The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #755 - Big John McCarthy

Episode Date: January 27, 2020

Big John McCarthy, Bellator MMA color commentator, a former combat sports referee, and a veteran of the LAPD, joins Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt LIVE in studio. This podcast is brought to you by: MyBookie.ag -  Use code promo Church to get a 50% match on your first deposit up to $1,000.  Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a 10% discount at checkout

Kick it, Lee. The church of what's happened now, you savage. I got my man Big John McCarthy. I got the price filler. I got a little old school Mike for strength of him for you. A lot of people don't know about this college. I got to remind motherfuckers some time in time who was a little German wife. A little nod to be bad.

Here is a friendist. It's a jam. I'm old Michael Scheng. Take it. Are you fucking getting me? I forgot about this. Things from Podcastville. It's Monday, the 27th.

The month is over, is almost over, and you're still looking at your resolutions. Go fuck yourself. It's over. Go back to snort and coke. You were a lot happier anyway. We'll give it the fuck. The church is brought to you by.

Folks, this is the week. This is it. No more fucking around. My bookie. If you enjoy football and you have a heartbeat, then you know what's coming up, right? The biggest fucking game of the year. Yeah, McGregor was last week and whatever. But this week is this week.

You got Kansas City at San Francisco. Who's going to bring home the Lombardi Trophy? Get your wages locked in now. You know that tinkin that you have in your balls all year? This is the time to cash in. It's like when you see that transvestite with a bikini on, you know what I'm saying? Anyway, like I said, this. the last chance for you to take advantage of mybooky.ag.

Pressing code church when you make your deposit. That's code church, C-H-U-R-C-H to give you a fucking bankroll and start playing. You understand me? So basically what we're going to do is this. If you place a $20 bet or more on the Super Bowl, you get a free entry into the March Madness Bracket contest. If you deposit right now, they'll match your deposit halfway. So go to mybooky.ag

Press and code church And let's get this fucking party started Alright My bookie, you play, you win You get paid The church is also brought to you by Onit.com The best in the industry

When it comes to fucking supplements I'm getting old I take two of those alpha brains And an espresso You ain't stopping me, motherfuckers As a matter of fact Alpha brain is holding a sweepstakes still You order any alpha brain

Any size, the powder, the pills you get entered into a raffle if you win you get the two day honor and experience alright who's better than fucking you nobody so go to honor dot com right now and press in church that he is letting you know what fucking time it is all right let's start this podcast

what's happening big john mccarty not much brother it's just good to see you good to see you too fucking Nashville Tennessee I'm on a fucking boat in Ventura right I'm on a boat on Ventura I'm hanging out with white people drinking mint juleps

Then all of a sudden you moved, you moved to Vegas, which is good because you saved on taxes. Yep. For six months. And then you fucking disappeared to Nashville. I disappeared. Tennessee is the same as Nevada for taxes. So it's a very good place for taxes. And my wife was tired of the desert.

She did not like, because when you came out to my little tiny place I had at the beach, I had the ocean in my backyard as far as the channels there. and she wanted that. So I kind of live on a lake area out there, and it's really nice. You like Tennessee? I love it. People are so nice.

How far are you from Nashville? About two hours. Okay. Two hours from Nashville. So you got out of that. You got it. Oh, yeah. You didn't want to be in the city.

Nope. No. I'm old, man. You know, it's time to, I don't need the party life anymore. I don't need to have, you know, the excitement. I like just, I do my woodworking. I do projects. Kind of showed Lee a little bit of stuff that I did.

And just enjoying life. And you're belatoring it? I'm bellatoring it all over the place. You know, they're, they're, they just been a great company for me. They, they treat me great. I love what they're doing for the fighters. They're giving fighters a definite option. And guys, for the most part, they're making really good money there.

So, you know, fighters need options. They need the ability to, you know, can't have just one. It's nice to think that in the perfect world that if there was just one organization, that that one organization would always treat all those fighters well. Well, they can't do that. And I don't expect it. So they can, you know, they pick their ones that make them the money. And then the other ones, they kind of, well, this is what you get. So there has to be options for fighters.

And that's one of the things that Bellator, it does. It gives fighters options. It gives them the ability to say, you know what? I think I'm worth more than what you want to give me and I'm going to go see and then this person gives it to him and they say, I told you I was worth more because this is about two things if you're a fighter. It's about searching for titles if you're really good and it's about making money. There's a reason why you do this. And some people are in that just searching for the title and they'll take the less money to search for that title. And there's people who say, you know what?

I'm in this as a businessman and I'm good at fighting and I can make money at it. and I know I have a limited amount of time and I'm going to make as much money as I can to set myself up for the future and set my family up for the future. Those are your two ways of doing it. And there's nothing wrong with either way. I'm all for it.

But if you don't have options of other promotions for people, you only have the one. If you only have the UFC, those fighters are going to make less money. The top guy, he's going to make money no matter what. But the guy's underneath them, no, they're going to have problems making more because there's nowhere for him to go.

go. So Delta is a great option. You know, it's, we never see it. For years, we always heard the expression if I can do it over. Oh, yeah. If you can do it over, if you can do it over, if you can give somebody advice, you know, and I'm 56, it would be 57. And I looked at football. You know, you look at football now. Yeah. You look at the UFC. You look at MMA. Let's not say

UFC. Let's say the word MMA. Because you got the fight league now, the pro-fight league. PFL. You've got Bellator. One championship. Yeah, you got one. You've got so many different things going. You're an amateur fighter.

You're a college football player. You're a comedian. You're a plumber. Anything, nowadays you have to look at things with a plan. Yeah. If you and my manager today and I come to you and say, I think I'm 16 and 2 as an amateur fighter, I've been to Mexico.

I fought in Buffalo. I fought in fucking, you know, Hong Kong. Bodunk, Indiana. I think, you know, I don't know, Scott Shelby. Yeah? Scott Shelby reached out. And the guy, Scott Coker, reached out, and I think it's time. I think as a manager, I sit you down.

As a man, I go, this is the plan. It's a three-year plan. it's a three-year plan you're getting in and out in three years wow three years that's short but that's good but if you think about what we've seen yeah in the last 15 years as an mMA fan as an NFL fan what's the lifespan what's the career span of an NFL running back right around three four years yeah okay you got three or four years to prove yourself before a 22-year-old that grew up in the ghetto

ate fucking twigs all his life his father beat him his mother raped him he's coming behind you you know what I'm saying no it's true okay so it's the same with I don't I

I'm not following the sport as much as I used to anymore I got a family I got you know most of the exciting fights fight on some reason land on nights that you're out doing your job I don't like the whole I want to turn

on Spike. I want to turn on Spike. That's Bellatory because that's what we're on. Once I got to spin the Roku and ESPN. It's getting more difficult, isn't it? I got to search for it. It's easier to find a buried treasure than to find the fight. So it's not like it used to be that I could just sit there and turn on UFC Bulgaria, you know, Korean zombie against Edgar. I got to get up at 6.15 in the morning to watch them fight in fucking Korea.

My point being that I don't have the time no more. I watched one fight from this weekend's fight, McGregor against whatever. Damn, now Cowboys are whatever. And cowboy looked like he aged five years from, you know, like this is how long I haven't been. Like I just watch the K.O. results online when I get home or something. And I watch it and I see these guys.

he stung around for too long. When I saw that, I go. You got to break it down, though, because there's a way of breaking it down, and you've got to look at it. And I have a podcast with Josh Thompson, and it's called weighing in, and we talk about, hey, this is Cowboys' Way of Winning.

This is McGregor. I've got to go with, you know, both guys. Going into the fight, you know, someone texted me before, and they say, hey, this is the first pay-per-view I'm buying a long time, you know, what are you things going to happen? I said, Connor's going to walk through him.

You know, that was my true feeling. I knew Connor was going to win that fight because it's just the what Cowboy does and his ability to deal with Southpaws. I knew he doesn't deal with Southpaws. Well, he doesn't see that left kick well. It lands too frequently up high or down to the body where he doesn't get that elbow in. He doesn't get that hand up. And he takes more than he should. But the whole thing, Cowboy is a guy that has fought 50-some times.

and you can see the progression of he started to take more damage, like you're talking. In the last 10 fights, he's taken more damage in those fights than he did in the first 40. That's your difference. When you're watching a guy like Demetrius Johnson is now fighting over in one FC, and Demetrius was the UFC flyweight champion, 10 title defenses in a row. and if you watch his fights, I used to talk and tell people all the time, you've got to watch Demetrius Johnson.

He had the lowest pay-per-view numbers of any champion they had. And it was, I would tell people, you have got to watch this guy because it wasn't so much, you know, that he was knocking guys. It was his defeat. People couldn't touch him.

He was never being damaged against the very best people that they could put against him. He never took. took a hard shot. And so that's the guy when you're looking, you're saying, yes, he can move on and he can move on and he can move on to the next fight and the next fight because he's not being damaged. It's like having, you know, a car. You go out and you buy a car and it's brand new and you're trying to take care of it and you're parking it away from other cars because you don't want people a door to ding it. And if you take care of it and you don't allow things to happen to it, you change the oil and you do all these things right, that car can last you a while. But as soon as you start to neglect it or as soon as someone, even though you're not neglecting it, neglects it by, they run into the side of it, they run into the front of it. Now it's got damage.

You take it in to get fixed, but it never comes back the way it was. And this is when I talk about guys in fights. Many times they'll walk into the cage and they're going to walk out. Demetrius has done this so many times. They will walk out as good as they were when they walked in. No damage at all. And then there's times that they'll walk out, you know what? They got damaged a little and they're leaving just a little bit of themselves in that cage that they're never going to get back.

And then they're going to have the fights like Cowboy has had where he's leaving large chunks of who he is in there. He is accepting heavy blows. He's accepting damage that is altering his ability for his brain to control his body. And those are the fights when you have those and you take the fans love them. The Robbie Lawlers versus the McDonald's. They think that's the greatest fight ever. It was for you as the fan. It was for me as a referee in there with them.

But for both of those guys, neither guy has been the same since that fight. Why is that? Why is that? Because you can only crash that vehicle so many times before it doesn't run or it doesn't run the same. Fighting is about timing and speed. Everyone talks about being the bigger, stronger guy. That isn't crap. Being the faster guy is usually what is going to get you a win.

Being the guy that has good timing, the ability to understand distance. What makes Connor what he is is when he's training and doing things right, I've never seen a guy who is better at understanding, timing, and distance. He's not as fast as people say. And he doesn't have the power that. Joe Rogan will say that he has. It's that his timing and his accuracy with the shot is outstanding. He understands that distance where he allows you to throw your shot and it just misses by one quarter of an inch and he steps in and he launches and he targets one area, he hits that area and he hits it with power based upon you not being able to move back away from it now and he hurts you.

And then he continues to hurt you in the fight to the point. He diminishes you and he gets rid of you. But that damage that you accept in a fight, sometimes you can come back from it. And sometimes you are never the same. And when your timing starts to leave, your ability to move. And I will tell you, back when I was sparring, and my wife was the first one to say, you're getting hit too much. I used to spar with all the guys in my gym and stuff.

And I would see their setup. I knew exactly what they were going to try to do. And I would think, I'm going to move my head this way, this side, and I'm going to come with my counter, and instead of, I'd see it, and I would start to move, and boom, it would hit me. And it would hit me, and I was like, I saw it. I knew what was happening.

And I couldn't get myself out because father time starts to take away speed. And speed, it's just that fraction of a second that makes something either land solid or just slide by and miss. And when it's starting to land solid, now you're starting to be affected in the fight in areas where you were never affected before.

and it just adds up. I remember, like, just, I'd been hanging out with Joe for a few years. Just a couple. At this point, at this point, I'd been friends with Joe a few years. I don't know what the date is. And I didn't follow fuck. I followed comedy and I followed cocaine. I don't know nothing about fucking.

Nothing. And it turns me on to a fight when night against, he shows me a fight in this house, Bernard Hopkins against Felix Trinidad. Oh, yeah. And Joe remember that fight well? Broke that fight down. And then a week later, I ended up meeting Bernard Hopkins on the best damn sports show.

He's a gentleman. Great guy. I take the picture. I still got the picture in my house that he signed and what he signed on it. And I watched all his fights. And then I saw Father time start to take over. But that's not the conversation. The conversation was, I remember Felix Trinidad.

your dad fought a while after that. And Joe said that that Felix never fought the same again. Never. Why? What happens to you? He, in that moment against, one of the things that made Bernard Hopkins so good was Bernard started fighting late. You know, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,

prison. And when he came out of prison, he started training and picking fights. And he was, he was very frugal with his money. He was cheap, we would say. But as soon as he would have a fight, he was so good defensively and not taking damage that he would fight on a Friday night, he would fight on a Saturday night, and he was back in the gym on Sunday or Monday and training again. And he would never do this roller coaster that a lot of fighters do, this. This is what like Connor got into doing. Something made him this good. And then you start to expect that it's just going to be there forever.

It's not. It's going to change. And if you're not training hard someone else is and they're passing you by. And Bernard realized that and he just stayed on this plateau. He didn't eat bad food. He ate good and he just stayed, even though he's an older guy, he stayed at that plateau because he never stopped training and he didn't. not take serious damage in fights. He didn't start taking damage in fights until he was in his

40s. That was amazing as far as what allowed him to continue on with a career into, he was 50 years old. Felix Trinidad was a young guy. And if you're going to look, boxing wise, the guy I would always look at as Andre Ward from here in California. Andre is just a phenomenal fighter, phenomenal guy. His dad took him to the gym and Virgil was the guy that he took him to and he said, I want you to teach my son how to box. I want you to teach my son the art of hitting without getting hit. He didn't take his son into the gym and tell Virgil,

I want you to make my son tough because you can walk into the gym and anyone, I can't say anyone, but many people can be taught how to be tough. you know, there's a system of thinking to it and you can say, hey, I can put up with this. And you're going to see a lot of boxers to there, a lot of MMA guys. You know, Tim Elliott just fought on the last UFC card at 246 and he fought a guy named Asker. And in the end, Tim Elliott is being tough. He's putting his hands down and walking forward and just eating shot after shot after shot. Now, it looks great.

And you think, wow, he's tough. And it's the dumbest thing you can do because each of those shots is taking a part of Tim Elliott away that he's not going to get back. And so when he comes back into the cage, we'll say three months, four months, five months, six months later, he's going to be just a little bit slower. He's going to be able to absorb just a little bit less. And those little chinks that are coming off of him, you don't get back. You cannot get them back.

and guys like Andre Ward learned early, I want to be the guy that hits and doesn't get hit. A lot of people don't like the way Floyd Mayweather fights. All right, but God damn, he's good because you can't hit him. And when you say you can't hit him, people have no idea what it's like to try to hit somebody like a Floyd Mayweather. You can't. You think you're throwing, and he's just little tiny movements.

And that's why he has been as good as he has been, throughout a career, undefeated at 50, you know, how much damage have you seen Floyd Mayweather take? You haven't. You've seen him take a couple of good shots. But overall in a fight, he never takes that quantity of damage that starts to alter him as a fighter. And in that fight you were talking about with Bernard Hopkins and Felix Trinidad, Felix got beat

down by a guy that he didn't understand how to be offensive against, because Bernard is great defensively. He'll throw his shots and he'll break the rules of boxing to make it to where I have the referee now separate me to the distance I want to get back to. I did my damage. You didn't damage me at all. Let me do that again. And he just keeps repeating that process. And when you're Trinidad and you're trying to land that big shot and you're taking all of these shots trying to land that one big shot

and it just never happens. And eventually you can't make it happen. And eventually you take so much damage in that fight. This is the fight. that alters you as a fighter for the rest of your career. And that's what happened to him. How much of it now do you think is, like, the marketing game, where you can sell the fight and make it seem like it's going to be more exciting, and then you have a plan. So you don't get hit, but you make it seem like it's going to be a brawl.

And, like, that was the whole selling point of McGregor Cowboy. Yeah. I didn't see a brawl there. That's what I'm asking. I didn't see a bra. They didn't sell me no bra. I had two picks on that fight. Yeah.

Either it was going to go five rounds. Yeah, no way. And they were going to kill each other or he was going to beat him up in the first round. Yeah. That was my prediction either or. Yeah. Either they went five rounds and, you know, cowboy used the 20 years experience he had and said, this is my last fight.

I'm going to go in there and fight like a man out of prison, you know, a cowboy had, all this shit. and, you know, like I said, I was working. I think I called Lee and Lee goes, you didn't miss nothing. 40 seconds, you didn't miss all that. And then I went home and put it on YouTube and it was like kind of on the embarrassing side. Well, and this is the whole thing is we talk about, you know, one fight can alter your career. One shot, one punch, one kick, one elbow, one knee, one shoulder strike in that one, altered that fight from that moment on, it was over.

And it can happen in the very first round, in the very first 10 seconds of the fight. It can happen in the fifth round. At 459, it's the shot that puts you down. But it only takes one to alter who you are. I took a lot of offense from a reporter named Stephen A. Smith, who was part of that telecast, who said Cowboy quit. All right?

That is one of the most ridiculous statements anybody can say, when, especially if you've never fought, understanding what it takes to go out there. And I will tell you, and I've talked about Cowboy for years about being his referee, going in the back, and he's a mess in the back. But every time he stepped out into that cage, he turns it on. And it's a mentality.

And he just got hit with, so he didn't even know it was a shoulder. he thought it was an elbow strike. He never saw it. He had a broken nose and a broken orbital from that fight in 40 seconds. Okay? Now, I am telling you, get hit and have your nose broken. Okay, now you can't breathe out of it and your eyes are watering and now break your orbital. And I can guarantee you when you break your orbital, you don't see.

Either you see nothing out of the eye or you see blur. And now you're completely affected. And it's the storm isn't stopping because you got hurt. hurt. That storm is intensifying to put you away and it just happens. You know, and Cowboys put people away fast and he got put away fast by McGregor because he got hit with a shot. That one shot altered him and from that point it was, you know, downhill for him and it can happen. But when we have reporters out there talking about, oh, he quit. Well, Stephen A. Smith comes into basketball school. Shame on whoever, if you've been having him on. Absolutely. It's like

when they have the other. It's embarrassing. It's like when they have the other guy from NFL. sports show up, the big black guy. I love him on the NFL. Don't put him on the UFC. There's 20 guys you get him there. I don't give a fuck. Get one of the trainers that speaks half Brazilian. At least he knows the game.

Yeah. I didn't hear, I know that Stephen A. Smith got a bunch of stuff. I follow his basketball stuff and his other stuff. He knows basketball. He knows dick up. Dick. Don't put him in there. Why would you do that?

What was Dominic Cruz? He was busy in San Diego surfing? What the fuck? He's in the desert in the, on his razor, man. You mentioned another fight that we've all seen as fans. And I knew when I watched him at Bellator, he wasn't the same guy anymore.

That's Rory McDonald. Yeah. And now he's in the PFL looking for answers that aren't there anymore. There's some times where you have that fight that it takes everything out of you. He's had multiples of those. Multiple.

And that's the real. real thing. Rory, if you look at some of the fights that he's had in that fight, the second fight he had with Loller, people have no idea what was going on in that fight. And they have no idea what Rory McDonald was dealing with during that fight. Now, Robbie had, you know, he had a sliced lip, he had about a three and a half inch gash from an elbow on top of his head. He had things going on too. But Rory in the very first round had his nose broken. And it was broken. to the point he could not breathe out of it. You could see, and he was aspirating blood for the entire fight.

So you would see him come out in the beginning of the round, and he was lighten Robbie up, and he was winning that fight. And then near the end of the rounds, he would tail off. And then he had a really good third round, and he tried to get rid of Robbie in that third round, and it took everything he had because his body was not able to take all the oxygen that he's breathing in and distribute it through, you know, his body into his muscles to make that lactic acid stay away because his lungs were absorbing blood. It wasn't that he's drinking blood.

It's not that he's swallowing blood. He's aspirating these little tiny blood droplets that are going into his lungs, which are taking his lungs and making them now ineffective in distributing that oxygen through his body. And he went through that for four rounds and kept trying and took it. an incredible beating and then you look at the beating that he took against Douglas Lima in his first fight against Douglas. Take a look at his leg. His leg, the muscle actually separated from the bone.

Okay? And is never going back. Okay? The fascia split. There's a sheathing that covers the muscle that's called the facial. It got so swollen that it split. And there was so much hemorrhaging on that. shin and that muscle to the front of his shin area that the bone actually the muscle split off of the bone and now he's got you you can see as he fights and when he fights for the pfl you're going to see that he has this lump already there and it's actually separated from the bone he's a different fighter and that's because of the battles that he's had and he's going to have those problems coming up to the future had the battles with frankie egg gray manor he that became exactly

Exactly. Take a look. He never came back. Never from the moment. He's fighting for the lightweight title against Frankie. He puts on that first round. A lot of people say that's a 10-7 round. It's at least 10-8. And Frankie, you know, stays in the fight.

That fight, Gray Maynard, was never the same fighter after that fight. And that was a draw. It was a draw. And he lost so much in that fight. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. With Rory, with any fighter, because Rory came out a year or two ago and said he didn't know if he had it mentally in him. Like, how about that, like, mental game where, like, you train for two, three months, but everything you have into it.

And then you get beat up in front of millions of people. Like, even if you win, that has to take a mental toll on you. You know, the part that really takes a mental toll on this is so hard, especially today with, you know, social media and the people out there. And I try to tell every fighter that if there's one thing, you know, you kind of talk about it, you know, how stupid were you when you were young compared to what you are now? You know, and I talk about all the time, man, if I could go back to being 25, dude, I do it in a heartbeat as long as I didn't have to have the brain I had when I was 25 because I was an idiot. You know, I made terrible decisions all the time. I was stupid as hell. If I could have my brain now and be 25, ho ho ho, ho.

Oh, hello. Yeah. God doesn't do that, though. There's a balance in life. And you take a look at what is occurring for these guys and how much damage they're taking at times and just their ability to fight through it and then come back and do it again. It's not, it takes a special person. Rory is a person, you know, he's a completely different man. He was a young kid fighting started when he's basically 16 years of age fighting professionally, gets into the UFC at a young age, puts on a great professional.

performance against Carlos Condit, but loses it right at the end of the fight, and it gets stopped with 11 seconds, I think, left after he had won the first two rounds, most people will say, and came out and started starching people. Think of the people that he put in. He threw Nate Diaz around up in Toronto. You know, he suplexed him three times in a row. He just put an ass whipping on it. Put an ass whipping on BJ Penn.

Walk through Tyrone Woodley, you know, all these people. But then he found that one guy in Robbie that. It just didn't work for him. Didn't work for him in the first or in the second fight. Then he had, you know, his battles with Lima here in Bellator when he was there. Man, he took huge damage. And then he becomes a father and he gets married and he's a different person. He just doesn't have that same thing.

And I was the one that did the interview. He says, I don't know if I can do this anymore. And trust me, I'm sitting there going, hey, I understand, but I've got to do this interview with him. You know, are you thinking about maybe this is, you know, and as soon as someone's telling you, you know, And as soon as someone's telling you, you know what, I'm not sure. It's over. It's over. You're either 100% in when it comes to fighting.

Fighting is not a game. We play football. We play basketball. We play baseball. Fighting's the hurt business. And you've got to be 100% in. And if you're not, walk away from it. Because the damage that it can do to you and permanent damage it can do to you for the

rest of your life, you know, you're not. never going to get those years back. It's so weird, you know, I used to, when I first moved to the Valley, I went to a movie high school, and it was filled with who I thought were fighters. Not that it made a difference for me, because I'm not a fighter, I'm just going there for general exercise. And I would ask these guys, when is your next fight? They're like, fine.

I'm a fired man. And they'd have the UFC shorts and the shirt and the greased hair and down it up. You know, and... I train UFC, bro. It's hysterical. But this is why I said to you as a manager, even with comedy, you know, about a month and a half ago, I was at a show and they were comparing the movie The Joker to a parallel to stand-up comedy.

What you go through as a comic, you know, how long do you snap? How long do you move? How long to you, once you see behind the curtain, how do you react to it? because I tell people all the time, yeah, you want to get to this level. But once you get to that level, they think it stops, there's even more drama.

You know, it's like when Connor wouldn't come over for interviews. I'm fighting the championship, bitch. You want to interview me? I got to go sit with a guy that is doing an interview for the school paper. Really?

To do a fucking, so I get all that. Oh, yeah. I get all that. That's part of the game. But it's like, you have a window. When I came to LA, I gave myself a window. Yeah?

And I was like, if this doesn't happen in this time, there's no reason for me to be here. And something would happen. And then something kept happening every six months. But why did it happen? It happened because I kept working. Bingo. See, I don't understand the peaks and valleys. I don't like this comics that'll go on a six-month tour,

and then they disappear for whatever. That kind of throws me off. I like to always be in the game. I try to at least do five spots a week, even though if I'm not working. If I'm not working on the road, I still go out, try out two new jokes, you know, go out one night, piss.

One night I go up and smoke a joint, try out. You know, you're always in the game. I don't like the ups and the down to the game. I did not like what went on with Connor because life went by. Dustin got tougher. Tony got tougher. Kabev got tougher.

I know you got 100 minutes. But these guys are getting, you know, I came from the old basketball adage. When I was 12, this is how I looked at life. You got to do what he ain't doing. It's midnight. I know that motherfucker ain't practicing. I'm going to go out there and practice. You know.

So it's a mental aspect. We're fighting. If right now you came to me today and you're 22, and like, again, I tell you this is a three to three and a half. I'll extend it to four windows. though. By the time of you're 28, I want you out of here. With a martial arts school, a consulting service. But you can always readjust if you're having those four years go exactly like you want them to,

you don't get damaged. Do another four-year plan. How can we up that in this next four years or three years? And that's fine. You can do it, or you can have it to where, you know, I've taken a lot of damage in these four years. And maybe it is time to get out. And that's what I was trying to say with, you know, Rory, it's a matter of when you're looking at guys that come out and they fight. One of the hardest things about fighting is you've got 15 minutes or 25 minutes to perform. And sometimes when you come out, it is your night, man. You're feeling good. You go out there and everything's working and you feel fast. And some nights you'll go out there and your legs feel like lead. You feel slow. You feel sluggish. You feel

I don't see things as well. And if you don't perform well in those 15 minutes, 25 minutes, you have to hear about it for months before you'll get another chance to undo and come back and prove, hey, I still got it. Because everyone's talking about that last fight. And so you've got to live with that last fight for a long time. It's not like you can just step back on the horse. You know, you talked about your view of,

comedy and what you're saying is your view is you need repetitions. The more repetitions you get, the more consistent and the better you'll be. That's the way I always looked at it with refereeing. And I tell guys, you need repetitions. You can't be the part-time guy that, oh, I only do the big fights because you're going to fuck it up. Because if you're only doing those fights and you have this giant space in between them where you have a month or two months that you don't referee, you're not in there.

And you're not able to keep that timing and that level of concentration and that ability to see things. It starts to, like any perishable skill, it starts to wane away. And I talked about all the time. I used to do 115 to 120 shows as a referee a year. That shows. That's not fights. And so I would do anywhere between 10, maybe down to three fights, depending upon the size of the show, that many for each one of those shows. But that meant I was working every week, multiple times a week.

And it kept me where I never had to worry about the little things. It kept me on top. And that's what you're talking about with the comedy. But as a fighter, you can't do that. The only thing I have an advantage of a fighter is that, A, I don't get punched in the face. And I have B tomorrow to redeem myself. Yep. If I go to the comedy store, I need a bag of dicks on a Monday.

Yeah. You better bet 10 for 10. I'm going to go back the end of Tuesday. Smack it. And try to get it. And if I don't get it on Tuesday, Wednesday's the day. Wednesday's the day. I'm just saying the wording wrong.

There's a joke wrong. I didn't fake. For me, I compare arts. Yeah, and sometimes you compare arts. You do a set, and sometimes the audience just, that's not the audience. That's not the one that gets you. And the next night, you'll get one there and they're just tuned into you, everything you say. But he is the thing that I don't like.

I use those excuses early on. And once I moved to LA, I took that excuse away. Every audience is the same. It's how you come out there. It's how you face them. You know, fucko, the guy who sent the pictures of his dick to his trainer, the football guy. Brett Farms. Brett Farms.

Brett Farms. That wasn't his traitor? Whatever, his girlfriend, his massage therapist. That's funny. Whatever he did, whatever he ever did, I always have most respect from him because he did something that I don't think I could do.

Well, I did it. I did it. I'm lying to you. His father died. He got a call. He went on through five touchdowns and had the game of his fucking life. You know, most people in between, whatever.

You know, I was on a plane to Vegas. excited to play Treasure Island and before the plane takes off I got a call and my friend hung himself and I got to fly in the plane and get there and you know wasn't my best friend I knew him for a long time was I like a fat chick at a church

take me Lord take me no I wasn't that either I'd do a show for 800 fucking people and I went out there and I gave him the best show I could and I felt great because I kept thinking somewhere along the line I'm gonna fall apart somewhere on the line I'm going to cry up on this stage in front of these people it's not going to be a problem they're going to love it they're going to sympathize but i can't and you know the mental aspect and all this that we do whether it's fighting or stand up your mental has to be so strong you have to

have such good people around you people that trust you know i heard did you ever watch the elvis documentary on hbb i was a two-parter Oh, yeah. A fucking father. The guy he called the colonel. The guy he called the colonel was father. You know, fucking took him out. There's a fucking audio taping that he said, listen,

this Elvis, he's all fucked up on drugs. We don't know how much time we got left with him. Let's just put him on the road and milk him until he fucking dies. You know, when you hear that, brutal. You see the realities. fighting you see the realities of comedy you remember when mohaman ali fought at 40 something and he shouldn't have been fighting and he took a beating he did it for money absolutely you know you do it for money you do it so this is why you have a fighter you have to sit him down and go you know first off i don't agree

with the five thousand dollar about fight you know that shit they pay over at the ufc 5 000 that's a loser that you lost money just between your three trainer, taxes, and the boxing coach, you lost money. There's no way you make more money Ubering for three months. You got to Uber. Some of our Uber. Ally McQuint, the fucking selling real estate online, you know, whatever the fuck. I'm not mad at that.

I love that. I love that about it. I follow on Twitter. I love that about Al says, you know what? I'm not going to rely on you. I'm going to rely on myself. I'm going to go sell real estate. You must sell a lot of houses after, like after that fight with Khabibib.

Like using it as a platform. Like, you have to be smart. But that's, it's interesting what you're talking about. And it's, I'm sure you have to deal with it in comedy. And I don't know if you have to deal with it in your thing. But how do you choose how to have, who to have around you? Because what if you get the Elvis guy? What if you get Aaron Hernandez's his mom when he's in jail saying, if only you'd given me a million years, that would be fine.

Dude, she said that. And I was like, man. I'm like, you can't trust anybody. Like, it's pretty, it's wild. You know, when I spoke to you, I've been, you blew my mind the last time you came on the show because you said something that nobody had ever even mentioned in this whole 20 years since this happened. It was the OJ thing. Yeah.

And you said that I really wonder about the CFT, the impulsiveness. You know, people follow him on Twitter. They say he's fucking hilarious, like that he has no remorse. And all, like, he's just, you know, happy Mother's Day and morning. Shit like that. That's, you know, we're looking at the behavior of Antonio Brown. Yeah. We're looking at all.

Is that not sad? We're looking at all these behaviors. And, you know, for me, I thought CTE came after you retired. I thought that CTE came when you were 35. If you took a lot of blows that had you, I'm looking at. without hurting anybody's feelings or starting a war, I'm looking at six guys

that used to be UFC fighters now that, oh my God, you could hear it and they're talking, their patterns already. Oh, easy. And I was like, well, whatever, maybe it's me, maybe I smoke too much pot. I watched the Iron Hernandez thing. And yes, I was blown away on his murders

and his stupidity and his immaturance. I was the same person when I was 23. What shocked me the most about that whole documentary was episode 3. Spoiler alert. Go fuck your mother if you haven't watched it. It's been out for 10 days. All right.

If you haven't watched it. If you haven't watched it, you should be shot and fucking hung. I'm sorry. But when they said the amount of CTE he had, he played his last game when he was 23 years old. Wow. He died when he was 27, correct?

Close to that around there. Yeah. And they did the brain, the autopsy. So now I know I'm not stupid that CT probably grows. It grows even after you stop taking bumps to the head. It's going to continue on. It's called a tarot protein starts to attack your brain. And that tarot proteins just starts to eat the actual brain itself.

And that's where you're starting to get these bigger and bigger crevices that it just starts to detain. deteriorate the brain. It's insidious when you look at what that disease does and a disease that until Michael Webster, who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, he was the center, you know, Center for Terry Bradshaw, who we watch every, you know, Sunday when the NFL's on, you're seeing, you know, Terry is, he's still lucid, you know, can, you know, crack jokes, you know, sometimes he'll say things. You go, oh, he's going to get in trouble for that. But, you know, he's, you know, the guy that was.

the guy protecting him in front was the first guy that was diagnosed by, you know, the Dr. Amalu in, hey, this guy has a disease that we don't know about. And CTE, repetitive blows to the head, you know, and if you go back, you know, Mike Webster, they tried to portray it in the movie Concussion, you know, this guy was, he was, you know, he was, you know, he was torturing himself trying to think right. His entire family left him because they couldn't be around him because he just was this guy, you know, they didn't understand. And he had these rages and he tried to, you know, use things. He was pulling his teeth out of his head, you know.

And you look and you go, my God. And now back then we didn't know about, you know, things. We didn't know that obviously we kind of knew, hey, you know, boxers, when boxers get older, they get what we call, you know. Punch drunk or then it turned into pugilistia dementia. And, you know, football players, it really wasn't that much. And then all of a sudden, oh no, football players are prevalent with this problem. And all of these, in fact, the Pittsburgh Steelers were Webster, Terry Long, you know, Strzinski, all these guys that played with the Steelers, you know, a tough team all had this.

And they're all killing themselves. And then Junior Seow kills himself, shoots himself. Dave Dewerson, who played for the Chicago. Bears for the 86, you know, the 46 defense, he shoots himself in the chest to take his life while leaving a note saying, I want you to check my brain. And he's got huge CTE issues. This is a guy that had a degree from the University of Notre Dame and all of a sudden couldn't, you know, add up numbers, couldn't do anything that made sense.

Then Junior Sayo does the same thing. Junior Seow shot himself in the heart, in the chest, saying, I want you to be. to look at my brain. And, you know, obviously he had a major problem with CTE, and that's why he was having the depression. But you get to Aaron Hernandez, who you're talking about. You're talking about a guy who played football as a peewee, as a high school football player,

as a collegiate football player for three years, and then a couple years in the pro. And at the age of 27, they say that his brain was that of people, that have died that are over 45 years of age. 45 to 55 was the only people that were close to the amount of damage that Aaron Hernandez had at the age of 27 when he died. That's crazy. It fucking fucked me up all last weekend because I started thinking about how many times

I got hit to that. But my PTSD don't come from fucking hits the head. It comes from, you know, losing parents. and that type of stuff. But at least I know I am and I really focus on my notebook and writing and you know. But I think at 23

and I look at these kids getting into the UFC now. Yeah? Like that just opened my eyes to so many things. 23. Younger. 23 and he already fucking had it and it was on his way. Do you think it was responsible for his behavior?

I think it had a huge amount of Yeah, there's no doubt that it led to, that doesn't take away from the responsibility. That doesn't take away from the act itself. I'm not giving him an excuse, but the inability to rationally think, you know, look, they say that, you know, especially men, you know, the human brain is not fully developed

until it's 25, you're 25 years of age. And sometimes they say even a little bit longer for men because we're idiots, okay? And I'll kind of go along and agree with that. he was 23 when he stopped playing football. His brain hadn't even fully developed and had this amount of CTE. And it's, I don't, my dad is, you know, is older

and he's always yelling at me about what they're doing to football. And, you know, candy and making them, you know, pusification of football is ridiculous. And I go, dad, you know, you need to understand this has to be done. It's the only way for football to survive. And they have all the... It's not going to survive. Well, it might not, but you know, it's like back in his day, you know, he was the leather helmet days.

He actually had a leather helmet when he first started playing football. Well, they're saying now. I read an article. I was very interested in that. And I started one night, you know, on the road. I do this shit on the road. This is what I do on the road. Now when I'm around my fucking family is I go down foxholes.

And I guess somebody did a study. And they said that when they were wearing the leather helmets. that was less head injuries because they weren't using their heads as a weapon. You know, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I didn't know. I had to put that all together through reading and whatever. My dad talks about it. He goes, the first time I was knocked out, well, it was the first time they actually had hard helmets.

He goes, he says, and I was receiving a kick. He says, and I caught the ball, and the first thing I saw was this white with a green stripe, and it hit me in the face, you know. And he goes, I went to the wrong huddle. And, you know, back then it was, hey, You know, suck it up. Right. Get back in the game.

Because they didn't know. You know, and we didn't know the things back then. And I'm not saying when it comes to guys, you know, like the dick bucketses of the world and all the old football players that played in that era of the 60s and 70s, 80s, hey, we didn't know. Obviously, we knew, all right, football's not real healthy for you as far as later on you're going to have all these joint issues and all these. But no one knew it was going to change you as a human being because your brain. is who you are. Now, at least with fighting, football, any of them, hockey, you haven't, you know, this is an activity. If I'm going to do this, it ain't healthy.

It's not healthy for me, and this can absolutely affect who I'm going to be later on. Now, the problem is that decision is usually made by a young person, and as young people, we're not that bright. We don't think about the future because, you know, I never thought I was going to live past 35. I thought it was 30. Okay, there you go. And I was like, you know, there's no way I take too many chances. I do too many dumb things, you know, you know.

But here I am at, you know, you're at 57 years old. I'm still here. And I want more, you know, but you're not going to make the best decisions. And that's why what you're talking about with have a plan. Hey, have a plan is absolutely right. Have, I always tell people, you know, look at dreams are great. But they don't become a reality until you write them down. And then it becomes a goal.

Well, right down, it's a goal. I worked for a guy that used to say, what do you want? Real, I mean, I still talk to this guy today. That's how much it makes sense. And when I write a joke. He's called the Godfather. Who? This guy says, what do you want?

And it's like, what do you want? I want, you know, most people tell you I want a Corvette. Okay. Okay, that's great. You want a Corvette. How are you going to get that Corvette? Well, I'm going to fucking get a job to fucking afford place.

I'm going to save up for eight months. That's a great plan, but you might as well shoot yourself in the fucking head. Yep. You know, I want you to break it down for me completely. For three months, you're going to get two part-time jobs. You're going to put your second check away. Whatever the fuck your dream is.

And that's what he would make you do. Yeah, I want to sell. How many cars you want to sell this month? 14. How are you going to do that? I got to talk to 220. people to sell 14 cars. I got to make 20 phone calls a day.

I got to send 20 letters a day. He would make you do that. And then I started using it towards comedy. What do I want from comedy? I want to be an MC. What's an MC? 15 minutes. What do I need to do?

I need to write three because I know if I write three, only one of the three is good. So that, you know what I'm saying? You have to break it down that much. With fighting, it's the same thing. Absolutely. With fighting, it's like, and you're going to win the first two.

I don't care whether you do decision or knock out of submission. The third one, we're going to get you a top ten. You know, you go to the top ten, we'll get you this, and by your sixth fight, you're fighting for the championship money. I should be able to get your $2 million and $3.2 million in endorsements. Now you're going to protect yourself. You're going to go for the title twice in those two years. I'm going to get you this, this, and this, and this.

We're going to take this money. I'm going to put in the money market. We're going to buy your house to save on taxes. We're going to get you the LLC out of Nashville, Oklahoma. You know, when Valvano won the championship that year, what did he make them do first? I don't know what he made him do first. I just know because he told him before cut the nets down. First day of practice, he got ladders, and he made them cut the nets down.

We won the championship. They're like, what are you talking about, coach? We wanted to keep in the team. We're practicing. All get on ladders and each other's shoulders and raise a blade the net down. Why? They give them a taste of that. To give them a taste of what it's going to be.

This is what we're doing. This is what we're doing. It's on you right now. We're cutting the nets down March, what it was, Maine Madness? March Madness. March Madness. The 31st were cutting these nets down. And he had a plan.

You know, when a man without a plan, It's not a man. That's right. Plain and fucking simple. And I see that we've watched tremendous great fighters come and go. And now you've got to sit there and go, what the fuck are they doing? Because at one time, this is before the UFC ran the Nike deal. They were getting 250,000 and 300,000 and 150s.

Those deals are done. What are those guys doing today? Are they teaching Jiu-Jitsu for 100 of class? I know that what's his name with the one eye who's working with the army? You know, the one that, uh, Michael Bisping? No, the one that got jabbed to death by, by, uh, the Canadian. Codach.

You're talking Josh Cossack. Yeah, he's working, he's helping like troops and stuff like that. But what about the rest of the guys? What the fuck are they doing? Well, you know, that's, that's the whole thing is, this is what I'm saying. That's why you're talking about what you, you know, you set those goals and you've got to, you, You've got to put things down on paper, in my opinion, the same as what you're doing. Because that way it's no longer just a dream.

It's a goal. And, okay, now that I've set this goal, now what's the next step to get to this? How many times that Anderson Silver defend this title? I want to say that Anderson went on a run of, let's say, 16 fights or so. After the with the title, you know. Close, yeah. You got to remember, I'm an econ major. So 10 defenses would have been enough.

Oh. Would have been enough. Him and his family would have had enough money. Oh, he had plenty of money. Plenty of money. But then you get into the aspect of the drug. Ten, the defense is and 16th street wins.

Then he broke. My man knocked him out, Long Island. Yep. Chris Wyman. Then he came back and he broke his life. How many wins did he have since that lost? I don't know. One.

One win and it was against Derek Brunson and many people thought he lost that one. It was a decision. He never really had a good fight after that. Why, he was the same fighter. You know, and that's not taking and saying... Do you advise your fighter at that point, look. Oh, you try.

You do what you want to do. You try. I want you to have a future, and I want you to think straight. I want you to know what two plus two is at the age of 65. You try. You know, like, I want you to do a half of Rubik's Q. You know what I'm saying? I want you to do...

But part of the... The other part of the equation is not just the money. It's, it is your ego. And it's, there's a drug, you know, and fighting is, it's, it's, it's, it's addictive. It really is. It's no different than any other addiction. And it's not so much, you know, the, the actual fight itself. that's addicting or the training that's so addicting.

It is the camaraderie that you get from all the people that you are working with and being with. That's addicting. And then the addiction of walking out. And this is why I talk about like with Cowboy. You know, Cowboy did, they just did a beautiful thing the UFC put out with Cowboy talking about getting to the arena and getting ready for the fight. And he talks about, I throw up every time.

And he did. I was back there with him. And it was like, every time I worked with him, I was like, you know, he would march around going, why am I doing this? I hate this. You know, and everyone thinks of him as the guy, anytime, anywhere, let's go, you know, I just fought this week. Let's fight next week.

But he went through this process in the back of, God damn, because there's fear. And it's not fear of the guy across from you. It's fear of what happened to him against Connor. It's the fear of not looking good. It's the fear of having my family and friends there and not. performing to the level that I can. And then I have to live with that. And that's what, you know, the fear you have.

But it's when they walk out and that music is playing and those fans are going crazy and they're getting introduced. That's a drug. You cannot inject smoke, get anywhere else. There's only one way to get it. And that's to be that guy in that big fight. And once you've had it, you kind of want to have it again,

so it's tough to walk away. It is tough to walk away. You know, you keep on thinking, just one more. Just one more. What the fuck do you think I go through? Yeah. You know, when I have to go to the communist on a Tuesday,

and I look at that line up and I go, I got to go down there, follow Rogue, and who's following DeLea, who's following Jezzanek, who's following Ron White, who's following after a war. But one thing that you're talking about, And this is all of us.

Joey Coco Diaz, you are one of the funniest motherfuckers I have ever seen. Hold on. But you don't look at yourself that way. You look at Joe Rogan that way. And he is. He's phenomenal. And you look at Ron White that way. And, man, look at what he's done.

Oh, yeah. I love those. You look at all of them, you go, God, Ari Shapiro, dude, he's freaking funny. You don't put yourself in that same category. And that's the way we kind of look at ourselves. You know, but yeah, you, are of that caliber. Yes, you are.

Fear is mine. I have to take a little anxiety pill. Fear's good, though. See, that's what people don't understand. I take a little anxiety pill with me. I put it in my top pocket. I don't take it before I leave the house because I'm going to need it right before I go on stage.

You know, for a while there, when I first started headlining, I would wear long shirts. I would buy it 2x long. People go why because I would pee a little bit. I went on stage. Just a little dot as you're announcing my name. But what people don't understand is that that fear is the heart on. It's good.

That fear is the heart on. The day you don't have that fear anymore, it's time for you to quit. You know, I'm so fearful when I drive to the comedy store. I don't put the radio on. Like, that's how much fear I have on the drive to the comedy store. I love when people call me and go, hey, you're going to the store tonight? can I hop in with you? There's very selven people

I wanted that car with me because they're going to drive me crazy. I have to go to the comedy store like I'm fucking gladiator. When I walk in there, I got to like get my water, keep the chitter-chatter down. If I get into an argument with somebody,

it would be great. But you can't argue with people every day at 57. When I was younger, I would pick arguments to Joe and Ari and Red Band and tell them that their phones were all fags. You all have

matching phones. You should be ashamed of yourselves. And Joe knew exactly what I was doing. Joe knew. Joe used to say, let him go. Just let him do if he slams. You set yourself up. Because I'm just getting myself. I would pick on the smallest thing. Really?

Fucking water? You know, you're like, I'm trying to do my best. Water? What are you? A fucking faggot? Get a fucking beer. And I would just pick on you and you go, where'd that come from? He's about to go on stage. watch when he gets off he's going to apologize to you and I wasn't even I'll never forget

and they started doing it to me on purpose Tate Eddie at one time they all had the same faggy fucking phone just had to be like I didn't know a phone is faggy you know it's still upset somebody's not that it wasn't an iPhone this was before you get the old

like the phone my dad has these guys I call it the burner phone it's the sons of anarchy burner phone the flip phones yeah that's because it's the only thing he can figure out how to you I had a burner phone. And I was still with Sprint. I was with Sprint. But I always had like a regular phone.

I didn't know. And they'd show up with these socky-fucky phones, James Brown. And one day I'll never forget. They all put them like, I yelled at them like the Thursday night. They go, really? Matching phones. What are men coming? And I'm like, you fucking guy.

And then they figure it out. They're like, oh, Joey Deas gets pissed at the phones. So they would all put their phones down. at the same time and they were all matching and it would take me about six minutes so burning up and right before I get up I go you know what one of you guys just gonna start sucking dick

once you have matching phones what's next the next step and it would just be me getting fired up sometimes when I go to the comedy store I go to the green room if I have a show I know I'm gonna get fired up I go back there to get angry

and then without saying a word I go out behind the state as scared as I am because you know the comedy store is haunted. Last time I was outside, somebody tapped me on the shoulder. It is haunted. It's how fun. So I'm standing behind the main room.

A lot of times I go in the green room. I say hello. Somebody's smoking and join. I take the hits of it. Then something starts to aggravate me. It can be as simple as a T-shirt unbuttoned. A T-shirt unbuttoned. It could be a shirt on button. It could be as simple as a pair of orange sneakers.

or just a tattoo, something just sets me off. And that's when I excuse myself before I insult you. You know, like if you've got hummus and chips, I'll flip that piano over. Like,

if you really want me to have a good set, put hummus and chips in my green room. Oh, that's awesome. Whatever table it's on is going to go fucking flying, and I'm probably going to go on that stage and just level the fucking

because it's, I like the mix of the year. That's your setup, man. I like, Used to mix the fear with the anger. Once I got older and I couldn't be angry of people no more because it's not cool, Joey. Then I had to deal with my own fear.

So when I go to the comedy store now, I sit in the back and as they're talking shit about me. Next guy, who's coming up next, Joey? I mean, I pop up. You've never seen 300 pounds do a burpee that. I go up in the air. I pull my pants up. And as they're bringing me up, I walk down.

and on that I've asked fighters when I've had them on here before because I only have a 20 foot walk and I feel like I'm gonna die yep like it's like I just ran 26 miles and this is the last adrenaline man

what a drug what a drug oh yeah and I asked a lot of fighters what is that walk in the tunnel like because I swear to God I would walk up with you you're like ready and once I saw that camera

I would look at you and go I forgot something in the dresser. I'm out. Dog, you would see me driving on the five with my full gear and hand wraps on. Hand wraps on. I don't know how they do it. When I see a fire to do, walk down that tunnel, I go, ooh, I'm getting anxiety just for him because he's fucking, I would run out.

I'd just tell you, John, I left something. I left my, you got my cup. No, it's not. No, it's not. Let me go get it. You wouldn't see Joey D. is again. We don't know what happened to Joey. The whole part of all that, I don't care if it's in the comedy or in the fighting realm,

fear is a good thing. God puts it in you for reasons. It's to let you know, hey, we have a problem or this is important and I can't screw this up. But it's how you handle the fear that determines what you are. If you allow fear to stop you from doing the things that you need to do. need to do to take that next step to better yourself to better your family then you're allowing something to occur that should never happen courage is the person that when filled with fear makes that 20 foot walk to the stage gets on that mic and says what's up motherfuckers oh no i'm

petrified oh yeah exactly but it's courage that gets you to that point where now you start And as soon as you start, all the fear starts to go away. Like it's so funny when I watch a fight. I'll watch a fight completely different than how people watch a fight. Yeah. I'll watch a fight. Unfortunately, that's my life.

I pick a guy and I make believe I'm that guy. And I know for me to get started, I'm not to get punched in the face four times. I can't just start swinging. I have to get aggravated. I got to see a little blood. I got to go, all right, motherfucker. You know, remember when she shot him in the pinky toe?

in Harlem Night, Eddie Murphy, shot her in the picket toe, and then she came back with a switchblazer. That's me. You got to get me warmed up, but how many punches can you take? You know, what if you take four and you get knocked the fuck out?

Can't. Like, I couldn't come out just throwing heat like that. But because of fear, I think I would just jump on the motherfucker. I would pull a Georgia Mald deval on that reflex. Just run at the motherfucker. Had to pick the Cuban. What's up with that? No, I'm just saying because that's the way I would have to do it.

My fear. Just like he did against Ben. Yeah. Just run out there. That was a great thing. Yeah, you'd see it. A lot of people look at that and they think, oh, man, he just did that. And it's like, yeah, he just did that.

But he didn't just do that. He planned that. He worked at that. He practiced that. He went and he watched what Ben does. He watched how, you know, he dips his head when all of a sudden something's coming. You see, he'll start to dip his head like a lot of wrestlers do if they're in a shot. And he planned it.

And it's the fact that he did. all of those things and then made it work. Man, that's what you're looking and go, dude. My hat is off to you. That was stupendous. In fact, like I said,

I have a podcast with Josh Thompson we're doing top five knockouts, top 10 knockouts, top 10 fights of the year. And my number one knockout is George Mazvedol against Ben Asker. Because, man, look at he.

That was against a guy, and I'm not telling you that Ben was not a lesser fighter comparatively to younger in his career. You know, he had hip problems. He was getting older. Still undefeated at that time. And Mazvedal just starched him in, it's less than five seconds.

I don't care, you know, what the time says. That was enough time for Jason Herzard to go fight, and Mazel kind of gets, and comes running, boom, and as soon as that knee touched, that fight was over. You know, there was nothing more. I don't care when the timer stopped. I don't care when Jason, you know, waved his hands. off. As soon as that knee touched and you saw Ben going

over, he was stiff, that fight was over and it was really like three, four seconds. It's just incredible. Are you wrapping at all anymore? No. Zero. I have not the last MMA fight. You ain't hoeing no more on the side? I'm not hoeing on the side or anything.

You know, I stopped for a reason. And it was, you know, a lot of people asking, why, you know, why don't you still do it? It's like there's reasons why I stopped. And you've got to, you've got to be honest. with yourself about everything. And if people ask me, do you miss it? Of course I do.

I loved it. I loved being the guy that, you know, sometimes fights you'd go in there and you're lucky just to be in that fight, but you don't do anything and it's all easy and all good. And then you'll have the fights like the, you know, the McDonald-Loller fight or a fight like that where you have all these problems that the fans don't even see. But it's your ability to make it work. It's the fights where you talk that ringside physician. out of stopping the fight

and allowing that fight to go on and it's a classic or, you know, just all those things, I will never, ever not want to be that guy in the cage. But there came a point, you know, I had three neck surgeries. And, you know, from Jiu-Jitsu, I let people do things to me.

And it was always the stupid thing, and this is where, you know, we talk about being stupid. It was the guy that said, oh, I've got this hold. You know, no one could get out of this, you know, or I do it like this. you got to say, all right, come on, show me. And you can't tap because it hurts. You know, you've got to sit there and you've got to take it and say, yep, no, it doesn't work.

Sorry. And so over time, I got injured. I ended up having a couple of discs replaced in my neck and they put a cage around that. And then I had a real problem. And I went paralyzed on one side. I couldn't lift a fighter's hand with my left hand. It got that bad. And then it switched over to the right and I was just deteriorating.

and I had two surgeries within two weeks and I took some time off and I came back and I came back it was November 4th I won't forget it November 4th of 2017 it was the George St. Pierre versus Michael Bisping fight in New York City and I did the first championship fight that was on the card was

Yohanna Janjicch against Rosnam and Eunice and you watch that fight and it gets to a point And I was healing, but I mean, I wasn't. I didn't have any strength or anything. And I used to, like, you know, if a fighter was doing something and ending the fight and I was going to stop, you see me pick them up with one arm and I'd just pick them up and pull them off to the side. There was nothing they could do to stop it. And it made it very clean and very easy for me to do.

And I realized as all of a sudden, Joanna's down on the ground and Rose is going after her, and I'm thinking, I don't know if I can pick her up. and she was a small female fighter and I thought to myself I don't want to run into her because I don't want to hurt her by putting my body weight into her and hurt so I just touched her and I went

stop and I smacked her and she stopped and it looks really clean but in my head I said I'm done I can't do that that's not going to work all the time that's I'm putting the fighter in danger if now that fighter doesn't

stop. Now I'm doing something and I've taken extra time. It's not good. And I came home and I talked to my wife and I said, man, I got to figure something out. And just, you know, how fate is, I got a call from Scott Coker like two weeks later, you know, well, no, probably, sorry, a month and a half later, saying, hey, I want to know, do you want to

audition for a commentator with Bellator? And I was like, I hadn't asked for that. I hadn't thought about that. And I was like, are you kidding? I said, you have, you know, Jimmy Smith was the guy at the time. And he goes, No, Jimmy's going to be moving on. We have a spot, and we're going to be auditioning some guys. I want to know if you want to do it. Jimmy is working on serious radio.

You know, he went to the UFC, was working with Fox, but that year that he was there, he only had a one-year contract, and they switched over to ESPN, and they decided they wanted all fighters that were known to fight in the UFC. And so Jimmy was, you know, not picked back up. And so he had some opportunities, but he's been doing, Serious radio. He's got a show and it does like Invicta and stuff now, but he's doing okay. One question for you.

Because it happens to fight as it happens to all of us. Do you feel, I mean, you look great. You look better than you've ever looked. Well, thank you, sir. Do you think at some point age, your eyesight, movement affect you from being a good referee? Absolutely. Okay. Yeah.

And that's part of. I don't want the guy to come in here and go, I go referee and 90. Oh, man. You fucking can. Yeah. And I tell guys all the time, you can see it. And part of when I went home, I said, I didn't want to be the person. I'd been doing it now for 25 years, okay, longer than just about anybody.

And I said, I don't want to be the person where someone's saying, you need to retire. Did you start with boxing or MMA? No, I started with MMA. You know, I started day one. I was not a referee. I had no idea how to referee. And it was, you know, my entire progression through. refereeing was I was the bad guy, Joey.

You know, no boxing official wanted to talk to me. If I went to one and said, can I talk to you about, hey, how you do this? Why do you do that? I was persona non grata, you know. I was the guy that did that crazy fighting that, you know, we let people die. That's the way they looked at it. And so I had to learn on my own and I learned by always going back and watching and say, okay, how can I do that better?

What's going to work in this situation? And there's so many things that you're seeing guys do now that I came up with as something would happen in the fight. It wasn't good. You know, Tito Ortiz was fighting Chuck Liddell the first time. It was at UFC 47. And first round is going. It's kind of close. But right near the end of the first round, Chuck throws a high kick and he goes after Tito.

And he's starting to, you know, land some shots. And Tito's kind of covering up. And just before it happened, I had heard we have the 10. second clacker just like in boxing you know and so I heard it at the time I never did anything with it you know I just but I would count back in my head 10 nine eight so I knew when to get close to get in between the fighter so there wasn't something thrown after the sound of the horn and chuck goes after him and all of a sudden the crowd just and it's just it's building and the decibel levels just blowing through the roof on it

And I get to 1, 0, and I don't hear anything but the roar. There's no horn. Well, the horn was being hit, but no one could hear it. And I go, 1, 0, 1, and I, stop. And I came in between him, and because Tito didn't hear the horn, and Chuck didn't hear the horn. And I'm saying, stop. Tito thought I actually stopped the fight on him, you know, saying the fight's over,

which wasn't, it was just the end of the round. And Tito, you'll see he kind of, you know, I didn't even know it at the time. He kind of shoves my, sheds me in the back a little bit. My wife said, why did he shove you? And I go, what do mean he shoved me? I didn't even know. But, you know, I lead him off to the stool. And I realized, hey, there has to be something done.

In that 10 seconds, I'm going to tell the timekeeper from now on, every time that, you know, you do that clap. You're going to see me point in your direction. And so I just do a little point. and that's telling that timekeeper through sign language basically hey I heard it I know that there's 10 seconds left now I don't say it to the fighters anything and some referees will tell the fighters you know 10 seconds you know stop at the bell or whatever they're going to say I never did that because it was like I'm not here to tell the fighters go after it in the 10 seconds

but that little point then I would tell them if I don't point I want you to hit that clacker again and hit it until I do point because that would tell them, okay, now he knows that this is coming to an end, because I want to be in position to end the round. So those are just what we call mechanics of refereeing. And I came up with so many little things on how to do something, how to stop something, how to break a hold, all the little things. You know, Tito, again, you look and you go to Tito Ortiz when he fought Chale Suna.

And he fights him here in L.A. It was I think Bellator 170 or something like that. And, you know, Chale makes a mistake. It's caught in a choke, and he taps. And I go to break the hold, and, you know, Tito's strong. And he is not wanting to let go. He wants to put him unconscious. And I had, you know, worked and thought about, hey, if someone's not going to let go, what am I going to do?

And if you go back and you watch, you can pull it up, you'll see me taking that thumb and stuffing it into his freaking trachea with 280 pounds behind it. And he all of a sudden, you know, and he lets go. It's like, damn, John, right? It's like, I told you to stop. You don't want to stop. I'll make you stop. And these are the things you have to have in place before it ever happens. So when it happens, you're not trying to think of something.

You know exactly where you're going to go and what you're going to do. And that's part of refereeing. And that's 25 years of doing it. But there comes to a point where just like you said, you do slow down. You don't move as much. You're not as quick with your decision making. And when those things start to happen, it's time to say goodbye. You're going to fuck up a fight.

Yeah. Is your ego so big that you're willing to put a fighter's safety behind it? It's crazy. I'm happy you're a fucking animal. I'm happy you're a natural. What's the name of the podcast? Name of the podcast with Josh is weighing in. It's on Spotify.

It's on YouTube, all those things and stuff. But we go and normally it's more than an hour, hopefully, but we talk about relevant fights, be it at UFC, Bellator, people were honest about stuff. Sometimes people get pissed off at what I say, and I kind of love that. I'm kind of feeling like you now.

I don't give a fuck. No matter what you're going to say. Oh, there's someone that's going to hate it. Online. We have a thing called the internet where everybody has an opinion today. Yep. And I had the weirdest one last night.

A guy said to me, I went to New Orleans. and then I had to go to Atlanta. And we get to the airport on time. No problem. Atlanta is cloud. So they shut the fucking airport down. So finally at 6.20, they said we can leave.

We would make it to Atlanta at 9. And the show was supposed to start at 7.30. Oh. So I made an executive decision. I go, listen, I know I've been doing this for 20 fucking years. And I know that you just don't get. get off a plane at 920. They're still walking.

There's still luggage. There's still a bunch of stuff. I go, and I mean, everybody was like, let them wait, you know, and I'm like, no, cancel the show. We'll come back. I don't want them. Plus, it was raining. That's why the clouds were low.

I canceled the show. Some people get their refunds back. I redo the date. Some people say, fuck it. Just wait for the reschedule. And it got so popular. a second show. Cool. So I had a second show. Last time I go on my thing and the guy goes, hey man, I just want to let you know. I waited out there on the rain that day and you left us

flat. And I got the refund. And now I come to find out you had a second show. Shouldn't you just hook up the fans for free? And I said, number one, how did you find out about me? I give you two podcasts a week every week for free. Number two, the promoter. whatever the fuck it was I can't blame the promoter the club the theater they were like fuck them let them wait out there

you show up when you show up that I can never do you know and I keep my tickets the cheapest out of all the comics working I keep them at like 35 bucks so I'm for the fan yeah and then he wrote back whatever he felt

but people are never going to be happy no matter what you're going to do so you have to get used to it I had one, I wrote, you know, I wrote a book, and the book went out there, and I had to do, you know, book tour stuff. Right. And so I did a book tour actually here in L.A., and I was living in L.A., so it was an easy one. But, you know, I'm there, and, you know, I don't know, 50 people are there, and you're signing books, and I, you know, answered all the questions. And, you know, eventually, you know, it's all done.

Okay, and I leave. And it was like 15 minutes before the written time to leave of 9 p.m., I took off at like 8.45. and some guy, I guess, came there at 9 o'clock or right before 9 o'clock and said, you know, he wrote out this thing saying, you know, I can't believe I came and, you know, he wasn't there. It's unprofessional and stuff like that. And so, you know, I actually wrote it back and said, hey, you know, I apologize that, you know, if I wasn't, but we were done, you know, and I actually drove to his apartment to give him a signed book, you know, and say, hey, you know, I want you know, I do listen. And I understand why you're upset so here you go right he's he's standing there at the door like i can't

believe you know you're here at my apartment's like you know i'm just a person and you can only do what you think is right and you try to do your best and if you if you don't understand it then you don't understand it but yeah it's so funny people now with the internet everyone's they're all tough guys that's the best part you know and the ones that cracks you know my wife is she's the funniest one because I'll get all kinds of people all the time. You know, they don't know what I've done. They have no idea who I am. You know, and they've seen me referee, we'll say in the UFC or in Bellatoran.

And so, you know, something will come up and I'll say something and it'll be about, we'll say the rules or something. And they'll say, you're just a referee. Stay in your lane. And my wife, she gets like, she wants her, I just let it go. Who cares? You know, it doesn't matter. But people have, you know, their thing. And that's their chance to say something to.

you and it cracks me up. Most of the time, I tell fighters a time, let it go. Don't worry about those people. Does that person matter in your life? You know, is that the person that you really care about? Care about the people that, you know what? I listen to Joey Diaz, you know, because, you know, he's a guy that he's walked that walk. He knows, and I'll listen to his opinion because there's value to me.

Does the guy on Twitter have value and you're going to listen to that crowd? Then you go on and he's got 133 friends. Not even that, 12. 12 and you're like You got some fucking pair of balls Johnny personality How are the boys adjusting to Nashville? You know what?

My kids are all Two of them are still living out here. Okay. So you know, So it's just you a mom. Yeah, I got a dog. That's about it, man. I got Jitsu.

That's my living problem. It's my dog. But the dog is awesome. Take him out in the cold weather, go on walks, just enjoying life. Thank you, man, for taking the time.

Thank you for having me, brother. It's great seeing you. I'm happy you watch the Aaron and Ann this thing, because as soon as I saw that episode, I thought about what you said about OJ and I'm like, impulsiveness to fucking, it was just tremendous having you on. What's the name of a podcast again?

Weighing in. That's it, baby. You got to come on. Once a week? Yeah, at least once a week. Once a week to twice a week. You call me and you know me. I'll do what I mean.

That's what I love about you, brother. Don't forget, you bad motherfuck. was this weekend. I got nothing, but it's Valentine's Day in Tempe. I get that Thursday night the 13th. And the only other day that I got in February is Treasure Island. I think it's February 29th, 28th. Who the fuck knows? Go on Treasure Island.com and see where the fuck I am. The podcast is brought to you by. All right, I want to thank Big John. I want to thank the Christ Killer, but most importantly, I want to thank you guys. Let me read the ads real quick for you. Like I said in the beginning of the fucking show.

When it comes to supplements it's a new year, you're trying to make resolutions, listen. If I was going to start brand new, I'd start with some Shroom Tech sport just to get the body going a little bit, get those mushrooms in there, get your lungs expanded,

a little protein powder that they have the chocolate Mexican, the Mexican chocolate is phenomenal. Alpha brain is sensational. You know me, dog. That shit keeps you fucking on fire. It all starts by going to honor.com right now. Take a look at the great supplements that they have.

And you take it from there. I'm putting up a video today. So go to my Instagram. It's me fucking around if you're over 50. You know, three sets of swings, three sets of fucking squats. And either a French fucking Turkish get up, three of those, or three fucking cleans. And that's all you need. You're over 50, man.

That's all you need. You don't need too much. But it all starts today. Go to honor. com. Unless you're fucking retarded and you're in a fucking coma, you don't know that there's a fucking Super Bowl this week. It's Kansas City against San Francisco.

It's the biggest fucking game of the year. More money is bet on the Super Bowl than any other day of the year. And more women get slapped after the Super Bowl than any other day of the year. But that's a complete different situation. All right, right now we're talking about my motherfucking bookie.com. You know that tingling you've had in your balls all year? This is the time to cash in. whether you're choosing a straight-up winner or you're making a side bed or you're doing a total.

My bookie offers at all with the most up-to-date odds. My book even has the biggest lineup of prop bets of any sportsbook in the business, motherfucking period. Listen, go to my bookie.org.org. And get a printable prop sheet for the big game so you can play along at home. And if you place a wager, a $20 or more on the Super Bowl, you get a free entry into March Mad. in this bracket contest. Plus, if you deposit right now, they'll match your deposit halfway.

That's basically free cash or throw down on your best bet. I've been sitting here on my hands. You've been sitting there sitting all fucking year on your hands. Listen to Uncle Joey. The weight is over. This is the week where it starts. Right now, go on to mybooky.orgie.orgia. I don't care if you starting with a nickel. They'll match it. They'll give you $2.50. You get the fucking party started. You got the Super Bowl and you got everything else that comes. All right. Next week, what do you want to be the hostess with the mostus? Or you want to be a fucking mortadale? You want to be the hostess with the mostis.

You're putting them bets. You invite people. You get some onion dip, no hummus. Or I wish the house collapses on you. Anyway, right now, go to mybooky.org.A.G. Pressing code church, C-H-U-R-C-H. And let's get this motherfucker started. All right, you play, you win, you get paid.

Real quick, I did not want to speak about this on the podcast. Because I didn't want this to be a downer butt. my heart and the church's family's heart go out to Kobe Bryant and this family, but most importantly, the city of Los Angeles, because I've been here for 22 years, and I know what made, he's the fabric of this fucking city. He was the Willie Maze of San Francisco. He was the Tony Soprano in New Jersey.

He was a phenomenal player, and my heart goes out to Kobe Bryant's family, and most importantly, the city of motherfucking Los Angeles. it's going to be a sad week a lot of people are going to be hurting but hey this is a part of growing up you could be 41 and worth half a billion dollars and you still can't cut a deal with God

so what we learn from this is that every time you see your friends on the way out tell them you love them so you have no guilt later on I love you guys thank you for listening on a Monday morning have a great day don't forget get your tickets early for Tempe Valentine's Day laughing and sucking at

the name of the weekend and then in the 29th I'm at Treasure Island all right you bad motherfuckers see you Wednesday morning tip top m'goo ready to go I love you kick this fucking muley