not very good.

Like, it's tough when you know the answers, but they're really hard choices, you know. Yeah. And they're really, you're not fond. It's not like stuff, you know. It's okay, like, once a month I go to the boys' town and hang out. That's cool. But, yeah, he wants me to do, like, four hours a day, every day, like, make it the rest of my life. That's not that fun, you know?

How often do you actually speak to him? Not that often. Not that often. You know, if I do it, he's going to give me answers that I probably don't want. So just to be clear, when you say, like, join your team to God, you don't mean death, right? No, no, no. I mean, like, you know, people that are religious and believe in something, and people who don't?

And I was like, you know, kind of in the middle, I was like, well, who wants to pick me? Do you go to church now? Actually, yeah. Wow. How often? You have a kid, too. Just once a week. Okay.

Has that helped you? No, Sanchez you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's what I was getting at. Did you feel like the timing of it is related to when you had your daughter? No, it was actually a couple years before that. Oh, wow. But do you feel like a better person inside now?

Do you feel like you have more meaning and that you're, I don't know, you're more on the right path, I should say? I really, like I feel like I see, it's almost worse, to be honest. I feel like I see the path that should have gone, but I'm too lazy and selfish to actually fully commit to it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do get it. You know, I did the, I came up for years. years ago, I put it on Twitter, actually. I came with a mission statement to find my happiness and helping others find their happiness in the name of God. That was kind of my life mission

statement. And, yeah, I haven't really done that so much. Do you think that the UFC should help guys, you know, like they should have like a chaplain there or, you know, someone there to talk to you before? No. No, no, business, business, you know, your personal beliefs are personal. Let's keep it that way. I'm not evangelical in any. You know, if somebody asked me and they give me the opportunity, I would love to talk to them and share my experience, et cetera, but I'm not knocking on your door, you know, you've got to come to me at all.

You know, you've got to want something. You've got to want more. You've got to want some sort of understanding. You know, you're not going to, I don't see the point of walking up to people and just trying to convert them. You know, it's almost like a diet. You know, you have to want to do it. This person has to come to you.

You have to hire it. train or something. You know, you can't just, I don't know, go up and say, hey, do you want me to train you? The guy's like, I don't really get to get into shit. Do you ever feel conflicted, given how you feel now and what you do for a living? Not at all. I mean, come on, look at where I fight them. A little too nice, probably. It's a sport, man. It's a sport, you know. It's not, it's not combat it. I hate when people say, ah, it's a war. It's not a war. There's a referee. There's a very, you know, it's a very, slim chance I'm going to die or even get seriously hurt, you know?

My shoulder might get popped, so I might not be able to fight me more, wipe my ass with my right hand, but, you know, chances are I'm not going to die. You know, there's a rest that stop it. You go to a doctor right after it. You know, it's pretty easy. It's not that big of a stressor for me anymore, to be honest. I mean, what's what happened when I fought Anderson Silva? It can't possibly get worse than that.

Right. I mean, I've already seen the bottom, but it wasn't that bad. You know, I made it through. You know, I survived, whatever, you know? So just fighting, man. It's not the end of the world, you know? And that's a fantastic segue. Just two last quick things.

You obviously, a man you know very well, a very good friend of yours, is about to go into that same challenge in just a couple weeks in a tougher spot because he's going to Brazil, Stefan Bonner, to fight Anderson Silva. Yeah. Have you talked to him about that experience? Yeah, yeah. So wherever you do, don't take volume all during the week to sleep. Because not only would you fail your drug test, but you won't be super sharp in there either.

Okay. No volume or Xanax or whatever it was. Did you do that? You didn't do that before your fight, right? I actually failed my drug test, I think, for Xanax, which I had a doctor prescription. I didn't do it before the fight. No, I did it the night before because I was nervous. so I couldn't sleep.

Oh, I didn't know that. I don't think anyone knows that. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, what's the point? Right. Why had more humility to humiliation to a bad situation? So did you talk to him about the things you might have done differently and based on the fact that he doesn't, no? None of that?

No, I think you'll be all right. He's got good people around him. Do you think he has a shot? Because he is the biggest underdog in the history of UFC main events, 14 to 1. God, actually. I was thinking about going to put a little money on them. Wow.

Just, you know, the ships and giggles. But here's the thing. Stefan's got better wrestling on top end than you realize. And I don't think Anderson is going to really want to commit to his punches. You know, I don't think he's going to really want to step in and let stuff go because he's not going to want, you know, to close a distance too much on Stefan. And I don't think. So you actually think he has a show?

Yeah. him. And he does. He's never been stopped or finished. I mean, submitted or knocked out. The only time he's ever been hurt is when Jones said him in the back of the head without a spinning elbow, which is just really didn't keep coming. Right. Will you

watch the fight? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you're not going to go there, right? That would be quite the moment. Like, if you're in his corner or something, you know, it just seems like you guys are so linked to each other and now here he is fighting the... It would be horrible, though, yeah. You don't want, like, I still have a... I still have a... I still have a...

the smell of Anderson's urine on me. I don't want to go selly at his corner, that's crazy talk. At least you can look back at it that way. And finally, I was just wondering, you know, based on how Dana responded and Tito responded, you regret how you reacted to your fight

before knowing that you won at UFC 148? Oh, yeah. Yeah, certainly, I do. Of course. It's pretty simple. Yeah. How quickly did you regret it? Everyone told me on the back, like, what are you doing? in my

so as soon as I got back to the locker room at the time I thought it was pretty amusing and I was pretty funny but once everyone told you then you realized that

not only walking back but taking the mic and all that stuff right? Yeah, yeah all that was just nonsense but he hasn't been

too kind after he seems to think that he won the fight have you even watched it? You know I haven't watched it eh probably for the best

well for us I appreciate the time we've taken up too much of your time. Thank you so much. It's great to hear from you. And I hope you will reconsider taking me off the list for pre-UFC-155 because I always do enjoy, even though you think I've changed, which I've actually taken that to heart and tried to go back to my old ways. I don't know if you've noticed it or not. Very good of you. I appreciate that. Here's the thing. I don't think Dan is going to make

me do an interview with you, so this is probably last enough we're ever going to speak ever. I appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. I'll thank you. The last time I saw you and spoke to you was in February, Saitama Super Arena, of course. It's been, what, eight or so months, a little less than eight months. Were you just missing me? Was that it? Like, you felt like you needed some Hawaiianian in your life? No, no, not at all.

Because that's what I was told. I was told me. You was missing form, man. You were sitting around on Saturday. You're like, you know who I haven't seen in a while? The beta male. I have never said, I have never said those words. My lips has never said this word.

Before my life. That's wishful thinking, though. Well, maybe. Maybe it is wishful thinking. But it is good to have you here. Thanks, man. Thank you so much for coming. It's a real pleasure.

We even brought out the rampage action figure. Man, what's up? What's up with this? He's been through the ringer. What you don't done to him, man? He's been through the ringer. You put marks? And then look at the hair, man.

It's like, like, what's up with that? Like, it's supposed to be black. You could speak to New York Rick back there. Who? He's in charge. Yeah. We'll deal with him later. Okay, man.

But, we have a lot to get to. Yeah, look you y'all been messing with me. No, no, no. I don't know what happened to your chain, by the way. Yeah, see, that's what it is. And they put John Jones, I mean, a little respect. Look, John Jones don't got a mark on them. Well, except in the backside there.

All right, so let's get right to it. Obviously, there's a lot to talk to you about. I want to work backwards here. I mean, in the last, like I said, seven and a half months, a lot has happened in the world of Rampage Jackson. There's a lot to get to. But I want to work from the most recent and then go backwards. Obviously, you're supposed to fight Glover-Teshire,

at UFC 153, and then we found out the unfortunate news that you injured your elbow. And dislocated my knee. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, my ankle. And you're okay. But we didn't talk about that, though. Well. We didn't, the elbow was most serious.

What exactly happened? And most importantly, how are you feeling right now? Well, I'm good now. I went to see Dr. Coker in Connecticut. And it's just an old injury that I've had for years. I first injured it like like a, like, what, two weeks before I fought Forrest. and Dr. C. came out and he helped me up over the weekend.

Took him just a weekend to help me up. He just really knows what he's doing. It's like when you hyperestend. I slammed this one guy. He scissors-ticked his legs and hypersend my arm years ago. Okay. And then, so every now and then things, I'm not going to say how he gets injured

because, you know, we've got some fighters here that don't, to be watched, they don't have honor. But every now and then, my elbow would flare up again. Like, he'd get inflamed and stuff like that. And it's never bothered me in the fight, but it bothers me in, and sparring and training where you got to, you know, do it every day.

And every now and then it would hurt, then I can take like 30 seconds. They'll go back, but sometimes it gets severe where you can't even move your arm. Really? Yeah. Which one is it? That one? Yeah, it was this one. And so I did, the day I was sparring, I kicked the guy in the hip and dislocated my ankle.

And I didn't want to stop because the sparring was really good. I was going to good. And then, like, the next couple rounds later, I hurt my elbow. If I hadn't been in Brazil training, if my doctor could have came to me or something like that, I wouldn't have to pull out of the fight. But since I had to leave Brazil, you know, I'm a big guy. My weight cut is on the schedule and stuff like that, you know. You getting phone calls in the middle of the show?

Yeah, well, people, you know, I don't know. They don't know your life? The world is watching right now. And this guy, he's an MMA guy too. He should know. Hater. Well, it happens. And, you know, and since I had to leave Brazil, that's what I had to fight.

because I would have been good. I would have been good in two days, three days. But since I had to leave and it took him like three days, this one was, it hurt worse than the last time. It took him about three days to fix me and do my ankle. He fixed my ankle like five seconds. He just pop it back in. And I could have, like, if I had a camp here in New York or something,

I see it could have fought. When did this happen? It happened like, it happened on a Monday. I'm bad with days. It happened on a Monday. Whenever Dana text about it, or tweeted about it. So when you injured yourself that day and trained, Did you know right away that you were not going to be able to fight?

I made my manager talk about her and we, actually we waited the next day because I thought that maybe it would go away. And we waited and see if I could train and stuff like that. And I was thinking, well, maybe I could keep running, but then like, oh, my ankle is messed up. I know I got to lose weight and then we thought about it. I said, we made a plan like, well, I got to go to New York and then we'll come back. But, you know, you're not eating really clean and stuff like that. And waiting and not training. We was going to miss a week out of camp.

And I was like, you know, my last fight, you know, I fought injured and stuff like that. And I had all those problems behind that. And I said, I'm not going to risk that again. So I said, you know, I just pull out of this fight and come back strong. I want my next fight that I want to be closer to 100% as possible and show the world what I can do, you know. And we will get to what happened in the last fight in a second. But I'm wondering, why were you in Brazil? Because I haven't known you to be the kind of guy who trained.

in Brazil was it just because this fight was taking place in Brazil and you wanted to stay close? Yeah, this fight was taking place in Brazil and you know I always wanted to go to Brazil and and Mario Sukata like our team's judicious coach before you know saying he went back to Brazil and opened up his gym stuff in Brazil and he's like oh come come train with me and my gym in in Brazil and stuff like that we went to he see fit Brazil and I just I just wanted to soak up the coach and train and you know get my judici suit up real good because Glover got really good jujitsu and even though he was running his mouth like he'd go try to knock me out i knew he's going to try to take me down and hump my leg like everybody else dude that swears you know what i'm saying by god that they're going

try to knock me out so i just want to go there and get some really good jutsu training in and and and um really worked on my ground skills and you know stuff like that so it was a good place to train were you the one that called dana to tell him that you were going to pull out of the fight uh i told my I managed to call and tell him, you know. I just told him like, yeah, I got to pull out. I felt bad, but, you know what I'm saying? This is my first time ever pulled out of a fight for injury. You know, I've been fighting injured.

I fought so many fights injured. Like, some I win, some I lose. Like the knee I had surgery on, I fought Rashad on the injured knee. I injured the knee in the Rashad camp. And I injured the knee in college, actually, you know what I'm saying? I was surprised it lasted that long. Really? Yeah.

I originally injured that knee in college wrestling. and I never had surgery on it and stuff like that. And I'm surprised it lasted that long. And I fought with the messed up need for so many years. And then you got John Jones kicking your knees backwards and stuff now. So it's like, you know, the other need was giving me problems and stuff like that. But, you know, I dealt with it and rehab that one while I was doing it and fixing it and got that one good and stuff like that. It's just like, I was like, man, you know what?

I want to fight close to 100%. His knee has bothered me for years. and I'm getting older and, you know what I'm saying, and I just want to, like, make sure I'm close to 100% so I can put on a good show for my fans. I think they deserve that. Right. What did you think of the matchup against Tashara?

Because Shogun, you know, famously he didn't want to fight him. He didn't think he was a big enough name. And then when they announced that you were going to fight him and everything that had gone on behind the scenes, this was reportedly the last fight on your contract. People thought that the UFC was sort of feeding you to Tashara. he beats you and then you go bye-bye. Is that the way you viewed it?

No, see, you know, a lot of fans, a lot of fans, what people got to understand, a lot of the fans in the UFC are the new fans to MMA. You know what I'm saying? They got to take that into consideration. Just because Shogun didn't want to fight the guy, you know, who knows why Shogun fights? I fight to pay my bills, and, you know,

I got kids, I got put through college, and I got some kids I got to save up for lawyer fees and bail money. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, I got things. I like to have fast cars and I like, you know, I like the good life. I like, you know, go in the club, make it rain sometimes. Who doesn't? Yeah, yeah, who doesn't?

You know, I got to, so I got a fight. So I don't fight to be famous. I don't. So I don't care if he's a big name or a little name. I just care. He's like, you know, I'm going to fight, put on an exciting fight and get my bills paid. That's why I care for it. You know, Shogun, he may, he may like the, all the,

then comes with, oh, what name he's fighting. And I don't care about that stuff Like I saw I saw him I saw I saw I saw him I saw They showed me who he was They showed me clip You never heard of him

Never heard of him Wow And they showed me clips I'm like oh he's he's a sight and fighter He's tough he bangs They said oh he can He knows Jitsu and stuff too But I don't care

This guy bangs Like yeah I thought okay I fight him And you know And I didn't think I thought I thought he's tailor made for me

I thought it would be a great fight For the fans I thought that my last fight Was so boring I wanted to redeem myself You know what I'm saying It takes two to make an exciting fight, you know what I'm saying? One guy wants to fight and the other guy wants to

or run or just lay on top of you and stuff like that. It's like, it gets kind of boring for the fans. And if you guys go back and watch my fights in my career, you can tell what I care about. I care about exciting the fans. That's why I am the way I am. And that was the whole reason around why I was upset as I was back in the past. You know, I lost a lot of love for fighting and stuff. I can honestly say, like Dana White and the UFC, like, took a lot of love out of for MMA but since all this stuff is something weird happens I got injured and I got and I got healed up and Dr. C you know saying he healed up my elbow and he fixed some other stuff that was bothering me like this guy's a miracle worker like the best doctor ever in the way he's worked

work with Shaquille O'Neill and a lot of a lot of top athletes he's the best doctor in and he fixed some other stuff and showed me some stuff I'm like wow and my body is you know reason why I started hating training because my body was hurting so much when I trained everything hurt my shoulders this elbow all this stuff hurt but now he fixed me up and doing good now I'm back to training really hard and I'm loving it. Even though I'm got a fight now, I'm still training. It's like I used to be. The old rampage is back. It's telling you. It's interesting that you mentioned that.

You said a lot there, but I remember when we had our talk in Tokyo when you walked and we played the video games and all that. A lot of people enjoyed that. And I got the sense from that interview that the love was starting to go away a little bit. Yeah. And now, obviously, very good to hear

that you're getting it back. But why did it go away for a minute there? Well, you know, I really You know I don't want to You know Touch on it too much But you know

It's no secret that You know, I was having problems with With UFC I lost my love When I lost that forest fight Because I know that I won that fight And honestly I wanted

I wanted to cry like racist stuff I did want to do that You know black folks we're good at that But you know Like I just don't think it's fair For a man who to go out there and, you know, I know

I took the fight, soft flat, I took, like, oh, Forrest. I didn't train my hardest, you know what I'm saying? I was coming off, I was coming off the Dan Henderson fight, and I had like a little, there's a little injury on my, no, got it. So I didn't, you know, I didn't keep up training

and stuff like that, but I just knocked this guy out and stuff like that. And I trained, but I didn't train my hardest and stuff like that, but I knew, you know, I knew I was like, I'm going to do enough just to win his fight, train that's hard to win his fight, And then he injured my knee.

He kicked me in the knee. And I felt like, oh, I'm the champion. I'm going to do just enough to win his fight. And I felt like I did. But after the fight, you know what I'm saying? I didn't react the way people thought I would. I accepted the defeat. And I, you know, I knew that I wanted a fight.

I said, oh, you know, he kicked my butt. Stuff like that. You know, I, you know what I'm saying? Hared my head up high. And I walked out because I didn't want to act of fool. And because I know how it is. Like, people don't know, like, what, when I went back home to Memphis and stuff like that,

I'm from the South, you know what I'm saying? A lot of white people coming up to me and stuff, saying stuff, saying like, derogatory stuff to me, you know what I'm saying? After that loss? Yeah, after that loss. A lot of white people saying stuff to me and stuff like that. I'm like, there's some racist shit they were saying to me and stuff like that. And I was like, you know, you know, it shows your true colors. Because anybody that watched that fight can clearly see that I won that fight.

And if you're happy over somebody winning a fight like that, it shows how much of a bigger you are. And so that took a lot of love for me and a lot of love from my fans. and everything, and I started smoking cigarettes and stuff more and doing all the stuff, and I just, I didn't, I didn't have a love for fighting as much. But I kept that to myself. I didn't want to be one of those guys like, oh, you know, I lost that fight because, you know, because I was black and stuff like that, because when I did the whole ultimate fighter with Forrest and they gave him special treatment and stuff, I did, I felt like it was racist.

Really? Yeah, I did. But then when I did the ultimate fighter with Rashad, felt the same thing. And I was like, oh, it couldn't be that because. Michelle, blacker than me. And then I felt like, oh, it was because they came from the ultimate fighter. And that was what is saying? I don't think that they screwed me out of that fight with Forrest because I'm black

is because he's their baby. You know, he's the one who put them on the... You don't think it was just three judges looking at a fight? No. Well, you know, honestly, like the judges and the UFC haven't been doing a great job all the time. And it's important to note the UFC doesn't hire the judges. It's Nevada in your case. People can think whatever they want to think.

You know what I'm saying? I'm not here to say that. I'm just saying that this is how I felt. I'm just saying this is how I felt at the time. I have my own mind to think stuff. I'm not a sheep. I feel like a lot of people in as well as a sheep, I just feel like I'm not a sheep.

And all I'm saying is like this is how I felt at the time. That's why I lost the love for fighting and the MMA and UFC and all the stuff. And I felt sorry for myself and everything. And I felt like that fight hunts you. I felt like I want to fight. And I've asked them. over and over give me a rematch with for us i don't care i just want to i just want to prove to myself and where like i can beat him right you know what i said i did beat him you know like i was real

proud of myself that i didn't give up like people don't know how bad that that kicked her he kicked me my knee over and i never been kicked like that before you know what saying you know so that's but i want i'm curious that was 2008 right you've had great moments since then yeah you beat you beat machita yeah you know you had You had a tough fight against Jardine. Right. So, but in Japan, I got that sense. Right.

How did you get it back now? It's just, it's just one of those things, like where... Now that you're healthy? Now, like, what was the epiphany that made you feel like, all right, I'm back? Well, it's like some of the fans and stuff, like, um, like some of the fans, like, you know, stood in there and gave me support. And now, like, a, like, a little Wayne made a song and put my name in a song, and now two chains made a song.

Really? Yeah. And it's like, I'm thinking like, man, you know, the world, you know what I haven't forgot about me. You know what I used to be one of the best fighters in the world. You know what I'm saying? Like my people out there, they still support me, even though I haven't been doing it. And it's like giving me back my love for the final.

Like I want to go out there and make the people who support me proud. And I want to show my family. I want to show myself that I still can be one of the best in the world again. And I know it. I know it. I can. When's the last time you felt this way? The last time I felt like this was back when I was champion.

Really? And when I was like, you know what I'm saying, the undisputed champion, and back when I was fighting and proud, when I was smashing people that I wasn't even supposed to smash. Let me play devil's advocate. You know in the fight game, we hear, you know, in the fight game, people, there's so much that happens, boxing, MMA. And often we hear people say, before every fight, best shape of my life, best I'll ever will be.

You're supposed to. You're supposed to say that. That's what fans don't know. You're supposed to say that. You don't want to talk about your injuries. Of course, of course. So you're going to hear. But if someone's watching this right now, and you seem to be in good spirits and you're

saying that you're you feel you know as good if not better than you did as champion why should they believe you they probably shouldn't believe me i don't they should probably just wait and see my next fight then they can believe me they don't have to take my word for it because you know i wouldn't i wouldn't say it if i i say the same thing like i'm ready to retire and my blah but i'm not i thought i thought that i was going to want to retire at at 35 i said that you know i'm 34 and stuff now i feel I feel good now. Like, you know, I got the best doctors around me, you know. Like, I got the doctors back in California, you know, Dr. Kessler and Dr. Moore, who did the

surgery, stuff on me, and I got, you know, Dr. C. out here. And, like, I got the best doctors around to work on me. And I'm taking measures. I'm, you know, I'm taking drastic measures and keeping my body good. I'm starting ice bathing and I'm just going to give it. I know I'm older now. I'm just going to give it a good run. And, you know what I'm saying?

I just want to show the word that I still can be the best. And, and they don't have to be. believe me. Whoever the UFC put me in the case with next. I don't care who they put me in there with. They can ask them. Scale 1 to 10 on the health meter. How healthy are you right now, your entire body? Like, considering all these things you've talked about here? I can honestly say I'm eight and a half, nine. Really? Yeah. When's the last time you felt that good? Last time I felt that good was eight and a half nine. Probably, probably back in the pride days when I was coming up.

So the elbow's okay? Yeah, the knee, the ankle. The knee, the knee's good. You know, you had surgery on you, you go through all those things. I rehabbed it good and stuff like that. The knee's good. It don't bother me when I'm wrestling and anything like that. I'm so happy about that.

And the ankle is good. Like I'm running, I'm running like four miles good. Like before it, I was so lazy, you know what I'm saying? You can barely get two and a half out of me. I'm running four miles and I'm asking, you know what I'm saying, my training problems. Come on, let's do six tomorrow. Yeah, and it's not like me.

I'm happy when I do one. Yeah. But that's just me. I'm sure. And so then I'm wondering, you know, 153 is October 13th in hindsight. Do you regret pulling out or do you not think you would have been ready to fight in Brazil? I know, I wouldn't have been ready. I wouldn't have been ready to weight-wise.

Okay. Because you got, you know, you got to make, I got to make weight. I'm a big guy. Right. How much you weigh right now, if you don't mind me asking? I'm, right now I'm probably like 230, 23, 2, 235. What's your usual walking around weight? 240?

Really? Really? So you're actually coming down now. Yeah, I'm feeling to start trying to walk around by 220, 225. That's when my goal just started walking around like that. Because you know, you get older, you fill out more. How old are you? I just turned 30, believe it or not. And you still, a little pimp sweet.

You know, I actually have been working out. Have you noticed? No. Doing a few, you know, and now I'm a father. You've got to have some muscles to carry that kid. My son's in the 92nd percentile in terms of weight. I'm pretty proud. His mother must have been a specimen.

She must have been an athlete. I thought you were going to go in a different direction, and then we would have had a problem. You don't want no problems. You don't want to squash it right now? Well, you know. We can move this stuff. We can move, we can move.

We don't get much room to squash it up there. I know. It is. You want to squash it right now. It is a tough. Listen, I'm never going to say that word. I have, you know, by the way, since you're bringing it up, there are a lot of copycats in MMA.

Let's just put it out there. I'm sure. And a lot of people, because you gave me those problems, which was almost two years ago now, trying to do the same thing. And you know what? I don't know if I appreciate it. You were the first.

We had it out. We squashed it. Now people are trying to do the same thing. And I don't know if it's genuine. If you don't like me, you don't like me. But if you're trying to copy you... I don't know. I'm sure there's a lot of people that don't like you.

Yeah, that's true. Because I'm kind of like on a border. Like, we got cool in Japan last time, but... That was cool. And then you got mad at me. And then you said some shit. Well, not really. We'll get to that in a second.

I'm just saying that. But there are a lot of people. copying you, just so you know. You know what? That's been going on ever since I got to this sport. A lot of people have been copying me and stuff like that. But they say that's the best form of flattery. That's what they said. That is true.

Whatever they are. And you've always had this sort of love-hay relationship with the media. Honestly, like, people don't understand this about me. Like, people on Twitter talk shit and, like, I don't fight to be famous. I've said it from day one. But you enjoy the perks of being famous, right? What perks? Tell me the perks of being famous.

You talked about the fast. cars you get money because you're famous no no no no hold on hold on time time about time about time okay rich people have that shit they ain't famous true okay oh you can get the same shit but those are the perks of being famous as well no no that's not the perks of being famous well money and stuff like that okay that ain't thank the perk uh uh gary coleman was famous as hell where his money at well everyone's had you know there there are stories of people who didn't deal with their money. But what I'm saying is...

It's not the perk. It's not bad to be. I disagree with you. That's not a perk for being... So you'd be happy if you were just Quentin Jackson, nine to five job, happy with your family, living the life.

Honestly, money's not everything and stuff like that. But honestly, I can say, like, if I could turn back time and stuff like that, if I could live with normal life and with my family and stuff like that and if I can have all my privacy back and stuff like that, I would stay construction. And not do any of this?

No, I would. Really? Yeah, because... So much good has happened to you. You've met so many people. You've traveled the world. That's good. You fought in front of, what, 50,000 people, whatever?

70,000. 70,000. Yeah, that's all good, but it all goes out the window when you're just trying to eat dinner with your family or something. You're on a date with a hot chick and you're trying to be all cool and stuff. And you get some person, walk up to you while you eat and talking over your food and you're a big germ-free asking, can they take a picture with you? And when you say, picture, spit, come out of time. Right on your food while you're eating and you're on, you know, you. You know, or when you're in a club, you drink it, just trying to be a regular guy.

And you're dancing with this hot chick. But the hot chick's like that, don't they? I don't know this. No, I'm just telling you. I'm just saying. I'm just saying, like, you're dancing, and you got guys, you know what I'm saying, begging about you a drink while you dancing with this girl. And on the picture, why you dance with this girl. I've, you just don't understand.

I don't want to go into it. I'm just saying, like, I would regularly just be a regular guy. Make pretty good money. Put my, you know, with my family. So I just be a regular guy. Well, you are in a regular guy. I've seen your rapage. I'm thankful.

I'm thankful. Because honestly, like, people don't know this. You know what I'm saying? Maybe I might write a book and stuff one day, but, you know what I'm saying? I'm not even supposed to be here. I'm supposed to die a couple times in my life. So I'm happy, you know what I'm saying? A lot of people in my neighborhood and stuff like that didn't make it or in prison and stuff like that.

You know, I could be in like one of the guys on the street corner begging for. So don't get me wrong. I'm grateful. I'm happy that, you know what I'm saying? My Heavenly Father, you know, gave me a job where I was good. I grew up a fighter. I used to fight bullies and stuff all the time for my friends. I had a bunch of little short friends, little skinny friends look like you because I hated bullies.

You know what I'm saying? I'm thankful that, you know what I'm saying? The skills of God gave me to be a fight, I can make a living at it and stuff like that. But if people really sit down and remember, like, when I started fighting, it wasn't popular. Right. You know what I'm saying? I used to fight in Japan and I come home and then I was a regular guy. So it was just a little bit different.

People, people, you got to understand. You got to walk them out of other people's shoes. Like, I don't think, a lot of people want to be famous. A lot of people, I wish I would be famous. I wish I would be famous. You lose all your privacy. Who, you know, I wouldn't wish, I wouldn't wish for fame. I wish for health and wealth.

You mentioned a couple times you almost passed away. When was that? When I was younger. When I was growing up, you know, I've been shot at, I had a guy put a gun to my head and pulled a trigger and the gun didn't work. Get out. Yeah. And he killed somebody like a week later with the same gun because it's like an old,

he probably got an old messed up gun, you know, and thank God it didn't. How old were you? How old were you? I grew up in a hood. Why is someone coming up to you doing that? Because we was fighting. He was jumping my cousin. I told you, I used to beat up the bullets.

He was jumping my cousin. I got my people's back, and we was fighting. He was a man. He lived in a project right down the street from my house, and he was a man at the age rang. He could fight. I was a man, you know what I'm saying? And we scrapping, and he put the gun to my head. But nothing was there?

It didn't work. Wow. Yeah, I've been hit by cars a couple times, like big time. That's why I got this big dent in my head over here. What happened there? My cousin chased me with one of those, you know, those water guns where you pull the trigger and the ink disappeared later, but I had a white shirt on, my mom was coming pick me up, we're supposed to go somewhere.

I ain't want to get that. It don't disappear out of the way, and I just ran the street. This car hit me, and it hit butt me, and I jumped right in time so it wouldn't run me over. You jumped onto the car? Yeah, I was young. I was like, in third, fourth grade, I was a little bit of guy. The car was going like 40-5. Back then, those cars were made out of metal.

You know what I'm saying? It messed me up a little bit, but, you know what I'm still. You mentioned, and that is unbelievable, and I guess that gives you some perspective on life and it will make you thankful for everything. I am thankful, but at the same time, it gets overwhelming. Sure, in the moment when people are coming up to you, I can see how that gets good. So now with this newfound love, right, this newfound love for the sport or maybe regaining your old love for the sport. So I guess a lot of people would like to know because it seemed like for a while there, you just wanted to have one fight in the UFC and go away. You want it to go elsewhere.

Does that mean you want to stick around maybe? Well, the UFC is not MMA. Sure. But let's be honest. They are right now the NFL of MMA, right? They are the top dog. Yeah, I agree. And they have the most viewers on pay-per-view.

Well, I can tell you this, that since I've been focal about my plans to leave the news, my manager has been getting numerous emails and phone calls of people offering way more money than I'm making right now. Really? Right. And people, and, like, if you think about what I've been saying is that I don't fight for fame, I fight for money. And so I don't care if the UFC is, like, you know what I'm saying, like the NFL and stuff like that, you know what I'm saying? They could be like the NFL, but pay you like a water boy because they are the NFL. And like, that's no brain off of me.

So these other shows, they might not be as famous, but they probably think that I can bring that show up to, you know what I'm saying, to fame. And they're willing to pay. And we can't negotiate with them with none right now. but my manager's living like, oh, we can't negotiate right now, but... Right, because you have still a fight left on your contract. Yeah, and from what my manager said, I don't look at the contracts.

From what he's saying, like, we can't negotiate, but they've been throwing numbers at us, and my manager was like, my manager's, like, pretty happy. Like, so he said, like, when I finished my fight with the UFC, we're not wary. But what about the UFC?

Had they tried to maybe patch things up? And because you're still a draw for them, you're still one of the top light heavyweights, you know, have they tried in this sort of downtime? Or are you not interested in that? Well, honestly, the UFC hasn't said anything to me. The UFC, they've been great.

Like, they've taken care of my injury. They've been paying the doctors, like, they pay for my surgery. You know, the UFC, you know what I'm saying? They've been really great with all the injury stuff. They reimburse me for my airplane, taking stuff like that. And I wish they reimburse me for how much money I spent on camp. Because I spent a lot of money on my camps because I paid my sparring. I take care of them.

I take care of camp because, you know, I'm not cheap like some guys that used to be on my team. I ain't going to say no names. But you know what I'm saying? It's like, I mean, what was that? You know, you know, it's like,

you know. Did he fight this weekend? Okay. You can continue. So, you know, I do, I do, I take care of my people,

you know what I got to do. Right. And the UFC has been, been really good and stuff about that, but they haven't said anything to me. Like, it's honestly, I keep it real.

Like, the, I haven't complained about a lot of stuff, you know, that a lot of the reasons that I had a problem with UFC, I haven't complained. not going to complain about them because, you know what I'm saying?

It's like, it's me, it's personal. Like whenever the UFC won't talk to me, I tell them face-to-face, like, things, like what they should do and stuff like that. But I got people offer me, like, way more money than what the UFC is talking about. It's a different ballgame now, though, right? Back in the day, there was pride, obviously, there was the UFC. Now there's, you know, there's Bellator coming up. There's some other organizations, but it's tough. It's tough out there.

And even, it's tough in the UFC. I mean, they've canceled two events in the last, you know, month. I mean, it's, it's, I wouldn't want to be a free agent in this sport right now. Well, you wouldn't want to be, but me being a free agent is, it looks very promising. It is. So do you want to get this fight over with? Do you want to fight maybe this year and then test the market, 2013? I'm not, listen, I'm not in a rush.

Like, no, I'm not saying the UFC paid me like a slouch. Like, they, they, honestly, the UFC pay me pretty good. I can, I have to admit. You're happy with it? Well, you know, I'm not a greedy of person. I'm happy with it. But honestly, like I was saying, like, no, it's not worth. what stuff I got to go through with

my privacy issues and stuff like that. But you're still going to have that if you went elsewhere. I'm still going to have that when I went elsewhere, but elsewhere, I'll offer me more money. That's what I'm saying. Like, okay, think about this. Like, I think I'm nowhere near a famous as like basketball,

like Kobe Bryant or like actors like, you know, who's a big star, Denzel Washington. I'm not, but I'm more, I'm just, I'm more accessible as those guys. Sure. And I don't have I don't know if those guys were with bodyguards, stuff like that, but I go, we go and people see me.

I'm still trying to be a regular guy and stuff like that. So people see me everywhere, and sometimes you get to a place and you say you take one picture with one guy and people recognize, then you're there for 30 minutes taking pictures, you know what I'm saying, or you just got to, sometimes just got to be rude. So it's. But some might say that's the beauty of our sport, right, that you guys are so accessible.

On the flip side, you know what I mean? It's the beauty for the fans. Right. But what if I'm on my way, I'm, I got to meet. somewhere. Sure. And then if you say no to someone, it's hard. You're a mean guy?

They remember that and they call you an ass and all right. Yeah, it happens, but it's hard, but I'm just saying. What I'm saying is, like, sometimes, like, those guys will make a whole lot of money, like, Shaquille O'Neal and those guys, they can go and they can probably, they probably own, like, private islands somewhere. They can go and just, sometimes you just want to go where people don't even know you. It's weird. You want to go, like, you want to buy a ranch in Montana and just go somewhere where people

don't know you. A lot of actors do. They have, like, houses. Sure. And I can't afford to do that. So it's like... Well, I guess I'm surprised to hear you say you have this newfound love. It's good to hear you say that because for a while there in the middle, like March, April

of this year, it seemed like you just wanted... You were almost thinking about leaving MMA. Yeah, it was. But then on the flip side, I thought the newfound love would come along with, I want to be in the UFC, I want to fight in you, you know what I mean? Well, UFC is not MMA. Sure, sure. No, that's fine.

I guess you surprised me on both ends here. I guess. But you were... want to fight for many more years. I still got a couple more years in me, yeah. And I thought I'm done with MMA. I wanted to go and do boxing. Really?

Yeah, I've done everything but boxing. Like high-level boxing? Yeah. You heard Kimbo and Roy Jones are going to have some sort of exhibition match. Did you hear about that? No, I don't know. Is that the kind of thing you want to do or a celebrity thing? No, I want to go and try to box somebody.

I don't want to box the top boxing because I'm not a boxer, but I want to go and do a boxing match. I want to go and do kickboxing, you know, saying sometimes. I want to go and put on exciting fights. I think I'd be exciting for boxer because right now boxing is kind of boring. Nobody takes chances. I'm coming. The way my style is coming out and boxing, I'm coming.

Either I'm going to knock you out or I'm going to get knocked out. It's hard to do that in MMA because you can't come out, you know, your guns, you know. Blazing. Because, you know, somebody will take you down. They're waiting for you to overcome in and take you down. So MMA is kind of, your stand-up is different when it's wrestling in there. Sure. And boxing, kickboxing.

Just go. Is there a chance that after this one fight is over, then you go straight to boxing, or do you think you'll stick around in MMA a little bit? I don't know. It depends on what the money take me. As I think a famous man once said, the cheta makes it better. Damn right. It's a lot of... I tell that to everyone.

There's a lot of meaning behind it. And then I quote you. There's a lot of meaning behind that because people don't... I think the most fans, they don't know what goes on. We train six days a week. I train three to four times a day. And so by Friday... You're hurting.

Your body is hurting, but you still, you stiff, but you still got to get up and go train three or four times that day. And then you think about how much money you're getting paid. That's the only thing that goes about. I don't know what goes to other fighters. Oh, how famous I'm going to get. They don't resonate with me. To me, I'm thinking about how much money I'm getting for this fight.

This is what keeps me going, how much money I can save up for my kids so my kids can have a good college education and so I can buy me this new car I want to. I like that stuff. I want the, you know, I'm waiting for Lamborghini to make a photo, you know what I'm saying? I'm saving up for this. I want my kid to go to Harvard or something like that. That's what keeps me. I don't think about how many guys are going to come, I beg to buy me a drink next time I'm going to go to the bar.

Are you making more now than you ever did? Yeah. Or as champion, did you make more? Honestly, I, honestly, I did. I used to make more back when I used to make more back when I was champion. Yeah, because of the pay-per-view. numbers and stuff is different. Everything's different.

But now, honestly, now I'm making less. But people can argue because, you know, I'm winning less, but I still do the same amount of work. I still train just as hard, and I still go and put just as many butts in the seat. To me, it's not about that. But, you know what I'm saying? It's like, my main shout is not always just, I want to make more money. It's like I want to be respecting and stuff too.

Just felt like my last fight. I went out there and I didn't pull out of my fight. and I put my heft on the line and stuff like that Why didn't you pull out? I didn't pull out because it's Japan like, you know what I'm saying? I felt like they didn't have enough pride veterans on the card. I just felt like if I would have pulled out,

I just felt like it would have been a bad look on that card and I didn't want to disappoint the Japanese fans. See, what people don't know about me, I'm very loyal, and I think the Japanese fans, they've been very good to me over the years and I really, it's no secret, I really like them. I like how respectful they are. See, like the Japanese fans, like if I lived in Japan and I was real famous in Japan, then it wouldn't bother me because they're very respectful.

If I'm talking to somebody, they wait until I get done talking, and then they ask me really nice for a picture, and if I'm eating and stuff like that, they'll sit there and wait so you get done eating, and they're very respectful. And so I appreciate, I do anything for a Japanese fan. And so I went out. Sometimes a little too much. It's too much.

I went out there and fought, and I even tried to, I did the slam, and it took everything, it took all the energy I had that one slam, but I did it because I love Japanese fans so much, and that's why I didn't want to pull out, and I didn't want to mess up the cart for the UFC, because, you know. Is that why you missed weight? Because you weren't, you weren't 100%. I couldn't run. So you knew? Yeah, I knew.

Did you tell them? What, the UFC? They knew I was injured, yeah. Really? So when you told them you weren't going to make weight, were they surprised? I didn't know I wasn't going to make weight. Okay. When did you come to that conclusion?

Like, I walk the streets with you on a Thursday night. Then the weigh-ins were Saturday morning because it was Japan. Yeah, I just thought, I just thought I could cut the weight. I didn't, I didn't know that, I didn't know that I was going to have to lose over 20 pounds. I just, I thought I could make the weight. And in hindsight, do you regret taking the fight? Do you regret sticking on the card? I just regret losing to a person like Ryan Bader.

He suck. What do you mean? He sucks. I say it to his face. He sucks. He talked all that trash on how he was going to knock me out. He obviously knew I was injured because I didn't make weight. He'd think I took the fight like.

And I talked to him, man and man, I said, look, just make it a sight and fight. I knew it was a chance I was going to lose. But I don't want to lose an abhorrent fight in Japan. He made the fight really abhorrent. Got no respect for a guy like that. He sucks. Like, if I knew that I'm fighting a guy who's not 100 percent, I'm going to show out. I'm going to go and do whatever.

He could have took me. down and won on points, beat me up a little bit, and stood up and did his thing. He was winning a stand-up too. I don't, what people don't know about me is like, I have no ego.

I don't care, you know. It sucks when you lose fights. It hurts me and stuff like that. But it hurts me more if I lose a boring fight. If I win a boring fight, I don't like it. So you would rather him knock you out? Yeah, sight and fight and I go out for the fans, yeah.

Ex-Van-Lay. Me and Van der Leigh had some wars. Right. He gave me two of the worst ass-wopens ever. And, you know, I got knocked out. I never assaulted with him about that. You know what I'm saying? Like, it was a sight and fight.

Like, the fans in Japan, they come up and tell me, oh, they're like, love your war with spirit. That's why they like me. I love your warrior spirit. And you fight, like, Summeride. You know, they call me Coco Jean Samurai. And so much honor. Because after my fight, I didn't make the excuse, I was like, oh, you went? It happens.

Like, I'm a fighter. I've been a fighter my whole life. And people don't understand. that about me. Like the new fans and stuff like that, they don't understand. Like the fighters, these new fighters, they have no honor. Like John Jones, poking people in the eye and kicking a knee back. That's, like, that's something like... You think he's dirty? That's very dirty, like kicking somebody. Look how he was doing. Vitor. Vitor, take the fight on short notice and stuff like that. And this is how he respects him by kicking his knee backwards and stuff like that.

Like, you're supposed to be a man of God and stuff like that. You can, you can, you can injure somebody. You can, you can sever their career. You can, you know what I'm saying? You can, you can, You can mess people up for life, kicking a knee back like that. And he does it repealing over and over. To me, that has no honor. I take a lot of honor in fighting. He has no honor. I have honor when it comes to fighting.

Do you feel he was dirty in the cage with you? Yeah, I feel he was. I don't complain about it. You know, he knows how to use his reach. You know what I'm saying? He poked him in a couple times. I ain't complaining about it. I'm a fighter, stuff like that.

You know, I just felt, but when I see him doing DeVito, or, you know what I'm saying? Like, he got to protect his balance up, but Vito took the fight in short notice. Right. You know what I'm saying? He was, like, really gunning for his knee, like, kicking his knee backwards.

And I know how he felt. He messed my knee up like that. Like, I don't understand how sport don't make that illegal. Because think about John Jones, he's fighting all the top guys. And say if he, you know, what if he put everybody out? The knee injury that you're talking about with Bader,

is it because. No, this is a different. A different knee injury. Okay. That's a different knee injury. What do you make of John Jones, by the way, Like, I don't know if you saw the stuff that was going on in Toronto, but he was getting booed, like really booed. I've heard.

I've heard. Yeah, why do you think people don't like him so much? Because he's fake? What do you mean by that? What do you think I mean by it? What does fake mean? Like, how do we know that what we see? Like, I'm starting to think that we're starting to see the real John Jones a little bit.

He's starting to speak his mind a little more. Perhaps in the beginning he was trying too hard, you know, trying to get everyone to like him. So he was really trying too hard. but from a fighter's perspective you've probably been in intimate settings with him, whatever what do you mean by him being fake? The guy we see at the press conferences

that's not the same guy? No. Am I off here? Are you sleeping right now but your eyes are still because I know some people He's fake man, it's all. That's all.

I don't agree with his fighting style. I think I think I can beat John Jones. I know I can beat him. John Jones type of guy you got to fight twice. You know what I'm saying? And he's just one of those guys that, you know, you just got to get past.

You got to get past some poking you in the eye. And John McCarthy did a big John did a great job of having to keep his fingers closed and stuff. And I heard him kept saying over and over, but, you know what I'm saying? Like that knee kickback was like, what if he, everybody fights? He put him out for like six months, eight months. Who else's going to be in the weight class to fight? I don't see how.

Even his elbow, he's spinning elbow. Like, you're not supposed to strike to the back of the head. But if you go back and watch it, all those strikes land on the back of the head. I don't understand why he's allowed to do these things. You know, I just don't understand it. But, you know what I'm saying? It looks fast. It looks cool and stuff like that.

But I'm just saying I'm not even tripping on the elbows that hit you in the back of the head. I'm tripping on the eye pokes and kicking a knee backwards. They're just, it's just unhonorable, you know what I'm saying? In the division right now, because he's fought a lot of the top guys, including yourself, who do you think has the best chance of beating him? And there's still Hendo out there who you beat? I think that Rashad has a really good chance to beat him. Really?

Yeah, Rashad fought him after coming off an injury, and Rashad was out for a while. Like, you know, John Jones is one of the best fighters in the world. You can't come off of injury and fight one of the best in the world. You need a warm-up fight. What do you mean? Rashad fought in January of that year. I know, but he just come off a knee-injury surgery or something, right?

Nah. He had some type of injury. He had fought twice. He beat Tito and then he fought. No, he had just come off. Well, maybe you know something. Were you rooting for Rashad that night? Yeah.

Really? Yeah, I was. Wow. He must really not like John Jones. I just don't like what John Jones stands for. Like, I just don't like what he's standing for. Like, he's a very good fighter, and I think he can do a lot more damage, and I think he can be more exciting if he, you know what I'm saying, fall more up to it. You know, he's a good, he's a good fight.

I just don't like some of his fighting styles and stuff like that. And I just don't like how he crawls. I just don't like how he crawled. He crawls in, like, what's you supposed to do? Like, what's you supposed to do? You did that, right? We're supposed to do somebody crawling in on the KT? All these mind tricks.

I just don't like people like that. Like, I won't come on and fight. MMA is not what it used to be when I started, you know what I'm saying? MMA got famous for guys getting there fighting and going at it and putting on a great show. That's how MMA got popular. Now it's like, you know, our sport evolved so fast. I'm scared it's going to involve to like boxing the way boxing is. And I think I can help boxing out.

And I think I can help MMA out. I think I can, but, you know what I'm saying? There's a couple different types of fighters out there. I think the fighters that, like, how I am, is a dime breed. You got fights like me, Van der Leigh, or, you know, got Chuck LaDelle. You got Czech Congo. You got all these fighters that come to fight and we show up. You got fights like BJ Penn, you know.

Who else? There's a lot of fighters like us that come, you know you're going to get a show. You know you're going to get a good fight. You know what I'm saying? But then now you've got these other guys that you're going to watch. You're wanting, like, you know what's going to happen? You know, most time, you know, the fight is going to go to the decision. And a lot of guys fighting not to lose instead of fighting to put on a good show.

And I think fighters like me and other exciting, real exciting fighters are dying breed. How would you characterize your relationship with Dana these days? I don't know. Like, me, Dana, we cool sometimes. We like, man, we text. And I'm telling you guys something, man, by Dana, man. Dana is really a cool. He's a cool guy.

You know what I'm saying? Dan is an alpha. You know what I'm an alpha. Sometimes Apple... I know. I feel it. All of us, we're sort of on the same page, right? We're on the same wavelength. Well, you should hope so. Right. Well, you should hope so. I'm getting there. Well, you either born there. Oh, really? You're born an alpha. Really? Born. Some of you born to. You can't develop it? It's born. It's a, so it's not a, it's not a, you believe it's a nature thing. It's a nature thing. For me, I think it's nurture. Well, listen, honestly, like, In a while, like the lion, he's an afl and stuff like that.

But when he gets old, the younger afl come up there and go, you know. There's still time. But still the young afa, he was born afl, though. The lion that was born beta, he can never even, he wouldn't even get the balls to even test that afl. Or if he do, you know, and sometimes. Different ways. Well, you know, you can go. Different ways.

Which were thinking. You have, there you go again with your wish for thinking. Look at this. Look at this studio. That's good. This is my house. We're human. Betas are, you know what I'm saying?

Listen, I'm not putting down betas. No, okay. Don't get me wrong with people when I say. There's a lot of betas in the world and stuff like that. And people, they're really smart. You know what I'm saying? A lot of time. But alpha's, no, we ain't always the most intelligent.

No, no, no, we'll ever say that. Okay. I don't want to get you off this tangent here. You were saying something about Dana that he's really cool, but the alphas. Yeah, we, we, like, okay, this is a thing about Dana and a UFC. Dana is looking out for his brand, a UFC and stuff like that. I got nothing against him. And, you know what I'm saying?

He wanted to do what's best for his brand and everything. And Dana's a good guy. Me and Dana always been cool. I'm trying to tell you, even before I came and fought and UFC. Dana, me, and Daniel's cool. He's giving me tickets to the UFC. Didn't they buy WFA just to get you essentially? You and Machita, right?

Yeah, and listen, Dana saved my ass. You know what I'm saying? Why so? Back then, man, I was going broke, man. You know what I'm saying? I ain't going to lie. I was going broke because I like to spend money too much. You know what I'm saying?

Dana, you know what I'm saying? That's why I did so many favors for them. That's why I fought Jardine. That's why I did so many things. That's why I didn't want to pull out of fights when I was injured and stuff like that. And Dana's a cool guy, I'm telling you. But, you know what I'm saying?

He's looking out for the brand. But what I think that they don't understand is that I'm looking out for my brand because after I retire, the UFC still is going to be there. The UFC is still going to make money. UFC is still going to be going strong after I retire. But after I retire, you know what I'm saying, I got to find other. ways to make money. I got to find other ways to get my kids, you know what I'm saying, through

school and put my son through private school and all this. I got to find other ways to have money to make it rain in the club, you know what I'm saying? But the UFC is still going to be going strong. Like, the UFC ain't going to be giving me no, oh, rampage, you used to do a good job for us, huh? Here goes this money every month. No, but see, but people don't understand that. I think a lot of, I think a lot of times the fans, they don't know what they talk about their fans are selfish. They don't want to see retired. They don't understand that they don't look into my life and see what bills I got to pay. They don't know. I still take care of my mother and father back at home in Memphis and put my little sister to do college and my old sister taking care of her and why she having stuff.

They don't know this stuff. They don't know what the things I do and stuff. So I know that. I know that I got half of my friends employed because the recession is bad. And a lot of my friends lost a job. I can't afford it. So I got them doing stuff for me, you know. They don't know that.

They don't know how much my business is. a month and they don't know I'm thinking like oh man when I retire what I'm going to do the UFC's not going to pay me every month so so I respect Dana and I respect what he what he would him looking out for his brand and stuff like that but I just want people to respect me

and respect I'm looking out for my brand I've created a rampage you know what I'm saying my cousin named me that when I was eight years old and I created rampage to the person he he is now where people will want about this and do you know how much money I make off this That's what I'm saying Okay

You feel me Yeah I do feel you You know I asked Dana about you This weekend in Toronto After the UFC 152 fight And it's kind of interesting to hear What you said

And now I want to play for you What he said about you All right This is just on Saturday night Okay We have that clip Isaac All right here's Dana White

Talking about Rampage Jackson You'll be able to hear You bet I've been talking shit No no no no no Actually someone was trying Well I'll explain it Because you may not be able to hear The people asking the questions

Me and this other guy But you'll hear Dana very clearly here we go. My relationship with Rampage is like a fucking roller coaster, man. One minute we're cool, next minute he wants to kill me. I don't know. Right now, I don't know. It's one or the other.

We're the cooler who wants to kill me right the second. Someone's asking about the flyway tweet. He tweeted tonight? Something real friendly? No? And I guess he wants to kill me to know. I guess it's one of those days. So there you go.

That's kind of what you said, essentially. Some days you're cool. So let's find, are you cool right now, or do you want to kill him? Yeah, I'm cool. It sounds like you're cool. I'm cool. I don't think my tweet was that bad. I was just, I was drinking beers at the house, kind of, you know what I'm saying?

I was just kind of disappointed. Like I. About what, the fly whites? You thought it was a boring fight. I just, you know, I just, yeah. But it's my opinion, right? Sure, sure. No one's going to hate you for your opinion.

He wasn't happy about that. I don't know if you heard he went on a whole, not about you, about the people booing the flyways. weights and saying that he actually said if you thought the fly weights had a boring fight. I'm paraphrasing here, don't ever buy UFC pay for you. Do me a favor. Don't ever buy UFC pay for you again. Okay, I won't ever buy UFC pay for you again. That's what he said. I won't because I'm not used to, I guess I'm not used to seeing like, they're like two swollen midgets fighting. You know what I saying? It was bad. They was so, like, I just not used to saying.

They're talented, man. They are. They, listen, I like, I like, I like those guys. I like on, I'm just saying like, like, I'm just saying it was just missing something for me. I'm sorry. Sure. Different strokes for different folks. Yeah, that's what it is. Like, everybody's not going to like the same thing, you know what I'm saying? Like some people would like to see a little bit of guys go ahead and some people don't.

But it is good to hear that you're at least on somewhat good terms. Are you going to talk at some point? Are you going to try to clear the air? I don't know. I let my managers talk to them because I don't. You don't want to call them personally, try to have a meeting. Yeah, because I'm not, you know, it can go wrong. Like I said, like two apples, but he can say something like I disagree, and then we there

we go, the men and him arguing, you know what I'm saying? Right. You know, I want to ask you about something that part of this whole going backwards here, this fighter's only story that came out. Can you clear it up for us? The thing that happened, they said that the UFC doctor gave you TRT and all that? I don't know how, and about whatever. I don't know how they got that.

I said the UFC doctor gave me TRT. What happened? Forget about the story. And I like those guys. I'm not trying to throw them under the bus or anything. But what exactly happened there with the doctor and the TRT before the beta? Okay. When I got injured when I was training for the beta's fight,

I had one month to go to the fight. The choice was either pull out or go and see this other doctor that can, you know what I'm saying? Maybe it helped me out because that's what the surgeon told me, you know who actually did. He said, right now you didn't tear anything. He'll up if you don't fight. You just stop training you. And, you know what I'm saying?

So I was like, oh. And I want to go see my other doctor, Dr. Kessler. I said, I still want to go do this. fight. Is there anything you can help me with? He said, all right, let's talk to this guy. He's, I forget what exactly. He said, he's into wellness and stuff like that. He can do acupuncture and all the different stuff.

And I saw the guy. He said, well, if you still want to fight, I can put you on testosterone. It gives you, you know what I'm saying, a little bit more umph. And, you know, you know what I'm saying? Make you where you can train. And you can still make this fight. But he said, but first, I got to see if your levels are low. If your levels aren't low, then, you know what I'm saying?

You don't, I can't do that for you. Then you just, other things you can do, you got to do acupuncture and just go train easy and stuff like that. And so he tested my levels and he said, yeah, you qualify for you. He said, actually, your levels are very low. And we should bring you up anyway. Whether you had this injury or not. And he did that.

And I felt good right away and I trained. I still couldn't run on it, really. I tried a little bit, but, you know what I'm saying? The pain was not as severe and stuff. right then he was right and i made it to the fight and other doctor was right too i ripped it in the fight and i had to get surgery and then then but he cleared it what he did he just told them that i was on it because it was like them being the ufc yeah he just told the ufc this fighters on this yeah there's not nothing illegal no surprises he did he did his thing and so i wouldn't get like a

federal drug test or whatever i don't know he he just told them like oh this fighters on this it's like it's a medical thing like if i would have had like diabetes or something you you know you had to tell him. Same thing. Okay. And that's what he did. And after the fight and stuff like that, after why I went back to see my doctor, he took me off of it. I don't need it. So I don't, I don't even. So it was just a one-shot deal? Yeah, I just did it and it helped me out and stuff like that. And he took me off. I don't, I don't use them. I'm not saying that I would, you know, would never go back to it later if I ever needed again. But right, I thought it was the kind of

thing that if you did it once, you have to stay with it for your whole life. No, I never heard that. Okay. So, and it wasn't the UFC doctor, though, because that's what it said in the article. Yeah, the guy in the article, the guy that wrote an article. Or was it recommended by the UFC doctor? He wasn't, no, it wasn't even recommended by the UFC. The guy who said that he didn't even, he wasn't even one to interview with me, like somebody else interviewed me and sent the interview over to him. He's him being a British guy and me being a black guy, you know what I'm saying?

Lost in translations. Okay. And he just, he couldn't understand my accent again. He just wrote whatever. I don't know who the guy is, but I hope I never meet him. So the next time you fight, you won't be doing this. No. You don't need it.

I don't need it. Okay. That's good. Better that way. It's a hot topic in our sport and good to clear it up. Well, you know, like I said, like everybody has a problem. I think people need to, I think people need to wise up and mind their own business a lot of times. Like, if it's nothing, if it's not anything illegal, then no one's abusing it.

I don't see nothing wrong with somebody's older and they're not abusing it and stuff like that. Like, say, say, you know, like, so what? If they're not abusing it and they need it as a doctor. and then they truly, and the doctor, you know, gives it to him, like, so what? Like, if somebody had cancer and they can cure it, you don't get mad at this guy, because he's trying to cure his cancer. You know what I'm saying? Like, people do, I just think people need to grow up.

We're running out of time. I want to hit on a few other things, and then we'll let you go. And I appreciate the time very much. I was told by good sources, and correct me from wrong here, you received an interesting text message from a Matt Matrione. Yeah, Matt Matreone. He heard about that. Recently, right?

Recently, yeah. What happened there? Well, man, Matt, you know what I'm saying? We had out, we bumped heads a few times, like, on Ultimate Fighter Show, and he heard that I had to pull out of this fight with Glover and stuff like that, and he thought, and he knows there's, like, might be my last time fighting in the UFC, and he didn't want to take his opportunity to kick my ass. He thinks he can kick my ass because we kind of, like, bumped heads a few times.

And I was like, I told him I'd be down to fight him on the show. Like him, me, and Tittis had a problem with me and Maitreone. Because, you know what I felt like, you know what I said? Some of my guys got cheated and stuff on the show. And he beat a couple of my guys and those guys acting real cocky. And I wanted to fight him. Right. So he sees opening now.

And he said, man, you know what I'm saying? He denied it, never. He wanted to fight me. He reached out to you to tell you this? Yeah. He's a heavy way, you're a light heavy way. Yeah, but, you know, I don't care. you know, you know what I'm saying?

To me, it's like, I respect him for, I'm a fighter, you know, I respect that, you know what I'm saying? I don't care. I'll fight a guy bigger than me. I don't care, you know what I'm saying? If he, if he think he can knock me out, let's go. Let's go. He said on the show he thinks he can beat me. He want to beat me and stuff like that.

I don't know if they played. I didn't watch the other fight. I don't know if they played in the episodes, but the cameras was there when we bumped in. I think it was a while ago, but I vaguely remember you guys because you were on opposing teams, right? Yeah. He's on Rashad's team. But did that come out of nowhere? Because he's not really, again, not the same.

We've had problems. Like, after the fight with him in Congo, he said some stuff. Okay. And he actually says some stuff about one of my teammates now, big Rob Braun. Robbron wanted to fight him. Rob is gun for him. So it's kind of like, man, he got a big mouth, man. He says, you know what I'm saying?

He says himself. I'm going to mind closing his mouth for him. So is that the fight you won next? I haven't asked you that question yet, too. Like, honestly, like I said, I don't care. I want to fight Glover, but he's not. Sure, he's fighting. Maldenado.

Yeah, like, so he's fighting. I fight whoever. So if you did fight him, would it be like at a catch weight or would you just be at heavyweight? Yeah, it'd be, I guess, catch weight, but I don't care. You're going down and wait right now. You just told me. Yeah, but, you know what I'm saying? Still, I don't care.

Like, I won't be, I'm going to cut the 205. I want to walk around my 220, 225. Sure. I fight, when I fight, 220. That's how much I weigh when I fight anyway. after time. Is the UFC interested in this? I don't know.

I don't know what he, I don't know what his relationship is with Dana and stuff like that. I guess I don't know if Joe Civil got a, I don't know if Joe Civil got a matchmaker everything, but you know how I feel about Joe Civil. Oh. What, I don't get. Well, I'm just saying like, okay. I heard you say some things about him. Joe Civil got a matchmaker, so I don't know if, I don't know how it.

I don't know how it worked. Okay. All right. So you're saying, Mitrione, no. Yes. I'm not quite sure where you stand on this. I'm down to fight, but when people don't understand,

like, I don't know why people think that we fight who we want to fight in the U.S. People think that. Like, I see that on throughout the time. What happened when you want to fight? Like,

yeah, I want to fight well, but it's up to the UFC. It's not like boxing in that respect. Boxers can fight whoever they want to fight and they can back out of, they can, you know,

duck people who they want to duck like me. I never ducked any fighter ever. And I only fight I on a fight I ever tried to duck was Matt Hamill. it's on it. Because I just didn't want to fight them. I didn't want to fight them. I didn't get your juices flowing.

Yeah, I didn't see nothing. I didn't see what I gained by fighting them. And sure enough, look at what happens. It's a boring fight, I feel like. So what's next for you here? I go back and I start training, I see what's up. I don't know. I don't know what's going on.

You know, I'm just going to do me, you know what I got some talks for reality shows, some movies. There's like a lot of stuff on the hand. I just got to see what's up. And, you know, you're going to go back to the movies? Yeah. Wasn't there supposed to be an A-Team 2? No, we never, that never was, you know, yeah.

So I'm right, I'm actually writing movies. I got this crazy MMA movie that, that, um, got in my head. I'm doing music. I got, I'm starting to get a little bit better than my music. Well, yeah, you, didn't you come out with the rap song? I got a couple of them. Spit some rhymes. Is that how they say?

No. Come on. No. The people are watching. I don't care. This is a good way to get out to the movie? I don't care. Come on.

No. In your movies, do you have a role for like, uh, perhaps like a Jewish reporter, a white guy from Canada, anything? Like a reporter type. Just to ask the hard questions, you know? No, I wouldn't dare do a movie with you. Oh, really? I wouldn't dare.

You would bring down a ratings on the movie. My curating. Yeah, it'd be bad. They do those like focus groups. The movie, any movie with you in it would just flop just because you in it. Wow. Yeah, I'm surprised that your show is popular. Right.

You said it was the best show on Twitter. I did say that then. Because you know why? Why? Because you told me to say that. I didn't tell you to say that? You told me to say, no, no, listen. You tweeted.

People were very surprised. They were like, wow, you and you and Rampage are friends. Yeah, you know, the only reason why I said it was the best show is because I was going to be on there. That was my reason. You were trying to elevate the show. Yeah, because Twitter, you can only say so much. Right. And I'm 40 characters.

Exactly. Honestly, I'm hating on Twitter. I have to say that. Why? Because. You're down on it, you mean? I don't like it that much. A lot of negativity.

A lot of negativity. A lot of negativity on Twitter. like I get a lot of people I get people follow me just to hate on me and I'll be trying to block him but you know what I'm saying I just don't understand that so I I don't tweet that much no more Ariel yeah um we have

Matt Mitrione he just called into the show what um he's on hold if if you put that motherfucker on the phone you want to talk to him fuck yeah Matt McIone just called in yes we have a lot Matt are you there I'm here what's going on what's up Eric what's up Randpage

fuck you Ha ha ha ha ha. You were listening? Yeah, well, I heard a little bit of it. Hopefully, let's get some shit started up here, man. I got to, I told Rampage. It's something I'd love to happen. That's the fights that are available in the Heavy Way Division.

I asked for seven different people, and everybody said no, and I got one that, you know, I've already been offered a fight on December 29th, and, you know, no distrust of the freeze, but kind of like Rampett said about Matt Hamlet, it doesn't really eat my juices flowing. So fuck it. You know, Rampage is a swinger.

He doesn't want to fight people want to wrestle. No, he, fuck it away. And all season, he walks around as much as I way. So, no, we can get down,

and we'll put a weight limit on it. We'll have to make a catch weight. I have to cut it and get to a number. And it would be a fan. I think the fights would, I would be a fight. I think the fans would love. And they know we're going to get in there

and scrap and earn our money. We both have heart. We both bring it. I think it'll be a beautiful fight. I think it would be a pleasure for me to find a slam on like a big heavyweight so everybody has strong. Yeah, yeah.

What do you make of him saying he fights at what you walk around at? That seems like a shot of your weight. I'm just saying that, man, because he's in studio and you're not. I'm sorry. Don't worry about it. I mean, I'll be honest with that. I think Rampage would be one of the most fun people in the world to punch in the face. I think it'd be great.

So it seems like there's a mutual respect here to a degree. You both want to bang, but, like, are you annoyed by this or Rampage? I have to honestly say that I respect him for reaching out, saying, he won't fight because we talked about it on the show and you know what I'm saying? We didn't see eye to eye, you know what I'm saying? Like he had some smart remarks and you know what I'm saying? Like he ain't no pussy about it. Like a lot of times

people, you know, y'all just don't understand. A lot of fighters out there, they like being called a fight and stuff like that but a lot of times, man, there's a lot of pussies out there. You see a lot of pussies walking those cages sometimes. You can tell about how they fight, you know what I'm saying? And make your own, he he do bring it. But you know what I'm saying? If he's he's going to regret that damn phone call, he's going to regret that text. That's funny. I never regret

to go into the bank a day in my life. Yeah. And I never regret going with that wind on the street. You go regret going to the hospital. Trust me. Hey, it's okay. If I come with a check with it, it'll be all right. It'll be, it'll be rough when a smelling sauce will be pretty sharp.

Yeah, you ain't going to enjoy spending it. You never know. Okay. You never know. You ain't enjoy spending it. You ain't enjoy it. You're looking at UFC pay for your doctor bills. Because that's where your money would be going, homie.

I'm telling you. This is the bad, this is the worst time. This is the worst time to call me out. dog when I'm getting up to 100% you you haven't you having bad timing this might be one this might be the first fight you ever turn into a wrestler on ever oh yeah okay so where do we go from here should I call up the UFC I'll fight Matt I fight Matt tomorrow okay I don't care I'm gonna New York let's do it I'm ready you name it brother hey as long there's money in the line I'm down brother all right well it's out there now

People know. Matt called in. You want to say anything to Matt before we let him go? Fuck you. I can't wait to punch you in the face. Hey, train hard, man. Train really hard. I'm working on your wrestling. Okay.

Yeah, I ain't wrestling. I ain't wrestling in you. I like standing up. I ain't wrestling. Hey, you work on your wrestling. You work on your wrestling. Whatever you do ain't going to be good enough. You work on your wrestling.

That's what you do. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you how I'm going to whoop your ass and still do it. I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna knock you the fuck out. Hey, I'll tell you this. I'm gonna knock you to fuck. Left hook.

Left hook to the chain. Right hook. Good night, I mean. Left hook, right to your motherfucking chin. That's what you're going. You're going to be a last fight in the USC too, but I would be a hungry way to go out, huh? Yeah.

Man, you have no idea. Matt, Maitreau, you have no idea. I'd that whip your ass. I'm embarrassed the shit out of you. You're going to change your name and you'll move to a third way of country. Hey, you want me. You climb me. How's that?

Man, you go get clown. You go get clown. Hey, hey, how are you going to clown when you already knocked out? Oh, man. Oh, man, you're going to get clown. Do, you're going to get clown for real. Hey, dude. Hey, dude, I thought knock you out.

I'm going to do that Korean dude dance on you, that, the opa gangam style and shit, right on top of your motherfucking ass. Dude, I'm a fucking horse that dance on your motherfucking ass. Man, I thought knock you. I'm going to call the Korean dude to come in the fucking cage and do it right. He go, we're going to learn how to do the damn. We'll be doing it right on top of your motherfucking ass. You know what I think, man? I think it'll be.

I'll buy you a drink with my win money after you wake up. Yeah, yeah. If I lose to you, I'm fucking quitting alcohol for the rest of my life. That's a promise. Hey, well, how would this? If you lose to me, why don't you not fight in the U.S.C. anymore? Wow. Hey, I'm already on that road anyway.

I'm already on that road. I'll take that shit. Hey, hey, motherfucker. Hey, hey, let's do it. Hey, let's do it like this then. Let's do like this. Winner takes all. What are that in all

Purses? Yeah. Hey, I got a big, I got a big boy purse too, baby. Winner takes all. I know.

I know. Winner takes all. That's my Joe, I'm talking about your thing. Winner takes all. Ooh, that'd be sexy. Winner takes all.

Put it on the line. Winner takes all. Are you that? That's how confident. That's how confident I am that I'm going to hand you the worst motherfuck up in your motherfucking life. I've seen you fight.

I've seen you fight. I've seen you fight. I see you fight. I see you. I've seen you fight. I seen you fight. You saw your boy run away from me, too. Oh, man, you, hey, you ain't got,

you ain't got nothing. You ain't got nothing on my homeboy. You fought an injured, you fought an injured, uh, Congo, dog. No, I had surgery after that fight. I had three surgeries after that fight. Well, you're going to, well, you're going to have some surgeries after I fight. Hey, hey, that's all right, though. That's all right.

Hey, they got to put some cement in your gin. You, you actually think you got hands enough to put it to put on me like that? You actually think you do? Dude. Dude. Like, do I train, I do, with people like Tyrone, over him, I bangled them every damn day, son. You got nothing on what I got.

Nothing. I can't wait. Can't wait to touch you, bro. Man, I don't care who you, I don't care who you spawn with. They can't fight for you, though. They can't take these fucking bungalows on the beat on me, son. I never have, never will. All right.

All right. I probably is going to be so nice to punch you right in the soup cooler, son. All right. Oh, all right. Oh, all right. All right. All right. You know what?

I might even, I might even kick you because I know you can't check kicks. I might not even kick you. I might just put hands on you all the time. Hey, do whatever you think you got to do to win this fight because I'm, hey, I'm down on winner-takes-all. You think about that one. That's a such a second offer. God-Degger out of one.

Hey, Matt, he said his contract's bigger than yours. If he's saying winner-takes-all, you've got to do it. I do it. First of all, not the pry here or anything. If I would be interested in it. All right. but we just check you don't do well we

very nice we appreciate you calling in Matt we appreciate you checking out the show don't sound like he as confident as I am right well I got money on you got money in the back

though hey I got more to lose on that so you know what I'm saying hey I just put it out there dog I don't blame you for not taking it but you just need to know how confident I am

beat the shit out of it. Well, that's good. Like, said, just work on your offensive wrestling, sir. All right,

all right. Bring your good underwear because they go get shitted. Matt, thank you very much for tuning in and calling in

and who knows. Hey, how about this? If the fight happens, can I be like, I don't know, the guest ring announcer

or something, you know, because this is the fight that was made on my show, essentially, so can I get a piece of the pie.

You talk to Dan, and he said, yeah, you can be whatever the hell you want to be. All right, all right, I think it's, that sounds good.

All right. I can't wait to punch you in the face. Fuck you. Fuck you. Thanks, man. All right, uh, Rampage, we gotta let you go. Bye, bye, wait, wait, I have to tell you one thing. Before, before we go.

You're upset? No. Okay. You put this tweet this morning, and you just referenced it. Do we have this tweet? Uh, we have the video. What about the tweet? We'll get it right now.

Okay, forget the tweet. You mentioned the Gagnum style. Yeah, man. In the tweet. I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of the guy, too. PSY? Yes.

So I'm his biggest fan. You tweeted him something. We were supposed to have it, but they messed it up. Those guys back there. I don't know what they're doing. You said, he said in the tweet, he's going back home and you said next time, you've been working on the dance. Yeah. I've been working on a dance.

Have you really been working on it? I've been trying it, man. I haven't got it yet. Let me just move this out here for a second. Yeah, I'm not going to do it right now. Isaac, put the music on. No, man. Come on.

I'm not doing it. When Overim was on my show, we did the duggy together. Yeah, did the duggy. Man, you can hit it. You can hit it. No, the problem is my teammate over here already videotape me trying to do the dance. And I'm not looking good. I love it so.

Yeah, it's great. Oh, there is. Oh. Just give us a little. I can do it. Yeah. Yeah. But what if you?

There it is. There it is. I can't get it yet, man. What about that kid, right? Man, that kid's good, man. Look, I can't. Just get it. First second.

Show the people. Come on. We're in New York. Turn it up, man. Turn it up. Turn it up. Turn it up. Turn it up.

Turn it up. Do you hear it? Yeah. This place is going to collapse. It's like an earthquake. That's good, man. That's good. Here, you've got to do it at the same time as him.

Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Hit it. Oh, Oh, Oh,

Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Yes. Yes. Oh, wow. This is your best

performance since The La Del Fight. I can't do it yet. That's the best move. That's my favorite move. Maybe there's the thing with the likes there. I can't get it, man.

That's not bad. Rampage, pleasure, man. Just go on the mic. Just go on the mic before we say goodbye. Thank you for, letting me make a fool on your show. That was fun.

That was a fun. That was a fun. That's called leaving on a high note. Dude, I'm going to get it. I can't get it yet. Your next fight, you come. Oh, there it is. Come back soon, big guy.

Hope I know how to do that dance by the time you get back. I got to say, you're on your way. I'm on my, I've been practicing. You're kind of breathing hard, too. Yeah, I've been practicing. I've been practicing. At the club? No, I've been doing it in privacy, but my teammate caught me doing it.

He caught me doing it this morning. Oh, he didn't know. And he videotaped that. That's cold. You were just doing it in front of the mirror, practicing? I know. I'll be watching a video and I've been trying to do it. Do you just sit there watching the video? I watch the video at least twice a day.

In the privacy of your own home. Anywhere. I watched that video on my phone. Home, I watched that video twice a day. Do you do it at the club? Haven't done it at the club yet. I was in a club. I was in a club in L.A. the other night and the DJ, you know what I'm saying? Sid was out.

And I went up to him. And I was like, hey, man. How you doing? He's like, you got requests? I said, yeah, man. Can you play the open. Okay. What's out?

He said, get out of my face. Oh, really? I would have paid to see that. Man, I love that song, man. It's very catchy. The most liked video in YouTube history. But I'm going to tell you something. I make this song, I make this song like a ride to my fight with Ryan Bader.

Yeah. And it's a really good song. Right. But it's not as good as that. But he gave me the confidence to go make my own video. Really? Yeah. You're going to make a video now.

I'm going to make a video now. Really? Because it's a funny song. It's up, too. But he gave me the confidence to do it. So I'm going to see what the budget. is and stuff like that. Have you in it?

No. You might make my video flop. You think about it. All right. You know what? I'll put you in the video. One last clip. One last clip.

You got to promote my video, though. Absolutely. All right. One last clip. This is a message from your biggest fan. Who is that? And I think it's appropriate to put it right now because we're leaving on a high note. All right.

You're refocused. Here he is. You got it? Hey, Quinn, man. I love you. Keep your head up. Wherever you want to do, man. I'm your number one fan.

I'm with you. being the dispensables too i mean i'm gonna be 18 too okay i just want to be the boy that you're saying something and keep walking i just want to be in the movie all right quint man i love you man whatever you want to do i'm your number one fan baby thanks man that's marcus brimitch had a huge win this past weekend oh he's a fighter you remember him we saw him together where he was talking about the chubby white girls that's him that's it that's the same guy that's the same guy he's undefeated in the ufc now three and oh he continues to defy the odds he had a huge win over an undefeated guy in

Toronto this weekend. So I told him you were going to be in studio. He wanted to send you that message. What's his name again? Marcus Brimidge. That's the one who liked the fat girls. Exactly. Yeah, he looked different because he got tech by a shark that time right there, though.

Big win, though. It's a big win. Yeah. Oh, man. Tell him, thanks, man. I will. Tell him, it's... I know you're used to the computer.

But, yes, Pat Barry went MIA. I was hoping that maybe we could play some tricks on. We'll get him back on and I will. Yeah, yeah, you got something for him? Yeah, I got some funny lens. About his most recent knockout. Oh, against Shane Dolosario, very impressive. Now, how has your life changed, Puyah since you've been on this show?

I can imagine it's like... Paparazzi. Yeah. Yeah, it's been... No, I'm just kidding. It's been just a really good YouTube channel. I'm partnering up with a guy named Will up in Canada. He does my animations, helps me with ideas.

Our channel is getting a lot of subscribers. Being on your show last time helped a lot. So we have a lot of fun ideas. Someone in Brazil told me that one of the most famous, like, TV personalities in Brazil, this guy has like 700,000... Twitter followers tweeted just like a week ago the video of you on this show, yeah. Oh, the video of me on the show? Yeah.

Oh, okay. It was very random. This was like a week ago? It was maybe like two, three weeks ago. Oh, okay. Some random guy, wondered if you had a spike, but you are now partnering with SB Nation, right? You're now part of the family. Yeah, I'm part of the same family, and they help me make my channel look more professional.

And so maybe they'll get me, I don't know, sponsorship, like U.S. Marine Corps. Wow. Neo Energy. Neo energy. And you have these animations now. You're really stepping things up here. You mentioned Will. How did you team up with this guy?

Because the animations are incredible. Yeah, Will had his own channel, and he still does. It's called Fight Arts Fandem. He made these summary videos of the events after they happened. So he made a video of Diaz Condit, summarizing how all the cancellations, injuries, how it led to that. Really good animations, really good artist.

So I thought if I could just focus the voices and he could do the drawings, the art, then we could, you know, team up and make really elaborate videos. And so I messaged him after he posted one of his first videos. I said, let me do the voices. And he said, well, show me some samples. So I posted a sample video. No animations. I'm not good at animation. So I posted a sample video, black and white, really boring. But he liked, the voices are funny. And that's the video that you tweeted. I think JDS tweeted it, and then I thought, wow, maybe I can do this on my own. Yeah.

So I made like 15 videos, and it got to a certain point after the Henry Gracie video that I thought, I can't, there's no way I can post videos regularly and do what I want to do visually. So now we teamed up and we just have a bunch of great ideas and anything we want to happen, we can make it happen on the screen now. So you used to do those sort of sketch animations, which were still very good. They were pretty good, but I mean, it took a long time, and I was sort of, I was tracing around real images. So they looked very real, but it was me in Photoshop tracing around real images in black and white. People call it like pencil sketches. So they're pretty good, but this is very authentic. He does it all by hand, and he can do anything, really.

Yeah, unbelievable. The Diaz stuff. I mean, we'll get into that. I'm just wondering, a lot of people ask me this after your last appearance. What exactly do you do, by the way? Like, how are you able to come here on a Monday afternoon? Well, I used to work in finance for five years. I didn't like it.

I went back to school for a while in NYU studying information technology, and it was a computer science program. I didn't like that very much, but just after I started that program, maybe like a few months after, I started posting these videos, taking some web development. in classes part-time. But now I think I can really do something with this. If I get a video out every week... This is your gig. I really think there's enough of a demand for this to do it. In no other sport, I think would this be possible?

If I did like Kobe Bryant impressions or Derek Jeter, no one would watch. And you can't search on YouTube. You can't find much basketball impressions. But I think the following is strong enough for MMA that the demand is big enough that we could actually make a living doing this. Absolutely. It is a very passionate community.

I have thrived off that and I am a product of that, and they definitely support you. So it's great. It's great that you're in the characters, the personality. It's like you don't have a Quentin Jackson in any other sports. I saw you do some tennis ones and things like that, but I think MMA is the way to go. Yeah, I made a tennis video imitating like Federer Djokovic.

They have millions of Twitter, followers, way more than any MMA fighter, but it got like 5,000 views. Sure, impossible to sort of break through that wall. Yeah, yeah. All right, so this kind of reminds you of like when Seinfeld was on the Tonight Show for the first time. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I'm not comparing us to the Tonight Show as far as MMA is concerned, but if you

want to, go ahead. But this is big. You in studio, we've never had a comedian, if you will. Do you consider yourself a comedian? On Facebook, yeah, I'm listed. Oh, very nice. My fan page is a comedian. You have a fan page?

I only have 100 something followers. What's the address if people want to go? Facebook.com, P-O-A-R-E-E-B-E-E-K. Why didn't you go with Pre-E-E-B-E-B-E-B-E-K? Because Pre-B-E-B-E-B-E-B-E-K. Oh, oh, my... Gotcha, gotcha. All right.

So what we're going to do here is I'm sort of going to interview characters and you're going to respond as the characters. You're going to imitate yourself. Yes, exactly. That is true. And I imitate myself, the only one that I can really imitate. Are you ready? Yes.

Okay, I could use, as I mentioned to you, I can use a good laugh here. So I'm very happy that, uh, that you are here and hopefully we can have a good time like last time. All right, here we go. We're going to start with my country mate from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, George St. Pierre, who of course came off that big win on November 17th, UFC 154. All right, here we go. Okay.

All right. George, considering the major knee surgery that you just went through, has this year been the most, has this been your most difficult fight camp? To tell you the truth, it was easy for me because I believe in pain. I don't believe in the pleasure. I make sure that my camp is always very painful. That's why I train in the freezing cold. And that's why I have no sex during my camp, not even with my aunt.

And I make sure that I don't have any wet dreams either. To tell you the truth, I haven't had sex since my first fight with Matt's Sarah. So the last five years has been very, very painful. Oh, gosh. By the way, have any of these guys ever come up to you and been upset about these? That's the last ranch you want. Oh, the problem. Yes, I've noticed you've become a little X-rated as of late. You've got to keep the attention. Yeah, you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So none of these guys upset, right? None of them upset. I got to imagine the Diaz brothers. Oh, yeah. Well, that's a very good segue. Because speaking of the Diaz brothers, Nick is up next. All right, here we go. Nick Diaz. Nick, do you feel as though you are appreciated as a fighter? No, I'm not.

No. Here they have me fighting every two months, you know? Throwing me in a fight after fight after fight. Fighting for free, not getting paid. Would I want to get paid, any wish? Here, I got to sleep in the back sheet in my car. You know what I mean? Meanwhile, they're put him up against these guys throwing spinning back fish shit,

kicking me in my lead. That's not a fair fight. You know what I mean? They got all these systems, organizations, rules, regulations, points scoring shit. You know what I mean? I don't have time to keep track of that. It's just, it's a long story, man. I'm just, you know, whatever, dude.

I'm done with this interview. I'm done. Nick has developed into one of your best ones. Thank you. Unbelievable. That was... People like my Nate more, I think. Oh, really?

Yeah. Why? Do you want to freestyle some Nate for us? He's not on the list here. You want to do it at the very end? Yeah. Right now? Oh, at the very end.

Okay, yeah, let's do it at the very end. I have some bonuses for you. I'm putting them on my list here. Okay. Make sure you explain it. Okay, well, here's Pat Barry. Because he wasn't on the show, but at least we get him in this form here. Pat H.D. Barry.

All right, Pat. People seem to be underestimating Crow cop as of late. But going into this fight, you obviously respected his skills. skills, am I right? I've seen the things he's on to men, and it is scary. It's whack. I don't want to happen to me. My name is H.D., it means hype or die.

And I've just, I've just hyping him up just so much in my head that I'm going to go in there and just die. Guaranteed. I'm not saying I'm going to let him submit me, but hopefully in two weeks we'll be singing songs together in his car in Croatia, just two handsome men, grappling together all day in the gym, singing songs together on the car at home, possibly even showering together. Nothing wrong with that. I never even knew that was his nickname.

I knew HD. I didn't know it stood for Hyper die. Oh, yeah, it's his Twitter handle. Yeah. I never even put two and two together. People think it means high definition. Yeah. But I think he should change it to 1080P.

Just confuse people more. All right, there he is. Pat Barry, at least he joined us in some kind of form. Okay, this is one of my all-time favorites here, and it's a two-parter. Okay. That's right. Vitor Belfort, the phenom, who faces Michael Bisping on January 19. in Brazil and I see you have a

homemade. It's homemade. It's homemade. You actually homemade. Wow. I painted it. I painted it. Oh my God. This guy's unbelievable. The Boni Asai hat, which I tried for the first time in Brazil recently. You did? Fantastic. I was going to buy one. It's like, you can't find it. You can't find them, but it's unbelievable. If you're ever in Brazil, I can't believe you made that on your own and it's very accurate. Bonoiazia. I didn't want that right infringement so I didn't put the bony.

Oh, you're very smart. All right, here we go. Vitor Belfort. What are 10 words that come to mind when you look back on your career so far, Vitor? I can't do it in 10 words. I need 20. I've been hitting the head too many times, so I bought some cards to help me remember. Here we go. Pleasure. Buddy. Old dinosaur.

Young lion. Tired goat. Hungry pig. Blood. God. Oops. God. Sorry, God.

The new breed. Old school. Mentality. Job. Jesus. Journey. High level. Disneyland.

And sex. Okay. Now we're going to try. use all the words and make a poem out of that. I started in the UFC as a young lion, feeling like a hungry pig when I win, like a tired goat when I lose, fighting hard like an old dinosaur in my last fight

against the new breed, competing every time at a high level with an old school mentality, enjoying the journey the whole time like I'm a kid in Disneyland, Buying a Christmas present for Jesus and giving a high-five to God. You didn't use buddy pleasure or sex in that poem. Bro, having sex after a fight is a true pleasure, buddy.

That is just that. Vitor needs to see that someday. We need to make that happen. Oh, my gosh. All right. I think I'm getting heart palpitations or something here. Geez, crying, have a cold. A lot of mucus coming out of me right now.

All right, let's move along. So we're going to hear from Daniel Kormier for the second time on this show. We just heard him moments ago. D.C., they call him. Daniel, we all know your official nickname is D.C., but your real nickname among the fans is Black Fedor. How do you feel about that? Well, you know, they love to call me Black Fador, and that's fine.

I got to admit the resemblance is pretty uncanny. Sometimes I sit down, and I look. get the footage of myself chopping wood outdoors. And I say, holy shit, you know what? They got a point. I'm pudgy. I'm black. I'm a middleweight fighting.

There's a heavyweight. I can't seem to get in the UFC. I am Black Fedor. It's pretty cool. I got to be honest with you, Ariel. You actually just texted me while you were talking right there. Not about this, about something else. I never heard you do Daniel Corbier.

It's a brand new. Brand new. World debut. It's not my best, but... No, no. I... You heard it? Yeah, I heard it.

I heard it. Another relatively new one is a very good friend of the show. The Hennery. Oh, yeah. Yes. I actually was at a pro wrestling event, which I mentioned many times on this show. His fiancé was there. She's a wrestler as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here he is, Hennar Gracie, back on the MMA hour. Henner, I don't know if you know this, but I'm a sensitive guy. A lot of people know this. I used to get, by the way, he wrote this, not me, but it's very accurate. I used to get teased a lot when I was a kid, and I'm wondering if you can do any sort of bullyproofing for me. Arrow, what you don't seem to understand

is that you're still getting picked on by alpha males like Rampage Jackson and Czech Congo. But you don't need to sit here and take it. If you sign it for Gracie Academy, Hito and I will give you step-by-step instructions and tutorials on how to deal with them using leverage, timing, patience, pressure, balance, energy efficiency, and drinking lots of Red Bull.

Act now, because Hito and I We're not going to keep these videos online forever No, imagine All that secret knowledge available online That would be crazy But today, for 12 easy payments of 1995 a month Ariel, you too could learn And become the most dangerous beta imaginable

Dang, I could sell anything That was great That was an amazing one I love Henry Gracie. Here we go. We've got Alastor Overeem, the demolition man, the ream. He returns to action on February 2nd against Bigfoot Silva. So Alistair, you're coming off a very long layoff, and I'm wondering if it's been tough adjusting to fight camp

and sort of getting back into the swing of things. Particularly when it comes to eating, I have been having problems. Sometimes I eat food as I fall asleep, and then I forget to finish chewing. and I wake up and I have a mouth full of beef in my mouth. But I don't know. I think that it's a blessing in the skies because then I can wake up and seamlessly begin eating again.

I eat breakfast when I wake up and I make sure it includes cow beef, horse beef, pig beef, fish beef, rat beef, any beef, really? Anything and everything in the beef family? And I make sure I follow my two breakfasts immediately after, by lunch and dinner, because I don't know, I don't like to break up my day with all these goddamn meals. When you're big, like me, you have to stay eating, constantly. When you're scrawny, like you, it's hard to get big.

You cannot. You cannot. Except for the nose, maybe you can get the nose a little bit bigger. I have a big nose, too. Oh, you don't know, it's okay. Oh, wow. I love how you say everything. Everything.

I'll never forget when he was on the show and he said, Goodbye 20, hello 30. Who is his birthday? Oh, God, all right. How are you doing there? Are you feeling good? I'm feeling great.

We're at the halfway point. Sort of. Actually, we're past the halfway point. But we move along here. We welcome in the man who lost to Roy McDonald on December 8th, UFC on Fox 5. New York, Rick's favorite. He's favorite, yeah, that's right.

He liked my impression last time, right? He's still very distraught over the loss, the beatdown against Roy McDonald. But here we go, BJ. Obviously a tough loss for you against Rory McDonald, but you said you had a great training camp. So what exactly went wrong for you out there against Rory? You know what, Ariel, I used to think the best way to train for a fight was to jump out of swimming pools, run on the ocean floor, carrying a rock, play a lot of Street Fighter 2. I thought it was a winning formula.

But Faraz and those guys up at the TriStar Gym, they figured me out. I can't stand those guys, man. But can I say something real quick? This man over here, everyone at home watching this. From BJPen.com. Follow this man right here at New York Rick. New York Wick. Just want to say, you stood by me.

I want to thank you. I'm going to make it up to you. Mahalo. What? I think you just gave him like his greatest moment ever. That's the closest he'll ever get to talking to BJ. How was that, New York, Rick? I'm fighting back to yours.

Emotional tears. Yeah, and maybe some comic tears. And happy tears as well. All right, this one, when you put this one on the list, I've never heard you do this, man. This is a new one too. This is a world exclusive. Yeah, debut, yeah.

Wow. When he put Valid I. Ishmael on the list. What'd you think? I was like, this really piqued my interest because he is one of the true great characters of our sport. I was worried that people didn't know him. No, no, no. If they watch a show, they know who he is.

I've talked about him. He's great in Eric Silva's corner. You know, he's got some other great guys. A true legend of Brazilian MMA. If you don't know, Valid, you're missing out. So here we go. Valid Ishmael making his debut on the MMA hour right now. So, Valid, do you think Eric Silva will be able to come back?

from his tough loss to John Fitch. The people, the people see him fight, the people see him give the heart, the mind, the blood. He's going to shoot the blood

in his opponent eye. You understand? Everywhere you look, left, right, he's covered in blood. His feel, he's still ready for this. He's ready to do well

in MMA. MMA? He is the big sport in the world. Eric Silver showed this, you understand. It's all thanks to Dana White. Denda White, without the hymn, we have nothing. Denda White for you, I would kill my son. Fakaara Kavera, it mean would stick knife in his skull, as we say in Brazil.

You understand? Denda White, I would donate my heart for you. rip it out with my hand covered in blood is a dream come true for all the people all the audience

there's no doubt about that I can't breathe oh my god that is your greatest one of all times holy moly that's my mom's favorite one too oh my god you do these for your mom yeah she loves she's learned about the

OSE she would have never obviously watched but now she knows Walee can you believe it Oh, my God. That one was unbelievable. Wow. I think you should leave after that. There is no way. Oh, my God.

We can't not do Anderson-Sull. Of course, of course. I'm not kicking you out. Wow. That was, kudos, my man. You nailed. You nailed that man. Wow.

When did you realize? This one came late to you. Your well-leet interviews are my favorite interviews, because he's like giving you high-fives. He's smiling. He's like making this face. He is the most interesting guy. You know, I was wondering if you were going to go the Dana White route and you nailed it. That's amazing because he always gives him props.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. That one was unbelievable. I could listen to that. I'd rather interview you as him than the actual guy. All right, here we go. You mentioned Anderson Silva, the king himself. Oh, wow.

I need to compose myself here. Ooh. That actually really hurt me. I couldn't breathe there for a second. All right, Anderson Silva, here we go. Anderson, congrats on the victory. another easy win for you. That's 16 in a row now.

What does this win, though, mean for you? I'm happy. I'm happy. All the peoples, the China, the Korea, America, English, Brazil. This is the big sport. This is the big sport. All the great athletes in UFC working hard, give respect, different countries of the world. The shell?

The shell son are not working. He have the big problems. But UFC is the big company. UFC is the big sport, the big. I have the Burger King, the Coca-Cola, the Nike. It's the big money for me. I'm happy. I'm the best.

BJ Penn? He's not the best. I'm the best. Wow. That's bold. That's well. Anderson has to retire as the best. The BJ...

It's enough of that, right? Confluenza. I mean, he loves BJ, but I thought it would be interesting to make him claim that he's the best. You nailed that. I actually think that your Anderson got better. Think so?

Yeah. Yeah, I think it was too high at first. I think I made it a little bit. But you also nailed like that. That's all he says now. He gives you like a geography lesson. When you interview him, he just names five Brazilian fighters, like five different countries.

And he says he's happy. And this is the big sport. The big! The big! Go like those interviews. He's like, the big. Every interview. Do you think he even understands what I'm saying?

Because I appreciate him speaking. in English, but I'd almost rather him just do it with a translator so I can get a real answer. I think that his English has improved, but I think that he has some canned answers. Sure. That he gives, not just you, even if, like, the official UFC interviews, like post-fight, he just

says the same thing to everyone. It's perfect. If you watch his vlog, the Dana's vlog, Dana said, I don't think you're human or something like that. And Anderson said, this is my family. So after he knocked out Bunner, Dana complements him and then he gives a can dancer This is the sport

You know it's like Anderson you didn't answer the question Speaking of which You've never done Dana I did him in my John Jones Nightmare review And people hated it Why

Dana's a hard voice to do Dana's a hard voice to do Dana's voice has got deeper As he's put on a few pounds Oh wow No I'm just if you watch him in tough one Sure His voice was high

More doable If you watch him now It's just as he's gotten older His voice has gotten deeper I can't do it Maybe one day. That would be a good one. All right, so that was it from the list you gave me.

But you know I'm a huge fan. There's some others that I'd love to. Because when you were on the show last time, some of your greatest moments were after the fact. Can I throw a couple at you? Sure. I might change what you request, but go ahead. No, no.

That's not much of a request. I loved your Nick Ring. Oh, I don't have anything Nick Ring ready. And if I did Nick Ring, it might sound. too inappropriate. So how would I do, Nate Diaz? Nate Diaz? All right, I'll take Nate Deez.

Okay. It's a short one. Yeah, you know, I don't got a problem with Ariel Hawaiian. He doesn't know how to shake my hand or whatever, but it is what it is. Nothing huge. Whatever. I'm not going to dog the guy. It's just amazing.

How do you memorize all this? Memorize the voice or the words? Because I know you have like a little, but you're doing this all off memory. A lot of it. I just practiced. You should practice a lot? And the voice is just, I watch so much stuff that it's sunk in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm memorizing that. It's easier. I love your Chris Wyman. I think your Wydenman is very underrated. Anderson, if you're watching this, I'd love to fight you. But I got shoulder. You can't really hear everything I said. I'm mumbling and my surgery.

But I love my wife and hope my home. It gets fixed soon. So I'll be ready to go. Oh, my God. The Wyman is just great. I love your wide men. I also love, which I was a little surprised he was on the list because I think this is a very hot topic right now. Your Roy McDonald, I think is fantastic.

All right. I got some Roy. You got some right. That's great. Okay. Well, I had a nightmare last night that Dana kidnapped me and George and forced us to fight. And I won, of course, but George is a good friend of mine. and so as I was punching his unconscious body,

I just started crying and I woke up in a cold sweat. Isn't he a fascinating guy? Yes. I like how you call him the serial killer now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, psycho, Canadian psycho. Canadian psycho. He told him to his face.

Yeah, well, you know. Now, you know how I feel about the Honorable Sensei. Oh, yeah. He was one of your best. Actually, my wife and I often do the, when he talked about Machita Kuh's wazoo not quite like mine

he got his mind down can he do that for me please and for her sure well we worked on because his wazzae is similar to mine we worked on a lot of things punches kicks knees ash tepaki

and some illegal moves that we just found out were actually legal Oh gosh. Randy Couture, I would fight him if we meet in the middle of the desert where no one is watching. See how it goes down. That's the other great thing about you. You are such a huge fan of the sport, so your imitations are very timely. Timely.

I wrote one down here while you were doing it, but I don't even know what I wrote because I think I was in such a d. a daze from laughing so much. I wrote A-L-D-N-S-B-E-R-G-M. What the heck is that? That's not even a word. How about I do Ariel Hawani? Oh, wow, really?

Look at that. My last one. It's the mixed martial arts hour back in your life. Big show today. We have, today's show will be entirely devoted to Rick's picks.

Wow. You don't want to miss it. Lots of prizes as well. Oh, yes. Yes, New York Rick got it. Wow, that's impressive, man. Skills. Michael Landsberg.

Okay. Okay, so Chale's sonnet. So you're saying that he's still an entitled brat and that John Jones, his parents gave him an uncreative name. That was a great one. You reenacted it with the set and everything? Yeah, yeah. That was really impressive.

Will did a great job. Wow. He did a great job drawing that, and even the background, everything got it perfect. It was unbelievable. Yeah. People didn't, the response wasn't as big on that as I thought, but you had to watch the interview to understand. Because that was a year ago, over a year ago, you had to see the interview to understand that video. What about chale?

People don't like my chale. Really? I love your chale. You know what, Ariel, if you want to do, if you want to chel sun an impression, all you've got to do is cover your nose, pretend like you have to sneeze. Hachoo. Kab boom. That's amazing. By the way, do you have any other sort of while we're here, and I'm enjoying this greatly?

Just other people that you're very proud of. You're not in MMA, just for the hell of it? Not really. Really? You're all MMA? Pretty much, yeah. I don't. Just people I know, and a lot of M.A impressions, you know, I can't do any like the presidents very well.

They're famous people actors. Which is your favorite? My favorite impression? My favorite impression to do. I think my favorite video was my Henry Varsity video Oh really? That's my favorite in terms of the humor He tweeted it right?

He tweeted it, Eve tweeted it too Really? He said, I think I remember him saying I don't know if this is a compliment or like an insult 95% of me was against tweeting this Yes But the other 5% Shoked out the 95%

So That's great So It must be awesome when the guy you're imitating Actually tweets it out right That's the best That's like the ultimate high It is

Who's tweeting them out? as far as the big names. Wyedman, JDS, Rashad Evans, Matt Sarah, Namathan, Tom Lawler. That's awesome.

A bunch of, a few other people, about Bisping. I retweeted something recently. Can you do Bisping? To me, he seems like a really easy one. I did in my first video. People didn't like it.

Slam me. So you read the comments? I read the comments. I read the comments. The most overwhelming comments in terms of thumbs up and everything are the Diaz brothers people say make this into a weekly

video, this could be like a Saturday morning cartoon It's sort of like a Beavis and Butthead type thing It's like Beavis and Butthead. Maybe one day we'll have a Saturday morning Nick Diaz, Nate Diaz, Fuel TV cartoon. Is that what you're shooting for? That would be the ultimate thing. Are you posting videos now once a certain day, a certain time?

You know, it's been like every 10 days, every two weeks, but we're trying to do it. stick to a schedule once every week, and we're going to see how big we can take it. You've heard of epic meal time. Yeah. So every, I think it's Tuesday at like seven or something, they have a new one out.

To me, if you can tell people that every week at this time, I think it would be huge for you. I think so. I think so. And I think that we just need to, now that I have him doing the animations, Will, I can focus on the voices. We can get them out a lot faster.

Does Will have a Twitter? Yeah, it's a fight arts fandom. Okay. And mine is Prevec. Yep. And the YouTube page? YouTube page is YouTube.com slash Prevec, P-R-E-B-E-K. We have a funny sequel video coming out on Henner, Gracie, the sequel to his How to Pea video.

We have a video on Diaz brothers going, looking for a house to buy together. Oh, really? That's amazing. And we're going to do a video, we're thinking about doing a video with you hosting Legends roundtable discussion. Oh, wow. In place of Jay Glazer. Why?

Why are you bumping Glazer? Because I can't imitate you, Jay Glazer. Glazer, I feel like, is an easy one to imitate. He has a deep voice, too. Yeah, he has a deep voice. And my voice is high. But it would be funny to have you in there wearing one of your plaid shirts. Yes, thank you. One final thing I wanted to ask you, the Facebook page is Facebook.com slash

Puyah Reebeck. Puyahua. But you've sort of branded the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, YouTube page Ultimate Fighting Cartoonship, which is brilliant. Thanks. I want a play on the actual company. It's more memorable than Prevec. Had I known that this channel would grow to where it has, I wouldn't have named it

just Preback. So I would have called it something more catchy. You can't change it now? Can't change it now. I would lose all the subscribers. But yeah, Ultimate Fighting Cartoonship is the name of the channel. Can I get one more of our lead before we go? I just want to hear it.

again. Okay. Let me think of what to say. This man, he learned the Portuguese because he knows the MMA. He's going to come back to Brazil. Give me a high-five. That is unbelievable, man. Wow, that is an amazing one.

I feel like he would really appreciate that as well. He's a great guy. Hey, way. Yeah, he's on Twitter. Walit. I'm going to follow him. W-A-L-L-D-J-F-C, I believe it is, Jungle Fight. He is my favorite person you have interviewed.

Really? He's so animated. He's just psycho. He's like an old school professional wrestling manager. Yeah. You know what I mean? You could see him either murdering you or giving you a hug. He's the widest spectrum of behavior.

Well, continue the great work, my friend. You nailed it. This is a great last guest of 2012. You're doing fantastic work. Once again, the YouTube is YouTube.com slash prevec. You're coming out with these. You're taking it up a notch with the animation. Will's doing a great job. You're doing a great job.

Keep it going, man. I think this is great. People are really digging it. Every time you do one, if I don't tweet it, I get like a thousand people saying, like, hey, have you seen the latest ones? We post them on The Morning Report. I know Sean, who does the Morning Report, is a big fan of yours, so keep it up. We go to Ireland now, and we welcome in Connor McGregor. There he is.

The beard of one himself. Connor, how are you? Thank you so much for stopping by. Yeah, thanks very much for having. having me, man, yeah? Conis it taught you. How are you? I'm doing great.

I hear a bit of an echo. Can you maybe turn down the volume on your computer? Yeah, yeah. How about now? Can you still hear me? I can hear you, yeah? Okay. I don't use this Skype.

I only set this Skype up so I could get on this show with you. I don't really use this too much, you know what I mean? So I'm going to have to start getting used to these kind of things. Well, you look great. And you sound great, and I appreciate you stopping by. Yeah, that's good, man. I like to look the way I feel, and I feel fucking amazing. Really? Why so amazing?

Because, you know, I'm living the dream, you know what I mean? Here I am. I'm just over five weeks out from the biggest fight in my life, and things are going good, and I'm getting great support at home. As you know, yourself, you're at the saying yourself, everyone's hounding you to get me on this show, and the artists really, really get behind their athletes, you know what I mean? And I'm looking to go out there and impress, and that's it.

That's why I'm feeling good, you know? All the years of hard work, and now here we are. Dana White was in Ireland recently, and he was hounded about you. They were asking him all these questions. I can't, I'm not lying. Every week I get tons of fans saying, get the notorious MMA on the show, your Twitter handle, of course. They love you so much.

Are you aware that you are beloved so much by your fans, and especially Ireland? It's grown. Each fight, each fight seems to get more and more, you know. It's only going to, it's only the beginning. You know what I mean? That's what I think. This is only the beginning. I'm here to take over.

I'm not here to shake no one's hand. I'm not here to be the token artist guy in there. I'm in there to get in and win. And that's it. You know, I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to showing the people of Ireland, the true martial artists, you know what I mean? And shown the UFC and the world of MMA

and martial artists that they haven't seen before, you know? Do they love you because you're the first? Or do they love you because you're you? Well, I'm not the first. I don't know. I don't know. they love me because, I don't know. They love me because I love myself, you know what I mean?

I don't know what it is, but I'm not the first guy either. You should know this, you know what I mean? You're the, you're the reporter. Tom Egan was the first UFC 93. He was my teammate. We were only kids back then. He got his shot to fight, and it was a little bit too soon for him. You know what I mean?

We didn't really know what we were doing back then. Then we have another guy, another Irish guy, but he likes to carry the English flag, you know what I mean? So I don't know, maybe because there's an Irish guy in there carrying an English flag, Nowadays we have an Irish guy carrying an iris flag, the tricolour. You know what I mean? That's why there's a big buzz going on, you know? And I apologize to Tom.

You are right. I will admit, though, not as much buzzed for his fight as opposed to your debut. So that's why it felt like the first. 93 feels like years ago. You get my point, right? Yeah. Well, Tom was on the card basically because they were in the hometown, you know, and they were looking for a hometown guy to promote the show, you know.

but I've built up a hype around myself with some good wins and some good performances and I'm not like I said I'm not just the token artist guy I'm not on this show because I'm not here because they're in Dublin I'm like you say I'm fighting in Sweden you know what I mean so they want me

and I don't want them so to speak you know what I mean so there's a good bit of hype and I'm looking forward to going in and proving everyone right why do they call you notorious my coach came up with that, you know what I'm, because sometimes sometimes I'm not to get into a little bit of trouble. Oh.

I don't know, just because, just because I'm notorious. Where do you get into this trouble? Just over the years, you know what I mean? So growing up and that, I've been in and out of trouble. And I've been with my coach John Kavanaugh for a long time. And there's been some ups and some downs. And, you know what I mean? This and that and that.

But, you know, he stuck with me and he believed in me. That's basically where the name came from, you know, because it's just getting into trouble and drifting off and doing other things and then coming back and, you know, but the past couple of years now, I've stuck with it now

and now here I am, you know what I mean? So, I don't know, that's where the name came from. Anyway. Why'd you get into MMA? When I was younger, it was always combat,

it was always combat on my mind, you know what I mean? It was always self-defense. I got in there to be able to defend myself just because, just like situations that would happen, you know what I mean, where something would happen

where, you know what I'm just out on the street or whatever, and I just wanted to be able to defend myself, and that was, was here. And that's how I started. I wanted to be able to defend myself on the street. And I started doing some kickboxing. I started doing, then I've done some boxing. And I'll just travel around, you know what I mean, trying to do all martial arts, you know, ready for anything, you know what I mean? Stay ready so I don't have to get ready.

You know, it seems like the Irish fans have been begging for the UFC to return to Ireland since the first and last event at UFC 93. Were you there? I was there. Yeah, my teammate Tom was fighting. You know what I mean? I was there. If they got an event in the OTO It would sell out in seconds What did your man say About the last time Your man Gary Cook

Because I couldn't hear it Oh I heard you saying Ireland What did he say He said He predicts they will be back there Within the next 18 months Wow

I was thinking I was thinking As sooner than that Well I wonder I wonder will they think that When I go in And when I go in And put on a show now

In five weeks And I'm making a name for myself I'm hoping to drag them back to Ireland and drag them by the scruff of the neck back and get a show on. I have some teammates in the gym that are ready to go as well

and I mean, it's not just me, there's a whole load of motherfuckers behind me waiting to go on. I'm going to kick in the door and, you know what I mean? That's it. I'm just going to kick in the door

and drag them right back to Ireland. Well, I'm sure a dominant performance. As soon as this fight's done, I'm going to be on, like George Nierre going on his knees and start begging for a, begging for a world title. I'm going to go on my knees,

start begging for a, come back to the O2, come back to Dublin, Ireland. Well, to be honest, I'm not going to get on my news. I don't beg for no man, but I'm definitely going to be saying it a lot. I mean, I definitely want them to come back to my hometown. And the summit, you know, we have a long history of combat in our country. You know what I mean?

A lot of people are true fans of this game, you know what I mean? So it's about time to start coming back and get the fucking act together and come back, you know what I mean? I mean, Dane even says it himself that he gets hounded. Well, if he doesn't want to get hounded, then let's do it. Let's do a show, you know what I mean? I think they may erect a statue in your honor right now because of the, this talk. And if you get them to come back

sooner than 18 months, you're going to be an Irish legend, my friend. Yeah. I am an Irish legend, man. I'm a living legend. Yeah, I see myself as the champ already. Already? You're the featherweight champion already.

Yeah, of course. I see myself as the champ from day one. Before I even started training, I saw myself as the champ. That's how I see myself. I've visualized myself already there. I visualize everything. I visualize this conversation.

I visualize the walkout. I visualize everything going on. I know I have shots picked out that I'm going to throw it in this fight in five weeks. You know what I mean? I have seen everything in my head and now it's going to happen. You see it in your head. You're going to see it before your eyes. That's what I say.

Could you fight tomorrow? You seem ready. You seem like you're going to jump out of the screen right now and fight me. Stay ready so I don't have to get ready. I'm ready to go. Ha ha! Oh my gosh. I'm ready to go, yeah?

And you're not just the champ. You are a two division champion for Cage Warriors, Featherweight, lightweight. That's obviously a big deal. When you won the, the last belt. Did you know that I think you fought like what was the New Year's Eve time around, you know, just a couple of months ago. Did you feel

like, all right, it's inevitable, the call is coming. After that last win, did you know that your time was coming in the UFC? I felt, like I said, even before that, when I came out on my mother, I felt it. You know what I mean? My mother always said that I came out, the doctor said

to me, I came out with my hands up like this, yeah? And the doctor said to me my ma'am, You have a boxer on your hands. You know what I mean? I knew what I was going to do from day one. And here I am, you know what I mean? I knew, even before the budging of fight on New Year's Eve, I knew I was going to get here, you know what I mean?

My team knew what I was going to get here. My coach knew, my family knew, you know what I mean? I had belief from everyone. I had a belief in myself. And now here it is, you know what I mean? That last fight I felt at home, you know? Each fight I'm learning. Each day I'm learning.

I feel like I'm growing every day. You know what I got? This couldn't have come out of a better. This couldn't have come out a better time for me. I'm ready. Honestly, I am ready. Like I said, with Tom Egan, it was a little bit too soon.

We were only kids at the time. I didn't know what the fuck was going on. Jumping in there in 0-2, 9,000 screaming people didn't know. What the fuck was happening? You know what I mean? Now we're ready. If I have experience on some big shows, I've had some big hype fights fighting for them two titles.

And, you know what I mean? There's a lot of successful guys that came from Cage Warriors. And I'm now in the UFC, like Dan Hardy, Michael Bispinging. and a load of those guys and none of them ever had two belts, you know what I mean? I had the deuce.

I was wanting around two belts. None of them guys had it, so I'm looking to have as good a career as those guys, if not better. What's the scene like over there? Because, you know, we hear a lot about the English scene and a lot of those guys now coming more to the US because they feel like they need, you know,

better wrestling training and whatnot. What kind of training are you getting over in Ireland? Yeah, I'm training. I always train. I just train everywhere, travel around. I like to travel around and I try all styles of martial arts I've been back and forth as well

to Iceland with Gunna Nelson and those guys from Iceland come over some good good solid grapplers and some good solid wrestlers and see all this crap about going to America and all people think people think they need to pack up pack up and leave their coach

and like see the way guys change change coaches halfway through their career and you're in the wrong frame of mind if you're doing that you're in the wrong frame of mind if you're leaving the guys you came up with and going to some other gym and trying to start up, you know what I mean?

I've guys that I started boxing with that went over to the World Car Gym of Freddie Roach and those because the pro boxers, and they're just another pro in there, you know what I mean? I'm with who I'm with. And I'll certainly go around traveling and sparring and training and meeting new people, of course,

but I'm with who I'm with, and I'm with them until the end. I mean, that's the frame of mind you need to be in, not move away to somewhere and do... You know what I mean? It's not the answer, you know what I mean? So moving to what, people are always saying to me, oh, you've got to go to America.

And you've got to, I don't got to do fuck all. I'll go to America when I am going to America. You know what I mean? But I certainly won't be packing up and moving over. I'm from Ireland. You know what I mean? Erda. And I'll be here till the day I die.

So I'm keeping this on record. When you go on a five-fight winning streak or whatever in the UFC, you're not leaving. You're sticking there. I'm not going to see you go to Greg Jackson or ATT or anything. You're sticking there, right? I would certainly, man, I would certainly travel. abroad and maybe go training with those guys for a month.

But then my home is Ireland. I'm not packing up and moving everything. You know what I mean? There's no way in hell I'll ever do that. But I will definitely travel around, traveling around and meeting new people. And, you know, no matter what, even if you're trained with experience pros or beginners,

like if you're traveling around and you're getting variety in your sparring partners and your training partners, no matter what the level is, you always feel like you're learning and you feel like you're grown and you're experiencing different. body types and things like that.

You know what I mean? It's always a good thing. So I certainly will travel around, but I'm from Ireland, and that's where I'll be basing. I'm not jacking it in and moving abroad and thinking that's the answer to all my problems because it's not,

what you're looking for is not out there. What you're looking for is in here, do I mean? Now, what I'm saying? I do know what you're saying, my friend. Now, are you in Dublin right now? I'm in. This may be the greatest guest in the history of our show right here. Look at you.

making news right here, making an impact. That's what I was told about you. What are eating, by the way? Peanuts? Blueberries. Blueberries. Fucking delicious. Are you...

Blueberries are good for lean and out. You know what I mean? I'm a lean motherfucker as well. Lean as they come. Are you in Dublin right now? I'm in Dublin. I'm in my house. I was in training this morning.

There's a guy from MTV following me around the past four days. I'm getting a mad amount of press. I'm not really used with it. not does me head in a little bit as well, but there was a guy from MTV following over the past four days. He's making a documentary. It's going to be out this Friday if you want to retweet that shit. You know what I mean? No, you have a lot of followers. Well, I'll see.

I'll be out this Friday. I'll see if it's up to my standards. I was in today, done some grappling, then done some pads. Then now after this, I'm going to head back down and do some more grappling. And then that's it. Just carry on all day every day. Now, you're not getting a big head on us now that you're getting all this attention, right? You're going to stay grounded?

I don't know. I don't just me. You know what I'm not thinking anything. I'm just the way I am. I'm not going to be the... I'm always going to be the same. You know what I mean? It's just the way I am.

When you walk around in Dublin, do you get a lot of love? Do a lot of people coming up to, getting a lot of attention from the common folk? Yeah. Not really, to be honest. I don't really go anywhere. I don't go anywhere.

I wake up. I go to gym. I go get some field. I go back to gym. I go back to the bed. You know what I mean? Sometimes I didn't have a tour session. I mean, that's what I do.

I don't want to go anywhere to be seeing people and that. You know what I mean? But your man from MTV following me around. I'm not really used any of that. And then there's another, there's a TV station called TV 3. They were out, it's like an Irish thing. You know what I mean? They were the news people and they were out doing a little thing on me.

And this is the kind of thing you have to get used to. You know, it's a pain in the ass. You know what I mean? Having to do all this stuff while they're training as well. But I'm definitely, I'm definitely up for doing it. If it's going to get me out there and it's going to get Irish MMA out there and it's eventually going to lead to these guys coming back and having a show here,

once a year or whatever, you know what I mean, and getting my teammates on, I mean, we're struggling, we're broke as a motherfuckers over here, yeah? All those guys train over here 24-7 and haven't got to pot the piss in. So I want to bring shows over for all these guys

so we can all get fucking paid. Are you married? No, I have a girlfriend. Just shoot me now. Oh, okay, I was going to ask what the love life was like, because you seem like a very, you seem like a good catch.

What? You seem like a good catch. I seem like a good catch. What the fuck? Yeah, I am a good catch, yeah. No, my girlfriend, I'm with my girlfriend day a few years. Man, she keep me, keep me head straight,

you know what I mean? You need a good woman in your life. Have you got a woman yourself, or is this, or is MMA or woman? I've got a wife and a son, my friend. Nice, nice, good man. Is she good looking? She's very good looking.

I appreciate you asking. Look at your face, I don't know. Oh. Look at the face. this guy. I'm only mad. I know. Let me ask you

about Marcus Brimidge. We haven't talked about him. A bit of a funky character. Into the video games, likes to do the backflips, but he's looked very good

in the UFC. What do you think of him? Yeah, for play to him. He's three and now inside the octagon. He's fought some prospects and that.

Yeah, I don't really look into what these guys are at. You know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, there's no opponent. You know what I mean? You're against yourself in there.

So I don't really, I don't really look too much him. He seems, he seems okay. He seems like a nice guy. He seems like an okay little boxer and he's athletic, but we'll see. I think his movements, I think he's limited with his movements and I look to exploit

that, you know what I mean? I'm moving many different ways and I'll definitely be getting in there and looking to exploit that. By the way, are you on the main card? I should be on the main card, but I don't know. This is my first time out. This is my first time out. You know what I feel like a wily veteran. I'm going to feel a home when I get in there, yeah? It's going to feel like nothing. See what I've talked about being afraid.

I'm afraid nothing. I'm going to walk out there head held high, I mean, hands up in the air and stomp out right forward for him. Not a care of the world. What's the most amount of people? What's the most amount of people that you fought in front of? 4,000.

Well, this is going to be different, my friend. This is going to be different. There's going to be way more people than 4,000. Sold out Erickson Globe Arena. Are you ready for that? 4 million. I don't. a fuck makes no difference it's me and him in there

like I said I'm gonna go straight for him hands in the air open palm Chuck Nauta style yeah Wow How do you expect to finish him I don't know I have a few shots picked him

He's a cell paw as well Let's see what happens He's tough You'll see what happens I am gonna finish him though There's no doubt me mind I'm gonna walk away I'd like a nice bonus

You know what I mean I'm in there to get paid I'm like I said we're all broke over this neck of the woods. Not a thing going for any of us, you know what I mean? So I want to start getting paid, maybe get myself a nice car or something. I mean, having even got a car at the minute and maybe some nice clothes or something. You know what?

A few suits and some shit like that. So I'm looking to get paid. I'm going to go for him and look to finish them anyway. By the way, what happens to your Cage Warriors titles? You wouldn't believe what happened to them Cage Warriors titles, yeah? When I won them titles, when I won the first one, my coach john wanted me to bring because he hangs all the belts we have up on the wall

and he's always saying can't i bring down your belt and we hang it up in the wall i was like oh yeah yeah i forgot it i'll bring it down tomorrow and then tomorrow's like i forgot it again and that happened for months and then i wins the next belt and the same thing again can i bring down their belts we hang up on the wall i was like i can't and this guy got in touch wrote me a nice message where you said like about he wanted me to come down or doing some filming about a talk about suicide and bullying and you know what I mean

and he said would I come down and say a few words and bring me two belts I was like man of course I'll do that man that sounds great so it brings me two belts down to the gym does the few words leaves the belts there the only time the belts are in the gym and then Cage Warrior staff come over to film one of my teammates is fighting for the title called Pendred

so they're filling the PR team are filming him and I wasn't there and didn't they take the two fucking belts back with them so now so now right now I've no I've no belts. I mean, and I was planning I'm not giving them belts back to me honest. When I came down to it, I was just going to delay it as long as I could to keep them belts and then maybe, when I came

down to it to it, then probably just pay for the belts, you know what I mean? I just say, look, I'll try it's a few quid and I'll just keep them belts. Because to be honest, I don't know, I'm going to get them belts back somehow, to be honest, I don't know what I'm going to deal, but I will get them belts back. That is a travestee. You leave something down for two seconds and it's a width, just like that. That is a travesty, you need to get those belts back.

I mean, they're yours. But are you the champion or are you now, like, have they vacated the titles? I'm always the champion, yeah. No one beat me. No one took them belts off me. I'm the champ, yeah, I'm the two-way champ, like 155-pound champ and 1-45-pound champ. All right.

But I think, of course, now I'm fighting this. They're going to put two other bombs in there to try and fight for it, but there really is only one champ, and they know it as well as I know it. And his name is Connor McGregor. This might be my favorite interview. all time. I'm getting hit up here. People are loving you, my friend. You know, I got to say, I think it's an apropos time to say this. You know, it's my favorite movie of all time? What? In the name of the father. You know that movie? I know that. I know, yeah, all right, guys.

I love that movie. You didn't like it. I thought it was great. I really enjoyed it. It's a good Irish film. There's some good Irish films out there. Yeah. It's actually a good Irish TV show at the minute I call Love, and I'm actually bent into that. It's about Irish gang lands, from where I'm from, crumbling and dreaming. It's a big TV show. It's having good success, but it's damn good Irish TV.

It's not good. You know what I mean? When you see something good coming from our country, I like to support it, you know what I mean? I'm not like one of those little negative, negative people that like to hate on shit. You know what I mean?

I support good things that are coming from my country. And you know what I mean? And that is one of them, that show. Maybe I don't know if I start getting, start getting me little celebrity up. Maybe I might see a cameo. Well, you are a good thing coming out. of the great country of Ireland.

He is Connemar Greger. His Twitter handle is The Notorious MMA. You probably are a fan of his after listening to this interview. If you weren't a fan of his before the interview, so hit him up, follow him as he makes his way to the UFC April 6th, Stockholm, Sweden, UFC on Fuel TV number 9. He fights Marcus Brimich. This has been a pleasure.

I really enjoyed this. I'm happy that they terrorized me to get you on the show, your fans. And I wish you nothing but the best of luck in your UFC debut and beyond. I'm sure we'll be talking to you many times, though. Brilliant. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that, man. Thanks for them. All the best to you and good luck on April 6th. Thank you, man. Thanks very much. All righty, that does it for us. I hope you enjoyed that. A little trip down memory lane.

A trip down the MMA hour lane. And you know what's cool about the MMA hour? Unlike other shows, every single one of our shows is archived on our iTunes page. We have a audio feed. We also have a video feed. We don't pump this up and up. But you should subscribe it. And while you're there, might as well leave a comment, rate it, all that good stuff. There's an audio one. You can just listen to the audio. Or you can download the specific interviews. Pick whichever one you want from over the years.

And put it on your iPod, iPhone, computer, et cetera, et cetera. That's on iTunes. You could also get past episodes on Stitcher, Tunein app, or MMAfighting.com. So now that you're in the nostalgic mood and we won't be speaking to each other live for another seven days or so. Go on our iTunes page. Go back and look at what the show was like in June of 2009. First ever show.

Trust me, it will shock you. It was called Fight House Radio. It even had a different name. And it's just fun to listen to the stuff we were talking about then, where the MMA world was back then, the UFC world, all that good stuff. For now, I want to thank everyone who has helped the show over the past year or so. And it's fitting that we do a show like this. today because we just celebrated our four-year anniversary. How about five years? I'm already nervous

about that. I feel like I need to do something special for that. I'm going to spend the next seven days and really the next 14 days because we actually taped this a week earlier thinking about how I am going to put together a special five-year episode. Until then, I will see you next Monday. Live, it's UFC 162 week. I cannot wait until I say peace. I'm out of here. Support for this show comes from Volkswagen. As the U.S. gets ready to host soccer's moment on a worldwide stage, Volkswagen is helping people discover new turfs and new ways to play the beautiful game right here in the U.S. From deaf and power wheelchair soccer to beach and futsal, Volkswagen is actively supporting all the communities and teams within the U.S.

soccer ecosystem. They're supporting talent from across the U.S. soccer extended national teams and are focused on helping to give these less widely known forms of soccer a platform moving forward. From the pitch to the sand and everything in between, Welcome to OurTurf. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other?

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