MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Eric Nicksick on Strickland's Win, Fury vs. Ngannou and Molding Fighters | Morning Kombat RSD

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

RSD is Back! The boys head over to Xtreme Couture to sit down with their head coach Eric Nicksick. How is Eric Nicksick feeling about Francis Ngannou vs. Tyson Fury? How did Eric get into coaching? What are the most important nights in Xtreme Couture history? Eric and the boys discuss it all. (00:02:00) - Francis Ngannou  (00:06:00) - Growing up/Getting into Combat Sports  (00:12:00) - Xtreme Couture & Robert Follis (00:22:45) - Randy Couture (00:24:20) - Life Decisions (00:29:00) - Fighting in College  (00:31:00) - Coaching Style  (00:33:30) - Sean Strickland vs. Israel Adesanya (00:36:00) - Coaching Fighters (00:45:00) - Biggest Nights in Xtreme Couture  (00:50:30) - Next Big Thing in MMA  (00:56:15) - Future Goals  (00:58:00) - Al Bundy Game  Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Try it today and get up to 75 in pc optimum points visit superstore.ca to get started well you don't come all the way to las vegas and stop and not stop by well fuck one more time leave that in fuck you you don't come all the way to las vegas and then just skip Extreme Couture. You got to come by and see what's going on. So here we are. But we're not just here for the gym. We're here for the man that makes the gym kind of really what it is, among many other people as well. It's one of the best trainers and coaches in the entire sport. It's Eric Nixick. Hi, Eric. How are you? What's up, guys? Thanks for stopping by. To be fair, Eric, we've wanted to do

this for a long time. It just so happens that you keep raising champions in the meantime, so the timing feels even better fresh off of old Deshaun Strickland over there. But great to finally get to do this with the RSDs. Good to have you guys in. I think BC was in last year. Both of you guys were in last year, right? No, he got real mad at me because I came without him. That's right.

We had plans to appear here. Although he had told me, you can leave without me. And then later was kind of a shithead about it. But here we are. We're all together. One big happy family. I have to say, how have things been? You had the big high of the Sean Strickland fight we talked after that.

Not a tremendous low with Dan Ige, but certainly not the same level of, you know, accomplishment. How are things? It's been good. You know, we got home right away. And then it was back to the lab with Daniel Zellhuber. We had the card at T-Mobile and it was a great fight for him. We needed that type of, a little bit of adversity in round one, a good grizzled vet, make some adjustments going into round two and he did a great job.

The kid's got talent just oozing out of him so it's always great to go get in there and go get a win with Daniel Zahuber. And then, you know, Ige, man, he's my pride and joy. He's a guy that I just spent, this is my 18th pro fight with him. We've been together for a long time. And the fights where you just feel like we could have done a little bit more

in certain positions and things like that, we would have came away with the victory. Those ones are always gonna bother you a little bit more. And, you know, it was actually, I think, my first loss since April. So we were on a roll, man. We were doing some good things. And when it's Dan, it hurts a little bit extra.

How much are you in contact with Francis these days? We talk a lot. I was actually, you know, so I try to make all the sparring sessions. And pending on where I'm at with travel, so I'm trying to get there every night if I can. So they usually practice about 6 o'clock at night, usually ramp up around 7, 7.30, bring my son by. We hang out. It's good.

It's good to get in there and just kind of get the team back together and that team atmosphere, the team vibe. And then the last couple weeks has just been really all him traveling and myself traveling. So it was good to get in there yesterday, had some good rounds with the boys. And then those guys are packing and leaving on Sunday, going to Saudi. Saudi, bring it on. Tyson Fury in this big fight.

To stay on that for a second, Francis picked Mike Tyson. And I was wanting to see what this would look like. And we get a little view with some of the training videos. What has been the dynamic between them? Because obviously for Francis, that's his hero. That's my hero. It's everyone's hero. Yeah, I think it's a very cool dynamic.

And Francis will listen to you. But he has a different type of respect when it comes from Mike Tyson. You can feel that with him. You know, me coaching Francis for the last five years, for me, I always had to approach things different with Francis in a way where you had to explain things to him so he understood the reasons why. If Mike tells you to do this, you just do it, right? Me, I'm like, hey man, you wanna throw a jab to the chest and the gait level change, or you wanna do this to set this up, or do this, and once he understands

the reasons, then he would go about and do it. But with Mike, no problem, man, I'm on it, I'll do that right away, and so it's been a lot of fun for all of us because you sit back and you put your learning hat on and you're able to learn from one of the greats. Absolutely. Can we talk about how much of an uphill climb it is?

Right? I mean, you know, like you don't get to be one of the best coaches and then also not recognize how hard of a task it is for Francis. Like what is the argument for Francis from your vantage point? Like what is – what would you say to people who are like, this is a giant waste of time? Yeah, I mean, and I completely understand that, especially people from the boxing realm, right?

The purists of the sport. I think for me, it's just that nostalgia of the one punch knockout power, the ominous figure that when you see Francis Ngannou walk into a cage, what he's capable of doing when he does connect and when he does land. Now, how do we get there, right? What are the methods that we can go and land that big punch? And that's where I think a lot of the X's and O's need to come in.

And, you know, how do you cut the, it's not an octagon anymore. It's a boxing ring. How do you cut it off? You know, how do you set up traps? You know, a lot of things that we've been talking about with him is to try to implement some of our theories within MMA with the switch stances and coming in from different angles. That most, not saying not all boxers, but some boxers might not be accustomed to in some of the things in their preparations, right? So it's been very different.

It's been very meticulous. For me, it's been one of those situations where it's like you try to bring up some different theories and thoughts and ideas and see if he can execute them in the rounds. Like yesterday, he was doing really, really well. It's like, hey, man, let's change our look. Let's go over to southpaw. And he's got even a better southpaw cross than he does with a right cross. And some of the things that he does off of that, he can build into moving guys over to his power hand side, which is now his lead hand side. So having a lot of fun with it. For us, I think it's just a matter of

the purists aren't going to love it. I get that. I understand that. We have the opportunity to go out there and make the most of it. Grab the bag and do everything you can. He didn't fumble the bag. He did not fumble the bag on that. Go out there and make your money and let's go out there and have some fun. Damn, do our best. What number is higher? The number of Francis's knockouts or the number of gummies in your belly right now? I don't think that's an accurate statement or a professional move from a broadcaster, although I'll throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if I have that chance. Speaking of throwing people under the bus, I'm not sure you're passing a USADA test right now, just to be fair.

I'm actually, I might be able to pass a USADA test. Okay, all right. Score one for daddy. Lots of clomiphene in the blood system. It's just a little, one cc of TRT, and that's it for me. So it'll keep me above my levels there. One picogram, couldn't hurt anybody. I wanted to start at the beginning, though, and say,

obviously, you've got an athletic background, although to come to this point of elite MMA coach, you didn't take, I guess, the traditional path to get there. You've got a football background. Talk to us about the beginning and what kind of athlete you were and how this all started. What did you play in high school? So here I was a first-team all-state wide receiver in Las Vegas. And then I got recruited to play strong safety.

A white wide receiver. A white wide receiver, man. What was your 40 time? 4.53. 4.53. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Not too bad.

Not too bad. A little faster than mine. A little faster than. Oh, shit. Not too bad. Not too bad. A little faster than mine. A little faster than BC's. It wasn't too bad. And, you know, that was learning how to run. I had to run a little bit of track just to learn, you know, teach me how to run. Mechanics. Mechanics, exactly.

And I was a damn good route runner. You know, I knew how to get open. And when you threw me the ball, I was going to catch the thing. And then going into college, I was one of those, like, where you go to Wisconsin, you go to these schools where they project you into the next level of talent or what you're going to play next. And for me, they had me at strong safety. They wanted me to play strong safety outside linebacker.

I think I was 175 pounds. Monster back, if you will. I was a little skinny dude, man. Little skinny dude. But going into my freshman year. So you went from wide receiver to strong safety? 30 pounds. I gained 30 pounds going into my freshman year of college.

That's such a, that seems like a dramatic change. I was, I graduated at 17. So when I graduated or my last down of football in high school, my uncle was our weight training coach and he got into like heavy, heavy lifting, plyometric training, all this other stuff, right? And I just basically left it all to him. I gained 30 pounds going into freshman camp. 30 pounds.

I was about 215 when I showed up for freshman ball. And that was the whole idea was, hey, man, if you're going to be playing strong safety or anywhere moved to a rover or outside linebacker position, we're going to have to put some meat on your bones. And, you know, that's where I ended up going to University of Nevada, Reno, transferred out very quick. I didn't last very long there. And I went to a school out in Utah, it was called Dixie Junior College. And that was one of the best times I ever had because it was all kids with

non-qualifiers or Division I rejects, right? And we played for two national championships. We had just guys from Tennessee and LSU and Florida, the who's who. And we had a blast doing it, LSU and Florida you know the who's who and and we had a blast doing it man it was a lot of fun once I got done playing ball came back to Vegas and started school and was was here didn't really know what I wanted to do and what had been your your connection if any to to any combat sport up to that point so I trained at a couple small little gyms here in town like JSEC was one that was like really the first jiu-jitsu school that

I remember was John Lewis's gym out here you know know he wrestled growing up no i did i wrestled the john lewis who fought little evil yeah john lewis yeah he was like the first kind of originator out here in vegas when it came to you know i'd say jiu-jitsu but also like really anything mma related it was it was john lewis he had jsec Yeah, and I wrestled my sophomore year and my head football coach goes walking by the wrestling room, sees me, walks, turns right back around, grabs me and another kid that were both skilled position

players. He's like, you're not wrestling. Get out of here. So it was something that always intrigued me. We had every UFC video you could imagine. You're practicing all the tricks that you could on your teammates and doing everything else, but there was never really anywhere we could train out here in Vegas.

And John Lewis' gym was one of the first ones that was out here. And how long were you there? Like, how do we go from there to whatever the next stage was of your journey? So they didn't, when you're on scholarship, you couldn't do certain combat sports. You couldn't snowboard, you couldn't do this,

you couldn't do that. So when you come back to Vegas, you can do some kind of stuff on the radar and then um i got into bartending and i met a guy that owned a owned a gym out here his name is eric drobny he was a purple belt under john jock machado but he's a black belt and other things but i was i was really gravitating to the jiu-jitsu side of things and then uh started training with him for a while what And what year is this approximately? I would say 2003. Okay.

2003, 2004. And then 2006, Randy was, about December of 2006, Randy was getting ready for Tim Sylvia. Heard that he was opening a gym. Kind of stumbled across. This is, like, this road didn't even go all the way through. So, finding this gym was was hard enough and then showing up the day when the gym wasn't technically open but the guys were in here is mike pile and jay heron and they're the welcoming party you know and uh me and a couple buddies and and we asked like hey how do we get involved gym's not open yet but you guys

can come train with us tomorrow great came in and trained got the living kicked out of us i was going to ask if it was like in pro wrestling where every pro wrestler has a story day one in the gym. They got stretched, they got basically, if you weren't gonna be tough enough, you were gonna be out that door. But were you thinking I might get into fighting to compete or was this more, you couldn't have had the vision of being an elite coach at that point.

Not even wanting to fight. I felt like I really was missing the team aspect, the camaraderie. What football gave to me, obviously in the athletic side of things and the competition side of things was one thing, but just that, the continuity that we had, I felt that right away when I walked into a shrinkateur. And here was a guy, Mike Pyle, who was fighting at 170, probably weighed at 190 at the time. I was a 230 pound, you you know freaking outside linebacker when i came in here and this dude was ragdolling yeah with a mullet with a mullet by the way yeah

and you know jay heron and everybody else and they're kicking the crap out of you and i'm like i i gotta i gotta be here tomorrow i gotta do this again like i i gotta understand what's going on and you know the gym is open i think for the public i was member number one we opened um i believe it was that january february you still have your original locker i well i got that locker yeah i actually i gave my locker to um deshaun strickland there it is i gave my locker up to him so that was one of the original lockers and uh yeah so i've been over 16 years now so in terms of like what you do at the gym, a lot of folks have asked me, I'm not entirely sure,

like how much do you work on the brick and mortar institution and how much do you do like actual coaching? So when I first took over as gym manager, I've been gym manager now for 10 years. And a lot of my work went into the memberships, the sales, the kind of resurrection of what really pays the bills. And in the meantime, it was myself, Coach Follis and Dennis Davis running a lot of the pro stuff.

And Follis was the one that really laid the architect for us, architecture for us on the standard. And it was always interesting to me when, you know, just learning under Robert, just the way that he approached people and the way that he brought questions up and the way that he asked the team of how do we want to be remembered as a team. I remember that him asking that question and you know everybody in the room always said yes we want to be world champions. That was the obvious answer. He said great I'm glad you guys said that. Here's what I believe the standard should be. Here's what I believe the standards should be. Here's what I think we should do

to be better in these areas. As simple as showing up on time, as simple as like having tape and doing all the right things as like you would be prepared professionals. All those little things that I felt like he taught us in the beginning of that, it never was Follis' standard,

it was our standard. So when he passed away, that was the very first thing I said to the guys when we got back in the room. Hey, Robert's gone, we passed, we had, everybody's spilling out these emotions. And I said, hey, to keep his memory alive, we keep this standard alive. We're doing a lot of great things in this room,

we haven't gotten to this standard that he once said for us, but how do we remember his memory? We continue that path. We continue what he asked of us. It was really Robert for me and Dennis and that small group that kind of laid the blueprint for us, and we've just been carrying that torch. If you remember number one, when does Follis get here? So Follis got here, let me think, I was gym manager. I think Follis got here, let me think, I was gym manager, I think Fallis got here about nine years ago.

And what was the initial days of working with him like? Like how did you guys? So I knew Robert probably three years prior to that. I knew Robert from Team Quest. I knew him through Dennis Davis and through Randy. And you know, Robert was still kind of bouncing around. When he left Team Quest, he was kind of a nomad, but just a hired gun, if you will.

Like, people would bring him in for camps. And I talked to him. I said, look, man, I think I'm going to be taking over the gym. I would love to get you involved. And what would that look like? So we sat down and kind of broke out some numbers. And credit to Dennis.

Dennis gave up, myself and Dennis, actually. But Dennis gave up a lot of his classes to make room for Robert, to get him in the room because we all had these high expectations of what Robert would do for the gym and kind of raise that standard, and that's exactly what he did. And not only did he bring just a level of professionalism,

but he brought us all along with him. I think I always, I talked to Robert's brother a lot about these situations. And sometimes when you talk to Rick, it's almost like talking to Robert, but Robert saw things in myself and Dennis well before I ever did well before I ever did. And, you know, when you win these awards and you hear these accolades, I automatically spin to Robert and think like, Hey man, if it wasn't for you and talking to me during those times, you know, I know I wouldn't be here today. And give us a sense. It sounds like he was in many ways what you've already described, the architect of this place.

Is there any way to describe sort of like day to day what role he played? Because I saw him corner at times and teaching at times. Was he the glue at his peak? Was he the glue that held everything together? Everyone plays that role at one point. I would say so. I think he had a father figure role for many of us. So he ran the entire jiu-jitsu program.

And then Dennis and himself and then me, we all ran the pro team together amongst, and Ray Cefalo as well. So, you know, you had your handful of coaches, but I would say the head coaches were Dennis and Robert. And we followed kind of that lead of those guys. And the Jiu Jitsu program just soared, went through the roof.

The program itself, Robert ran a great, great curriculum, and the classes were 30-beat adults, and that kind of was his day-to-days. He'd come in and run his team stuff and then come in and run the jiu-jitsu program. I'm going to ask this question sensitively, but also as someone who has some idea of what it means to lose a loved one via suicide. Yeah. I'm going to ask this, and I don't mean this in a prying way but if someone asked me this question the answer would be yes um for you did you guys see any warning signs yeah did you know they were warning signs absolutely okay um because the robert that i know, was gravitated to early on was one that was very calculated with his words, with, with the way that he presented himself. None of those things really

involved alcohol, none of those things at all. It was, it was, it was just, he was, it was a, it was a situation with him that we just, you always followed his lead. You always wanted to make sure that you made him proud in the dynamics, the way that he set the gym and his standard. And then it was his brother, Randy, that passed away from suicide. When his brother, Randy, passed away, we started to see a big change in Robert. And a lot of those things, I think, because of the demons of the Jehovah Witness, the families, the issues that they had, those started to kind of pick themselves up.

And that's when the alcohol started to creep in and all the other stuff started to creep in. So with that being said, it started to change, I think, a little bit of Fawless's ideologies and the way that he presented himself to us again. And that's when we started, like myself and Dennis, would really try to pull him back into like, hey, man, I think you need some help. I think we need to sit down. I think we need to get away from the booze. You know, Danny Davis, Danny was his roommate all those times.

Hey, man, I think we need to get you some help. And it just became a slippery slope, I think, when it came to the alcohol. You know, there was practices. He would show up and you could tell he hadn't been sleeping. He'd be working graveyard, doing some private security stuff, but you can smell it on him. And those times, I think for me looking back, reminded me a lot of issues that I had with my own dad and his alcoholism. And seeing him that way, I would, I would immediately turn defensive, you know? So

it was, it was a lot for all of us, all of us, you know, during that time. And, you know, we try to get them as much help as we could, but you can only do so much when it's a growing man. They don't want it. You didn't want it. You can't, there's only so much you can do. Yep. Did you feel ready to take an even bigger leadership role after that? What had, did it feel like the time for you to? I did in a lot of ways because I felt like it was just necessary at that moment. I knew that. It sounds like what you're saying is, I'm sorry to cut you off,

it sounds like what you're saying is performance had been declining with his mental decline as well. A little bit. I think guys started to wonder, like, where's Robert? Where's Coach Follis at? He's supposed to be at this practice. He's not at? Like, he's supposed to be at this practice. He's not at this practice. He's supposed to be doing this, or he needs time off.

And, you know, all the while, we just knew that, like, we understood. Like, we knew that what he was going through. So if he needed time off, we're going to give him time off. If he needed to get away, okay, we're going to let him get away. But he was also, in a lot of ways, he wasn't present for the fighters that were here that needed him here. So we started to fill in those spaces, I guess, as time would go on, you know. And, yeah, it was a situation when it all happened.

It was like, we don't have a choice. Our choice is now time to step up, you know. How devastating was the impact? You know, I always think about Kevin Lee, and I know, you know, Kevin would probably look back on his own career and say things like he could have made some different choices here or there, but it also seems to me that he had a real unique bond with Robert Follis that I don't know if he ever found again.

I would say that's very accurate. And the hard part was, I think for, I'll say this from my perspective with Kevin, is Kevin and I were always very close. But we were very close because we were students under Robert. And then when Robert passed, I became that role, but I could never fill Phallus' role for him. And that was never what I wanted to do.

I wanted to be there for him as like, more as a teammate and more as a friend. And when you would go into corners or you would say something to Kevin, he wouldn't look at you the same way you look at Robert. He would look at you as like my teammate or as my friend. And it was never a disrespect thing. It's just like I hadn't earned that respect from him the same way Robert has. Over the years I did, you know, but it took a while for him. And I think I remember telling him that I was like, Hey bro, no one's ever going to replace Robert. No one, but you have to allow people in to help you try to accomplish the same goals that Robert wanted for you. And Robert believed wholeheartedly

that Kevin Lee would have been world champion. And that was a lot of time. So did we, you know, for real. I remember when he beat Mustafia, I was like, you know, and then the Gregor Gillespie wins. These are two wins. You're like, damn, dude, these are good-ass wins. Yeah, yeah. The Edson Barboza win jumps out to me. Like, man, just the way he just went out and just dominated, you know. And that was after Follis had passed, you know.

Well, I'm interested in, is there a moment in this transition for you where you went from first gym member there to taking a little bit seriously the mindset of maybe I could be a coach? What triggered that change where, what decided that you're in this chair right now ultimately? It was Robert. I mean, it really was. We were in Kansas City. And Robert was cornering Tim Elliott. I was cornering Roy Nelson.

And I remember having an old-fashioned with Robert and he just said, he looked at me and said, man, you have a gift of leadership that not many people have. And he goes, I don't feel like I have that same gift like you do. And I'll never forget the way he described it to me. He said, when your skill level catches up to your leadership level,

you're going to be one of the greatest coaches to ever do it. That was over in old-fashioned. We sat there. Goosebumps now here. Yeah, man. I felt it. I felt it when he said it. And it was like a big brother moment.

And I'll never forget that. I talk to Rick, his brother, all the time. And I'll never forget that. The moment I won Coach of the Year for MMA Junkie, I didn't call anybody first. I called Rick. I didn't call my wife. I didn't call my mom. I called Rick.

And I said, hey, man, you know, I know Robert would be happy about this. That's great. Interested, Randy Couture, the name on the gym, one of my, look, a true American hero, one of my favorites of all time for sure. He played some role in you getting to this point specifically what do you what kind of wisdom do you take from the from the from the natural man we were talking about that today and and i got to see him yesterday it's it's so surreal when randy couture pops in your office and just chops it up with you right and and And I got a little emotional when I saw him yesterday because, you know,

it was because of him in the very beginning of him believing in me on such an early age of, hey, man, I want you to take over this gym. I want you to run this. I want you to run the day-to-days. Well before I ever saw it, it was like him and Fala saw this thing in me that I didn't really see at the time myself. And to be able to pick up the phone and call a guy like Randy,

if you have a question about cage awareness, question about, you know, ground and pound or any of this stuff, marital advice. I wouldn't take marital advice from him all the time, but definitely, definitely when it comes to the MMA stuff. And yeah, BC, man, it's a pretty cool journey. And I know when I was talking to my office, I was getting emotional.

I was getting teared up because I just, hey man, without you, I know I'm not here. And being able to have you as a resource has just been such an ungodly commodity that I could never just replace. I want to go back to something he said, which is sort of talking about your journey through all these different narratives.

Do you have any competitive pro or amateur fights? Zero. Okay, so tell me why you didn't fight. What is your reason for why you never wanted to or ultimately did not choose to? Sure, so Dennis Davis was getting ready for a fight at the Riviera Hotel here, and I was training with him a bunch.

The matchmaker came in to check in on him, and the matchmaker sees me training with Dennis and says, Hey, man, would you be interested in taking a fight? At the time, there was no amateur fights. There was nothing amateur. You just turned pro. And I said, Sure, I would definitely be interested. Who is it? He said, Ryan Bader.

So I know Ryan Bader. he played at mcqueen up in reno i played it you know green valley here i was a year i think a year older than him and uh go home my wife is about this pregnant with my first daughter i said hey babe um i got offered a fight i was thinking about taking it it's like two thousand dollars she's like you out of your fucking mind why would you do that why would you do that i was like well i don't know like i i train every day i spar i'm with the guys i'm doing this i'm doing that like why not like like why not see she goes do you see yourself wanting to to navigate yourself all the way to the ufc and make okay money and and is this what you really

want and i was right in the middle of the hiring process for City of Las Vegas and City of North Las Vegas fire department. And she goes, so now you're just gonna go and take a fight where this dude's probably gonna spike you on your head and paralyze you? She goes, no, I'm pregnant, we're having a baby, you're in the middle of going to the fire academy,

you're not taking this fight. Is that where you always saw yourself? Like when you finished college? Because, you know, there are some types who are like, I'm going to try and make a practice squad or, you know. Yeah. I know because, you know. Cup of coffee.

Cup of coffee. You can't stop doing skits and bits. I don't think that was, but that's all right. Skits and bits. But in all seriousness, I went to a one AA school, so I saw a bunch of guys who tried to make practice squads. Sounds like that was never on your mind. So what did you imagine you were going to do back in Vegas before that?

Like, how did you envision your life going? And how long until stripping was in your vision? That was always, you know, I just moonlighted in the stripping aspect. It was make a couple bucks here and there. Yeah, it was something for me when I started bartending. The bartending side of things I really saw as a slippery slope. In the Vegas nightlife, the 24-7, you had access to anything and everything that you wanted. And I just hated where I felt like my life was going to end up.

And I don't like saying this because I have a lot of people I respect in the industry, but I would start to see where they were and where their outs were and they didn't have very many. They were stuck in this nightlife industry. They were- Especially in Las Vegas. Especially in Las Vegas.

You don't see that. You'll see like people in their 50s still serving bar in a lot of places. You don't see that as like in New York nearly as much. Exactly. And granted, you can make a lot of good money here and you can make it a career. And it got to that point where, you know,

I utilize the service industry to make a good living for me, but I wanted to pivot to something else. And that was going to be the fire department. I got hired by city of North Las Vegas and city of Las Vegas on the same hiring test. Out of 6,000 people, I was number two on the list. Wow. I get hired, I scored a 98.

I get hired on by both departments. I get a pick between whichever department I want. City of North Las Vegas has taken only 95s and above. City of Las Vegas has taken 90s and above. So wherever I want to go, I can take it. I do my background investigation and the fight that I got into when I was in Reno in the dorms pops up on my thing. I talked to my lawyer at the time. I said, Hey, he goes, you don't even have to put it. It's not, it's, it's long gone. It's

sealed expunged. It ends up becoming a disturbing the peace. It's not even on your record. I talked to my hiring chief and my hiring chief says, you need to put it down there because it's an FBI background check. If they find anything you lie about you're automatically off. So I put it in I put everything down and you know I go to my background investigation and they said we can't hire you. Can't hire you for that fight you got in. So right then and there I didn't know I was I was at a loss. I really was. I did not know what the hell I was going to do. So your career path gets stuffed because of a fight, yet you pivot to the fighting where you are on top of the game. And thankfully that was it. Randy said, he goes, I got a job for you. Isn't that ironic?

Don't you think? A little too ironic. I mean, that is an incredible transformation. So when I look at the cool factors of the job you have, I'm sure it's so much more behind the scenes of molding minds and seeing progress. How are we not asking about the fight in the dorms? Oh, yeah. You know what?

Pause and let's get right back in there. Please, thank you. Tell us about the fight in the dorms. Yeah, it was pretty stupid. What year of college? My freshman year. Okay. I've already been warned numerous times

I was basically on double-secret probation like if you do anything else you're getting kicked out I'm I'm heading back to the dorms. I was I was semi dating this girl at the time and Ended up getting into a fight with a gentleman that she was kind of talking to as well and Ended up hitting him with a microwave this is my dream to hit bc i've been waiting to hit it got ugly it got ugly and then uh on the way out it didn't help that i hurled a lysol can at him on the way out oh yep so that got ugly and then i ended up going down to the first floor and kind of hiding out. And he wrangled up all of his friends. And about 12 angry mob guys came.

And I had an aluminum baseball bat. I said, all right, here's how it's going to go down, guys. I'm going to crack at least two of you with this bat. And then you guys will probably jump me and have your way with me. But two of you guys are going to get hit with this baseball bat. And none of them stepped up. Who's coming with me? Who's coming with me? Who's coming with me?

I'm starting to leave him back. Let me just say something. If you had done that at Temple, you would have had Temple University. People would have taken you up on your challenge. Yeah, I bet. They knuckle up early in Philly, let me tell you. I could imagine. In Utah, I'm not so sure.

I mean, in hindsight, is that one of those? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I went to jail. You got cuffed and everything. Yeah, I got cuffed. BC, have you ever been cuffed? I have not been cuffed.

You can't get me cuffed. I've never been cuffed. That time you tried to solicit, they got you, right? Anyway, what I was going to say in a second. Man, fuck your shit. Can you give me directions to the interstate, sir? Yeah, there you go. When I look at this transition, I was going to say that molding the mind,

seeing progress has got to be big. But the fight night buzz, which even as journalists when you sit front row, I mean, it's the drug that keeps us in the job. It's the drug that keeps the fighters in the job. What is that drug like through the lens of head coach at the highest level in this game? Guys, it's so hard to explain, man. It really is. It's the most comfortable space I've ever been in my life.

You know, I think a lot of us, I suffer from anxiety. I hate the big crowd. I hate all this stuff. Like we were at a football game last week and I was freaking out because there's just too many people. It was just a whole situation. And that walk, that minute on the stool, that time in the corner, I'd never have felt more comfortable in

my entire life. It's just, I just feel like it's where I belong. Does time slow down? It does. It really does. You don't, there's very, very few distractions. You kind of really do get that tunnel vision in that moment. Do you do a lot of yelling? I don't try to yell a lot, depending on the situation. I like to, I like to let my guy fight or girl fight. I like to watch them, and then if there's things of urgency, that's when you'll hear me yell. But I'm not a big guy who wants to scream from bell to bell. I see coaches that do do that.

I think it doesn't allow the fighter to understand when something might be urgent in that moment. But if I talk to you the way I'm talking to you now and just asking you, hey, man, I need you to stick your jab or read this or do this, then you're, okay, you're calm, you're cool, you're collect. I'm calm and cool collect. But the moment I start yelling, Luke, I need you to do this,

then you know, hey, he's telling me something because it's urgent. Actually, I'd block it out. I'd be like stop dad stop dad but i understand yeah i i don't know what the right answer is but i guess the question i would ask as a follow-up is what would you say is commonly your emotional state in the middle of a round i i think i was I was talking to you about it in the Sean Strickland fight. I was trying to get nervous. I legit was like, I don't have like, I should be nervous right now. And I wasn't. It really was a moment of just like, I felt like time kind of slowed down in that fight. It was really crazy. And I don't know if that's like it's a good thing or it was

a bad thing. I don't know. But I really relished in that moment. I really enjoyed that moment. It was like, I'm good here. We're only a 6-1 underdog. Let's go out and see what we can do here. This has got to be such an incredible moment in your career. And I know you

recently chatted with Luke on Morning Combat about how Sean did that. And just look, from the planning to the execution, I felt it. It was a moment. But hindsight is 20-20. When you look back at the build to that great fight, Strickland, the upset heard around the world, do you see anything in Izzy where you go, ooh, that was a warning sign?

Or I thought, I put that in the back of my mind. And now that the performance happened the way it did, and you guys executing to perfection and the title changed hands did anything surprise you looking back on that I I thought it was gonna be a war I mean I really did I thought I was gonna be a you know you know I talked about this I mean damn is he's good I mean he's he's unbelievable and I think people give us a lot of credit on the game plan side of things. It's Sean's pressure.

The way Sean fights you, the pressure that he puts on people, that's inherent in his game. It was our job to try to kind of just keep him in those little corner posts there and then reset the cage better, and not chase after this little thing, right? Because with Sean, if you give that man too much bandwidth, the wifi just goes, right? So you just gotta coach him in increments,

small little things here, here, or there. And then when we would get him where we would have a pad session or a workout in the cage, and you would tell him like, hey, this is important that you would tell him like hey this this is important that you understand if you do this this is the consequence of that and he understood all those little things so with izzy i i feel like he just was stuck in the mud because of the style of sean strickland but because you're almost keeping him behind that warning track line

the entire stretch of the fight that's that's you got it. And we talked about this before when Perea beat him in the first fight. We did a breakdown with Spencer E. Kite. Kite with UFC. And that was the breakdown was how does Perea beat Izzy and you have to wrangle him into the corner post of the cage. And there's some things that I thought he did really well there. Now, fight two, Izzy baited him over there,

probably because he saw a hole or an opening that he can capitalize on with the overhand, right? So there was a definite chess match there. And I think that he said, okay, I'm okay doing this now with Sean because of that chess match, and I can catch him with that overhand. And he just couldn't find him with it. How long does it take to get where you're at? Where, I mean, how many guys would you say you corner in a year? Oh, good question. I'm probably 30 or 40. Okay. So here's what I'm trying to

understand. Sean's your guy. Dan Ige's your guy. I could go on a list of a bunch. How do you decide who is and who isn't? Because, and I don't mean like they don't make the cut you're one person there's 24 hours in a day like there's a logistical limit what is that process man it's it's it's tough and there's there's people that i feel like if you don't connect on a certain level ideology on on meeting at like certain times and getting you know it could even come down to scheduling, right? Then you start spreading yourself too thin. And not only do you spread yourself too thin, the product isn't as good, right?

You don't get enough time. And for me, it's my tape study. It's my breakdowns. It's my game planning. It's things like that. If I'm not doing that at the highest capacity that I can for each and every guy, then I need to start trimming some of the fat. Who do you trim the fat from? You know, there's,

there's guys it's like, Hey, this guy shows up only for training camp. You can't grow with that guy outside of camp. Well, somebody like that, sorry, man, if you're not here during the off season, we don't have any growth. You're just coming in for to train and there's no errors that we can correct. I can't work with you any longer. Or here's some ideas of guys you can work with in our gym. You can still stay in our pro practice or do those things. That's the beauty about having the big gym that we have

and the accomplished amount of coaches that we have. It's not just me. Guys can work with Dennis and Ray and everybody else in the room and get quality coaching, and it helps everybody across the board so who would like I'm not asking for a power ranking but besides Shawn and Dan who have you been working with the longest Brad Tavares Tavares yes that's the top three Brad Tavares Dan probably the most amount of fights Jeremy Kennedy Kennedy on getting up there with Kai Kamaka, Poonit's high quarter, but definitely Brad. Brad's number one.

How did you guys link up? Here? Training partners. I was Tim Boach. Oh, shit, the Barbarian. Yeah, I was the Barbarian. When Tim Boach used to walk out with the Conan the Barbarian song, the hardest, coldest walkout in all of MMA. Sorry about that. the Conan the Barbarian song, the hardest, coldest walkout in all of MMA. Sorry about that. So great. So great.

So it's funny because, you know, Brad just brought me my check from the last fight, and it was addressed to Tim Boach. That was the joke. So, yeah, I've been Brad's Tim Boach for a long time. And that was the first fight I cornered Brad for was Tim Boach. I was there with him and then been with him ever since. I only missed one fight was his last fight against Bruno Silva. I was there with him and then been with him ever since. I only missed one fight was his last fight against Bruno Silva. I was in Hawaii.

I had Kai and Rafael Stotts there. That one hurt. Not being here for Brad. It was very weird for me to see him fight and me not be there. The highest of highs are when you're lucky enough to be with somebody who wins a world title. It's happened a few times with you.

You're building a resume here that people are taking notice of but the lowest of lows when you care that much and you can't fight for them and they're trying their best and it goes disastrous. Yeah. How hard is that when when you sometimes are playing father figure to some of these guys? It's the most difficult thing I think you can deal with at this level of coaching because especially when it comes from guys and I'll use EGA as an example a Guy who checks all the boxes the guy who leaves zero crumbs behind. He's not cutting corners. He's not he's doing everything Right when it comes to his mental state his health his weight cut his training every little thing

He does and sometimes you come up short. That's when it hurts. Those are the ones that sucks because, you know, it might be a skill-based thing. Like when we fought Evolove, that kid was better than us. That kid was just flat out better than us. But I still believe Dan has the skill set and the tools to go beat a guy like that. You know? Josh Emmett, again, another great fight. Close fight. Close fight.

Very close fight. Some people had Dan win in that fight. Again, we just didn't get over the hump on certain little things like that. Those ones always bug you, man. You go home and you lose a little bit of sleep on those ones. All right. Well, your job can be all-encompassing where obviously it's fight planning, it's tape study, it's teaching and improving upon skill sets,

but it's also psychological, mental, counseling, you can feel like family to them, all of that. When you hear, for example, Sean Strickland in the Post Fight press conference say, I don't know if I'd be here without Eric Nixick because he kind of just keeps me from going over the line and fighting too crazy or acting too crazy outside the cage. How do you explain what that feels like

when you know you're having an impact on these athletes, true lives in the direction of their arc as people, in addition to, hey, man, you should have wrestled more in round three and we could have got the win? It's amazing in the regards of you feel like the time and effort that you're putting in with somebody is actually working. And we're all family men here. And the time that you take away from your family, they're robbed of that time. They're never going to get that time back.

But when it's put into somebody else and it reciprocates back or they're winning or they're doing the right things and they're taking care of you too, right? Like your time is worth money. Your time and your effort and everything you're doing, you're bringing it back home and you're getting these awards and you're getting those accolades. And you're seeing the fact that they care, that your fighters care just as much as you do that's when you see

just it all kind of come together and and when when for sean we talked about this quite a bit he's a guy that i think you and i were on a phone call about this one time you understand a little bit more about his past it helps helps you understand how to approach him a little bit differently. I don't agree with everything that he says. I don't agree with damn near anything the guy says. But I know that we can make him better. And I know that at the end of his career, that I am going to leave him a better human being.

And hopefully a better husband and a better father down the line. And that, I think, for me has become something that I'm very passionate about is leaving these men and women off better than you found them. Yes, you wanna make better fighters, but better human beings. I wanna ask a question about this, and I don't have a good answer.

Something I think about all the time, it's like, first of all, you can't run a high-level MMA gym and then do ideological purity tests. We'll go out of business tomorrow. It just won't work. But more than that, here's one thing I think about, and I really don't know what the answer is because I'm not comparing the two as identical.

I hope you understand I'm going to make a comparison with Sean, but I'm not saying that these are the same things. But I think about someone like Sean who had a really fucked-up background. I think about somebody like Gervonta Davis who, I don't know if you're familiar with his details, grew up in extraordinary poverty, complete abandonment issues. I mean, literally abandoned for long stretches of time. It's like, how are these guys supposed to achieve enlightenment having these life journeys? I don't know what the answer to that is, but at the same time,

they do polarizing shit and it's hard to stomach. I don't know what to say about that, but I wonder what you make of it. Yeah, I think of it a lot of times too, like growing up and having my dad as a mentor but a football coach, when you had a team of kids and people around, the sport brought everybody together. Right? And it didn't matter race, creed, color, none of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was like the uniform

or working together to achieve a common goal. And I think that sometimes with people like Sean or even like guys with that type of upbringing, it becomes about like self-accusation, giving them something that they feel a part of. And that was my main thing with Sean was like, hey, let's give this guy a home. Let's give him something where he doesn't feel like he has to bounce around to five different gyms and teams because I'm just going to break whatever here and I'm going to go to the next place and do that there. I don't know. You're, you're good here, man. Like we're going to give you a platform. We're going to give you training partners. We're going to give you some coaching. We're going to give you a little bit of love. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to go out and grab dinner, right? We're going to try to make you feel a part of this

team and make you feel like part of the leadership. Hey, Sean, can you, can you, uh, run a wrestling practice for us? You want, you want me to run one? Yeah, man. run a wrestling practice for us? You want me to run one? Yeah, man. Run a wrestling practice. Okay, great. Now he feels a part of something, right? So that's been something for us over the years. I feel like we're starting to see him come out of his shell a little bit more

and scream extreme couture and how much he loves it here because ultimately this is his gym too. In terms of other high notes, we were discussing this. Were you in the corner or the training camp for Misha when she fought Holly? I was in the room. I was not in the corner for that one. Oh, so Wikipedia has false information, right? Yeah, they've got a lot of weird information in Wikipedia.

Oh, really? Yeah, they say that you were in the corner. No, I was not in the corner. That corner would have been Follis, Giff, Caraway, really? It's a false. They say that you were in the corner. No, I was not in the corner. That corner would have been Follis, Giff, Caraway, and I think this guy, Travis. We were all here for her for camp and everybody worked with her for that stuff,

but that was the main. Follis and Giff were the mains. What would you say are the biggest nights in Extreme Couture history? Randy beating Tim. Beating Tim. That was so fucking big. Randy beating Tim. Randy beating so fucking big. Randy beating Tim.

Randy beating Gabe Gonzaga. Really? He was counted out ahead of that one. I remember when he picked him up and dropped him on his fucking head. Fucking high crotched him, right? Yeah. Now, here's the thing about that was Randy was going through so much shit personal during that time. Which is weird because he had this complete career renaissance.

Right? And here's this guy who head kick KO's, the head kick KO killer, or guy, the Miracle Crow Cop, this jiu-jitsu guy who ultimately now is thrusted into this title fight with Randy. And Randy's going through all this shit at this time and he's got to defend his belt against this animal and then he goes out and just gets his arm shattered in the first round blocking a kick and then just dismantles this man and freaking right so here's the best part about the story is Randy beats Tim Sylvia I mean uh Gabe Gonzaga. Gabe comes and trains with us after.

So we're all going with Gabe Gonzaga now, and I'm like, holy shit. Like this guy is a monster. And it just made me go, well, how good is the old man? This guy is kicking the shit out of all of us, and Gabe Gonzaga was the truth, man. So yeah, that was a big one for us. I remember Forrest, when Forrest won the title.

He beat Rampage for that one. Wow, yes, that was a big one. Forrest, that was a big one. I lost 20 bucks to Mario Yamasaki that night. Did you really? Yeah, we were watching at a sushi bar in D.C. This is the weirdest story in NBA history, by the way. He took my money, yeah.

Did he do this at the end of it? Him and his brother are big D.C. guys. That Forrest out of here, that was his brother are big D.C. guys. That forced out of here. That was another big one, especially in the early ages. Demetri won against Holly because that was the fifth round. That was the end of the fifth round. That's among the most emotional, dramatic wins in the history of this sport. It was huge.

So crazy, man. That one was different in a lot of ways because Follis did such a good job of making it like a gym win, right? It was like the members won everybody felt a part of that whole camp they really did and then misha bringing the belt back to the gym and it was like that restart when you know shrinkateur had its high and then it was like oh now what and that was the big meeting that we had where false is like i never. He goes, you guys just want to be okay at this? Or do you guys want to win some fucking world titles?

And everybody went, we want to win some fucking world titles, right? And then here comes Misha bringing that belt home. And that was like, okay, we can do this again, right? So that win, all of them feel so different at that time. But that one there was like, we're back. We're back. We can do this again. Interesting. All right. Where does Ngannou versus Gan rank in the sweetness?

Because we've talked to you about it before at length of the incredible journey Ngannou went through to get to that fight, to take on that fight. We were the only two people in America who knew that Ngannou was going to wrestle that night. I just want to say that. But, I mean, that's got to feel so great when you look back at the way he did. Oh, that one was awesome. And it was great in so many ways. It was obviously Francis getting through the knee injury that we all told him, hey, bro, this is an awful idea to fight on this knee. And he's like, no, I'm good.

I'm just going to go out and take this guy down. I'm like, what? You know, and obviously the back story with the former gym and Ferdinand and everything else. And I remember, like, Ferdinand, like, throwing strays at us and me and everybody. Like, what the hell did we do? Like, it's not even about us, you know.

And it was very different in the regards. It just felt like it was, like, us, like our little group versus everybody. Right? Like, we're against the UFC and their contract dispute and then the Ferdinand and there was this and there was the knee injury. So that whole lead-up was just so much until we got to Anaheim.

The moment we landed in Anaheim and we knew we were fighting, I was like, okay, we're good to go. Like, let's do this, man. It was crazy. Yeah, that was big. But in the moment he gets his hand raised, the decision is right. You had to believe that. I don't believe what I just saw.

That was part of it. Lost it. Knowing we were down, you know, the first two rounds, and we needed something, you know, and that was Francis, man. It was just his foresight, catching that kick, hitting the high crotch, taking him down. The moment we got him down on the ground and getting to our routes right and we're big on on understanding heavyweight get-ups get up differently right they're not technical under hooks and build up to a single

leg they just go belly down and just burp and stand up right i mean that's kind of what they do so when we worked on a lot of the routes, the killing of the bottom leg and getting to those split and pin positions and doing all those things, I'm like, oh shit, we're onto something here. And then the round was over and I'm watching Gon get up and the way that he was getting up and then his body language, I'm a big body language guy.

And I'm reading his body language and I'm watching, I'm watching Francis get up and I look at Francis, I'm like, hey, look at that motherfucker. And he's just, I'm like dude, we got him. We got him. So we got on the stool and I was like, hey, let's get right back to that wrestling, man. If we can get this guy down again, we're going to even this up. You know, let's find another way to fit in.

And he did. And that was a beautiful, I think he went like double the high crotch or back to a single and ran a knee tap or something, had a dump on it and then held him down that whole round. And then it was that 2-2 going into five. Legendary nights. We always argue about the evolution of the sport and what is going to be the next breakthrough or the next trend. I mean, do you feel like you are one of these scientists in the lab literally trying to

find that on a regular basis? You know, what part of the MMA game is not being overly utilized that could change it like calf kicks, like something like that. I mean, that's got to be a big part of what you do. I love that. And here's the thing for me is, man, you've got to enjoy watching Corey Sanhagen's of the world, right? You've got to enjoy breaking down Izzy and trying to find what he does with his feint game. And Volkanovski, like he's at the top of the level.

If you're a coach or a fighter, and you're not taking the time to watch the guys at the highest level, at the pinnacle of the sport, or coaches, or you're not investing in the dynamic strikings or the BJJ fanatics and just learning one or two little things from here on out, you're gonna get left behind, because this game goes fast and it goes quick. And you like to be on the cutting edge of those things.

But for me, it really has been the guys that have the ability to strike out of both stances. There's no more of that, hey, man, I'm only an orthodox or I'm only a southpaw. You might be primarily there hit or miss, but when you see the fluidity of guys that are able to do it well from both stances, the Mickey Mantles of the world that can get on both sides of the plate and hit the ball, that's the big thing. Have you seen Boots Ennis at all in boxing? I do, yep. Yeah, he's a fucking motherfucker with that.

But let me challenge that, if I may. If I may. I love it. In the house of Nixick. One thing that I get asked about, and this is just something that's kind of curious, is like last week, or maybe two weeks ago at this point we saw the performance of Jack Dilla Maddalena Kyle Nelson on that card as well and then you can also throw in Sean's performance against Izzy yep and if there's a common denominator it's not that they employ the same tactics rather that

their central approach is they're going to build a house of defense first primarily fundamentally and then put weapons on the outside of it whereas I feel like a lot of defense first, primarily, fundamentally, and then put weapons on the outside of it. Whereas I feel like a lot of MMA guys are like, here's all my weapons, and defense is very much an afterthought. It kept JDM safe against Kyle, not Kyle, what's his name? Kevin. Kevin Holland. Kyle Nelson had a great performance as well.

Sean, what else can I say about it? But it was defense first. Is that the future maybe? I think that's a great thing to look at, and especially because, now let's pick apart the both sides of the stances things. You can't switch stances if your defense is shitty off of one side. Right. Right?

If you're a stance switch person, your defense comes first. Now, of course we love to see the drop step and the high kicks and all those things. But if you can't defend yourself from there, there's no point of ever going over there. So I think it's a great point on your part, Luke, is there's guys that are winning with very, very sharp fundamentals and rock-solid defense. Right. Rock-solid defense. Now, when you look at the Stricklands of the world, they're relentless when it comes to their takedown defense. Now when you look at the Strickland's of the world, they're relentless when it comes to their takedown defense.

Their styles in the room are very different than most. He doesn't shrink the train. He doesn't do anything but spar and grapple. So I can only say this anecdotally just from what I see from Sean. But I would imagine these guys like JDM and Kyle are probably very similar to what Sean's methods of madness are when it comes to the training. So that could be definitely something where I see. The one thing that I do like now,

especially in the counter game, guys are getting better at building in their counters within their defense. You're not seeing a big hiccup when you see a catch and then a return. It's like fluid in everything that they throw now, and their feet are coming with them, and then their defense stays sound and all those things.

I see that in those three guys you're speaking of. So, yeah, it definitely could be. I mean, somebody's going to discover the next breakthrough. Maybe it's the heart punch. Yeah, maybe it's the heart punch. Maybe it's about time. The dim mock. The dim mock.

Yeah, that's what they call it. We get those cast of characters in here every once in a while, and it's a field day. Please record that. Yeah, we got in some trouble for the recordings of those. Oh really? Yeah, we got- Didn't Natan Levy just beat the shit out of some anti-Semite?

Yeah, we got some talking to for that one. The lawyers were like, well, okay, nice thing you did for the community. Was that Lieutenant Aldo Rain or, I've been chewed out before. So we done some green lighting here a couple times. We had a Denmark guy come in one time and asked us if he was allowed to do his pressure points. And I remember Dennis Davis, he goes, you can do whatever the fuck you want, buddy.

Just gift wrapping him. Just don't die. Just don't die. You can do whatever you want, buddy. Sounds like the bully beatdown refresh. Oh, man. It's the bully beatdown refresh. It's daily in here. Seriously, have you ever had to kick a fighter out of the gym?

Yeah, I've kicked quite a few out. That's not a fun conversation, is it? No, we've kicked, I won't say his name, but he was in the UFC. We kicked him out. He was just a horrible, horrible teammate. Yeah, Michelle Perea gave him a little five-finger to the face. The backflip guy? Yeah.

Okay, I'm not sure who this is. Michelle gave him the... Yeah, in the fight, it was pretty good. It was pretty good. So we had to kick him out. He was kind of a... He was tough to have in the room. But very rarely have we had...

Here's the thing that I loved about what Rafaul always spoke about. The standard will excuse people on their own. They either fit the standard or they miraculously find their way out. You know, we don't really need to kick them out. And there's been a handful where you're like, bro, you got to go. You got to go. So what is, what's, I'm not going to say exactly what's left, but I guess I am wondering for a guy who's brought home some championships

and the gym's reputation is about as good as I've ever seen it. And it doesn't smell in here, to be fair. As bad, as bad. Every gym smells. You must go home at times and your wife is like, just get in the fucking shower. Go in the, now. You can spray me on the way there. But in all seriousness, it's not exactly clear how you keep doing what you're doing.

So how do you envision the next five years? I just, honestly, guys, like I have the best job in the world. I really do. And when you realize those expectations with a guy like Sean Strickland and you see a guy like Chris Curtis

finally break it into the UFC and then, you know, be able to provide for his family differently than he was before, when you see people like Danny Ige when he couldn't pay you as a coach and now he's paying you nice checks and driving nice cars and doing those things, you want to bring people along the same. You want them to have the same potential and give them the same opportunities that they are and to be able to change their families' lives.

That's been something for me, man, I've really enjoyed about being here at Extrema Couture. It's providing me that atmosphere. It's providing me that, you know, the canvas, if you will, to help these individuals and paint these better pictures for themselves and their families, man. It's pretty cool. So, for me, it's really that. And then, you know, I put a lot of pressure on myself, I think in a lot of ways, because I failed of,

the failures of who I was as a kid, the things I felt like I could have done better as a child, a collegiate athlete. There's a lot of failures there that I just feel like I owe my mom and dad, you know, things I could have done a lot better with myself and being a betteriate athlete. There's a lot of failures there that I just feel like I owe my mom and dad, you know, things I could have done a lot better with myself and being a better human being. They've got to be proud now, Coach.

Yeah, they're very proud. Do you have an Al Bundy story you can share with us? You've got to have four touchdowns in a game when you were the white lightning running back for Polka. Yeah, I had a couple. I'd say the one that stands out to me the most was when our senior year, we beat Long Beach Poly. They're number two in the country.

Wow. They came out to play us. This is a crazy story. So it was the next night Tupac got shot. Oh, shit. It was the next night. That was the night of what? Mike Tyson against Bruce Seldon.

So you don't have an alibi. That could have been. Yeah, we could have been in trouble there. So, yeah, actually, crazy story. So Long Beach Poly travels out to play us, and they actually get into, like, an argument with Tupac at the In-N-Out in Baker. That's random. Or Barstow.

Barstow. There's an In-N-Out in Barstow. So they see Tupac, and they're on their way. They're traveling out to play us, and there's a Bleacher Report actually did an article on it. I'll have to pull it up for you guys. I remember reading that. That's fucking crazy. Yeah, so Long Beach Poly, they come out to play us. And there's Bleacher Report actually did an article on it. I'll have to pull it up for you guys. I remember reading that. That's fucking crazy. Yeah, so Long Beach Poly, they come out and play us.

And I'm talking wall-to-wall Division I talent. I think at the time, they might even still be the one team that has the most NFL players, high school team with the most NFL players. And they show up. And I remember my dad being in the press box. And I remember calling the coin toss. I remember looking back at my dad going, like, what the fuck are we getting ourselves into? So they had a kid named Kenyon Rambo. He ended up going to Ohio State. First play of the game, guy catches a

screen pass and looks like he's on ice skates. He's about 72 yards for a touchdown. They're like, oh man, this is going to be a long night. So I'm going on the field on offense, and my linebacker, Pete Mattisi, is coming off, and I remember him grabbing me. He goes, you got to score now. We need it. I'm like, yeah, we're going to try, bud. So I catch a slant, and I go, and I score. So now it's 7-7.

We get ourselves a game, and we ended up beating these guys 16-10, and that was their first loss, first nonconference loss um in five years and they're number two in the country that year and i think they put like i think they put like six guys on in the nfl that year so damn play against the guy who went to the nfl like like that you remembered like the guy covering me that game was marquis anderson he played for the raiders so he covered me that game i had seven catches on him oh shit you hung seven on him yeah seven catches in a touchdown on him he ended up going to ucla then shit, you hung seven on him. Yeah, seven catches in a touchdown on him. He ended up going to UCLA, then he played for the Raiders for a few years.

That's crazy. That is wild. Yeah. And the gentleman you hit with the microwave, where is he today? I think he's around, I think he's good, I think he's good. Gray Maynard was actually friends with the guy, they went to high school together. So Gray knew him.

That's awesome. Yeah, Gray was always the legendary story of that whole thing. But hopefully he's not going to pay back with a microwave on me when I'm walking the dog one day or something. But as far as I know, my mom had to pay a couple bucks for the mess up. Well, hey, enjoy Saudi Arabia. We wish Francis well against Tyson Fury. It's going to be a spectacle.

It's going to be something. Yeah, I'm excited to get out there. And if, by the way, if the oh shit moments happened, you're going to have a Forrest Gump-like last couple years. I mean, this guy just hangs around big moments. He just keeps winning. Weren't you in Aljo's corner for the Jan rematch as well? Yeah, I was with Aljo.

We had Aljo for Jan twice and TJ Dill shot in corner for the TJ fight. That was in Abu Dhabi, I think it was. Yeah, so I've got, let's see. So Lance Palmer was my first. We've had Aljo, Francis, Rafion Stotts,

now Sean Strickland. Jesus. Well, you stay busy and from the looks of it, you stay winning. Thank you. We appreciate this opportunity to talk with you

and dude, the microwave story was great. I'm really glad you told it. It's Eric Nixick, everybody.