PBD Podcast - UFC Fighter Michael Chandler | PBD Podcast | Ep. 190

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Michael Chandler & Adam Sosnick.  Michael Chandler is an American professional mixed martial artist. He currently competes in the Lightweight division in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). A professional competitor since 2009, Chandler first gained notoriety when he began competing for Bellator MMA, an organization he fought for from 2010 through 2020. Check out Michael's KRAM Nutrition: https://bit.ly/3M93cWG  Join the channel to get exclusive access to perks: https://bit.ly/3Q9rSQL  Download the podcasts on all your favorite platforms https://bit.ly/3sFAW4N  Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list   Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

Eminem that he talked about purple pills anyways podcast is like we're talking about purple pills special podcast here for you Been very excited about this one here for a couple different reasons our guest today Let me formally introduce them before we get right into this man When you see his face you're gonna think of something else, but you have to know one thing about this man He was on the honor roll every term in high school. I don't know if he has no disorder now. Every term in high school. Badass wrestler, badass wrestler

and Missouri State high school activities, then he went and became, you know, Association State Championships as a senior wrestling. Aside from that, he goes to Bellator, he knows how to email and turn a girlfriend into a wife. We need to kind of figure that out for a couple of these guys. Yeah. Mike, if we can teach us some lessons, I might be speaking his blue pill.

Red pill trying to make him a red purple pill. We don't have to refer to M&M and D12. And but I'm going to take this here. Here's here's for me. So a couple things when I watch you, man, one, I think today, if if I was to say, you know, like if I want to say, if I wanna watch basketball, I wanna watch Steph Curry play. To me, he's exciting.

If I wanna, John Moranth is exciting to me. Certain people are exciting to me. Certain people are not exciting to me. Those guys are exciting, right? Like you wanted to watch Michael play. You wanted to watch certain people play. Judge just hit her 60 seconds. Oh my, second home.

Second home, watch certain players play. If this guy, when you're fighting, I have to watch your fights. I would say the most exciting fighter today period. I like watching you fight. It doesn't matter if it was Justin or you against Charles. Either one of them could have gone your way. Charles could have even been stopped.

Some of the fights have been stopped in those types of situations. But in my opinion, you can crucify me, you can come after me. I think he's the most exciting fighter right now to watch with that being said, Michael Chandler in the house. Goodness. Thank you. Well, number one, thank you for having me. And number

two, thank you for those those kind words because that is it's the goal, right? I biz a small guy from a small town. And so now I ended up here on the Patrick Bet David show. So here we are. You know what I like when you're being interviewed and I kind of shared this with on Instagram, where you know they're, hey, you know the money fight's gonna be counter, but you got this and you know,

listen man, my entire life, I've been chasing to be the champion. My entire training, everything I do 24, seven, I'm doing this to be the champion. Yes, I understand I'm gonna make more money with the other one, let's just say because it's a money fight. I have to be a champion. Once I become a champion, then I'm gonna go do the fight. So it's so obvious, you're so crystal clear on what your target is,

what you're going after. And for you, you came in, you've been in Bellator, so some of the audience that doesn't know, if you don't mind taking a moment and just kind of share your background on how you got into fighting, wrestling, and then typically a Belator, so some of the audience that doesn't know, if you don't mind taking a moment and just kind of share your background on how you got into fighting, wrestling, and then typically a wrestler is not a good standup

but you got a great standup, some fights, you don't even want a wrestler. And you know how to wrestle, so maybe tell everybody a little bit about your story. Yeah, I just, I was a undersized kid from high-reage Missouri, didn't have her and her mom, until I was almost 18 years old, so I always had to scrape and claw for everything that I had.

I obviously wasn't going to be the star quarterback or the, you know, the starting center on the basketball team. So weight classes and the sport of wrestling seemed like the easiest path to find success. So I started wrestling in high school. I was the first one that really took it seriously and on my high school team wrestled 365 days a year, basically. And I was the first one that really took it seriously. And on my high school team wrestled 365 days a year basically. And I was the first one that had done that. And since then Northwest high school has turned into a year-round program where those guys are,

you know, wrestling all year long. In St. Louis. In St. Louis, Missouri, they got my picture of me as a all-American up there. And those guys kind of strive and say, hey, and the coaches say, hey, if you want to be successful, if you want to be great, you can't just be a wandering generality. Is it the same coach as a new coach? Same coaches. One of them's retiring this year, Ron and Bob will. That's cool. So, one of them is retiring this year and then one will continue to stay on.

And then I actually, I fell short. I went to the state championships for different times in high school, qualified every single year, made it to the finals my senior year, but fell short every single year. I wasn't a state champion. I placed one year. So I still had that competitive itch and I got some smaller school offers or D2, D3, and I, but something in me for some reason said, hey, if you're going to go wrestle at the next level, you need to wrestle at the highest level. Take that chance. So I ended up walking on to the University of Missouri wrestling program. I was the lowest guy on the total poll coach didn't talk

to me for an entire year. Everybody got three sets of workout gear. I got one set of workout gear, which meant more laundry. And, you know, you just felt like you were overlooked. And I knew I had to put in the extra hours. I put in the extra hours, ended up becoming a team captain in an all-American and then still had the competitive itch, but didn't want to continue to wrestle.

I was very fortunate, Tyron Woodley, Ben Aschrin. I wrestled with both of those guys at Mizzou. They started fighting and they were like my big brothers and I said, well, I'm not ready to get a job and use my degree quite yet. So let me go ahead and just start fighting in cage. You're sure. I have a list of questions that I want to ask.

Right? The first question I had, I was like, I need to understand this. And it's basically how these athletes fall through the cracks, right? You can go to any sport, NFL, Tariqel, arguably the best wide receiver in the league went to what have you state, right?

So I'm hearing your resume. And ironically, you're wearing the shirt, walk on. And essentially, the concept of my question was, all these amazing athletes, they show up out of nowhere. And Pat read your resume very eloquently, right? Honor roll, every year, football player, a wrestler. You're the team MVP, all city, St. Louis, right? But no scholarship, no big school wanted you on the team, right?

You walked on, like, honestly, like, Rudy Rudiger style, literally. Like, 100, you know, 100 and nothing, five foot and nothing, whatever the hell it is, by the time you're a senior in college, you're all American. So a lot of people these days, you know, wanna get rich quick, or they wanna kind of, you know, have success quick. And essentially, one of the things I always talk about is like,

yeah, you gotta work your ass off, bro, you gotta pay your dues, like, you kinda gotta go through some shit to kind of realize what it's like at the top. So I kinda understand, is it mindset? Is it just, you know, stick to it, NIS? Is it just like, you know, it's not the size of the dog and the fight is the size of the dog.

Fight in the dog. What are you all your success to, bro? Honestly, I think patience and stick to it of NIS to realize that, yes, I wanted to be a state champion, yes, I wanted to be an all-American, I wanted to be a national champion, I wanted to be able to beat Jordan Burles. That wasn't in the cards for me.

Now, granted, it could have been in the cards for me if I was winning the battle between my ears. I realized when I graduated college, I took fifth as a senior, when I took those straps off the single, for the last time I went back to, we were at the Sabbath Center, or Edward Edward Jones or Sabbath center in St. Louis immediately all that pressure came off of me and I thought, you know what?

I underperformed so badly over the last five years because I put so much pressure on myself and it wasn't that big of a deal. I did everything right. If coach said run through that brick wall, I would be the first one through that brick wall and I would break that wall down. If he said, do 100 reps, I'm doing 200. If he said work four hours, I'm working six hours. I was the guy who I was that guy who came in and did everything. So I was doing everything right physically. And I was building up this body. I was doing all the workouts. I was putting in all the reps, but what I was not doing was taking ownership and the extreme

ownership of my self-image because an individual will never be able to outperform a poor self-image. And that was the story of me because once again, as I alluded to in the very beginning, I was a small guy from a small town who was taught to do small things. And that's nothing against my upbringing, my town, the people that I was around, I was just,

I wasn't taught that outside those county lines, you can go out there and not just do something good, but you can do something great and do something extraordinary. Was that tricky? And I bought into that and I would, is that kind of how it was? That's the mindset. Yeah, somewhat. And it wasn't necessarily, it was inherent.

It wasn't even, it wasn't even talked to me. It wasn't as if my parents told me, hey, you're not going to amount to anything. I had amazing parents and amazingly supportive parents, you're not going to amount to anything, I had amazing parents, an amazingly supportive parents, but they didn't build in me enough to believe that I could go out there and do something great. And if I fall flat on my face, at least I tried. And that was, that's why I thank God every day that I did somehow make that decision

that I was going to walk on to Mizzou because I could have taken the scholarship to Missouri Baptist or Central Missouri State, one of these smaller schools. In best case scenario, I went to national title as a sophomore and then think, well, shoot. I under, now I'm under achieving because I should have went Division One. I'd rather go Division One, ride the pine, ride the bench, quit after a couple of years, not make it, get injured, be a perennial backup every year, and train at the, train and

compete at the highest level, then to become a national champion in a smaller, big fish, small punk. Big fish upon and here we are. I'm just just over what two years and two weeks into my UFC run now. And I had that moment of clarity finally where I thought about the 40 year old Michael, who's laying next to my beautiful wife, Bri, and that pillow that I'm laying my head on feels like a 40-pound sandpaper-scender block because I can't sleep because I didn't take the chance.

I didn't walk on and walk out of Bellator, the smaller organization to go on and give myself the opportunity to get on the biggest platform possible. I did, and it's sure it's working out well. Pat, what's the story you always tell about, you know, the greatest general of all time? That's exactly what I'm like. Would you share that with him? It's kind of the concept of the...

Yeah, I understand where you go with it. The whole guide guy goes to heaven, asking St. Peter, hey, who was the greatest general of all time? He says it was you, but you never took the shot when we send a recruiter. You always wanted to be the greatest general. You were afraid you didn't make the decision.

You would have gone in, you would have been the greatest, but you didn't. So, that's that whole thing that, whatiter, you always wanted to be the greatest general. You were afraid you didn't make the decision. You would have gone in, you would have been the greatest, but you did. So that's that whole thing that, what if you know, what if, yeah, but go back to this. So your story, so you're saying Tyrone Woodley, I saw that and ask him when you coming up, how old, are you wrestling with these guys? Are you training with these guys?

And if yes, at what age did that start when he guys are training together? So I came into Mizzou as an 18 year old, as a freshman. Tyron was in his going into a senior year. So I had one year on the team with Tyron. I had two or three, two years with Ben. And they were both like my big brothers. And I can tell you right now, Ben Asker might be the exact opposite of me

when it comes to self-image. That dude thinks that he can do anything. And he is the most confident person I have ever been around in my entire life. And I spent so much time around him and I always felt out of place. And there was even moments where I was mad at him or I would lash out at him.

Or because he was just like, it doesn't make sense to me. I don't understand why you don't believe in yourself. You're beaten CP later here by four points and all of a sudden you gave yourself permission to lose instead of giving yourself permission to win. And I'm like, Ben, I don't understand why I can't win. I'm just afraid to. I'm afraid to give myself permission to win.

You know, whereas a guy like him, I don't know how he developed that, but I sure am studying up hard right now to be able to instill in my children more like his, his thinking than my thinking. Not cocky. You're saying pure confidence. You're not saying he was cocky. my thinking. Not cocky, you're saying pure confidence. You're not saying he was cocky. Well, a bit of a little cocky. He wrote people the wrong way,

but in UFC, I'm thinking how he was at 20. Yeah, for sure. And he had the fro and he would, he would talk trash and that kind of stuff. And I think, you know, not to go back to quotes, but even just the Nelson Mandela quote, you know, let your own light shine. So you, so the people around you will inadvertently

let their light shine. Don't be afraid to be the best because other people might feel insecure around you. I think I also tried to operate in such humility that it was a detriment. Because I think humility is the most beautiful thing. It's probably one of the greatest traits that you can possibly have, but too much humility,

it's gonna be extremely hard to be extremely successful. Because you don't have, you don't have, you don't have any good beliefs. I believe what it's called. I think, yeah, I think there's the intersection and kind of that fine line between limiting beliefs. Were you raising a church environment? Were you raising a Christian environment?

I was raised Catholic. And then I was actually the one, I got saved really in a spirit-filled church when I was 16 and was the one who kind of started bringing my family to a non-denominational Christian church. So sometimes that, sometimes that brings the humility where you feel a little bit uncomfortable being shameless and promoting and being self-promotion, you know, like, hey, let me tell you here's what I'm going to be doing because it kind of comes from a It is one of the values and principles in the non-denomination to not be doing that but in your world you're in today

That skill said pays a lot to be, you know, a little bit shameless about promoting yourself Yeah, and by the way when you did it that one time when you won and you came out and you said hey Kata It was like, boom, boom, boom. The way you said it, but go back. So when you're wrestling with Tyrone or you're wrestling with Ben, are they at this level superior to you

or is it like by half, are you guys about the same? When you're going up against them, are you developing confidence saying, I can hang with these guys, or at that level, the two year difference between you and Ben, he was superior to you. Yeah or at that level, the two-year difference between you and Ben, he was superior to you. Yeah, Ben for sure, and Tyron as well,

but Tyron was more, I became somewhat of Tyron's practice dummy because he knew we were around the same way. I was 157, he was 165, and he knew if he called me at 4am, I'm there. He calls me at midnight, I'm there. If he calls me on the weekend, I'm there. So I became that guy, because I was once again, the walk on, and this is Tyron Woodley. He was a St. Louis legend. He was a

you know, a couple of times state champion from my home city as well. Ben, Ben was in the league of his own. He was a couple of time, Hodges Trophy winner, which is essentially the Heisman of wrestling. And but Ben and I traveled. Ben was. Yeah, Ben. Ben was. Ben is one of the best NCAA college wrestlers of all time. When he came out, how many game, how many fight win streak did he have? Who I don't remember what the number was. He didn't, well, he didn't lose until he didn't lose until he came in the UFC.

Mazda was his first loss and he was like 21 and 0. Yeah, it was the one when Mazda knocked him out three seconds. The knee to the head. There's six. Six seconds. I said, my bad brother. Six seconds over here. Six seconds.

We're talking about it. You know, but so Ben was in a league of his own. And in those two guys, wouldn't exactly give you much confidence because I always lost to them. And they also had the big brother. They had the big brother. Did you ever beat them? Did you ever beat them?

I took Tyron down one time. I took Ben down one time, I think maybe in five years. Wow. So you so you so you had the edge because you're 167, Tyron is 175, you're going up against somebody that's got eight pounds on you, which is teaching you how to go up against a guy a bigger size than you and a little bit older than you experienced. That's kind of helping you out. That's good positioning for you.

Yeah, for sure. And even back to your point, the idea of the walk on and what is the thread of success? Because I talk to these young guys now, I'm training with 22 year old guys right now. I got scar tissue older than a lot of these guys. I'm 36 years old, you know? And I just say, Hey man, don't think about you today.

Let's think about you 10 years from now. You wanna be where I'm at 36 years old, still doing what I'm doing. And I made a career and I'm able to take care of my family. So with that going back to college, Tyron's a, you know, he's not even to me in the sport of wrestling mixed martial arts. I don't think you're a true man until 30. That's my true belief.

That's when I truly, finally felt like a man and maybe I'm a late bloomer. Tyron's, you know, 22 at that time, I'm 18. He's got the big brother on me. So I wasn't going to beat him. He was much bigger and I was a scrawny little freshman. But I started to obviously to hold my own a little bit more here and there, but it just takes time as well.

It takes time and business. You're first entrepreneur, you're not sure compared to your 50, you're just a different person. You're a galvanized by the fires that you have put yourself through in business, in relationships, and for me, it was obviously physical in the work or in the gym, in the strength and conditioning sessions, in the reps, in the drills, and then eventually, you know, that that body finally catches up to,

hopefully, the mindset that you have in the opportunity. You're saying 30. Interesting, you're saying 30. It was about 28.30. Yeah, so in baseball, you know, what's his name? Judging to express the record, 62. I didn't take the contract last year. He's because you want to 400 million. I want to be 30. He's 30. You're going to sign the 10 year to 40. I mean, Poo-House, I guess came back and cracked the 700.

Maybe they're going to give him a 10 year 400 million contract. Good for him. But going back with you, did you tyrant and then at all do stand up? Or is it purely wrestling? In college? In college. Yeah, no, I don't think.

Yeah, I think Tyron, so Tyron was the one who first started. He was training with Eve Edwards down at the American top team Luigi Fuervanti Dean Thomas. So Tyron actually, Tyron paved the way for us, because me and Ben came out of college. I've graduated in May of 2009, fought my first profile in August of 2009 with fought my first pro fight in August of 2009 with almost a zero training,

but Tyron had a slower road. He had like seven amateur fights because he just didn't have the connections because life isn't about what, you know, it's who you know. Tyron's trying to get into mixed martial arts but has no idea how to do it. Finally, he meets these guys at America top, he's able to get pro fights

and then he starts his pro career obviously. But then so Tyrone was the one who first started kind of throwing hands and you know hitting mits and that kind of stuff and I started watching them and I thought man that would be cool. And I started watching him. I'm up on to this point you're not throwing you're not throwing hands you're not. I never been in a street fight. Nothing. What you've been in a street fight till 2020.

No. Stop it. Michael Chandler UFC legend. You've never been in a street fight for you. I'm getting in trouble, man. I'm not trying to get in trouble. How's that even possible? You never know. He said something in an interview where he said, hey, you know, what happened between you and Dustin. We'll talk about that here in a minute.

The whole, when Dustin was saying stuff to you and I said, listen, I'm not trying to get into street fight. I'm fighting in the ring. And my wife is next to me. I'm not doing anything. But again, that's why like when I hear you speak, I sit there and I say, this guy could be a hedge fund manager, he can be an investment banker, like he's a smart, you're a smart guy that you could also do other things outside of just fighting. So when you're saying you haven't done that, but then it's confusing because you get hidden the face and just go in back and back and

down. Yeah, he's so good looking. So, so you're 2020. So, so, so, first, so when did you start developing your stand-up and then at what point would you say I started getting confident that I know I can really do some damage because you do damage when you fight and it's not just wrestling. Yeah, no, I, so I mean I graduated college at 22. I start through my first kind of punches. I mean, I probably, maybe the summer before, because Tyrone was still at Atmazoo and training in Columbia, Missouri.

I probably maybe hit Mitz a couple times at 21 or 22, whatever, but it was, I was solely in love with and solely focused, maniacal focus on becoming a national champion. So I didn't, yes, I kind of knew I wanna do what big brother Tyron was going to do and what Ben was going to do. Maybe I want to try that and want to be UFC champion someday.

But I was focused on wrestling. So wrestling, I knew I had to put in my 10,000 hours. So 21, 22, and then I stuck around Mizzou and coached for a year and kind of tried to start training a little bit. I'd go down to Florida, come down here to train with Tyron a little bit. I'd go down to Florida, come down here to train with Tyron a little bit and then come back and coach.

And then I moved to Las Vegas and then that was where I first kind of started my... And my trip. When it comes to mixed martial arts, so it was all wrestling. When it comes to the hands, what did you train like with a boxer? Do you just go to just whatever discipline Jiu-Jitsu,

everybody else has used in their hands and stuff like that? What do you, what do you, what do you, just jiff gears to? So, for me, I looked at it as, okay, what's the easiest, easiest path to victory? And for me, I knew I was gonna be stronger and tougher than most guys, because just the microcosm of college wrestling

is something that cannot even be stated to people who have never been through it. So I knew I was gonna be tougher than everybody I stood across the cage from. I knew I maybe I couldn't punch kick me elbow, maybe even more. To find tougher. What do you mean you just to say that? That's like, what do you mean you know you're going to be tougher than? Tougher.

Aside from them catching me on the button and me getting knocked out or me getting my arm broken or me getting caught in some kind of submission, I'm not going to quit because I never quit in wrestling. I'm not going, I'm going to be able to go harder longer and add a higher pace with my foot on the gas better than anybody else because of your confidence. Is that mizu? Is that wrestling? Where's that confidence coming from? It's wrestling and it's wrestling at mizu. I think mizu tiger style wrestling was perfect for me. Think, you know, thank God I went there because other systems and other programs might not have

been as great for me. But Mizu wrestling, we had our list of things that we were going to do. We were going to be first to the line. We were going to go hard for seven minutes. We were going to push people out of bounds. We were going to run back to the center. We were going to look you in the eye. We were going to break you mentally before we score more points.

You know, so that translates over to mixed martial arts and quite frankly translates better than any other martial art or any other background. And it's not because I can pick you up and put you down and control you. It's not because I have a strong wrestler body. It's because right here, I believe that I've been here. You're the same size of me. You got two arms and two legs. You're a man with a heartbeat. You put your pants on one leg at a time just like me, you got two arms and two legs, you're a man with a heartbeat, you put your pants on one leg at a time, just like me, except I wrestled at Mizzou,

and I did it for five years with some of the best guys in the world and lived that lifestyle. And I truly, I was around a lot of guys who didn't take it as seriously as me, of course, they didn't reach their full potential because they wanted the college experience. I didn't get the college experience,

and I would never trade it for a million years. I enjoyed pouring myself into that wrestling room at the Hurn Center. What do you mean by you didn't get the college experience? It's as it was wrestling. You know how hard that is to do as a 19, 20 year old kid? You're in the Midwest, you're in college. There's, you know, nickel beer nights in Mizzou. Oh, it's, yeah, I know, the whole deal. And you're just like, no, I got wrestling practice tomorrow. How hard is that to freaking do in your 19, 20 years old?

It actually, and once again, going back to, there's so many things, I get chills thinking about. There's so many things I look back and I, sometimes I despise that young Michael Chandler, I'm like, why in the heck didn't you believe in yourself? Like, you know, you had to walk onto the team, which means you had to pay for college. My parents paid for that first year,

and then the second year until I finally got a scholarship, but why did you not just believe in yourself? You did everything right, why did you not just believe in yourself? But did everything right, why did you not just believe in yourself? But then I flipped that on its head and say, I'm so proud of that, young man. And I'm so happy that was in my past because I was filled with so much gratitude

and as the walk on, knowing what it was like to be the lowest guy on the total pool, knowing what it was like to be overlooked. And I'm not gonna sit here and give you the, you know, the Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayway, the thing with the leg, I wake up at 3 a.m. and I'm running in trash bags. No, it wasn't that kind of stuff. Sometimes I've been hailing then.

I'm a little bit crazy, but like, you know, but I was willing to put in more hours. I was willing to do more. And then you just, it was, it was the easiest life ever. You go to class, you do your work, and you train every day, a lot, you know? So I just felt full of gratitude to be able to do it and to give anything less than my best

was to sacrifice the gifts that my parents had laid out for me and even just the opportunity for Brian Smith to say, yeah, man, you can walk on. I'm not gonna look at you for a year. I'm not gonna talk to you for a year. You good luck, buddy. And then, yeah, I became one of the same best buyers. I tell you something, when you're asking a question, I think it's normal. I think it's,

I think Kobe was shy and Kobe was uncomfortable around girls. And Kobe was determined about wanting to make it to the big leagues. I think Michael was the same. Michael was not good with girls. He was shy. He was quiet. He was too himself. He wasn't partying. And he got a guy like Dean Smith in his life and he kind of changed You know the biggest difference is like the way he's saying Determined at that level to get to the next level that wasn't me I need it the army like I had no clue what I wanted to do I was all over the place right but when you're when you're crystal clear early on on what you're trying to solve for

That's the edge that you got for him to become who he is today and I watch But when you're crystal clear early on on what you're trying to solve for, that's the edge that you got for him to become who he is today. And I watch it, I'm like, this is a very methodical, disciplined person with values, principle, certain things that you're doing. So I'm not surprised with that part. On the confidence side, you know, sometimes that comes later for some some get it early.

When it's a time I've been, been came earlier, but go back to this question on standup. What's tougher for you? Was it tougher to learn wrestling, or was it tougher to do and learn standup? Because it's two different things. Which one would you say was tougher for you? I think it was tougher to learn standup, honestly.

I think, for me, I started obviously at a very, I started at a younger age, I started at wrestling at 14 years old. I'm not, I'm not a man yet, I'm not thinking clearly, I'm not, I'm still building confidence, I'm still trying to figure out what my body's, how to move my body at 14 years old. I started striking as a seasoned, you know, young man

at 22 years old, who had just gone through that five-year battle tested of, of Mizzou wrestling. So my body, my coordination, my speed, my quickness, my strength, I didn't do strength conditioning for my first two years of mixed martial arts. Number one, I couldn't afford it to hire a personal trainer, I trained with those guys. And number two, I already knew I was going to be bigger, faster, and stronger than most of the guys that I was going to be competing against. And I knew I'm very far behind on striking. I'm very far behind on Jiu-Jitsu or Jiu-Jitsu defense. So I wanted to focus on those things

and that's kind of where I was. By the way, Pat, I'd be remiss if I didn't let Vinny know. We're not talking about stand-up comedy. I know, yeah, he is. Okay, as a stand-up comedian. Trust me, I've said stand-up on the 25-minute mark. Vinny's like, yeah, Okay. As a stand up comedian. Trust me. I got a hundred, 25 minute more. Vinnie's like, yeah, we're doing your stand up. No, no, no, no.

In my head, I was thinking to my head, I'm like, so in that, because you know, wrestling, once in a while you might get hit. You remember the first time you felt like the hit in the face, you went, oh, that's what this is like. Wow. It's like the first time you get booted off stage. Oh my God.

Yeah, you wanna throw up. You're like, whoa. And that happens in sparring because you honestly, it's hard to explain unless you've, you've been there, but you don't, you don't feel the pain and fights. You don't feel, you don't even really feel the thud. You feel, you feel, you know, adrenaline is a heck of a drug, man, you know, and it's just, it's coursing through your veins and your focus and, you know, for me, for me, I was always just so offence focused

that I think I was just, boom, okay, get it, keep going, boom, okay, get it, keep going and I go back and watch. Yeah. That's how you fight though. Sometimes I watch your fight. I'm like, okay, you know how traditionally when a guy gets hit, he gets hit, he gets hit and let's just say he's more jujitsu guy, wrestler, he is default. You know what, this is just too much.

I'm a default to wrestler. Let me get his leg and boom. But no, you're like, no, you know why this is just too much. I'm a default to Russell, let me get his leg and bone. You know, but now you're like, no, you're stubborn. You stand up, you're like, I'm not gonna go to what I know I'm better than you and I'm gonna stand up because I think I'm also better fighter than you. Yeah. And you see that when the style of fighting,

Bellator to UFC, we're just fans we watch. We're not, you know know in that world what's the biggest difference you notice from Bellator to UFC you had a lot of great fights in Bellator and you're going to UFC you've had you know five fights in UFC and you're already one the biggest stars in UFC biggest difference between Bellator to UFC from your eyes. I think it's a two a two part from from the promotion side of things it is It is night and day. The UFC has a ton of employees.

They are over staffed in every single area. They have a travel department. They have a PR department. They have a social media department. They have a health department. They have all of these different departments. It is it is ran like a finely tuned Fortune 500 company. Bellator was awesome and I love the people. It just, it was understaffed

and there wasn't, it wasn't a finely tuned machine. And then from the promotional side of things, people just care so much more about the UFC. They've been around for so much longer. They started in 1993. You know, they are, they are the worldwide leader in mixed martial arts by a long shot. Nobody is even coming close to scratching the surface of what the UFC does. When people think about fighting, they think about the UFC first. And then, so I noticed that. I noticed, just like in college wrestling, I always thought I was the hardest worker in the room. And now in mixed martial arts, even when I'm training with these guys in the UFC, I was the hardest worker in the room. And now in mixed martial arts, even when,

even when I'm training with these guys in the UFC, I was training harder than them, longer than them, being more disciplined with my diet than them, being more disciplined with my weight cut, my lifestyle than them, yet they were getting all of the, all of the platform, all of the cameras, all of the eyeballs, all of the followers, all of the everything. And I was the guy who was somewhat,

outside of the UFC as a world class talent, but wasn't getting the opportunity to be looked at that because I wasn't fighting the best guys in the world on the biggest promotion. And now you just gotta work long and hard and keep a good reputation until that reputation stays up there and then all of a sudden the platform intersects at the exact right time.

And my platform is high and the platform intersects at the exact right time. And my platform is high, and the platform is high, and the reputation was high. And it worked out well. I, what's the sports on now is like, is that the NFL to like arena league, XFL, I don't, I'm, I'm, is it NBA versus college? What's the, the, the bigger sports,

not bigger sports, but, yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess, yeah, something, something like that. I mean, any, any, any, and that's the thing, I, it's hard for me to talk about too, because I, I love being yeah, something like that. I mean, any, any, and that's the thing, it's hard for me to talk about too, because I love being an employee of the UFC. I love being a part of the UFC.

I have loved these last two years, but I do love those people at Bellotaur. I love my path. Once again, just like I talked about, I'm happy that I was that small guy from the small town. And it's kind of your narrative, with the walk on. Yes, and then I'm happy that I started in Bellotor and I came over at the exact right

time with the exact right mentality. Question for you. So what's the biggest difference between Steve? How do you say his last name? Is it cocker? Steve cocker? Oh, Scott cocker. Scott cocker. I'm sorry, Scott cocker and Dana White. What's the difference between the two of them? I think it's, I mean, Dana's just Dana's a, on a different level when it comes to the celebrity, you know, like Dana's a huge, huge name. Dana's is the, when he speaks people listen, when he speaks it is, it is mixed martial arts. That's what people, you know, take, and he, because he's been doing it, doing it for so

much longer. You know, Dana's a little bit more brash. Scott's a little bit more, a little bit more reserved. So there's pros and cons to both of those, you know, from a from a medium PR perspective, I'm sure you could talk to the UFC about that. But, you know, but I will say I think, I think Scott Cooker does take growing Belator seriously

but not as serious as Dana. I think Dana eats leaps and breathes it. It is his identity. It is his identity. It is his lifestyle. It is him. The UFC is Dana White and Dana White is the UFC. And that's a beautiful thing. I got a crazy question for you and crazy idea for this.

Here we go. Here we go. What pack goes through the window? Here we go. I'm not even having this in my thing. I'm just thinking about it. So I'm looking at what? Bellators, top line revenue is right now.

Okay. It's not a big number, 80 million, 100 million on what they're doing for you. I mean, obviously, UFC is doing a lot more. You know what would be crazy? It would be very crazy. You know, Dana says, look, you want to do this? Go start your own Lixia Harded is and he's right. It's very, very hard. It's very, very hard. Imagine if a person with the personality of Dana goes and buys Bellator and promotes Bellator

and puts the, you know, marketing eyeballs, and I know a couple guys that are big trolls that are very loud, if some of them were to buy it, it would be a very interesting competition between two leaks. To do not, obviously, Dana's got a lead by a mile and a half. It's not even close. But if you were to get somebody with a big personality to get

Bellotor who does the eyeballs in the marketing, I mean, how many Dana whites are out there? Vince McMahon is one. Dana whites one. Who else you put at that level? I don't know if Donkink maybe at his peak back in the days, let's just say you put a Donkink at that level. I don't know who else you put in that level. There's not so many promoters.

You know, listen, to be that, you have to, can you imagine like you're the boss of badass, you know, mother, you, I mean, you're the boss of people that on any given day can walk 99.999, 99,999% of people's tails anywhere in the street fight. These guys are people. So, so then imagine managing, leading, negotiating, saying, no, this is the way or the highway. You don't do this.

I'm okay, I'm doing. That's not, that's not everybody's job. Only a few people can do that job, right? Yeah. And you take wrestling versus, you know, UFC, wrestling gets big egos, but they don't know how to fight like UFC does. UFC is big egos and they know how to fight

and you're leading them and you're setting it straight. There's not too many day no whites, but if some people claim they can really do it better than UFC, there's a bellator you can go by and do something with that. Yeah, no, and it's, I mean, yeah, Dana's just, he wants to be, he wants to be bigger than the NFL. He wants to be bigger than the MLB. You know, he's in his decades behind, obviously, those guys, those, what NFL started and what he wants to be bigger. MLB. Yeah, he wants to be, I mean, he,

he hasn't told me that, but that's kind of the, you feel it. That's and that's the kind of that's just the kind of mentality that that you want in your your boss, you know, like that's that's what I was in it with and that's in my meeting with my first phone call with him. I just you know, I said, Hey, I want to be a good thing for your organization. I promise you you have never signed a guy that is more equally yoked with you. And told them that. Yes, and he hung up on me. yoked with you and told him that. Yes, and he hung up on me. What do you mean? He hung up on me and called Hunter Campbell. Yeah, who is who is who is his right hand man, you know?

So then he called me back and then, you know, a couple days later, we, you know, got a got a contract figured out. My what was the moment? Abella, what was that moment where you're just like, you know what? I'm shifting gears and I'm done. I'm out. Was it a fight? Was it a moment?

Was like a mental thing? Was it a relationship? What was your like, I'm out? It I'm done. I'm out. Was it a fight? Was it a moment? Was like a mental thing? Was it a relationship? What was your like, I'm out? It was definitely not relationship. The relationship was always great. I love Scott Coker and I loved Rich Chiu and Mike Cog and all those guys. And that's just always been me. I'm in this position because I tried to always think about making myself an indispensable

asset to my current promotion. So then if I ever did want to go somewhere else, it's chill. It's chill as well as I have a higher value to then be taken somewhere else, which worked out, you know, well, and now I've still got the same mentality with the UFC. I want to be, I want to be the UFC's favorite fighter, the easiest one to work with, the most entertaining, the one who brings the eyeballs, the one who's the easiest to work with, the one who treats the janitor at the UFC PI the same way that I would treat 100 Campbell or Dana Light, because that stuff trinkles up the world.

No, it was. So word gets up when you have 170 something employees, the way that you treated that person is going to get to their higher up and there. And it's, well, it's, it's just being a nice person to. But you say that, but you say that. And you think it's normal, but it's not. When you get the camera, the, you know, the, you know, all the limelight, everything, it's, it's, it's not, you know, it's very, when somebody makes a first million, all of a sudden it comes too quickly, most people don't know how to handle that. And when somebody gets a lot of limelight, most people don't know how to handle that.

It's a tough thing, but for you to be able to do that, that's great. The person I was thinking about to buy Bella Tours a guy, and I don't know if you've heard of this guy. What's the guy's name? I would say his name is Jake. Last name is like, what's your name?

That's the same, what's that? What's that? That's the same. I'm like, I heard you do. Didn't something just come out about Jake, Paul is talking about your MMA promotions, or what he said, sure. I didn't. Something just come out about Jake Paul is talking about you are MMA promotions. He said something. I heard something about.

He said he's about to announce something. Yeah. Something that he was teasing about fighting in the MMA. I was at one point I was in the actual fight. To fight what I'm saying is what I'm saying to fight. No, no, no, no. I'm a big part of Jesus. Move to MMA says he's working with a big organization for potential debut. That's what. But this is what I'm saying to find me the promoter big Paul Jesus moved to MMA says he's working with a big organization for potential

David that's what but this is what I'm saying forget about the debut This is my my thing this you putting 40 million here 10 million 20 million This million Jake can go to an investment banker race 200 million dollars if these guys are doing a hundred million a year Say their profit margins 20% I'm making 20 say it's 10 times 200 million, say you have to buy for 300 million, raise 300 million dollars, go buy these guys, be the Dana, you can do the fight and do that, and then promote, I mean, he's, and by the way, then Dana can say, I told you it's hard, I told you the shit is hard, this thing is easy, right? Yeah, because they've had, they've been been, they've been, well, Jake's been at Dana a Danes throw you know for the whole the whole fighter pay thing and all of that stuff and

what you not think he has some some weight there to carry with his you know essentially calling him out you don't think he has some credibility there as far as the call in a mouth for everything's talking about with the fighter pay insurance and just you know I think I mean I think if if guys were unhappy with the way that they were getting paid, you'd see more guys, because it's, you know, everybody's contract ends, and the UFC does not hold you hostage. They say, go wherever you want to go. Everybody stays in the UFC.

Yeah. Because where else does the other option, Bellatore? There is a great options. I, Bellatore is a great organization. PFL is a, is a great organization and they are building. There's a numerous other organizations out there, but you can't at one time say these guys don't pay me enough and then you stick around. You sign another six-fight deal. You sign another eight-fight deal, another four-fight deal.

So, you know, I think just going back to that walk-on mentality, it all goes back to the gratitude as well. I feel grateful to be a part of the UFC. And I get called a bootlicker and I get called a brown noser. And that's fine, I don't care. I am who I am, and that's how I've always conducted it. And my career's working out pretty well. You're a flat carrier, but that's called

flat carrier mentality. It's you carry the flag for whatever team you represent. Like for example, you know, Antonio Brown, okay. What an incredible talent, right? You know, when you watch this guy play just an incredible talent what he was doing, it's crazy, most people probably forgot this case to play for Pittsburgh, right?

He was at the best receiver in the league and he played for Pittsburgh. He's the best. This guy, people are thinking it's, you know, Brady, no, this guy was at Pittsburgh, forget Raiders, forget any. He was at Pittsburgh. Killin' it.

Killin' it. Maybe the best coach outside of one of the coaching again, yeah. Tomlin, yeah. Yeah, Tomlin's a beast of a guy, I mean, how he, but you know, Brown, he's doing what he's doing. He's like, well, look at this. And then he posts a picture with him and Brady's wife two days ago.

And like, what? Like, yeah, like, it was trying to bust. But the point is, but the point is, the point, and then he makes a video with the coach and he puts it publicly while he's talking to the coach of the Raiders, you know who I'm talking about, the coach that, John Gruden, that's not flag-carrier meant. Some people think like, that's what you need to be.

What organization wants to have person like that on their team? That's that big of a distraction. Well, there's a big difference between us and the'm soon he's a person that only cares about himself. It's clear And versus a us mentality clearly what you're talking about UFC is you call me a Brown knows or a bootlicker, but I'm part of an organization or a team that I care about I'm very mentality exactly and I'm being authentic to who I am I've always been that way. And even now, there is nothing that will ever benefit me

from ever, you know, me. Trashing Bellator. Trashing Bellator. And, well, truthfully, it is honest. I do think they're all great. And it's still a great organization. Do I, am I happy that I went to the U.S.E? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean that I want to bash anybody else.

You know, some people call it class. And that too, that's what it is. And I was saying, it's a bad story. I was just going to pick him up. I could tell your parents did a freaking amazing job. I could tell your spirit, try, you know, you say you're going to church us up. I cuss like a sailor.

It hasn't cussed one time. No interviews. No, nothing. I respect that. This is the picture that Antonio Brown posted, you're saying? He posted this. Can you scroll down this? Is this an Instagram post? Yeah, he posted this on No, so he has on TMZ because mind you know because Tom Brady and his wife they just

TMZ are like they're reporting that they hired the worst lawyers So that's not gonna last but you know that's between them. They're going through what they're going through to do something like this While that announcement is being made and the way Brady Brady handled you when you left and he said, look, you know, it was a great time running with the sky. I think we have to pay a little bit more attention to people that are going through challenge and time. I wish him nothing but the best. And he still gave him respect.

And he do this. This is, you know, I posted this pic. Yeah, posted it on Instagram. And then he exposed himself in a pool in Mexico or somewhere. He's off the charts right now. Anyways, I don't want to talk about it. I think you brought. I'm just making a point here with this.

I'm not making a point here with this. Just going back to what you said, too. I mean, that's what the UFC and Belly Turin, all of these guys have to do with. At some point, you talk about athletes and then you talk about guys who are not just athletes, but they're also fighters. It's not easy to handle all of that. No, manage all of that. And then you're doing however many dozens and dozens,

I think the UFC is probably gonna do 50 something shows this year. It's crazy. You know, and 13 or 14 pay-per-views. And these are huge, huge. I mean, did you see what happened a couple weeks ago with the Diaz, Diaz, Hamzat, Ferguson, Ferguson, Holland, all that stuff.

It's the first time ever we're not doing the first conference because of what I saw in the back. They shuffled the whole card around within 24 hours of the card. Oh, the wait, with the wait, with the wait, with Ferguson fought. You know, it was a very, very, no, listen, I mean, to me, when COVID happened, you know, and everything was going on,

this guy is the top commissioner of all sports as they know why, period. Manfred is at the bottom, you know, you look at Adam Silver's probably number three or number four, you know, number two is probably going to be in the logical del, even though he doesn't, but there is nobody at this guy's level. Dana is on a league of his own. If everybody's number two, Dana's number one by mile, then it comes everybody else.

People think it's an easy job to do what he does. By the way, did you see what he looked like recently? What is the picture of a... Can you pull the picture of a... He's red. When you saw that picture... Well, what did you think about it? Yeah, I was pumped up for it.

10 more and 40s to live. For example, not only the picture, but you're also like, well, you think about it? Yeah, no, it was pumped up for more than 40 years to live. Well, not only the picture, but you're also like, well, it's kind of cool that you have that come to Jesus moment where you're like, okay, I got 10 years to live if I don't start to figure some stuff out. You know, and I mean, yeah, he's had health issues. He's had all kinds of stuff

that he probably doesn't even make public. But he's had some public health issues because as you would know, running any kind of company, it's a 24 hour job, and he's done a very good job of over staffing the organization. And one of the greatest, I think one of the greatest leadership moments that he will ever have was on that Diaz card.

When the fight broke out at that press conference, he not once said, I'm dealing with a bunch of lunatic, I'm dealing with a bunch of crazy fighters hopped up on, on adrenaline and this and that. He never said one bad thing about the fighters. He said, next time we'll be more prepared, we will have more staff. We usually are overstatured.

He mad up, put it all on. Yeah, we usually have more security guards. We usually have more security detail. He said it no less than 10 times in that interview. And I almost made a post about it, but I don't want to be called a brown liquor, or a brown loser, brown nose or boot liquor too much. But it was a very pivotal moment, I think,

when we will look back at his career, when that happened and he did not take, he only took the blame. And not just the UFC, he took the blame. And that's why he is who he is. Doesn't show hurt, he does what he does and people respect him. But to look like this right now,

I look at those abs, abs. Absolutely. Wow. Hey, okay. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. That's the, I wanna say 53, I don't know the exact, I'm gonna say something like that, 53, 54s, where is that? So, going back to, going back to, you back to the fight that you got coming up right now

between UN Dustin. It's interesting because Dustin, 28 fights in UFC, you've had five, right? And you've come in and you fought everybody. You came in, Dan Hucker, you have the fight. Dustin goes 25 minutes with him, you go 20, you know, Dan Huckery, you have the fight, you know, Dustin goes 25 minutes with him, you go 20, half minutes with him.

Okay, so that's a comparison that we got to make in the market. Then you go with Charles, I think Charles comes after that, right, Charles comes after that, you almost won that one. I mean, it was like this, right? Then you're going with, you know, Justin, and that's fighter tonight, fighter the year, everyone's come, the fighter the year.

It was insane of a fight. It's one of those fights that you'll watch regularly because it doesn't get old when you watch that fight. The kicks, the left leg, the story, your kick and he's kicking, your kick and he's kicking. It's like nobody would stop kicking. It was a, it was like a two minute thing. You just go like, this is insane with these guys.

I kind of walked for like six weeks. I like it. Oh my God. Don't throw kicks kids. It was a, it was like a two minute thing. You just go like, this is insane with these guys. I kind of walked for like six weeks. I like it. Oh my God. Don't throw kicks, kids. They heard, they heard. No, I don't know if you've seen this with these kids because he's known, Justin's known that he's gonna,

he's relentless about throwing these kicks. And it's constant. Yeah, but he's also going back and forth, back and forth. Anyways, then you have your, you know, last, the last body I have with Tony, you know, knockout of the year. Speaking of kicks, even the kick curve around the world. Yeah. It's just that was slow motion of his face.

Yeah. I mean, everyone's seen that one. That took place. I'm by the way, class act, you know, the way was spoken and an ounce coming up to Dustin. So this, this meet up with Dustin, you know, we've heard and we've seen everything between what's been said and what he said and what you said. Ariel is asking you about him and I'm not thinking about fighting him because at the time he was talking about retirement and you said you've never used those words, retirement.

I'm not thinking about retirement. He was. So that's why I was thinking about fighting somebody else. For him to approach you at a fight. And then, you know, Kormier puts the two of you guys and it was a great conversation. That's more than 40 minute conversation was classic because he's trying to steer the pot. And you can tell Dustin was upset and you're trying to just stay poised and calm, but he's saying what he's saying to you and, you know, shots are being fired.

And then now some people are saying, well, these guys are hugging, they're friends. What is it? Is it active? They hate each other? They want this going to be a real fight? Or are we going to see like a two-friend be of a fight? So today, with what the market has seen and what's really going on, where are you at with this fight

coming up? It's a fight everyone's looking forward to. What are you thinking about with? Is it really a fight that there's going to be an amosity to fight? Or is it just two professionals getting the ring to fight? I think the overarching thing is it's two professionals getting in there to fight. You know, I think, you know, you talk about the hug that was that was pre that was pre beef. You know, that was me and me and Dustin sat there for an hour before weigh-ins just kind of talking about everything. He's trying my groove

life ring on because he was wearing a silicone ring on my head. He was the best, I'll send you some, blah, blah, blah. We're talking about our kids, we're talking about our wives, we're talking about what we do. And there was a lot of mutual respect. And then right after that fight, that was when he, the illustrious, if they want me to fight Chandler,

I'd rather just go sell hot sauce. So then there was kind of the, pushing me aside, so I'm like, okay, wait a second. I thought we were cool. Yeah, yeah. You'm not the ring tall, 20 minutes later. You know, I didn't take that into, I didn't really take it too personally,

because at that point I knew I probably wasn't gonna fight Dustin next, or maybe I was, who knew at that point in time. And then, since then, I have done some interviews where I'm like, I'm kind of, I've taken this, I had debut of the year in 2021, I had knockout of the year, or the year, fight of the year in 2021,

I might have knockout of the year in 2022, you know, so I'm continuing to rise and rise and rise and Dustin was talking about going to 170, talking about fighting D.S., which we all know what that means. It's not exactly like you're trying to stay on the trajectory to win the title, he did say retirement. So I did take the liberty to maybe, maybe it was a little bit disrespectful to say I'm not even

thinking about Dustin. And there was one moment where I actually did forget Dustin's name because I think I pushed his name out of my top five of who I would fight because I thought he was moving up to 170 or whatnot. So maybe it was a little bit subconscious on accident. And he took, you know he took a fence to that. So then the video of us at the fight, obviously he wanted to say his piece, which I respect.

He doesn't need to tweet me. Even though he has tweeted me and then I roasted him with an awesome tweet back, which he even said, Chandler roasted me. Because he's not even up yet. Is that the one who's talking about me? No, it was actually, it was actually, no, I was, we don't really need to get into going to get into it. Michael was great. He called me Michael

chinler, you know, I have a chin, right? And I said, and I said speaking of speaking of chins, Michael Johnson fights tonight. The last time Dustin Poria fought Michael Johnson was this date in Hedagot, Texas, and he knocked out Dustin, Poria, you know, like, and I used hashtag chin chin history. But then he came back with, I don't even know what to say. That's awesome. You know, so there was even that kind of mutual school. That's the kind of stuff. That's how I would respond. Well, if he did that to me, I feel like, okay, what do I say here? I'm gonna ask you. Like, let him keep going. Okay, no, what is he gonna say?

Well, I'm not gonna pump up, you know, the ego. So there's, there's that, you know, I think there's a mutual respect. I think him and I are very similar in a lot of ways. I think our values are very similar. I think we fight for our families. We fight for our legacy and we take the sport seriously. You can stand up with this guy. I've been known to do some stand up. I think I can knock him out.

I think he can knock me out. I think so I think we both have the confidence there on the feet. I think my wrestling is better. I think my grappling is better. I'll then say that. I think I always go the confidence there on the feet. I think my wrestling is better, I think my grappling is better. So I think I always go in there with the game plan of mixing it up and keeping them guessing. I haven't done a great job of that in the UFC thus far,

but it's bowed me well with the fans in my platform. You know one thing, you know, from Connor, that when he was a first time he fought the S and I don't know if you remember the first fight that he of course I'm sure you seen the fight but the first time he fought the S he hit him and he went to him yeah yeah he hit him and he went to him he hit him and he went to him right he's trying to say I'm gonna beat you out your game as well you know kind of like that's what I'm gonna be doing now you know people thought Francis and Gano's last fight he was

just gonna do stand-up he didn't he beat him and ground as well, which is kind of like damn. Yeah, nobody expected him to do this So Connor lost the first fight Even though he was supposed to win the first fight, right? He lost the first fight Second fight. I don't know if you first time he knocks he had some Nate drops. Yeah, and You know, he's not going to him Yeah, and then you hear Joe and I was like oh, he's not going to him. And then you hear Joe and I were like, oh, he's not going to him.

He's asking him to stand up, then he stands up. Again, he happens to, he did it three times to him. Yep, he did. Never went to him, which props to him for having that control during that moment to know, hey, this is not what I should do because that guy is better than me in this area. Let's just say you're fighting Dustin,

and all of a sudden you're like, okay, this guy packs a punch, you know, and you pack a punch. Both of you guys pack a punch. But, you know, do you think the strategy, and you don't have to tell me anything, I'm, you know, again, on what I'm saying with his part, but I'm only asking this because for me, if, you know, Kaby would show he can hang, you know,

and then, but all of a sudden, Kaby would go and say, no, man, and then but all of a sudden Kaby would go and say, No, man, this is not my fight. I'm gonna beat you at my fight. Yeah. How hard is it to set aside your own Spirit of competition and fire to say, dude, I know if I wrestle you, I'm gonna beat you But I want to beat you at your fight to say I kind of need this victory for me to be on a two win streak three One streak four win streak then I going to get to Charles back again. Let's just say Charles doesn't have the title by that time. It's going to be another person. I'm still going to get that championship fight.

Then I'm going to get the big pay. They'll let you say Connor comes back because they know once or the two of you guys to fight. Are you going to take a Kabebra or are you going to take the entertainment route? No, I'm definitely taking the win route. Okay. I'm taking the I will obviously every fight starts on the feet. Yeah. So we'll start on the feet, obviously.

You know, if the, you know, a lot of times too, there's that fine line between fight or flight and being able to actually make decisions on the fly, or maybe you're just flowing and you make a decision and all of a sudden you take a guy down, you didn't even try to shoot, it just happened, Your body shot, you have to leg, you picked him up and put him down. It's such an interesting mindset when you're actually in there because people say to all of them, why did you do this or why did you do that? And I'm like, I really didn't

have control over it. Maybe I should have done a little bit more work at visualization. Maybe I should have done a little bit more work in visualization, maybe I should have done a little bit more work in my training of doing more dry runs and more situationals and more opportunities to make sure I make the right decisions. But a lot of times you're not really 100% in control as much as the media and the fans and the onlookers think that you are. But truthfully, yes, there will be a game plan

and that game plan will be mixed in and out. You know, we're fans, you know. No, I appreciate's a good it's a good it's a very good question because yeah, you have to I've done a very good job I think thus far of creating a brand of Michael Chandler's and a very exciting fighter But no you you're not No, no, I'll thank you and listen Cosmo. I'm not gonna tell you he's not exciting. I'm not gonna tell you Thank you. And listen, Cosmoke, I'm not gonna tell you, he's not exciting. I'm not gonna tell you, you know,

Alex Israel, no, no, no, no, what's his name? I have a hard time saying this like, that's, Volkanovsky, right? That guy is fucking, but to me, you're the most exciting fighter, period. That's my opinion.

You know, you're the most exciting fighter. When you, when you fight, I can't sit down. I have to stand up when I watch you fight. I can't sit down, I watch your fight. I gotta come you fight I can't sit down watch your fight I gotta come watch you fight with you For example like you know you I don't want to say this because it's your friend. Oh God Tyron you know he was coming up in like four times And then all of a sudden he he started like, you know, playing it too safe.

And even Dana got at one point, it was like, what is this guy doing? Look, we've got to stop tickets here. You know, this is not just about the points and scoring the points, we need a little bit of both. Like get in there. So he got a little too much to be too careful to get the victory.

And that's not good. You saw the other day Israel had a fight. People were born. I don't know if you remember the Israel fight Where they were born? What was that? Listen, I'm scoring a point and then the two girls that fought the worst fight of your ever I was on that was on my card. I think do you think so? Which actually works out really well I've been very fortunate to have some somewhat boring fights on my part of work

I on my part where I'm like I'm back there doing my interviews and I'm like people out there right. By the way did you watch that fight did you actually watch that fight or you didn't get because it's your cards I don't know if you watched it. No usually that was right after me and I went and did probably 20 30 minutes. It was it was the most boring. Let me tell you, in five minutes, they didn't hit each other one time.

That's very weird. Yeah, so you have to self-tick it. So as a dainno white, like you want guys like you, like Connor, like you know, you're not gonna do what Connor does. So you know, the difference between you and Connor is, Connor is gonna do a laps around you and talking smack, right? And I just you, anybody, including Mayweather, like Conor's

a top five smack talker in the world today. I don't know who I put ahead of him. Maybe you got him, you got Trump, you got Jake, you got some of these guys that are fantastically, Elon Musk is a troll, some of these guys, Conor's on another level. No, no, he's on a whole different level when he does it. So you're like, you like, I watched the press conference

with Mayweather Morton, I watched the fight. Yes. And I watched the press conference more times than I watched the fight one time. I watched the press conference. That was fun. So, but the part where I'm going with this is, there's the balance of the eyeballs

and then there is the journey to go get the championship, to get that part Man, it's it's it's gotta be and then you know when you're talking when you're fighting getting hit You don't know if you're getting hit and all that other stuff and one of the fights that you had you know when you're fighting Like because you'll go all out with everybody. You're not gonna stop But you're saying what is the most exciting part from the first second to the last second. He's moving. Yeah, there is no like You know there is no like You know, there is no all gas no brain. No, he's fighting from beginning to the end. He's fighting and it's just hard It's hard to see those kinds of fights. Yeah, it's not always the not always the best idea

It's not as easy as past a victory I think I think there was times where I thought man I wish I would have been a little bit more patient here because I I mean, there is, it is, I mean, I, when I fought in Bellitz where I fought, I don't know how many title fights, but I, although they were all scheduled for 25 minutes and do it. 25 minutes inside the cage is a long time. 15 minutes is a long time, but in that 15 minutes, there's moments where you can take rest, rest, there's moments where you can take your foot off the gas. I've never found those. I'm always, I'm always going forward. I'm always getting in the fight because I always, I fought exactly how I wrestled.

I put my toe on the line, the referee blew the whistle, and I put my hands on you, and I'm pushing you, and I'm pulling you, and I am attacking for seven minutes straight. And I just have kept that mentality my entire career, and it's worked out. It doesn't always work out, but all of my fights have always been like that.

All of my fights in Bellator, win loser draw, they've always been, you know, pretty, pretty. Is it here to say that's your style? Like, you embrace it. So, from a, from a competitor standpoint, they're like, all right, I'm fighting Michael. You know that he's gonna do this. Well, he's coming at you.

Yep. So, how does that put you, you know, you know, sort of like, they know what you're gonna do already because that's your style. He's a tack does that put you, you know, sort of like, they know what you're gonna do already because that's your style. He's a tacka, tacka, tacka, tacka. All right, so if you're a warrior, he is as well, though.

Who Dustin? He is as well. He's also that way. So that's why this is a very interesting matchup, but you know, it's an interesting matchup, but if it goes to the, you know, ground, I mean, it's, it's gonna be so I've seen you do some stuff with bodies when your body slamming, dropping

in me. Oh my God. Like I was watching the Bellator once, my hair was talking about, you're just like, if I had to describe your fighting, it's like a wild, like a gorilla just jumping on your ass. I forgot which fight it was. It was Bellator and you were, it was a ball, dude. And you did, it was a stand up guillotine.

The guys had turned that color red at the old and the pop off. It was a standing guillotine and then he just dropped. Like you just don't let them breathe. Which is that's the go forward and just don't stop. Don't let them breathe. When you attack, you gotta take the opportunity, you gotta attack and you hold it until that's what's you off.

Pat, remember, you interviewed, doesn't worry a 13 months ago the vault yeah so uh... it was right on the heels of the mcgregor yeah which is crazy was the biggest name and you have see it that point you beat mcgregor man yeah but do you remember what you asked him about who he prepares for a fight and he puts the date on the calendar and he circles uh... you know what he can control and then outside of the calendar, outside of the circle, was everything else.

The media, the noise, the shit talking, the, you know, you're never gonna be this, whatever. It was very impressive, you remember this. It was something that stuck with me about him. It's like, you can control what's in this circle, outside of that, nothing you can do. What's your preparation look like? What's your mindset look like coming into a fight?

You know, I can't say that I have any kind of chart like that, but I do. I think for me, I've just been training for so long. I do. Every training camp is different, but every training camp is very much the same. You know, we train two or three times a day, five, six days a week.

Right now, I made a choice when I came down here and started training in Florida. My family lives in Nashville. Are we all living in Nashville when I come here for eight, nine, ten weeks at a time? I was going to fly home every Friday and I was going to fly back every Sunday. And if my career, if it was a detriment to my career, I was willing to make that choice and that sacrifice. And it's worked out fine. So Monday through Thursday, I trained twice a day between practices.

I honestly try to fill my time up with things. Even when I was scheduling this, I was like, hey, usually I'm between two and one and five PM. Usually it works out well for me today, it worked out well because I lifted it to, trained it it to and lifted it to and then we have this evening So I just try to spend a lot of time. I always do my morning routine of you know prayer visualization reading a devotional Maybe listening to some music or even something on YouTube that's kind of getting me pumped up Not really pumped up, but more just edified built up

because yeah not really pumped up, but more just edified, built up. Because yeah, this, these training camps will beat you down to your knees if you let it. And you have to pull away sometimes, you have to fill up your cup. Thank God, for me, going home on the weekends, I'll take two days off sometimes and just be with my family, that fills up my cup and then I can just go grind the, you know,

grind the grindstone for money through the Friday again and so. It sounds like you're a major system guy. Yeah, I mean, right. Yeah, and I like to, I like to fill up, you know, right right now I'm really trying to fill things, fill my day up with things. Or else you just sit around and you think about the fight and you might, you might think, well that sounds good, yeah, think about the fight as much as you, and it's like, no,

not really. Because I can, one of the most important things, I think, in business, relationships, any endeavor in sport is to be able to trust yourself. Can you trust yourself? I know without a shadow of a doubt when that caged or closes and that referee says, are you ready? You're ready. Go.

I can trust myself to go out there and do what I need to do. So everything else going back to the chart is just noise. If I sit there for three hours and do I need to watch mindless Netflix, okay, maybe, or maybe I do watch film. Maybe I do watch some film with my coach. But for the most part, I compartmentalize that two hours in the morning, that two hours in the evening,

maybe a little bit of visualization or today I had bodywork and hour long massage to build the body obviously. That trust you talk about, which is very powerful. I mean, when he said that, I'm like, okay. That doesn't sound like the Michael from 10 years ago. It sounded like you didn't trust yourself or you didn't trust your mindset, right? Am I in your side?

No, I trusted myself to self-sabotage myself more than I trusted myself to. Yeah, am I always gonna win. Am I always going to win? Do I trust myself to win? No, because this is the sport of mixed martial arts. I'm fighting another world class man and four ounce gloves and anything can happen. But do I trust myself to know that from the beginning

of training camp to the end of training camp, did I leave no stone on turn to my preparation? Did I do every single thing right that I needed to do? And once you have that, you can go out there and compete and train and go when those lights turn on, you can just trust yourself to, you know, be up to the will of whatever is going to happen that night. Mike, when you had all these fights you've had, I asked Dustin, who's the hardest puncture that he went with? He said counter and then he said the toughest opponent. He said, could be as we said when we were talking, who have you faced that you would say

was the toughest best punch and as well as the best ground, grappler. Um, it's, I mean, from a, from a striking, just just an absolute dog. You felt that way. Yeah, it was, it was Justin Gachi or even Eddie Alvarez or Eddie Alvarez. I mean, we fought, last time we fought was like 2013 or 2014 or something like that. Yeah. But the, I think the toughest and hardest, hardest fight from a strategic standpoint, from a, from a,

from a, it seemed like everything you tried to do, you couldn't hurt the guy, it was a guy, Benson Henderson. Wow. Benson Henderson, former UFC champion came over to Belletour, I fought him twice, I passed out between the fourth and fifth round, the first time I fought him, that was the big suplex that happened and I beat the tarot of him for two,

three rounds, the guy didn't have a red mark. He didn't have a scrape. He didn't look at that. And I'm looking at him and he just like throwing his big hair up. And I'm just like, dude, are you a robot? So I mean, there's nothing worse than that. That's actually, I've had a, I've, you know, I've had gone back and looked at, you know, watch that fight and just thought, man, I hit him with everything, but the kitchen sink

and the guy just flipped his hair back and looked like, you know, he did a very, he had a very, very good poker face. And even though you knew he had a poker face, that poker face still got to you. And you're just like, ah, ah, going at him. And he was good on the ground. He was gumbee on the ground. I slammed him on his head, you know, with probably one of the greatest suplexes in mixed martial arts history and he gets up like But he wasn't he wasn't kind of a savage offensive like Gachi was where he's gonna hit you with late kicks He can hit you with knees. He's gonna throw a thousand punches He wasn't same thing with Eddie Alvarez same thing with even a you know, Charles Oliver who's becoming more and more offensive with his movie tie

So yeah, Benzen Henderson was the most durable toughest guy that I ever fought. And then obviously the hardest puncher would be, I think, Justin Gagey. Justin Gagey, man. Justin Gagey. Guy's a scrapper, bro. We're going to fight again. We will. We will fight again.

So, you're going to fight Charles again? I beat Dustin November 12th and then I fight. I think Charles is going to beat Islam and I fight Charles, yeah, March or April next year. And I win the title and I put it right here. Yeah. How the hell is Charles and underdog? I don't understand it. And I've answered this question now three or four times

and I always get flack for it because everybody thinks I'm hating on Islam. I'm not necessarily hating on Islam. Islam, Islam is about as impressive as you can possibly be and look and get a title shot without ever having fought somebody inside the top five. So I don't understand. I think it's maybe the dagostanny,

Kabeab connection, mystique of him being Kabeab's brother-ish. It's just that guy that told you to shut up and stay in your lane. Probably, I mean, I mean, people probably, I don't remember that. I don't remember that. That was probably his long, probably his long, yeah. So, oh my God, I got a question.

So, like, as a stand-up comedian, I go on stage like, it really, it doesn't happen now, but you know, it happens from time to time when you just not the crowd and you, it just doesn't, can I, you say one word, you're off the rails and it's, it's a lot. You know what I mean? That stays with the comedian, bro.

It's depressing. A lot of them do crazy stuff. They drink, they do drugs. Some of them, which I know they commit suicide. What, how do you, and it takes us a while to get back until I do another dope set. Then I'm kind of getting back, but that thing still sits on my mind.

When it comes to taking a loss, how do you deal with a loss and how do you not let it affect you for how long? How long till it's in your head Mikey? And then you're just like, I'm done. You move forward. Does it linger till your next fight? Like how do you deal with that? That's actually a really, really awesome question

because the best part about mixed martial arts is a lifestyle that we get to live where we only fight two to three times a year, maybe four times a year every now and again. And if you're built a great career and a great career and you, and you have, great fight purses and you have good sponsors and you're able to make a great living, you don't want to be in training camp the whole year. You want to have some downtime.

But on the flip side of that, that, very positive is also a very big negative because we talk about the sport of wrestling or stand-up comedy. You might do two shows in a row and you might do a show of five weeks in a row. Or five, you know. So you take an L one night and people are booing you or the throwing, whatever, whatever you throw tomatoes at you.

And you just, you know, you feel like, hey, this isn't working out. I am a loser, right? But then you get an opportunity very soon to get back on stage and write that wrong. Yeah. Wrestling was the same thing. If I lost to dole meet on Wednesday, we are going to wrestle again on Saturday and get back in the win column and I can move

forward. So the problem or the hardest part about mixed martial arts is when you do take a loss, not only you most likely in pain, maybe you got some stitches, maybe you got some swelling, maybe you're limping around, you know, then you see all the media and then you see people's, you know, people's reaction and that kind of stuff and you try not to let it get to you. And you don't get the opportunity to write that wrong for three, four, five, six, months, eight months. So and I and I actually, I actually had a had a part of my story. I went six hundred and eighty eight days without winning a fight.

Wow. I was the Bellator champion. I lost to Eddie Alvarez. I lost, I went 688 days or that went in a fight. Wow. I was the Bellator champion. I lost to Eddie Alvarez. I lost my first fight. And in that moment, that small guy from the small town, from who was taught to do small things, who I thought I had duct taped to the basement of my mind, crept back in and said, I told you you were an monster.

I told you you weren't good. I told you everything that they said about you was false. Everything that you believed about yourself was false. And that loss turned into another loss. And then another loss on a loss three fights in a row. And I had to do a lot of work to get back to believing in myself and believing that I was created and destined for great things. So the great thing about this mixed martial arts life is we do get time off between fights, but when you take a loss,

there's sometimes you get an awesome win. Like my Tony Ferguson fight, I was on top of the world, I'm like, I'm kind of ready to get back in there. I would love to keep this momentum going, get toward a title shot. And then there's some wins, we're like, okay,

I'm gonna rest on these coattails for just a second. Let me come out, because you gotta remember, you're like, okay, I'm gonna rest on these coattails for just a second. Let me come out, because you gotta remember, you're also talking to somewhat of a robot right now. I'm in training camp and I gotta do all these things that I have to do and you wouldn't get the same me. You look like I'm able to compartmentalize it when I'm able to have an awesome platform like this

and thank you for giving me this, but I am somewhat of a robot and you wanna pull yourself away from that. My son doesn't, my sons don't want to, you know, my son's hapt as I want to play in the backyard with a robot. When I go home this weekend, I'm gonna be a little bit different daddy than I normally am, because I'm in training camp and I'm focused.

And I try to compartmentalize it. And I don't do a great job of it at the same time, same thing with my wife, same thing with my new baby Ace. So congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. This is your second, this is your second new baby Ace. So, congratulations. Thank you. Mike, this is your second. This is your second to you, Dr. Gogubble. Thank you.

Good on you, bro. It's amazing. Yeah, he was born two and a half weeks before the 20 Ferguson. Oh, wow. Wow. It's very powerful what you just said because, all right. So, if you play in the NBA, you play in the NFL, the MLB, Hawk, whatever, the soccer. There's a game the next day, the next week, the next moment.

You go three, six, nine, 12 months without a W without a fight. That's, I mean, in wrestling or UFC and boxing, that's got a way on you more than any other sport, right? Yeah, it is, it is very, it is very tough. And that's, I think that's the hardest part about it. And also from a longevity standpoint, you do take a loss. No matter what, we need, even if I went in there and got caught in a submission, it was just a choke or something, somewhat benign and didn't take a lot of damage in the first

30 seconds, I still went the last 8-10 weeks, sparring two, three times a week and I'm taking damage. I'm taking damage right now before the fight even happens. And I've gotten very, I think very methodical and smart about how I train, who I train with, the training partners that I go with. I'm not gonna say, oh, hey, this is a brand new guy who's a world champion kickboxer from Amsterdam. Let me go ahead and test myself.

I don't need to test. I've done my tests, people know I'm tough, people know I swing and I'm fine. I'd rather be training in a safe manner with a smile on my face, not in that fight or flight mode, and be thinking about it. And then when I get in there, once again, going back to I can trust myself and know that I can pull that guy out of me. Well, if you need a sparring partner where you're in Florida, Vinny is available.

Come on, we don't want to do stand up as well. I'm like, if you want to practice your urn, I'll just, whatever. Imagine it's like, no, just a little, let me show you. Oh, come on. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, but this is a, again, going back to it. This is a big fight.

Yeah, this is a very big fight for many different reasons, both from your end and his end. It's different point to prove on both sides, solving for different things on both sides, where he's going, where you're going. It's gonna be so interesting to see what strategy each of you takes going into this one. I think fan base is excited.

Fan base is excited. Good for Dana for putting this one together. And from here, it could be very quickly. By the way, how soon do you think Conor's gonna come back? How soon do you think Conor will fight? I don't know. I was obviously in the running for that Conor coming back. If he was gonna come back, there was a lot of talk

about me fighting him. I was like, oh my God. Oh my God. God, I called him out. I was like, yeah, I called him out and everybody was talking about it. He even tweeted me. I tweeted him back in a very once again respectful manner,

which is great, you know. But I think, you know, now he's doing the roadhouse remake with Jake Jones Hall, you know. I have to- The movie or something. Yeah, the movie, yeah. I actually got called about that part. Patrick something. Yeah, the movie. Yeah. I actually got called about that part.

Patrick Swayze, that movie. That's the remake. That's the remake. Is he playing Patrick Swayze? No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. Jake Jalen Hall is playing Patrick Swayze, and I don't know. No, I don't know.

Jake Jalen Hall is a great actor. He's no Patrick Swayze, and the freaking kid. Jake Jalen Hall is a magic con. I was just thinking, you're magic con. I was just thinking, you're magic con. I was just thinking, you're magic con. I was just thinking, you're magic con. I was just thinking, you're magic con.

I was just thinking, you're magic con. I was just thinking, you're magic con. I was just thinking, you're magic con. I was just thinking, you're magic con. I was just thinking, you're magic con. I was just thinking, you're magic con. He's like, who the hell is like out the accent? What did he come from? Yeah, I didn't think about that. There's no Irish guys in the, that's what I'm saying, bro. Yeah. He's gonna have to learn American accent. But then, Mike and I, because I mean, I've been following, you know, I follow, you know,

Connor's, you know, life and I mean, since the injury, he looks like he's been, you know, getting back to shape and he's looking crazy by, I mean, he's drinking and going out like a madman, right? Every time I see him, he's somewhere faded, drinking, you know, I know he's promoting the proper. Justin called him out. Justin recently called him out.

He says, look, you get to do everything. I want to do everything. Let's fight. Let's face each other. I'm good with that. But, you know, he's put on too much size where he's at. He's jacked. He is jacked.

But listen, that guy right there, if he fought today, everybody's behind the paper, you know, added the top five biggest UFC fights, Vinnie. Yeah. Do you know added the top five most pay-per-views bought ever in the history of UFC? You know who's in the top five? How many of the fights are his? All of them probably.

Four out of five is his. It's Connor. Really? Four out of five are his. Who's the other one? Biggest pay-per- view? You can pull this article up pull it up biggest most Viewed paper view out most you I might say it would have been Jose Jose Aldo in him because that was just the lead up But the UFC embedded bro. It was and con that that was the first time that you saw Connors Like trolling and talking crap and no guys. It may even be five for five

Yeah, I think it's I think it might be five for five. Five for five. It's kind of yeah, I was I was I'll do the first one that because that that tour. Okay, I'll just tell you right now. Here's what I'm not a fact is not even five for five. Check this out. It's six for six. Yeah. Okay. Highest one is him versus Could be number two is Portier two. Number three is Diaz two. Number three is Portier three. Number four is Ciron. Number five is Diaz one. And then seven is Usman Mazvedel. And then eight is Him Alvarez.

Eight is Mir Lesner. Nine is Him Aldo. So he's seven out of the top 10 fights. You got me to pay for you ever. Do you this is this is insanity on what he because Usman is not a smack. It's not his way to do when him and Kobe that want to remember Kobe sitting there in the after the fight and Usman comes in and he saying stuff to him. Yeah. Kobe can do it. He can he can talk smack Usman as he's a professional. He came and you

know, he took the fight in a different way this time. The last minute 29, whatever the time was when he got, he started back and he could have won that fight. He's probably so upset with that one. But Usman still being who he is. Mosveth Elk and talk some smack and he'll sell tickets. But McGregor. So it's going to be interesting who he's going to fight when he comes back.

Yeah. I don't, it's, it depends on where his mind, where his mindset is on, you know, what he wants to do. I mean, Connor and the UFC as well, the UFC, I mean, I think he needs, he needs to come back and get a win if he wants to continue to be Connor. Does he need to be Connor anymore? No, I mean, obviously he sold his whiskey for,

but 165 million, I mean, he's got he's set for life, you know, I don't know 65 million is not a lot of money if you depending on how you live. Well, I guess no compared to how it is guys No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay, stop it. Go ahead, sell me on that, go. Tell me why 165 million is not that worth. It's not a lot of money if you go, you're gonna tell you, let's do the math. I wanna know how many people look for you with whatever math's gonna say. You're so funny. A hundred and sixty-five million.

How much tax is you paying on that? Say 30%. Okay, I'm gonna be friendly. So you still got a hundred million plus left. You got a hundred and twenty left. Okay, you go buy 20 million dollar homes left and right. Okay, you go buy yachts You go party hardcore you go travel private jet from here to Europe back It's a five hundred thousand dollar flight and if you go from Europe to Vegas on a private it's five hundred thousand dollars

Three hundred thousand how many times can you do that right there gas prices are going up You can go with just with jet alone. that's 10 million in a year, that's gone. Believe me, 165 million is not a lot of money depending on how you live. I'm telling you, right now it's not a lot of money, depending on how you live. He lives, he lives a lavish life. I know guys who have a million bucks

that will have a million bucks 10 years from now, based on how they live and they'll stretch a million. And I know guys that got a few hundred that they act as if they're billionaires and you're not yet. Yeah. So it's what you're saying is mindset and basically your expenditures. Yeah. I don't know if he's ever going to fight the way he fought DS one.

I don't think so either. I don't know if we're going to get a DS one fight. Do I think any fight he gets we're still going to watch it? Yes. But you're not. By the way, check this out. Look how crazy this is look at crazy No, no, just look at this. How many do you see there with Kabeep one one? What does that tell you? What do you mean? I don't know he only has one because the other guy he fought as McGregor. Yeah

So so so it's either you're extremely exciting Yeah, or your you know your're smack talker, but it's gotta be one of the two. Like, for example, he sells, cause he's extremely exciting, kinda sells because he's just talking, but even Kopeep is not on this list. 100% without Conor, I'm not saying that. And they call him the goat

and he's not even on this list. He's not. He's old because people want to watch a exciting. This whole thing with the Cosmock. How do you say, Zlah? I always screwed up. I'm not. I think the case. And I'm middle eastern. And I should get the like to do. Come on. So we were at his fight and he's fighting a couple fights to go in Jacksonville Freak boom good. Oh, he went up against your guy your buddy When he was Gilbert Burns. What a fight? As a guy by the way no one thought it was gonna be that great But this guy was like wait a minute. Gilbert's the man. He was just you were with Rogan Yeah, but but no, but this fight was a fight, right?

He has you know, he's a little bit little bit you know so it's gonna be interesting to see what happens here but if that guy comes up comes back and fights I would listen me I would not illegally stream that fight if he fought him you would illegally fight I'm paying for that thank you you know what I appreciate what a lawyer what a lawyer man it's a value is Value Really find out who your friends are when they don't illegally stream your fights That's a friend. He's about to say it's the first time he's knocking English Listen, I'm being real to I mean I'm I'm B. I see but I'm definitely paying for that

But that didn't and and this these stats Matt. I mean he took Connor took Ireland on his back And I've never seen a fighter because I brought I'm I real talk My friend Jade could have test for this. I was watching Connor when he was first starting off And they were just whispering his name during bigger U.S. fights and I followed in my song Bro, he put Ireland on his back and that's a huge that the whole country looks down when it's Look at Rousey. Look at Rousey. What the hell is that? That's when she kicked in she knocked her right? And Lesnar's on there. How many times, three times?

Good for Lesnar. Look at that. Did you see Brock Lesnar in college? Have you ever seen him? And just like, it's a spectacle. Like, it was, he was a monster. Yeah, he was a monster. Did you see that guy?

20, 21, 22, yeah. Yeah, dude, just peace. Like, just maniac. He's that guy. And you see him in the right here, he's like, what is that? Not who is that? What is that?

But you gotta realize, the difference between him, like this guy has been fighting and fist fights since he was a kid, like he enjoys them. Yeah, he's a, you know, the stuff he says in his interviews, he's like, man, I've been fighting my entire life. I like a street fight, you know, I like to get into it, but you know, it stuff he says in his interviews is like, man, I've been fighting my entire life. I like the street fight. You know, I like to get into it with, you know, it's a different guy. No, Jack is right there with his coaches.

Yeah, that one right there, Tyler, they'll go up, up right there. This cat is just the greatest thing about the greatest thing about Brock is that he was a legitimate college wrestler. You know, yeah, you know, obviously you can go the WWE route. Oh, it's, you know, scripted or it's this and it's that. But he, this was him at Minnesota, from Webster, South Dakota. And one of national title with the gopers.

That's not wrong. The school he went to was at a wrestling school or dude. Minnesota. Minnesota is always usually top 10. But anywhere it's very cold. When you were very cold, it's wrestling. Yeah. Minnesota, you know, these types of places,

but Ohio, they produce wrestlers. Yeah. Interest Pennsylvania, Penn State. Penn State is number one. Penn State's now the number one. Because you used to be Iowa for a while. From my perspective. Yeah, Iowa is still, you know,

always in the top five Oklahoma states, usually in the top five. Where's your people in Mizzou in that? Mizzou were always in the top 10. Usually. We had a national champion this year, Keegan Mueller. So, yeah, that's good. And by the way, Keegan O'Toole. Somebody saying right now saying,

Diaz was in the three of those, three of the seven. So someone's trying to say like Diaz was also, Diaz is exciting fighter as well, because he'll fight. He's a dog, but it's selling ticket. So he comes back. He fights you you guys. Oh, that's gonna be a fight. I would know that I'm gonna be a good fight man. Maybe fun. That's gonna be a fun fight. That's gonna be a fun fight if those two go if the two of you guys go together. Have you had any interaction with Connor? Like have you guys spent time? Have you guys talked or not necessarily?

No, well, so we shared a card. I was actually on the Pore A2. No, Pore A1. No, Pore A2. Yeah, because they fought three times. So I was on the Pore A2 UFC 257. That was my debut in the UFC when I fought Dan Hooker. So we shared a press conference.

One was that exactly. That was January 23rd. How long was that fight? That fight was what? You remember where we were for that? Two and a half minutes. That was, we watched it in the house in Boca. We watched him fight in the UFC.

Your house, you just moved into the house in Boca. January of 20, we had just moved back. You know what I said? What did you say? This guy's one of the most exciting fighters. I'm saying he was not BS. But I'm saying this. This is the guy, like Andy, the UFC, you want guys like this,

because people are, you know, what I don't like about the NBA product today, here's what I don't like about the NBA product today. These guys, let's just say, you know, like I want to take the kids to go to a game. Do you know I'm not interested in taking, because I'm gonna buy like a court size, because I want to take the guys to a court, basketball game, right? When the lakers are coming down here to see if they want to play my Emmy or Golden State, do you know what my biggest concern is?

And you know, they're resting that day. Just they're just resting that day. There's no such thing as fans in the NBA. They don't care about the fans during the season, right? NFL, it's fan based, okay? MLB, they'd rest a little bit, but it's still fan based, right? UFC is all fans. Guys like Michael, this is exactly what the UFC wants.

You know, guys like Michael who come and put on a show and people like me are Hoping the fight isn't in November. It's this Saturday, but it's Saturday, right? We got to wait and we got some time. I've got some back. I still got some training. I got no Number 12 and the wait cut it in Madison Square. You guys want to us to just listen if you guys early Christmas get whatever I'll go Don't let it stream it If you guys want to us to just listen if you guys early Christmas get whatever I'll go I'll just say I don't know what a sweet heart. What a sweet heart. What a sweet heart. I'll watch it live See I'm saying my guys. Here's all I know 159 bucks ain't that So funny what are you about with Zuckerberg getting involved in a UFC and what he's doing because

That when the video came out with Zach. I don't know. I mean, that video is a real video. He didn't look like a, yeah, sometimes people showed their videos like their boxing or training, you're like, yeah, you shouldn't have put that up. Like Steven, they spent one time put up a video of him boxing. Yeah. And I hope he was just trolling.

He was absolutely. He was like, everybody on Twitter went after him. When Mark put it up, you're like, you know what? Those kicks are real kicks. He doesn't move too bad at all, man're like, you know what, those kicks are real kick. He just doesn't move too bad at all, man. Zuck's got some hands and some kicks. You know who else to, Wiz Khalifa?

You ever seen Wiz Khalifa? Is this crap? Wiz Khalifa, or I don't know if you can scrap it, I mean, he can hit pads. He trains out his story. He's a tall, lanky dude. Yeah, like when you just watch guys, you're so you're normally used to seeing Zuckerberg

like in his Facebook attire or whatever, and all of a sudden he's throwing on gloves and hitting pads and throwing knees and kicks You guys, you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so you're so be interested to see what Dana's perspective would be on that actually. I don't know. So what is the story? He's been kind of invited to these private showings. Well, this is not a private showing. It was at the UFC Apex, which is somewhat private, because I think it only holds maybe 500 people or so. You can go, I think you can buy a table and have a couple people with you and watch the fights. It's by no means a private event, but it's definitely not a, you know, a, uh, got arena show, but there was reports that came out because there was a girl named McKenzie Dern who I think was either the, the main event or the co-main event.

I think it was the main event who said that Zuckerberg rented out the whole apex to the show, which I think turned out to be not true. Oh, really? I'll tell you, let me tell you something, Michael. Dana White, number one promoter out there in the world. When you're talking about hype and showmanship and just possess I'm thinking Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, he's got it. He's got definitely not a human robot. What? He's a like that. He's a confident swag. You talk about. Bergs. Yeah, I just got canceled.

Yeah, but she know what? You know what? To me, you know, he went on Joe Rogan and the interview came out, you know, some stuff that he said with FPI and all this other stuff. And then he's out there doing stuff. I think a part of him is like, look man, I'm worth $100 billion,

but I'm living my life as well, and I got interest and I'm doing what I'm doing, and I don't know, I like it. I like seeing what he's doing. I like the fact that he's out there doing what he's doing in the water, I like the fact that you're doing it. If he's not an alien, listen, you ever seen the theory smoke meats? Not for an hour, he's like, yeah, I've smoking some meat,

smoking some ribs, smoke, it's like just an hour of every talk about his meat. No, no, the weirdest thing I've ever heard. The weirdest is him, I guarantee one of you, you, too. So you probably seen it. He's testifying in front of Congress about the privacy issues of Facebook and the memes of him being a robot because he's sitting like this, Mike. And I'm not joking if you can pull up. It's like almost a robot. He goes, I have to drink this now. It was the weirdest drinking of water I've ever seen. But he But he also had a mic drop moment.

Which one was it? When they said so, so to mark, how do you guys make money? Okay. We sell ads and the guy's like, okay, and he goes to the next person. You don't remember this whole mic when he says, we sell ads, like, why do you think we make money?

Like, we have nothing else to sell. Our model is selling ads. And like we have nothing else to sell Our And the guy had nothing back to say to him. By the way, you know how much money he's lost this year's net worth has dropped 61 billion on us. So what's he worth now? Billion half. What do you think he's worth now? Dude zealem five bucks. I think he made like need some money He's still worth a hundred billion or no. He's the probably worth 40 billion He's got a lot of work. Pat I say this all time. Yeah, 40 billion in as much as it used to be

I don't stock has gone down that much. Yeah, Facebook stock a lot of the tech companies have taken this week The great news when Elon Musk announced that he's buying them all the tech stocks went to the roof Twitter blew up and it brought everybody else up Facebook went up everybody went up this week, but Facebook's taking a hit I think think they started a news site like Substack and they just shut it down yesterday or today they just shut down Substack and met us. Some stuff is going on with them

that they're trying to re-strategize and what to do with the product, but he's definitely got a few challenges ahead of him. But his product, the product that he has is not the product that it once was. The moment they changed the app of the advertising side where it no longer kept track of how you did advertising before and it had to refresh because it's not keeping that.

Advertiser, that changed the game in a big way it messed with everybody's ability to to track How I'm going to get exactly you know, that was the whole model about it The whole thing that was very appealing was you know if I spend a hundred grand I can retarget the people now. I got to start from scratch again Yeah, it was just that was a was there was there some kind of privacy issue deal. Go on. That's what it was. That's the whole thing.

Okay, so they did it from the privacy. Yeah. Crazy, you know, conspiracy questions thrown it out there. In the last 24 months Zuckerberg, you know, Mr. Robot himself, when before they changed Facebook to meta, right, the epitome of join the meta. You see that commercial where he did it was like you can come into the metaverse and have an avatar. It was the most robotic commercial thing ever, you know, basically.

And then since then, everything with meta, NFTs, crypto is obviously shit the bed. Do you think someone pulled them aside? It was like listen, bro. People legitimately think you're a cyborg or a robot. Like straight up, not a... Oh, like they actually think that. Start doing some UFC stuff, start cooking some meats, get out there and start surfing

and maybe don't put so much sunscreen in your face, whatever, just go be a human. Do you think someone actually said that to him? I don't know. I think, listen, I think when you make money and then you have FU money times 100, like, you know, FU money is what? Anything above, let's just say, $100 million got FU money. You got to be above $165. Once you're on scotting at least $165.

We know that. Whatever the number of what. Because you can, hey, you can't live off of that No, you can lose it. Let me tell you Hey, have you seen the price of fuel That is so funny. So you were saying when you got fucking money? No, you know what I'm saying is I'm saying,

dude the guy's, how old is the guy now? Is he 38? Is he 38? Late 30s early fours. Oh, go right in. 38 years old. It's kind of like, I want to live a life. I want this what I want to do bro,

like leave me alone bro. I just build a company, I compete, I got it big, I'm rich. Yes, I got money and I'm pretty powerful. I still want to live a life. I don't want to be just this billionaire. I want to live my life. I think there's a part of it that's just more the life. If you constantly have to act for how to world views you, did that's a miss. You're a slave to the world. It's not a good life. It doesn't matter how much money they give you.

If you constantly like, by the way, you know what's been happening that you're seeing is I think Elon started this trend. I fully believe that Elon started this trend because if you think about Elon Bezos, Zuck, which one of them enjoys life the most? He's on. Okay, but that wasn't the case for the longest time because he wasn't. He was so mechanical and he was so much about, then finally finally he's like, this is man, I'm freaking, here's who I am. I'm the real guy from Iron Man and he's in the movie like, oh shit, that's fun. That's fun. It's kind of great seeing you.

Oh, so this guy's got a lighter side to me. He's not just a genius. You know, I'm going to the space type of guy. And then he starts trolling and he's taking shots at our president, Joe Biden. And then Bezos is like well Why are people liking him more than me? Maybe I can say something to Joe Biden then Bezos did and then now Zuck is coming out So I think what's happened with all these guys is you know Elon's trying to say to these guys

You can be the richest man on the planet But you still got to live your life and enjoy yourself because you're gonna die eventually you're gonna live forever So I think they're all kind of learning from each other. Like whatever space you're in, you're gonna look at another pay setter in your world to see what they're doing and the pay setter in this world is musk today and you kind of follow in his lead.

Now here's a real question. Here's a real question. Say, Dana's able to pull this fight off. Jake Paul, Bezos and Zuck. The famous payper view of all time for sure. It tops that list. Five times six. That list is gone.

They sent one tweet. Next thing you know pay per view. 29.7 million buys. Okay, so let me just ask you right up from Bezos against Moscow wins. Musk. Serious. I don't know. I don't know what base I was working out I was working out. Yeah, I like I like I just like must better. Yeah, how tall is musk though?

Musk is to he's tall dude, bro Jeff Bezos I really bothers me though I get a time I got a late. Yeah, you were saying this about a musk Bezos has been having a lot of fun lately. That's what I'm talking about. I'm just touching. I'm saying to you. He's working out.

He's banging on. Bro, check. You know, how much is it? How much is it? Because he is his ex-wife married, who married a school teacher. She just divorced him. Yeah.

And I mean, how much money did she have? I knew you think she married a teacher without a, without a green up in there? They said there was a question of, they had a financial agreement. And then she brought it. Just looking at shake. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Basel's against Musk. Yeah, he's got some, some girls to him. Yeah, he's got a little Musk. Musk on the, what Musk on the boat when he, he had the same sunscreen as a, Michael, you can't say when a guy's wearing his shorts, he's got some. I can't, I can't, I can't.

I can't see what I'm saying. Just want to show the awkward moment of the budget. Yes, he was wearing shorts. You're sorry. I don't think I can. Michael you can't say when a guy's winning his shorts Yeah, and this picture came out. He started changing his act though. That's what I heard. Yeah. Okay, so, so, so, so, so, so, Bezos, Moscow wins. You're saying Bezos? I'm saying as far as looking, uh, who's got the shape? Who's got, who's got the Zuck we've actually seen throw.

That's what I was saying. That's what I was saying. Zuck's got youth, Zuck's 38. So, uh, Basil's is what? And his 50s, I would go Zuck. Five, 56. Okay, so I guess the battle of the billionaires, Zuck's coming up. I let the battle of the billionaires, the battle of the billionaires.

What? Uh, what Zuckerberg would have like a little computer. He's a robot. They would upload some fighting shit like Matrix and he's beat the show They're Warren Buffett in there. How do you think Warren? So you you were ranking the top current 10 fighters in your division, right? I saw you doing I think that you were doing that. In your opinion, who's the top five, you know, goats of all time?

Like, you know, forget the weight, forget if they're retired, forget anything. Who's top five for you? This one's hard because I am very conflicted on John Jones because of the failed drug tests. I feel like once you've failed a drug test, you somewhat pull yourself out of the goat talk. But I feel like John Jones is the most dominant fighter

of all time with the asterisk of his failed some drug tests. By the way, what drugs did he, was he? I don't know, it was some kind of performance and answer. For moments and I mean, I think that and I mean, he's openly parties, he's, he has no case. Well, and I'm not okay with that. I don't condone that but that's but I also look at that Yeah, I think the best Whatever We've lost control of the podcast. Best fight in all time is that whenever that guy is

Shit talker at all. That is hilarious. But hang on guys. Keep going for John John. John's on the top one. Yeah, well with an asterisk, but I would put over top over him would be George St. Pierre because of the way he carried himself. He did have some losses like John Jones is essentially undefeated. He's never lost. He lost one fight by DQ. The elbow into face. Or Tom Hanks. Yeah, yeah. So, so he technically, he lost, but he technically related to

the GSB here. What? Six months. Yeah, GSB is to me, the go. I think, you put GSB at a could be I do Wow, I like that though. I like that. Well, I think just because I think GSP I mean maybe it was because I shared the same weight class and at the same time as

a hubby so I didn't look at him as much of a Legend like I do like when I was coming up and I was in college. I was watching George St. Pierre versus Matt Hughes and all of these other guys and the sport has evolved obviously over the years Habib's Strength of schedule compared to George St. Pierre's. I think they're pretty pretty similar, but I would put George as number one I would put Habib as probably Number two Anderson Silva Number three And then um two, Anderson Silva number three.

And then I'm a DC guy. I love DC. You know, DC essentially only really lost to John Jones. And I think he lost to who else? Maybe one of the fight. Kormi. He just, he just, he just got into the whole thing too. Right? Yeah. I mean, DC, DC will be on my top five. You got one more. Yeah, one more, dang. I'm really not good. He took John out.

Yeah, I mean, I, I gotta take John out. John Jones, he has to be Cormiere and you said Anderson Silva. Anderson Silva. But I put John's on in there. John's not in there. I'm not putting him in. I'm not putting him in. I can't put John in.

You got one more in mind. Oh, dog going. I don't know. Honestly. I can't put John in mind. Oh, dog going. I don't know. Honestly, Jail piece on it. I love the way you hold it. I love it. No, I mean,

he's from like greatest fighters of all time, from record and winning world titles and all that kind of stuff. But when it comes to the full package of, Hey, show man. Yeah, I mean, you could put like a Nate Diaz type of guy in there where it's like, Hey, Diaz fights, we're watching. Who do you put as a show man? Show man, Conor is at the top, but who do you could put like a Nate Diaz type of guy in there where it's like hey Diaz fights were watching who do you put as a showman Shulman outside Conner is at the top. What who do you put on her?

Shulman Shulman would be Cheyles be number two Diaz is number three And Diaz Diaz is not a Shulman. Jimi Diaz isn't even trying to be a Shulman He just looks like a Shulman so many people because he that's is who he is I mean, which is so great good good for him He can just be authentically whoever he is, the young man who did, you know, like, and like smacking people and, you know,

smoking throwing water bottles at the, you know, counters them what he's doing. It's, yeah, you gotta love those guys, those, the Diaz brothers. But yeah, by the way, who's better out of the two brothers? Uh, well, I don't, I mean, Nick, Nick was great in his, in his heyday. And Diaz became a huge, huge name, obviously because of like,

gunner fights. And then the last couple fights with, you know, Mosvidal and he, his Nate is now surpassed Nick, I believe, but Nick was for a long time. He was, he was Nick's little brother. That's all it was for a long time. And the gang leader is, you know, it's the older brothers yeah yeah it's not Nate so yeah they call the Nick Diaz army yeah that's right yeah as you know I was like then Nate still says that which is cool I love that and let me tell you I have two sons I love

seeing their level of loyalty towards each other there's something very special when you see how loyal there are to it's like the fat Joe thing you just post it Yeah, that's right. Yeah number two when he talks about KDJ Khaled. Yeah the level of I know how to be a semi like a number two good when you're screaming like that you got a preface Past out of the back Okay, so the showman we got the showman in place by the way, you know one thing about Okay, so the showman we got the showman in place by the way, you know one thing about UFC which you know I'm curious to know what what take you give on this one in the NBA

If you were to ask politically where people are at in the NBA, you know, it's like 99% when they say we're taking the voting day off to go vote is because everyone's voting one side, right? It's not that free for you to take whatever position that you want and what you're doing, right? MLB, I think it's pretty even, Steven, people are to themselves, nobody cares. I don't even think politics isn't MLB, which is great because you watch baseball, you just watch baseball. You don't know nothing about people's political, you know, leanings where they're at.

NFL got more political, Kaepernick, what he did. Rihanna now is apparently not doing a half time Super Bowl because of Kaepernick. I don't know if you saw that or not. Was she saying no? She's doing it. She's doing it or she's not doing it.

She's not doing it. Why? Just look at the story. I saw she is or she's not. Something came up saying she is. Something came up, she's not. Maybe she is. If she is now great.

But she wasn't going to because there was something with Kaepernick that the conversation was that it's not, maybe she is, if she is now great, but she wasn't going to, because there was something with Kaepernick that the conversation was that it's not gonna happen. Go to Kaepernick, if you type in Kaepernick, you'll see how go to stories. No, is that one? I didn't be a celery on it. Once turned down, Super Bowl half time.

Oh, she once turned it down. Okay, and now she's coming back. They said she's the first billionaire to ever perform at the half time of the super ball. Great. Awesome. So it's great to see that taking place. But you have see, you know, and you've been to you've been to CPAC. I think you've been to you. Done some stuff. If you did that in the NBA, dude, you may be traded to Puerto Rican basketball league if you would do something like that. Or you'd be playing in Italy or something if you did that. How important do you think it is on the way Dana runs it where it's like listen to each his own? I don't care where you stand, here's where I stand.

And I don't care whether you like me or not. I think the other day was at Tucker Carlson. I want to say he spoke at the RNC and it's as if he's bulletproof and they can't go after him. There's something about Dana that others can do what Dana does and they're being, you know, going through whatever they're going through. But now when it comes on to Dana, do people behind closed doors say, look, man, you just don't mess with the guy because he's too connected.

Is it the respect? Is it the way he handles himself? Why do you think UFC's left alone when it comes onto politics? Um, I think because, I think because there is no politics in it for, for one right now, we can, we are independent contractors, we can talk about have whatever, we can talk about what we want, support who we want, um, talk about politics as much as we want, talk about, you know, obviously you need to, with, especially with the way today is, you need to watch yourself what you say. I mean, you can't, can't be over the top with things, but I mean, especially with the way today is, you need to watch yourself, what you say. I mean, you can't be over the top with things,

but I mean, we are all independent contractors, and a lot of us come from very similar backgrounds when it comes to, you know, I mean, we, I don't think most of us ever thought about becoming, you know, now you might have these younger guys, but I mean, when some of these guys in NFL, they've been dreaming about this since they were 11 years old and they wanted the $60 million contract

and the $30 million contract. They wanna be playing for the Seattle Seahawks. I think a lot of us came from a place where it was like, oh, I got into fighting it, but I never really thought about making, getting on a $30 million contract, like kind of crazy money. So I think we just all come from very similar backgrounds. And we are, I

don't know, in, we are individuals in an individual sport. And we are all independent contractors as well. So, individual and individual sports and you're all independent contractors. Yeah. So, so I think there is a little bit more of, you know, there's, we have a team. I have a great team here that I train with, but they're my team, but it's not like I'm playing for the Golden State Warriors. It's not like I'm playing for a team, you know. Yeah, but then, I don't know if that answers your question. Yeah, but then for me, it would be like, if you're on the team, you know, you would need

to be more diplomatic, you know, where they're not, they're more vocal versus UFC. It's kind of like, look, here's who we are. We're just, you know, they did the something with the flag, right? Where I won't point, you couldn't bring the flag, something happened with the flag position. I don't know what that was. That just happened. And you're in a half ago, 14 months.

Well, it just happened during the, during the Ukraine Russia. Right. You know, so I think essentially they, essentially they knew there was going to be some kind of backlash. I believe, hey, if a rushing guy comes in carrying a Russian flag during this war time, or a Ukrainian comes in carrying no flags whatsoever, which was sad for me because I love carrying the American flag. But once again, what am I going to do? Yellow to equipment guy. No, it's not his fault. It was Dana's decision or it was WME's decision or it was 100 or 100 whoever's to get those things early on to say we're going to keep this out. We're just going to fight him. But here's

the thing. He'll do that. There's no flags and then he'll go on Tucker Carlson and okay, here's who I'm at. Here's where I stand. Here's what I'm thinking. What do you mean? Remember when Colby Coveington won in 2020 and Trump called him while he's getting interview, he looked like a kid in Christmas. You guys, that was a, you didn't see this? You remember the... He called him in the match against. He called him in the match against. I do that, I watched the fight, it was against,

was it? Who was against, and he won? It was an insane fight, Mike and Trump called him while he's live on an interview, and it was just like, talk him out, politics. I mean, the president of the United States called you to congratulate him. Oh, no, I mean, Dana brought a Trump to a fight.

100%. I think Trump went to a couple of, maybe one fights% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Again, to create that climate, it's not easy to do today. It's a very tough climate to create, but he's created that climate where he allows us players to fight us to do what they want to do, yet at the same time, they still follow a protocol. It seems like there is a protocol, and then you're still free. The protocol is just don't mess up. Don't mess up, don't get canceled, don't say.

I mean, there's been guys who have said certain things and gotten in trouble for what they have said, you know, but they were out of line. Just like any, just like if you're an artist, you can get, you know, you can say something and get in trouble, just like if you're an athlete on one of these other things. I mean, I think, you know, you look at the NFL and then you see, you see the things that are printed on the NFL, on the, on the, in the end zones and you see the, the wearing things on their helmets and whatnot, I don't know if they were,

then there's a certain pressure to, well, if I just wanted to be blank, do I get, do I get, you know, looked down upon? Because, you know, it's, to me, that's, it's, I mean, if they, Dana would never do that. He would never say, hey, I really like this cause. So I'm gonna make everybody wear this certain thing. You know, every now and every now and then,

maybe something pink for breast cancer awareness or something like that. They do these different initiatives and all that kind of stuff. But when it comes to politics, especially now, what is the climate? It's just become so bonkers and it's the flavor of the week and it continues to change. So, hey, you're going to implement something right now that's going to be different two weeks from now anyway? Or are gonna gonna gonna be debunked or Proving to be false or whatever and then now now with up with the elections coming all that crap that was happening back

It's gonna start it's revving up again, bro Trust me into you November's coming but in two years and that's your election happens by or whoever's gonna run Democrat We're probably getting watch is gonna happen, but I tell you what's gonna happen. But I tell you what, I don't think UFC is gonna be affected by it. I don't think so either. I think UFC is gonna be affected by it. UFC was even affected by COVID. That's what I'm saying, right?

We were the only sport on television for six months. You set the tone. That's it. He was, and by the way, you got market share. That's the point because fans are sitting there saying, I need to see some kind of competition I need to see competition show me something with competing and you're watching these basketball games

You're like all right, so he goes down and of course a layup and then it comes coming back Okay, you're like is there any fans screaming boo and no and they put these fake cutouts You could do videos. I'm like what this is silly stuff like Adam you're okay with this kind of stuff on what they're doing and then NFL's playing in open arenas and soccer remember soccer You get here every person speak very awkward Every no one's very awkward. It was weird. We're gonna say something I think a big part of it is the fact that Dana's not a coward. He doesn't bend the need Yeah, whims of anybody what is Roger Gideaux?

Do the first thing he does is battle and ease and beg for forgiveness, right? What is Adam Silver? Do the same thing. You think Roger Gideaux players respect him. You think LeBron James res- LeBron James respects Adam Silver, of course not. Dana's fight is respect him. They're smart enough not to say anything stupid. They're smart enough not to get him in trouble and to listen to what he has to say because they respect him. And Dana stays alive and it's a bulletproof organization because he's not going to bend the knee. No matter what he does or what he says, right?

He's not going to coward to these people. You got to, you got to love it. By the way, Vinnie and I are both the Syrian. What do you think about Ben Yildar Yush? I think he's great. Good, good fighter. He fights October 22nd. Yeah.

So he's on the, that main card of the Islam versus Charles Olivera. He's good. He's talented. He's on a couple fight win streak. You know, I think it's between a lot of people would say between possibly me and him for that next title shot. If we both come out with wins or maybe we have to fight each other to get the next title shot, who knows, but he's good. I think that's a good fight. That's a great fight. He's a Syrian. Yeah. He's a Syrian from Iran. And so I'm like, what's his discipline? Is he is he wrestler? Is he? What is he? I think what what is Ben? Ben, I know he's on the ground. I mean, he's like jujitsu. He's good. And he's good. He's good. He's good. He's good. But he's got. He's got his stuff on

the mind. He's he's a fighter. But he's going to if he gets a hold of you, it's like, it's on the ground. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, but you once, once you're on them, it's like, it's like, that, that would be a sick fight. That would be a sick fight, but you, but you don't blow. So once the last time he fought, though, I don't know. He, his last time he fought was, I was on the card. It was, it was May of last year, I believe. He fought Tony Ferguson. I fought Charles Oliver. Let me, let me ask you, schedule wise, why hasn't he fought?

It's in more on the, he got hurt. He got hurt. Okay. He was supposed to fight Islam, I think, in, like, April, ish, or sometime this earlier this year, Islam, and that fight, he got hurt, so that fight got scratched, and now Islam got the title shot, so. So now he's, um, Teyus Cameron, I think he's fighting. There's another guy who's kind of surging in

from the outside of the top top tenor around number ten. You're, you know, category where you guys are at. There's a lot of beast in your weight class right now. It's going to be interesting to see what happens. Final thoughts, you're on this before we wrap up. Your friends would would leave. Your friends would ask and you know, everybody would say, hey, both of them took a die with the fight.

You're using the, what do you, what do you, Jake Paul fight? Yeah, the Jake Paul fight. What do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, what do. What are you using? What are you, Jake Paul fight? Yeah, the Jake Paul fight. What are your thoughts on that? I, I don't know. I honestly haven't talked to either of them about it. I don't think it's probably a source subject for both of them. I don't think it was a dive. I could be wrong, no, I don't know.

Watch and Jake. Because now, you know, people will criticize in them first fight, second fight, third fight. If you kind of like saying this guy kind of knows what he's doing and he's training. And he's kind of, do you think he's got a trajectory or do you think Silva's going to expose him? And it's going to be like, no, this is it. It's done with. I think he has a trajectory.

I think he's very young in the sport. I think it's still you can be, you can be, you can be somewhat critical of the fact that yes, he has not fought any high level boxers whatsoever and also sing his praises that he does look pretty decent for a guy who is going out there and fighting. He can move. He can move. He's got fast hands. He's bigger than I he's much bigger than I thought. I didn't know how big I've never seen Jake Paul did not doesn't follow him until these last you know a couple years and a couple fights And you see him standing next to Anderson Silva towering over

Tyrone Woodley Tyrone towering over Ben. He's a bigger guy than I thought So he's big 200 something pounds. So I think I still think Anderson Silva beats him But I also thought Tyrone beat him. I thought Ben might be able to beat him So and this is purely boxing. They're not doing any MMA. But is what's the name of Anderson Silver? Is not a boxer, though, right? He's boxed a couple times now. He boxed, who do you see?

Zer Chavez Jr. Sun. Sun. This is which by the way, at one point, he was nasty. Oh, no question. Yeah, he has hands, bro. Yeah. No question.

He boxed T-Dore T. I just with my, because I get it. They're fighting older people that are, you know, done. And it's not even though they're not boxers. The fact that they were, they were hinting at going to the MMA. I would, I would love to see them fight somebody in the M and like if they switch to you, like not UFC, but you know, I mean, try to fight somebody's going to put your hands on you. They would, they wouldn't last. I don't think they would last 30 seconds in a fight with like an MMA fighter. Forget it.

That's everything. Digit through boxing, wrestling. There's nowhere to run an IK, you know. I would agree with you, but I would add a caveat to it. Okay. Here's what the caveat is. Never bet against somebody with a big chip, man. Like if there's a chip and the willingness to get in there

and, you know, improved, you know, so. Yeah, there's certain people that do really well with that chip. There's certain people that love the fact that everyone's like thinking he's gonna lose. That's 90% of people besides this couple, you know, not a couple of his large contingent of YouTube followers or whatever.

All of us think he's not gonna be good, he's gonna lose to this guy, he's gonna lose to that guy, he loves that. Both brothers or athletes, you know? And some of the best people in the world in any business, they do well with you not thinking they can pull it off. They're weird like that.

The average person's gonna be like, yeah, maybe you do have a point, you're right. I don't think I can beat them. Oh shit, they're right, I'm not gonna win this fight and versus some are like what did you say oh really okay can you record that video and put it on my screen saver on my phone I wanted to every time it rings I wanted to be his voice saying what he just said right there and every time the phone rings I don't think it can beat him hey mom what's up why are you

pissed because they said I can't beat him. Every time you come, Kenny, I just want to check on you. Is everything good? You know what I'm saying? I think Jake is in that camp and I think his brothers in that camp. But we're going to see. We're going to see what's going to happen there. I think it's going to be a show.

So, I talk to the seal of speed. I talk to you speed. I'm going to come. Yeah, and I told him, I said, listen, really impressive guy. You know, guy, what he's done, where he's at. And now you're doing business. You'm running the conversation. Yeah, and I told him I said, listen, the really impressive guy, you know, guy, what he's done, where he's at. And now you're doing business. You got this right here. What is that?

Tell us about the cram. Cramp, so the cram is the PB and J reinvented, sprouted, 100% sprouted, and I've made it red. I want that. Absolutely. Blackberry or strawberry? We're strong.

I'm going blackberry. Blackberry? Yeah, so this is the beast. Which is great. I like them both equally, but this one has 19 grams of protein. That'm going black. One is that. Black. So there's the beast. I like them both equally, but this one has 19 grams of protein. That one has 13. What's the flavor on that one? The black one?

Yeah, it's cold. Yeah, they're cold. Black. So there's a fridge. I want to try this. Yeah, so we just launched Nationwide in Sprouts. Did you try one already or not? So, and I know, yeah, I know you got four kids, right?

So it's like, it's like the old, uncrustable, except much better, no. So, and I know, yeah, I know you got, you got four kids, right? So, it's like, it's, it's like the old, uncrustable, except much better, more neutrally and nutrient dense, 72, general complex. And the fact that you don't have the crust on it, I don't like crust, this is perfect. And actually, there is your peanut butter a little bit frozen still.

Oh, this is delicious. No, no, no, yeah. You just launched this? You literally just launched this. Yeah, so we'll be just launched in sprouts. So, so my, all, all, all, all, no, you just launch this you literally just launch this yeah, so we just launched in sprouts So so my all all all all organic all all this is this is amazing I like it is cold on the inside too. Yep. Yeah, so yeah So you they come frozen and then it's actually I feel like they're kind of in at that perfect moment where that peanut butter kind of

Tits a little bit like peanut butter ice cream But you can also take them and there you can thaw them out you can throw them in your bag on the go This is delicious. You also toast them. So it's hot on the outside Do a little bit cold on the inside sometimes. I have not had a PB&J in years But it's hey Strawberry or But Mike and I'm being I'm being dead serious it It feels like like a competition and people like are like, which one is the protein one,

which is the, I cannot tell the difference from this one, regular PB&J, that somebody did put in the freezer. And it doesn't taste like you added stuff in it to make it healthy, but this is off to shame, bro. This is dope. It's good, yeah. I like no sugar added to the jelly,

because I was, I'm a father of two, I want my kids to, wow. At least try to get some good nutrients in them when they can So these are a perfect little snack for on the go and then even you know in my other other things that I'm doing Doesn't poor you guys got the hot sauce. Yeah, you got the PB and J Me and J baby wow I love it. I ate the whole thing. I got a fitness app launching. I'm hungry at speed fit I got a fitness app launching. I'm hungry. I got speed fit.

Lots of your husband your your your rock the hustling and and you know what I try to do We'd go back to the UFC one of the biggest pain points for the UFC is that every single fighter only relies upon their UFC paycheck So they are they are enslaved to that UFC paycheck which then creates tension between them and the promoter. Hey, fight me more. Give me more money. Where I want to be more of a self starter and be a guy who can provide for my family outside of just mixed martial arts, just competing inside the act of

gun because I'm going to hang those gloves up eventually. Right. That's the whole point is that eventually you're going to have to transition. Walk on fitness, my fitness app will carry me on into that and cram and speed and some real estate stuff. I love it. And then one day, when you get that 165 million bike, you're gonna have time. Then I can almost make it. Because let me tell you how fast it goes.

Not fast, it's gonna go. You're gonna be, oh you got to live off that cram, all right? Up once, gonna have this. They're gonna fly. Oh got to live off that cram alright? What's gonna that? Oh, they're gonna fly. Oh, yeah, they got that. Oh, yeah, they got that. Oh, yeah, they're just trying to make a small little analogy here. And then they're never gonna let you live that down.

Dude, this is insane, how? No, I really like it. I'm not. Do you have the link or you don't have the link? Put it in the chat and also put in the description. That is amazing. Guys, I dare you to go try and order one and you'll see how that least the strawberry one I just had is amazing. I'm gonna take that with me to

the house for the family to try it. You're exactly who I thought this in a re was gonna be. You're freaking awesome. This is what I can tell you. Man, I'm a I'm a guy watching you from the outside from the perspective of seeing how you're carrying yourself. Also a fan, you know, while you're fighting, rooting you on, just wanna see that vision become a reality, that journey you're on of one day, you know, standing as the champion.

I think about that one clip with who's the Hispanic guy. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day, and I'm like, man, what are you know, that feeling to say one day this is gonna become a reality, that high to hold that up, not because of the checks or the payday, but the fact that it was part of your vision. And I think as a fan, I'm looking forward to witnessing that day and matter of fact,

when that fight is set up, I'll be court side, we're in a walk on surges to represent you. Let's go. When I say court side, I mean, rings out watching you too. And then I'm flying back with you to Florida, we're on. Let's go. You know, when I say courtside, I mean, ringside watching YouTube. And then I'm flying back with you to Florida. We're on the belt right here. For seven.

Even in one million percent. Five weeks from now. Yeah. November 12th, I believe is it is the day after veterans day, we're all going to watch the veteran. The Madison Square. Well, we're all going to watch the fight at your house unless you're going there on a private jet or something.

Like that. Wait, why are you counting us out of this house? Did you just say, we're going there on a private jetter. Yeah, we'll be there. Why are you coming us out of this house? Did you just say I'm good? We're going to be there. Okay. Let's say my chander doesn't put. I'm just saying let's watch. Add together.

Adam will have on the gas on the jet. That's it. That's a that's a that's a fight I'm looking forward to. Oh my god. I can't wait. Anyway, I'm excited. So good. Thanks for coming out.

Thank you. Thank you. I think the next one is tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. We'll see you guys. You can piss off a lot of people tomorrow. I'll have to be wild. I think the next one is tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. We'll see you guys back here. We'll piss off a lot of people tomorrow. I'm gonna be wild. I'm gonna be wild. That one's gonna be a little wild.

But anyways, have a good one everybody. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Take care. Bye bye bye bye.