The Joe Rogan Experience - #1008 - Cody Garbrandt & Urijah Faber

Episode Date: September 5, 2017

Cody Garbrandt is a mixed martial artist and UFC Bantamweight World Champion. Urijah Faber is a retired mixed martial artist who fought as a bantamweight and featherweight in the UFC.

All right, gentlemen, we're live with a freshly fed Uriah Faber. No more dieting, no more weight cutting. Is his mic on? Hello? There we go. There it is. Yeah, just pull that sucker up to you. Got it.

And Cody motherfucking Garbrandt. Finally made it. Yeah, here. Gentlemen, what's happening? Just chilling. We had a nice little beach run, and I jumped in the ocean. Cody kept his shoes on and all that good stuff. You still got a mouthful of those green belly bars, don't you? You tuck it in your mouth like a squirrel.

Look at him. These teeth are special, too. They have pockets in here. I need to floss twice a day. This guy was making fun of me. He's like, bro, you've been brushing your teeth for 20 minutes 20 minutes straight brushing his teeth i brushed my teeth came you know walked out and i was like man he's still brushing his teeth made me have the second guess up that i brushed my teeth long enough to have to go in there do it again i got big teeth i never had braces or

anything so i've got like all these natural little gaps it's like i'm like a squirrel my food gets stored up in there i gotta get it out I understand I understand how does it feel to not have to worry about we were talking about this for the podcast not have to worry about weight cutting anymore to be able to eat healthy not not banged up anymore man it's been really really nice you know I was kind of envisioned after even wrestling in college, like having a break and then, you know, went 14 years longer fighting people. But I mean, it is really nice to be able to, I mean, you go train, I train when I want to, but I don't do this stuff. I don't want to, I get into the grappling rounds and whatnot, but I just feel so much better. You do look healthier, but you made out of retirement. Perfect. You know what I mean?

Like you had a long career, but you didn't get too banged up, and you picked the right time. You went out with a win, with a quality opponent, right off into the sunset. I know, man. I don't know. It was a little luck, a little bit of—it just felt right, though. You know what I mean? The last fight, it went out to, what, 5 million people on Big Fox. It was the first fight in my hometown in the new arena that's like the heart

and like revived our town you know we had cody fighting for the belt like coming right up and and uh you know it was just perfect man it was yeah you got you timed it good you timed it good you know it's nice it's nice to see someone do it the right way and i hope other guys coming up can can learn from you in that regard. Well, one of the things I thought about was, first and foremost, I've been rocked more in the last two and a half years of my practice and live fights than I had in my entire career, which is a lot of different factors, probably how many times you're rolling the dice.

You get hit in the head a bunch of different times. Things are loosened up a little bit you're getting a little bit older guys are getting better i got cody garbrandt's in the gym and chad mendez's and and you know lance palmer's these guys that hit heavy so you know i was just like that's one factor then i lost two fights in a row for the first time in my career ever even though it was a decision to dominate and a decision to uh what's his name uh and go riviera jimmy riviera jimmy riviera and it was like kind of lackluster losses but nonetheless it was like yeah just like you know what i'm not going to i'm gonna i'm gonna call this one in a good time smart very smart man and i really do hope more guys learn you know and pay

attention to how you did it and do it the right way. Because how do you guys feel about seeing a lot of these guys are going over to Bellator? And I think Bellator has signed some really good fighters, like Rory McDonald, Lorenz Larkin, Gagard Mousasi. They've got some great talent over there, but they also have guys that are late 40s, 50s, still banging it out. Freak show stuff. Yeah, freak show stuff. For me, we always talk about this.

I told Uriah, I said, if I start getting fucked up and they're knocked out, I'm going to keep fighting. Make sure that you pull me away from it. Be the homie that says, hey, sits me down. Hey, let's do a different career path. I always say that. That's one thing I always say. We're fighters.

We're always going to fight through it and obviously a lot of different reasons you know financially or sometimes it's just hard to walk away what do you do when you know the next chapter of your life people don't set that up you know luckily i'm fortunate i have a lot of you know good people around me so you know i'll have different avenues to go and i always tell them hey if i start getting fucked up in there, stop me. Tell me I'm done. It's also important to understand that the kind of intensity and focus that's required to be a great fighter, you could do anything. I mean, you really can.

Absolutely. Just apply it. Yep, just apply it. Just figure out what that next thing is going to be and go at it the same way you went at your championship career. Yep. I always tell these guys, you know, we do talks before and after practice and it's like a feather in the cap mentality like everything we've

got guys in there that won't see the ufc daylight i mean they'll never see step foot in the octagon but they get a little bit of pride whether it was one day it was 10 years or whatever of being a part of that team and that's something they they add to their life they take on them with the next thing somebody just comes in for a week some guys are are going to be you know make it to the big show some guys are going to be world champions Some guys are going to make it to the big show. Some guys are going to be world champions. Some guys are going to be Hall of Famers. And whatever your journey is, that's a proud thing you can put in the feather in the cap

and move on to whatever you're doing next. But it's a bigger picture, and it's like journey's never over. It's just always changing. What do you do for a guy like Lance Palmer, who's a real world-class guy, but he's fighting in, what do they call it now? It's not World Series of Fighting anymore. They have a new name for it, right?

Did they change the name? Yeah, it's like Real Pro Fighters or something like that. Really? Yeah. But the problem is, nobody's watching. Very few people are watching.

But he's a real world-class professional fighter. Like, you see, when Justin Gaethje came over to the UFC, you realize, like, hey, this fucking kid is world class. Right. And he's been fighting in an organization that no one's watching. Right. Well, I mean, the hard part about that is,

like you said, you got a Gaethje and you got a Lance Palmer. They're still fighting tough ass dudes over there. Yes. Yeah. So it's the same level of competition sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes even worse. You know, when they get all the Russians over in Bellator, like those Russians are tough, dude. Fuck yeah.

So for Lance, we just have to exit him at the right opportunity. He has to get on a little winning streak and be at the right time in his contract and be able to jump out and go to the big show. But it's hard because he's fighting these tough guys. The last guy he lost to, he broke his hand in the first round, and then he's fighting a tough guy, and it's like, oh, he lost in this show. He lost against a world-class dude, and he's a world-class fighter.

So, you know, it's hopefully just something where he can make that transition over. How do you guys feel about win-lose, like, paydays? Like one thing that bothers me about MMA is that MMA, if you win, you get a certain amount, and if you lose, you get less. I feel like contractual, I feel like you should have a contractual amount that you get paid. And I feel like when you're leaving it up to the judges sometimes,

and the judges, I mean, I'm sure both of you guys have been involved in, you know, at least teammates getting terrible calls. That's tall. And you've seen it. And you go, what in the fuck? You know, like, look, even in boxing, the Conor McGregor-Floyd Mayweather fight, two of those judges had Conor only winning one round.

Yeah. They're smoking crack. They're crazy. I was looking around at those judges, too. They were very familiar. Some of them were MMA judges also. Right. There's a lot of them that did that.

They started with boxing and then they learned a little bit about MMA and then they came over and started judging MMA. But there's a lot of them that literally don't know what they're judging or know very little about it. And your career could be, you might have $100,000 swing on someone who doesn't know jack shit. Right? Oh, it's terrible, dude. That's crazy. Yeah oh it's terrible that's crazy yeah yeah that's crazy i guess for me as a fighter i look at it like it's rewarding you know right but then in the opposite scale of it you can be on that losing call and horrible call the ref screw you

but i don't know for me it's mma so pure like it's the most pure thing you can do so you got to go in there and fight for two checks or more. You're training. You come out with two checks. You lose. For me, honestly, and I always remember getting a check afterwards, especially when I first started, I was like, oh, yeah, I got paid for this. Literally, it had nothing to do with the money at all. And then you got that check, and then you're like, oh, man. So if you're doing it for the right reasons, it should be, yeah, just your set amount.

I think that is to warrant against the guys that are doing it for the wrong reasons. I think it was a good motivation at first or a good idea at first. When they're trying to build it. But now it's not. We're not building it anymore. Now it's a world-class professional sport. And, you know, I remember Uriah when you were fighting in king of the cage dude outside yeah i remember yeah that's the first time i saw you fight i think you're fighting 55 too

yeah i well i had to start i mean there was no weight class for me at that time yeah now i remember talking i remember i was all pumped because rogan knew who i was because he followed all the underground shit i was super self-aware of like how how much my notoriety was and like the bigger show because i you know youtube i started looking on there and i'd be like i only have like 1500 people watching my shit i'm here and then kid yamamoto has like 250 000 i'm like fuck yeah you know but yeah well i was fighting i mean i fought tyson my first loss was against Tyson Griffin in Canocti Casino in the parking lot. And I hit him, like kneed him, inside tripped him and did a head dive into the steel pole and just gashed my head open like eight seconds into the fight. And I'm just pouring down blood.

I remember that they didn't even have padding on the pole. Well, they were supposed to do it, but the crew was running out of time, so they didn't even take the time to put the padding on the bottom level. They just put the clear fake leather on the top of it. And I'm just fucking gushing blood, man. I think we talked about this last time I was on your show.

Yeah, I think we did. Paved the way, man. Yeah, for real paved the way. That was a terrible way to pave the way. Fuck that. But, you you know like i said a lot of guys can learn from you and i think it's good man what's it what's it like you know training in his gym and like when did you come here you came there like three years ago three yeah about going on four going on four now it's four years i came out i was off an injury i had um symptom symptom of vertigo from small concussions, and I broke my hand in my pro debut. So I had a whole year layoff.

And I always reached out to Uriah. Lance was out there, so I knew Lance, wrestling him and his brother throughout our wrestling careers. He always came and wanted me to come out there. Finally hit favorite when I was 18, about, hey, I'm going to come out, check the gym out, see if it's a good date. He ended up pitting me back. It wasn't until like four years later

I was able to make the trip out there. I said, I had a year off. I was like, dude, I'm not wasting any more time. I know I'm good. I want to see how good I am with some of the best in the world. I mean, all those killers out there. They had TJ, Chad, Faber, Joe, Danny.

And Chris was on, Holdsworth was on. He just won the Ultimate Fighter. That's a bad dude right there. How's his head doing? Uncrowned champ, bro. I'm telling you. Uncrowned champ. He's doing okay.

I think it made him look at things a lot different. He's like a gem in the gym. He's a coach for us. Everybody just soaks up what he's got. Is he just going to stick with he's got and is he good just gonna stick with coaching now or is he thinking about fighting so man how old is that option how old is chris he's 27 still young very young and he's been off for what two years now almost longer uh was that when tj won the belt was his last fight they fought in the same card so and so he

was dealing with some concussion issues? Yeah. A lot of guys, I mean, remember TJ Grant was going to fight Benson Henderson for the title? Started getting some concussion issues? I mean, Holdsworth would have it where I'd look at him, and one of his eyes would be all black, and one would have like a little skinny dot in the middle. And I'd be like, dude, what's going on?

And he'd be like, but like like holdsworth is like weirdo you know master tong always used to say hey you know tj champion uh you know 80 holdsworth champion 100 he was like he would never come to our our team gatherings he wouldn't go to the river he wouldn't do anything he was like just all about training like almost like a problem you know but that's what happened to bj penn when bj penn won the when the bjj world championship the first american to do it and like you get an obsession and he was just vision vision vision had this obsession to be the best he was knocking guys out on accident and practice high kicks and and, you know, with knee pads on, like, just because he's good all the way around, but his jiu-jitsu is the top.

Yeah, super good, and I remember coming out there with all those guys, you know, like a year layoff, and I was like, man, I'm going to see how good I am, so I went out there and mixed well, good with the guys, and had a fight lined up, like, I have a fight in two weeks, so I literally went out there for a week. Faber came in the last day that I was there and matched me, put me through the gauntlet with all these Team Alpha Male guys. It was wrestling day, so I was going with these guys, and we walked off the mat, and he's staring me up and down,

looking at my tattoos. He's like, what do you want to do? I'm like, I want to fight in the UFC and be a world champ. He's like, all right. He's like, when can you come back out? I'm like, I want to fight in the UFC and be a world champ. And he's like, all right. And he's like, when can you come back out? I'm like, I'll be back out next week. And I'm sure hundreds of thousands of guys have been in there and said the same shit to him. So I was like, I'll be back out.

Came out, you know, the week after we shook handshake. He's like, all right, man. He's like, get to 5-0 and we'll get you to the UFC. And just every fight I was saving up, would fight we came out there for a week did a camp knocked him out flew back suitcase was staying at the fighter house it was like 12 people in there from Japan you know Japan Canada all over I mean it was just man you have a weird setup right like do you still have that block in Sacramento block of houses that's that's how our team got built and that was like I bought a house in the time of the market where anybody could buy a house. Like, state of income loan.

And I'm like, I'm going to buy a house. Pre-2008? Yes. Before the crash? Yes, before the crash. It was 2005 or 2004 or 2005. And I had no job, no income, really. I was coaching wrestling camps, and I was getting like $7,000.

But you could do it. My Egyptian buddy was doing loans and he's like, I get you a loan. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah. Save income, do this, do that. Work history because you're coaching now and you went to school as a teacher. It's a two-year, like all these different things. I didn't know that that's the reason our whole economy crashed.

But I was able to get a fucking— But it worked with you. Alone. Yeah, it worked for me. I never defaulted. I just moved all sorts of buddies in there. I started—I mean, on that house, a block, I mean, that block of houses, we had probably 45 people that went through there. Chad lived there.

TJ lived there. Justin Buckles lived there. Master Tong lived there. Fabio Prado, our coach, lived there. Like, we had four or five houses. At this point, we've been selling them off. Hopefully now the sport's at a place where we can be in a nicer neighborhood. So we're all trying to get in the same neighborhood in East Sac, the fabulous 40.

That's the nice neighborhood in Sacramento? That's the new block. Sacramento's an interesting spot because you guys are surrounded by country in a lot of ways. There's the rivers there. It's beautiful. I love Sacramento. A lot of outdoors activities.

Tahoe's closed. San Fran. Our way. It's a good spot. It's a good centrally located spot. That's what I always say. I think Cody, as rough as it's a good spot. It's a good centrally located spot. And I mean, that's what I always say. And I think Cody, like, you know, as rough as Cody's background was, he had a core, like a town that, like, rewarded him for being a champion athlete from football, from wrestling, from boxing, et cetera.

And there's a heart to it. That's why I feel like Cody's such a good person in general. Like when you get Cody, like, you know, dealing with people and individuals walking on the street, he's like a gentleman and like has, has a heart for the kid, you know, his kids that have disabilities, you know, these kinds of things that comes from that small town where there's, there's accountability, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, you're a good part of the community, you know, i mean it's like you know you're a good part of the community you know that's it so i think sacramento has a big city big enough city but a small enough town feel for that which you lose some other places yeah definitely all the like little mom and pop shops we go to

like all big team alpha male fans with a discount it's like almost like a friday night lights football town kind of like oh we're the fighters out of there so we get the hookup we get you know you know it's nice and everyone's super nice with us so i moved the gym the old gym was uh downtown so i moved it to over by this the stadium and i mean state art facility it's great so we got to drive through fab 40s so where i live i drive through the five fab 40s that's who's who make you know the nicest houses so it's always nice to drive through that neighborhood i'm like i'm gonna buy a house here and go to the gym. It's a nice little

change up this year we've had. So right now you're prepping to fight TJ to defend your title for the first time. First of all, what does it feel like to be a UFC motherfucking Bantamweight Champion of the World? It's awesome. I'll have it so fast. It's awesome. Now it's about

what you do with the belt. We were just speaking about this on our run. Yeah, he started taking off when I started talking about this. He got fired up. Yeah, I was getting fired up. I hate to run. They were like, he's like, come on, let's do these runs. He's always, after the practice, to do these shitty-ass sprints on treadmills.

I'm like, dude, this is not fun. Who wants to do this? Ten-minute sprints just on. I'm like, this is shit that people don't want to do. I'm like, dude, this is not fun. Who wants to do this? 10-minute sprints just on. I'm like, this is shit that people don't want to do. I'm like, I don't want to do this. I'd rather spar. I just hate running. He did it with me once, and he was like, all right.

Do you think that running, I've had a conversation with a friend of mine about this with Conor McGregor, because Conor doesn't run. And he was like, I really feel like every athlete that's doing something that requires real endurance, like boxing or MMA or something something like that should run that like the the act of moving your body like forcing your body like your legs propelling your body and constantly working your lungs builds you like the kind of lung stamina and strength that you can't get from anything else um so this that's a good question and it's all different because I mean

me and Cody had a discussion and I'm like Cody look dude I know you don't like to do them I want you to do these fucking runs I'll get on a treadmill and do like a 10 minute or put it on 10 and run for 5 minute straights and then I'll put it on 12 with a little incline

and do like 40 seconds on, 20 seconds off. And I had him do it with me once. He's like, bro. He goes, look, I've always – I've done this kind of thing. I don't really like to run. It's not part of my regimen. I guarantee I'm going to be in great shape. And he went in there and he fought Dominic Cruz.

And, I mean, so you can't really argue with that. But in my opinion, I think it's a great way to get yourself uncomfortable. I think it's a great way to get yourself uncomfortable you can run easier you can run hard to simulate like the feeling where your lungs are gonna blow up and your head's gonna pop and your fucking teeth hurt like I like to be able to do that with running

but you can get the same thing in a hard going wrestling or a jujitsu go if you're pushing the pace or a boxing go if you can simulate like that type of like energy and expenditure but you're forced to do it when you're pushing the pace or a boxing go if you can simulate like that type of like energy and expenditure but you're forced to do it when you're running really really fast until you until you stop yeah there's no coasting right yeah but it's funny i asked dan henderson or i asked dan

henderson's good buddy i'm like when i first started fighting you know i was training with randy couture and dan henderson they They would come out to Sacramento and do little camps and stuff. And I asked Dan Henderson's buddy, I'm like, bro, how many days a week does Dan run? And this is 2006. And he's like, Dan hasn't ran in 12 years. And that motherfucker's a savage, dude. He's a savage. He is a savage.

Yeah. I think he's the savage, dude. Yeah. He's a savage. He is a savage. Yeah. I think he's the toughest dude ever. My uncle was all old school trainer, so we'd pad work, bag work, run, shadow box, and spar. When I was younger, he would get us 50 rounds of work. He's like, you get 50 rounds, you're ready for your fight. We'd always spar 50 rounds of boxing rounds when we were younger. 50 rounds? 50 rounds of sparring. Before a fight? Before a be okay like five rounds 10 times is that what you mean yeah throughout the four or five week camps to your fight you know we'd fight every sometimes

we live in that tri-state area so i would fight and i had a bunch of books i'd fight in ohio on friday saturday in pittslevania west virginia on sunday so i had three fights you can't do that anymore but we lived in the tri-state, so we always had these regional books. You fight, I got this book, you only have five fights. This guy has 100. So amateur boxing was almost like amateur wrestling. They were always competing like that.

But he never really forced us to run. We always sparred. That's when the really fight would happen. So I'm just composed in that. He always told me growing up, he's like like fighting doesn't make you a better runner or running doesn't make you a better fighter so i just always tell it to favor every time he wants to do those damn runs he's like running doesn't make you a better fighter yeah there's a bunch of different schools of thought on it you know some people think that you have to run like long

distance to just enable your body to dig deep in those late rounds when you're you're getting tired that you'll have more endurance that way it doesn't hurt that's true but the whole thought process behind one person's theory this is why i can't stand coaches that like think it's the only way you know always learn of course you always want input from other people and you have things at work but like even my, my manager back in the day, he always used to worry about Chad Mendez, his training because like Chad Mendez, Lance Palmer, those are two guys that have been training since they were five years old on a

regimen, like their dad's pushing them, making them go to this and making them do that. And so they're, they're like little vacations they got were like the most – they needed that. They needed to go hunting or go fishing and get the break. For me, I was always – my dad, he'd drop the trailer off. We'd have a motorhome. He'd drop it off at a pond. He'd go to work and we'd fish all day.

No one was having me wrestle or do anything. I didn't start until I was in the eighth grade. So I've always been on like like trying to catch up kind of deal and like a chad and lance are like get your homework done you train your butt off you do a regimen and then you take your little break and you take your breaks you know and it doesn't matter it's just about what you what you're processing as your method that you believe in as long as you really believe in it that's the most important thing the belief system is bigger than anything else it's got to be there's got to be different methods for different fighting styles too.

I mean, some people move around more like Dominic and some people are more stationary and, you know, rely more on power. I mean, there's got to be different routines that would be more effective. And it's kind of about finding whatever works best for you, right? Right. Exactly. For me, I like sprints. I'm like a very explosive fighter,

but also I have endurance, too. It's like I did the VO2 testing, and it's actually I tested as a cross-country runner. I hate running. I mean, I'm on the results, you know? Right. But I feel like I do better at sprinting than long distance. But it's crazy what you have to be in shape for

going to fight for the cage. You have to be great wrestling conditioning, boxing know to fight for the cage like you have to be great wrestling conditioning boxing conditioning those are all different conditionings like yeah a boxer comes in and wrestles he's toast in a minute if that yeah sometimes wrestlers they same thing they go in there they're boxing they're just a composure you know that's what mayweather i'm sorry what connor said right after mayweather he's like shots were nothing he didn't you know it was just the composure. It was the bounds logged in.

He's just so efficient, too, and he knew that Conor was going to fade because Conor was relying so much on explosiveness and tense. And he didn't have enough time to prepare. Yeah, not only that, I thought Conor did a good job of staying nice and flowy and everything, but here's the truth. It's like if I were to take a pretty good high school wrestler or even like a really good high school wrestler and put him against an Olympic gold medalist, like a high, high level high school wrestler versus an Olympic gold medalist. I mean there's going to be a difference. difference but when when the fatigue cracks a little bit it starts happening a little bit one guy's gonna keep composure completely and the other guy's gonna have a little bit of a of an opening and the other guy will be able to to to isolate that and i think that's what happened

with with the fight and i figured that would happen i just didn't think that connor would do that well the whole fight until it happened you know he was awesome. It makes me wonder, how would he have done if he had six months to prepare? How good would he have done if he got in really good shape? He might have been able to make it to the 12th round. I think either way, the more loose Floyd got, the more he was going to

start landing shots. He's just a far better boxer. He's a specialist. I don't think it would be, it's about getting in shape necessarily because connor had to be an amazing shape he's already a world champion then he's got this big opportunity that's what i always tell the guys also it doesn't matter what kind of shape you're in being in shape only means you can do more until you get tired i think the better shape you're in he would have kept kept doing more, doing more, doing more.

And if he wasn't able to finish him, you know what I mean? Because Floyd was letting him do more. He wasn't letting him necessarily. He was taking rounds off for sure. He was letting Conor blow out some energy. So it's like the better shape you're in, the more you're going to output until you get tired. But if you're trying to fucking win, you're going to be putting it out, putting it out, putting it out. I think he would have been able to do more until he got tired, but the fatigue would have set in.

Either way. We had this in our wrestling room. The board was saying, fatigue makes cowards of us all. I read that, and I was like, I was in the same wrestling room since I was five years old all the way up until sophomore year, junior year, I was done wrestling. But I always read that. I was like, same wrestling room since I was five years old all the way up until, you know, sophomore year. I was junior year. I was done wrestling. But I always read that. I was like, man, fatigue. You know, I was like, I didn't even know what fatigue was, but I knew what a coward was. So I was like, I knew they didn't go right.

So I would literally go so hard. I didn't know how to wrestle really. I would just go, go, go, go and just keep scrambling out of things. And that's how I always wrestled. And my brother was like the same exact way. He was just a grinder, old school wrestler. And, you know, I had him pushing me. So it was just a grinder, old-school wrestler. I had him pushing me, so it was always that fatigue.

Fatigue makes cowards of us all. So when you get tired, you're always going to get tired in a fight. I didn't know. I've never been to the fourth round, been in the third once. With Cruz, I had all these questions like, how is he going to be? Is his composure? Can he go keep that power and speed up for the fifth round?

Shit, I didn't know. I prepared for that and believed. That's the thing. It's just believing. I was tired but I was having so much fun in there. You just kind of push through that when you're tired. And that's the thing. When fatigue sets in, some people can either wilt from it or propel them to. When I get tired, I feel like I bite down more and more

eyes in there because I'm tired. I know that mistakes happen when you're tired. So that's when you stay on it more. Right. more on keeping your technique clean and making sure that you Well, it's like an interesting thing when you're fighting a guy like Dominic crew too because he's so awkward Like you you're you're preparing for someone who moves in such a way. I mean you're right. You know better than anybody Yeah, you fought him several times. He's so weird. You know, he does move weird. Like, the second time I fought him, I feel like I did a good job of, like, letting him move. And then when he'd land, I'd hit him.

And so the one thing I went back and I watched that fight, and I'm like, you know, you're always looking at excuses of why, you know, why did I lose this fight or not. And I think little things count. I talked to Cody about this in his fight with Dom was, make sure the eyes are on you when there's no action happening. Because Dominic is always doing this weird, it's like peacocking. He's moving and doing these little movements and weird shit. And so when nothing's happening, who are you looking at? You're looking at the weirdo.

You know what I mean? You're staying busy. You're staying busy. Yeah. So then it's like he is weird, but it's not like, I don't know. It's a different kind of weird. What was it like doing the ultimate fighter opposite TJ? Like knowing that you guys were eventually going to fight

and knowing that you guys were eventually gonna fight and knowing that you guys used to be teammates honestly it wasn't bad like for the first what two three weeks it was fine we were cordial like you know it was what it was and uh until he started going to like the media and like would say that I'm different on and off camera so I was like that's the thing I was a dude like TJ we were just like Being cordial and cool like getting through the way into doing that whole process. Honestly, it's it's a lot, you know, right? I'm still trying to train and fight but it was opportunity. I love to do it. I love the guys a team Had my coaches out there my uncle out in Vegas was a good time

We had a good time with the team and we were fine until like I said He would go to the media and like talk shit say I was different I'm like about choking one when he was talking shit and he stepped towards me so I was like so you're saying that so we cornered I cornered him uh and the and the and the and the yeah and that with no cameras like TJ's like man what's what's going on why are you talking shit in the media saying that I'm different on and off camera like I wouldn't beat your ass here right now because there's no camera TJ's like man what's what's going on why are you talking shit in the media saying that I'm different on and off camera like I wouldn't beat your ass here right now because there's no camera he's like you guys like you think that and he's like no I don't think you would whoop my ass right now I grabbed his ass up again by the throat and slam against then he like

squared up with me and I was like all right we're gonna throw down like cool just me and him we'll throw it down and that's it no cameras around and maybe that was beside some of the the shit because I was getting pissed he was being with me right there. So how many people were there when you guys almost fought? No one. We were in his locker room.

I was there in his towel. Just got out of the shower. Out of the shower. I have a picture of it. It's so funny. He was sitting there in his towel. But I was just confused on it.

I was like, dude, we're cool, cordial with each other and then you go on in the media. That's when I started. I was like, man, I was just kind of

fed up with the whole thing. But now it's like so long drawn out for the fight i'm just like if you take all that away him leaving team alpha male um all the variables and you break it down against fighter versus fighter this is a fucking fight that i like thankful for you know what i mean i'm finally getting to fight these opponents that are they're worthy opponents that i can go out there and show showcase my skill against you know so it wasn't horrible being around the guy until he would go and talk shit on the media and i was just like appalled by i was like man what is going on so how did you guys resolve it when you were alone in the locker room dude well everybody came well literally broke it up did that well that happened and then he like put his fist up and i was like all right here we go i was like i was just gonna throw like some some fire at him like we're gonna

fight like i saw i was like all right cool he's gonna fight me and then uh he put his hands down he's like look how you're acting bro and i was like oh like he went from straight to ready to fight and then to that so i was like whatever it is what it is i just was like dude quit talking shit on the media like we're right here you can say it to me like i don't know why we don't have a conversation you know we can talk about it and a couple times we've had off-camera talks like with me and him about the whole joe daddy stevenson fight i was like look bro i understand you're trying to get your guy back on but joe should not fight he took so much damage in that fight and he's fighting in six days i'm 25 years old

and i would not fight in five or six days after i just fought like that right he was concussed he was hurt and tj's like hey man like i can't tell him not to fight i'm like you have to tell him like you're his coach you can't call his wife or his coach or of course you have to set the dude we can have i don't want my teammates fighting each other but dude that's going to be bad i said he's going to get knocked out and be hurt yeah and tj's like don't don't get that in his head cody i'm like joe and we're doing it in front of joe i'm like joe look i love you you're a pioneer like you're a legend of sport you don't need to go out here and get ten thousand dollars and for whatever it was they were getting getting for that fight to go in there and have serious brain

damage he's fighting hyder who hyder has good like i think eight knockouts vicious knockouts he throws his hands i knew it was a bad matchup. That was an ego thing. TJ wanted his whole team because he kicked your ass on the team. We didn't silently pick the best matchups. We was in there trying to do what we could with those guys. It was tough. It's like teaching an old dog new tricks. It was hard.

It was honestly hard. It was honestly hard. It's got to be weird coaching people in a short period of time like that too. These are all crafty veterans though. Right. So it was hard to correct their problems. Guys that have been kicked out of the UFC. Right. I didn't do any of my research on them, like how they did outside of the UFC career.

I remember them in the UFC. I'm like, okay, this guy, he can fight Eddie Gordon. So he's massive. Let's go with him. You know, we just didn't know like how they did outside of it. But I would just assume that like as a coach, if you get anybody and you're working with them for six weeks, you would start thinking, if I had six months, I could get rid of this. When I coached against Dom uh we had three months oh

that's right because you guys did there was a crazy live the only live season what was that like that was a giant chunk of your life that was vegas man all these guys they i was i was staying under wraps but uh you know we had the whole crew out there it was all my coaches were just the the young guys coming up just trying to get them exposure and everything so i had tj and lance and you know all the all the guys that were my coaches they were running amok in vegas it was hilarious for the connor season that was when i came out that was i was ready to leave vegas like didn't couldn't wait to leave vegas after that it was just yeah same thing i had cody is one of my coaches. Remember for the, yeah.

Yeah. It seems to me that like Vegas to live in Vegas is kind of like living near a nuclear reactor. Like you may be able to do it for a couple of days, but after a while the radiation is going to get you. Yeah. One wrong decision from like a whole change of life. Yeah.

Too much. Like you need it. Yeah. All of a sudden you won't have seen daytime for a couple days also my my feelings on it is that you're around like maybe just me being sensitive but i think you're around people that make shitty decisions you're around a lot of that in vegas because you're around a lot of compulsive gamblers just the vibe of the city like there's great shit in the city there's a lot of successful people you know dana and the fratitas and there's a lot of people that are making great money and

doing well in business but then there's a whole like underbelly to the city that's compulsive gamblers there's a shitload of a bunch of other stuff compulsive all sorts of stuff yeah yeah city of sin yeah sin city but uh i think the it's funny like you go to la this is mostly talking about like you know people have they're trying to get in the entertainment industry or whatever it's like la is like a social climate if you take the the crappy part of the the social scene it's people trying to socially climb oh what do you do for work oh what a car you oh what do you oh how can i what can I get out of this person? Like, try to play the game and have success.

And Vegas has just sold out. Like, all right, I'm going to go make a bunch of fucking money. Right. Stripping this cocktail, whatever it is. Right. So it's like. Yeah, whatever the deal is. Yeah, whatever it is.

So it's like LA social climb, Vegas sold out. So it's like LA social climb, Vegas sold out. Well, it just doesn't seem like Vegas has a like, there's a lot of transient people and there's a lot of people that are there just for the casinos. Whereas like any other city, you know, like if you live in Chicago, for instance, it's a town, you know, it's a real city. People have been there for generation after generation. There's a lot of different businesses, a lot of variety to it. In Vegas, you got the hub

which is all the casinos and then you got the surrounding areas that are just sort of feeding off of the casinos it's weird it's a weird gig weird great great for short short times yeah the one thing i would say it was cool while you're there is i mean sacramento is not necessarily a destination spot so while I was living there, people knew that we were living there. I would get hit up like every couple of days with somebody that was coming to Vegas. So there's always like, you get to rehash, like see all sorts of people that you, uh, you know, would like to see that are, that are popping into Vegas all of a sudden. It's like, damn, everybody's hitting you up. Like, it's like, you know, it's kind of like a

little reunion place, you know? Right, right. People go there all the time. Now as far as your new place, like what did you do differently when you guys moved to your new spot? Like how did you set it up? Oh, bro. Because like you had the old spot for a long time, right? Dude, you got to check out the place.

You'll love it. I saw it online. It looks amazing. So basically we just made it bigger and better and tried to cover all the things that we do as mixed martial artists within one roof. So we have CrossFit. We have yoga. We have TRX. We have conditioning classes that are MMA-based.

We have introduction to stuff. And then we have the MMA side, which is traditional Muay Thai. Our pros work out of there. We have our own little locker room for the pros. And we have like nice finishes. There's a cafe there. There's an outdoor area. There's like bathrooms and showers.

That's amazing. The other place was just – it was 8,500 square feet, which is still pretty big. At the time, it was cutting edge. And it was like one shower, one toilet. And it was 13 years of building the team. I mean, the place stunk. That's a good recipe for staff. One shower.

First time I ever got staff was when I went out to Team Alpha, man. It was right before my UFC debut. Literally, like, do you remember that? Two or three weeks before I had staff. I got the call, like, you're going to fight in, man. It was right before my UFC debut. Literally, like, do you remember that? Two or three weeks before I had staff. I got the call, like, you're going to fight in three weeks.

I'm like... Did you get on antibiotics immediately? Antibiotics, yeah. I remember, he was like, why are you taking it off? I'm like, dude,

I got staff in my leg. I couldn't walk. It was horrible. First time I had it. Was it from not showering right after you trained? I don't know what it was. You don't have staff all over your body

You have it in your nose and everything else. I think immune system down and then yeah Cut You know do you guys fuck with defense soap? Yep? That's that stuff is this shit guys take away? Yeah, he's awesome this boy. Yeah, great guy. Yeah, great guy. So and that that product is fucking amazing He has a bunch of different things like salve for scratches, this ointment, this tea tree oil and eucalyptus and stuff like that. That's good stuff. All natural stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. But if you could stay on that stuff on a regular, you'll avoid 99% of that shit. Getting sleep and eating right and, you know, showering after your workout. Carbonation, yeah. Now, what kind of diet do you want cody like how do you uh how do you organize your nutrition actually i spoke with aubrey a couple weeks ago we did like obviously on supplement standpoint from on it he gave me a whole protocol pre-weight you know for this camp daytime nighttime um stuff really man i can eat really

whatever i want i have a super high it's's hard for me, honestly, to gain weight. I'm hovering around 147. Because your workout put so high? Yeah, it was so high. I've never been a big eater. I never like to be full. I don't like that because I don't know. I usually do some meal preps.

I've messed with some meal prep companies. My wife's a great cook. I eat a lot of salmon. I love salmon, bison. i keep it out of the you know and george locker i work with him so he he writes me up a whole diet of george is great here's my carbs here's the proteins and then we get to the fight week i'm literally 12 pounds over and i start doing his diet and water loading and i don't run i don't have to i just do my workouts regularly like i would for uh you know just to keep sharp for the week lose the weight i mean it's it's the

best i feel the greatest you know i used to always cut weight and then like cut a lot of weight and then get ivied up and feel sluggish like with with george and the diet that he's giving me on also with the on it products um i've for two, I've been on the Onnit products, and I feel so much, like, just better, better with them. Like, joint-wise, I had such stiffness. I got, like I said,

Aubrey gave me a whole thing that those creole oil pills, all that stuff. Yeah, fish oil's giant, man. Fish oil is so important for people, and so many people don't take it, but it's just for joint mobility and joint health

and just reduction of inflammation. Also, it's fuel for your brain and joint health and just reduction of inflammation. Also, it's fuel for your brain. It's great for building your muscles. Fish oil is just one of the primary supplements that I think people should take. My mom used to have us take spoons of that, not the pills. She would actually have fish oil in a jar. Yeah, I have that stuff.

I get it at Carlson's. I get it in a jar. I take tablespoons of it. But they have it. They put lemon flavor in it and different things, get it at Carlson's. I get it in a jar. I take tablespoons of it. But they have it. They put like lemon flavor in it and different things. But you know what? It always tastes like shit. Oh, yeah. Like shit with lemon.

It's good for you to taste like shit. Not true. No, I mean meat. Meat tastes good. Yeah, meat's good. So you're just essentially just eating healthy. You don't have like any specific diet you follow. No, I mean I stick to the lean stuff.

Sushi, salmon salmon i always do that um we have a bunch of good little healthy spots around around town too we got uh actually i'll send you out some juice a liquidology juice it's fresh juice we have two spots that are like right by the gym that have like super healthy foods go there that's nice yeah it's like a health bar so you guys have almost like a whole fitness location there. It's not just a gym. How many members do you have now? We're like 1,400 members.

What's the name of the place again? Uriah Faber's Ultimate Fitness. Oh, okay. That's what you're calling it. Because I know you were thinking about doing something with the UFC gym at one point in time, right? We have one. We have one out there about 35 minutes away. Oh, okay. That that does well that's in rockland which is about 35 minutes away and i've got a partner there who is a gym guy he has crunch gyms and he's in tight with mass robin the guys at ufc

gym and so he primarily runs that and there's no contact in that place. You can't do sparring and things like that. Oh, really? No. How weird is that? Any of the UFC gyms. What? So when they have kickboxing classes. Oh, so you can strangle each other.

You can't kick or punch. You have gi jiu jitsu, yeah. So when they have kickboxing classes, do they tap each other at least? No. No? They do bag work. No drills? I mean.

You're not going to learn if you don't do something. They do bag work. No drills? I mean. You're not going to learn if you don't do something. They do some drills, but they don't do any mitts. They don't have one person hold the mitts and one person hold. They don't? You can do privates and stuff like that. Is it just like a liability thing? I would imagine so. Yeah, they're probably worried.

Yeah. Well, at least they can do jiu-jitsu. They do jiu-jitsu, and you're learning great technique. It's a great idea, too, to have a gym that's based around the UFC where people or fans can go and learn that kind of stuff and get a great workout. Did you see what the shit Bob Arum said today? He said we have boxing as an enemy, and it's the UFC.

The UFC is the enemy of boxing. He's just a stupid old dummy. Fuck Bob Arum. He's just such a dummy. That's old dummy. Fuck Bobby. He's just such a dummy. That's a dummy. You just got 6.5 million pay-per-view buys from Mayweather versus McGregor in a boxing match. So you tell me how the UFC is the enemy. They just fucking helped you out, dude.

Yeah. Made boxing cool again. Definitely. I guarantee you it bumped up Canelo Alvarez and Triple G. Oh, absolutely. I can't guarantee. We just watched the 24-7 one. Oh, yeah, me too. I'm so pumped. Who are you taking? Triple G. Oh, absolutely. I can't wait. We just watched the 24-7. I'm pumped for that fight.

I'm so pumped. Who are you taking? Boy, I don't know. I don't know. Look, Gennady Golovkin is a motherfucker, dude. But Canelo Alvarez gets better all the time. He's a younger guy. He looked fucking sensational against Amir Khan.

He's looked sensational against everybody except Floyd. Yeah. You know what I mean? Floyd got him to drain himself. Got him to go all the way down to 150 or 152 or something like that. 152, right? And never cut down that far? Yeah. You know what I mean? Floyd just, Floyd got him to drain himself. Yeah. Got him to go all the way down to 150 or like 152 or something like that. 52, right? Never cut down that far. Yeah.

He cut down way low and he just looks sluggish and Floyd is the best boxer pretty much ever. Yeah. Definitely. He is. Boxed him up. Game plan. Stuck to the game plan. Yeah.

And just looked beautiful. Dude, Triple G's interviews are hilarious. That is great. He's like traditional like Russian. Well, I think, you know, it sounds like exactly how you... Max, Max, I'm here for a big drama show. Yeah, exactly. Max, of course.

I think it will be a good fight. Good fight for the fans. That's what I'm here for. Muchos gracias, my friends. Mexicans love Triple G. Oh, man. He fights like fucking Julio Cesar Chavez, man. He's a savage. He's a fucking animal.

Body punching, ripping shots in the body. Who do you think is going to get it, Cody? Man, I think honestly Canelo. I don't know. I just think Canelo. Triple G is a beast. I don't know. I think Canelo. But you like Canelo. Why do you like Canelo in this?

I just like his pressure, his body punches, how he flows. He throws a lot of hooks. I'm a big hook guy. And like Mike Tyson, I used to watch all Mike's stuff, hooks. And Canelo does too. He throws some creative stuff too. He does.

I did that. I started doing a move off of watching Canelo. He throws like a fake hook to an uppercut. So it's like this and it goes like that because the guy will cover here and it comes right up the middle. I mean mine didn't look as good as his. I did a bunch against Scotty Jorgensen when I fought. It looked like I was just winding my arm up like this. But it's like – he has a bunch of little tricky, subtle things that he does.

I like Canelo too. He also has ring generalship. That's huge for me. You can knock people out fast or have good combos, but the way that you take the octagon or the ring and stock them and then impose your will on them, his presence in there, he knows where he's at all the time. Yeah, what's interesting to me about this fight is this is the first time that he's fought a guy

who's world-class that is a brutal power puncher like him, who's bigger than him, who's going to come towards him. Whereas he fought Floyd, Floyd was a smaller guy, but just way craftier and slicker with his style. And it was an interesting fight, but ultimately it wasn't like the most exciting fight because Floyd just kind of outboxed him. I think this is going to be a bang-em-up fight. A fumble-o-th fight. Yeah, I think they're going to come towards each other,

and it's going to get crazy. For real, this is like the highest stakes fight in boxing because you have two murderous punchers in their prime, Gennady Golovkin undefeated. The only person Canelo lost to is Floyd. Is that his only loss? Yeah, it's his only loss. And it's a decision. He was 15 professionally.

Phenomenal. Phenomenal fight. I mean, just such a good fight. I cannot wait for this fight. I'm so amped up. That's when Oscar tweeted about he was all butthurt about it. I was like, dude, we're still going to watch Eugene Canelo. This is why they're all fools. If Oscar just said this is great for boxing, this is great for everybody, then everybody would have been fine.

Instead, these guys create enemies and say this is a disgrace, this is a fixed fight. Power in numbers. They're saying Floyd fixed the fight. Are they still saying that? Oscar's saying some crazy shit. Oscar's losing his mind. How about Dana calling him out?

Dana's like, is he doing blow and cross-dressing? What is he doing? Dana's a savage. He's a savage, bro. He'll call around some of my picks about, like, if I post about him or something like that. He just kills people. He does not give a fuck. It's so funny.

He's hilarious. That's what happens when you have a half a billion dollars. You don't care. You don't give a fuck. I guess so. Well, he didn't give a fuck in the beginning, which is why he was perfect for the UFC I said I picture he went right before he Right after he did the whole deal where they sold and everything he was on like ESPN He was on some show and he was just slouched over look like it like a pile of crap I took a picture of it and I sent it to him

I said, bro, why don't you sit like you have $400 million in the bank or at least invest in some fucking fitness shit or something. And I sent him a picture just all slumped over like this. I think he's super stressed. I think he's better now. I think that time was like a crazy-ass time. Well, could you imagine you're about to get involved in a $4 billion deal? And then how about afterwards all this shit starts falling apart?

Ronda gets murked. Conor decides to go to boxing. You know, the sport's falling off. And a lot of the pay-per-view buys. Jon Jones tests positive again. Like, ah! Yeah, what's up with that, man? I mean, he was on his way to being a next gigantic superstar, right?

I mean, if you take his way to being a next gigantic superstar, right? I mean, if you take away his time off, right? The time off where he got busted before. He had to take a whole year off because of the dick pills. All this different stuff. The time off from the car accident. Take all that time off and John keeps winning. And you got a goddamn gigantic superstar. Huge superstar.

The likes of, like, anybody that's ever been in the UFC. Maybe even right up there with Conor. You don't know. All the negative stuff that's happened to Jon Jones, people are still booing DC and cheering him. Crazy. William Morris has some great PR going behind the guy. I don't think it's that. I don't think it's that at all. I don't think

they have the brain. I don't think anybody alive has the brains to organize public response. I think public people tweet to Pete. They love John because what John is, first of all, he's a ruthless killer inside the octagon and then he fucks up but he's still a bad motherfucker. He rises to the occasion.

But there was a time where he was getting booed and everything and then he took the time off and then by the time he came back, people were back on his side. It's like you know. When has the 10. When was he getting booed? When was he getting booed? Remember, he was getting booed, like, before he got suspended the time before.

Really? Yeah. When he tested positive for coke? I can't remember, man. I don't think, I don't remember him getting booed. But if he was, it was nothing like DC. DC wins fights and gets booed. It's crazy.

You know, I mean, he beats Rumble, he gets booed. People get mad at him. They got mad at him when he beat Rumble, remember? They were booing him. Like, what are you booing? The guy just fucking choked out Rumble Johnson. Like, how are you booing for the second time? How are you booing? I don't get it. But you can't, the public, they're fickle. They just decide

who they like. And it's all hate, yeah, exactly. They decide who they love and they decide who they hate. I'll tell you what though, John's speech after he beat DC was beautiful. Yeah, it was great. It was.

It was great but it was followed up by a steroid test. That's why it's so sad. I mean, look, I'm hoping just like everybody else that there was some sort

of a fuck up. Yeah. And then we figure out something happened. Something was wrong. Well, I haven't really followed it too much so I don't really know the details.

It's not good. No. It's not good. Well, he tested positive for something that only shows up in urine tests. And so they did him a urine test after the weigh-ins. He tested positive for this stuff. And then they did a blood test,

and his camp is saying, oh, it's not in the blood test. Well, they don't test for it in the blood test. Yeah, that's what I understood. That's why they do a urine test and a blood test. It's two different tests. And it's like D-ball, like the main... T-ball. Tyrannoball or something

like that. It's a weird substance that not a lot of people take. Apparently, Chael Sonnen was talking about it, that if he's taking that, this is a real old school steroid. It's like a short acting, short half-life steroid. All that trips me out,

man. It's sad. Yeah. It's sad. I just don't think, I mean, what are you proving? That's my whole thing. Well, he must have felt like he needed some sort of an edge if he took it. Yeah. If he took it.

Or, the real problem is, or was he taking stuff the whole time? Did he get involved with those power lifter dudes and start taking shit? Because remember, he got fucking super jacked. Oh, dude, he was massive. Yeah, I mean, he looked like he was going to heavyweight. He looked huge. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to speculate at all, really.

Yeah, I know. But you were involved in the sport in the early days when there was no testing. They'd just look at you. Yeah. I mean, when you were first fighting like King of the Cage, was there any drug testing they just look at you yeah i mean when you were when you were first fighting like king of the cage was there any drug testing no nothing not at all there wasn't any type of anything i mean it was illegal in california so the the only reason we were fighting on indian reservations because everything was illegal isn't that crazy that

they let native americans do whatever the fuck they want yeah because we screwed them so bad but it's not we i mean it's them so bad. But it's not we. I mean, it's happened so many generations ago, it's kind of weird that it's still around. They have like this sort of, they have a nation inside a nation. It's a very odd little situation. Over in the U.S., we talk about the Holocaust and what happened over there. And over in like Germany, they talk about what we did to the Indians. Well, you know what we did to the Indians?

Well, it wasn't we. My parents were here. When it comes Indians. Well, you know what we did to the Indians? Well, it wasn't we. My parents were here. When it comes to genocide, you know what the biggest genocide was? Disease. Yeah. 90% of them were killed by smallpox and all sorts of bugs that they just had no resistance from. That's right. When they first met the Europeans.

And it had nothing to do with a planned attack on them. People were just dying off like crazy. Yeah, that's what happened. That's right. Terrific. It's crazy but it's uh thank god they have casinos well some so i've got a bunch of buddies that are native and so they have like different things and one tribe like you had things you could you could choose and one group up on the northern coast took their fishing right so they can fish with nets and like put bombs in the water and but they didn't take the the casino right casino right they fucked up they did fuck up buy all the fish you want with that casino money they slaying that smoked

salmon it's good it is good but it's not like the casino money you can buy a lot of smoke sound. That fox puts cash. Yeah, there's a place in Alberta where I've been hunting up there. And the natives, they call them First Nation people up there. They're allowed to basically hunt any way they want. They use spotlights and shoot animals at night. They shoot as many as they want. Part of their rights, right? Yeah, it's part of the deal. They didn't get casinos.

They can catch as many fish. Yeah, they didn't get casinos. Spotlighting them. They got free moose. Yeah, free's part of the deal. They didn't get casinos. Yeah, they didn't get casinos. Spotlight. They got free moose. Yeah, free moose. They're just allowed to use all sorts of what other people would think of as unethical techniques. Do you have any hunting trips coming up? Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to Utah soon. Elkhunt. A couple weeks. I'm excited. You eat mostly, I know Chad does that, but tries to eat mostly food that he's killed himself. Yeah, as much as I can. 99% of the food I eat is wild game, other than vegetables. That's true.

Well, if you shoot an elk, like either of those elk heads that I had back, that's 400 pounds of meat. I give a lot of it to my friends who don't hunt, you know, just like elk. But that's enough meat for a year. And then I usually shoot a deer or two a year. Yeah, that's what trips me out about people that are so against hunting. I mean, I'm not a big hunter, but, like, the things that happen, like, on the farms where they're, like, you know, have animals just caged in and try to feed them, get them fat.

I mean, that's some nasty stuff. And this is a way more humane and a healthier way to eat, right? It's definitely a healthier way to eat and it's definitely way more humane. But people love to point the finger. 97% of the people in this country eat meat. Either that or they're pescatarian and they eat. But, you know, there's maybe 3% of the people in this country that are vegans. And that's a small number.

But, you know they they get very vocal about it and the best way for them to like they can find a person like say if you hunt you hold a picture of a deer that you shot they found you you're you so that you're an individual whereas like if you have a steak like that steak was raised by a rancher it's on a ranch who's the guy who shot it who knows but you got it at a supermarket. Here it is. There's too many people down the line. You can't point to one person, but if I see Uriah Faber holding up

a duck that he shot, well, that's you. You killed that duck. Get the vegan cat lady after you again. It's true. Isn't that hilarious? That's a true bit, man. That's a true bit. It. That's a true bit. There's a community of people that think it's a good idea to feed their cat vegan food.

Yeah. There's a whole move to feed cats vegan food and the cats, they go blind and have heart attacks and shit. Really? Yes. Yeah. Cats are supposed to eat something called taurine that only exists in animal food and like in animal food and uh like in an animal

protein cats are what's called an obligate carnivore which means they they can't eat anything else like that's a shit like a dog dogs can eat carrots and a bunch of other shit like dogs eat things like you can eat dogs can eat some grains and potatoes and stuff like that's fine for them they mostly eat meat like dogs are mostly carnivores but they can mix their diet up a little bit and still be okay not cats you you fucking start feeding cats beets and vegetables and shit like that they think so wait what's the bit this chick came after you i'll show you i don't want to do the bit because it's on my next netflix special it's an actual bit but it's like someone got mad at me because i posted a picture of some meat on instagram it's

based on a total true story. And it was one of the vegan cat ladies? Yeah. Yeah. This fucking bitch is so out of my mind. I don't want to ruin it for you. Yeah, I don't. But it's just, there's the community of people that feed their cats vegan food.

They are fucking completely, they're like next level crazy. Like if you thought vegans were crazy, they're like, well, we're taking this shit to the next level it's like there's levels to everything you know like this like you were talking about your gym there's guys that are just tough guys they don't really want to fight these guys who want to fight and they're fighting in the amateurs and then there's Cody Garbrandt you know she's the Cody Garbrandt of vegan activists yeah, I went to his, he was in Sac, what, a month or so ago? Yeah, not even.

Yeah, I was out of town, man. I would have liked to have come. Oh, it was great. That was the first time I went live, you know, sat down. It was great. I was laughing my ass off.

Sacramento's fun, man. They came out. It was a good time. I always loved performing there. Ever since back in the little comedy club there, the Punchline Sacramento. Oh, yeah.

It's a great spot. Yeah. It's a great little spot. I went up there. Craig Robinson was in town. He'sline Sacramento. Oh, yeah. It's a great spot. Yeah. It's a great little spot. I went up there. Craig Robinson was in town. He's my buddy. Oh, he's a good dude. And he pulled me up on stage

to have me do something. I shit it up the place pretty bad. It's not easy. Does Craig bring his music up there? Well, it saved me a little bit because he's like brought me, all right, I wouldn't bring my boy up, blah, blah, blah oh and i got up there on stage and then uh and so i'm like my my manager kind of like gave me a heads up like oh craig might pull you up there so i had like like all

right well i just told the story of the the chick that knocked on my door and came and shit all over my story i did that but i had craig do sound effects for it so i was like hey man i'll do this but you got to give me sound effects. He was on his thing. I'm like, then she took a massive shit. And then he's like, you know, doing it on the keyboard. This was like New Year's, right? Someone broke in your house?

It was just a Saturday night. I mean, this. Oh, I thought it was on New Year's or something. I'm more known for this lady shitting in my bedroom or my bathroom than fucking most things I've done in my life for myself. Well, you told the story somewhere. I saw it online. I took a video of it on Snapchat. And I'm like, dude, I don't know what happened.

Yeah, it's probably up. Yeah, well, TMZ did it and did a story on it. And they did an interview and they showed my whole thing. TMZ did it and did a story on it and they did an interview and they showed my whole thing. And I actually got a picture of the chick, opened the door, and there's like a canoe of shit between her legs. And she's sitting in vomit and shit half in the toilet, half on the floor. In my brand new house, I just spent a whole year building it, me and my dad. And she just crushed it. How did she get in your house?

What happened? What's the story? I opened the door like an idiot so I'm sitting there with my buddy Virgil and his girlfriend it's like 1 o'clock on a Saturday we're just kicking it BS 1am it's a side piece

he doesn't put that in there so then I hear a little knock I thought did someone knock on the door? and then it goes away and I hear again a knock I thought and I'm like did someone knock on the door and then it goes away and I hear again like a knock I'm like I think

somebody's knocking so I go in and literally I open the door like this and I got this plump like 24 year old

fucking drunk as shit woman like leaning against the door like looking at me and I open the door and she like just walks in

and I'm like can I help you she's the door and she like just walks in and i'm like can i help you she's got a little boiler is that her in the background no that's my buddy virgil's uh ex-girlfriend oh dude this is great yeah this is kind of strange so she just on the case walks in your house and then goes in the bathroom? She walks in my house and I'm like, can I help you? That's the most foul thing I've ever seen in my life. Ready? Is she in there still?

Oh, Jesus. So she was passed out in shit and piss in your bathroom? So I open the door and she stumbles in like all chubby and like a boiler hanging out there's fucking ambulance fire truck SWAT team to come get this chick out of my toilet and so she walks in and walks past i'm like can i help you and she just keeps on walking i'm like excuse

me and she like walks the end of my house and just locks herself in the bathroom. Is that her right there? Uh, yeah. She's just sitting on the stoop. Is this after she wiped up? Yeah. Oh, Jesus Christ. Well, she didn't wipe up. I don't know what they did. I had to, look at, that's the crime scene.

That's great. I had to clean it up myself. Jesus Christ, she missed everything. She missed everything. It's weird that she knew exactly where that bathroom was at. How did she know where that bathroom was? I'm just speculating. That bathroom was not there.

Look at the heroes. Had she ever been over your house for a party or something? No. So she just was in the neighborhood. So I live on the corner, and there's maybe like four blocks down. There's a bar called Cheaters. I think she was drunk from that walking and had it really thick as shit. There's a bar called Cheaters?

Yeah. Is it kind of like the Ashley Madison of bars? I haven't really been in there. People are supposed to go there to hook? Yeah, of course. Of course you have. I really have. I wouldn't go there either, bro.

So anyways, I think you should stop the shit. If you go to that bar, you know what's going on. Oh, you're a gangster if you go there. Cheers. It's an old ass bar in East Sac, which is like the nice little neighborhood. And it's like a shit dive bar. So I don't know what it's all about. Maybe the dude's name is Cheater. It's probably Cheater.

It's Cheater's bar, man. It ain't about cheating. It's my name. My name's Cheater. Is that it right there? Oh, Cheaters. Yeah, maybe it's Cheaters. That's on 34th and Folsom. Is there an apostrophe after the R? No. Cheaters. Okay.

Yeah, look at that. It looks angry. I guess we're gonna go to fuck up. So this is Okay. Yeah, look at that. It looks angry. It's like, this is where you're going to go to fuck up. So this is right down the street from your house. That bathroom was not there before I got the house. I added that on, poured a slab and built back and everything else. And so I don't know how the hell she dead-ended in the end of the house and just took a left. So she just got lucky.

Found the bathroom shit all over the place. Did you ever contact her afterwards? Did you ever contact you and say, hey, I'm sorry I shit all over your house? She's got to know that it was on TMZ and all these different websites. You would think she would reach out. I didn't think about that girl again.

He cut that one off. If that girl gets into a 12-step program, you will be one of the first people she apologizes to. She's going to say, I've got to make it right with all the people that are wrong in the past. Dude, I wonder if she's someone in the neighborhood. I don't know. But the truth is, like, she went in that bathroom like she was just drawn. How should she have known?

If you know my house. That's what I'm saying. I always ask him. It was just too much. Remember, I had this guy. I had this Mexican guy had this mexican guy that was working for me and he had like an issue he he would do the lacquer on all my cabinets and everything and so he took like an extra month and he would get in there and i'd go into the house

like when it was being built and he'd be passed out on the on the floor he'd just get high as fucking like pass out my theory was maybe he when maybe he, when he stayed the night at the house under construction, maybe he was having this chubby chick come over or something. Semester, man. Passing off to a Mexican. That was yours, man. That's weird, bro. It's just not happening.

It's weird how you're doing that. Let's change the subject. Let's move on from the phantom shitter. You guys, like Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, you guys are like one of the real super camps in the world. Like there's like a handful of super camps in this country, right? There's like ATT. You know, there's Duke Rufus. There's Farasa Hobbies Camp, TriStar, AKA.

There's a bunch of super camps. Do you try to pay attention to how other guys are running their stuff and try to figure out like what they're incorporating as far as like strength and conditioning you know rehab places like physical physical therapy things along those lines a little bit you know we have a reputation for whenever we go somewhere going into the gyms and trying to get a roll in you know testing yourself against other people like like kind of an open door policy at our place too like if somebody wants to come in they can come in and check it out so we've gotten a lot of throughout the years a lot of feedback and done our own stuff but um always trying to learn but not necessarily like and we kind of have our own

recipe like we have our things that work and it And it's about regimen and a lifestyle. It's like set programs throughout the day. And you can kind of makeshift your own depending on what your coaches think you need to do or what you feel you need to do. Because there's two, three practices you could hit a day if you wanted to. And then there's individual workouts. And they go, you know, some guys do the cryotherapy. And then they've been doing that suction therapy, and they've been doing that. Do you believe in that, the cup stuff, cupping? I don't.

I'm like old school. Like I don't really believe in – I'm not like looking for all these little secret things to do. So I've never done it. But you think those things help a little. Like something's got to help a little, like cryo helps. Do you do that at all? I've done it a couple times. But you're not like – it's not a thing that you do regularly?

Do you do that at all? I've done it a couple times. But you're not like, it's not a thing that you do on a regular basis? The thing I'm adamant about that I think is good, which I would have liked to do more of throughout my career, is the hyperbaric chambers. Yeah, you used that after the Aldo fight, right, with your leg? After the Aldo fight, after the Mike Brown fight. You broke your hand? Broke my hand and had surgery. I mean, I would use that just as a regular bit.

And then TJ Dillashaw actually got one and had it at his house in his garage. Really? Like in Sacramento. And he had like got certified. Him and his wife got certified to do it. And he was just like chilling that thing all the time. So what does the hyperbaric chamber do? It's a high oxygen rich environment, right?

Yeah. So it's a high oxygen rich environment. So it basically like it can like it does like the same thing that red blood cells would do like transport things to your body faster and help you heal faster. So like there's high altitude which helps you like get acclimated and make more blood cells yourself. And this is just like helping pass things through. It's like a hyper oxygenated environment. And what do you feel like it did for you? It healed me faster.

So that's the first, I never, I was never been like a big strength and conditioning guy, even in, in, in wrestling and in college, cause I was always cutting weight. So I felt like, like, you know, I've always been really strong for my size. That wasn't one of my things that I needed to work on necessarily. I was working on technique or working on this or fluidity or whatever. So when I broke my hands, I started doing a heavy lifting regimen. I used to not like to do lifts like squats and stuff like that because I would get so sore. I couldn't do all the shit I like to do like wrestle and run and things like that.

So I was going to heal my hand while i was doing these heavy workouts and my trainer kept asking me like like am i sore and i was like no i'm not sore we finally put it together because of the hyperbaric chamber like i was like hyper healing it was like like i would do a hard hard workout and never get sore because i would go into the oxygen chamber my schedule just worked out i was going in there quick huh that's interesting yeah is there any downside to doing it no there's not well the downside is is it's expensive and that's the same reason why insurance didn't didn't pass it to to be insured so like there's a session it could be as much as 200 bucks i $200, I think, a session. Wow. Laying there for an hour. And how many sessions were you doing?

I would get it to where I was doing, you know, like four sessions a week. Damn it. Insurance wasn't paying for this? No. UFC would pay for it sometimes. Ah, that's nice. Yeah. So, like, is this something they have set up at the new UFC Performance Center?

I think they have all that stuff there. I know the underground treadmills, the high-altitude building. I've used their PT a couple times. We have a very fortunate with Russ back in Sacramento, El Dorado Hills, that he does all that. I use the hyperbaric chamber as well. I had the whole last year. You know when sometimes you kick someone wrong

and your ankle's messed up for two three days i would go in there that day and literally could put put weight on it move around be fine what they use it for is brain trauma right it helps heal your brain like they'll put neurons and yeah it's the same thing that they do for the bends when somebody goes and does deep sea and they they they're if they're like deep sea diving they have to put them in a hyperbaric chamber to acclimate them to heal them from coming up too fast. I mean, there's a real science behind it. Yeah, I know. I've heard about people using it for breaks, like bone breaks,

and having some really quick recovery. I've just never experienced it. You should do it. Yeah, I would imagine it would be just a good thing to do all the time, but I wonder if there's any negative effects. I don't think there is. I mean, they're doing it for autistic kids, for people with Lyme disease. Lyme disease is a big one, man.

Jesus, that stuff's scary. Yeah. There's so many fucking people that have that and don't even know. They're just tired all the time and broken down. They don't understand that their immune system is devastated by ticks. Yeah. That's not real. There's a thing called a Rocky Mountain tick.

Rocky Mountain flea or something like that. I think it's a Rocky Mountain tick. But there's a, oh, no, that's not it. It's the Lone Star tick. There's a disease that people are getting that makes you allergic to red meat. Huh. And they're getting it from ticks. That's a trick. Yeah. You take a tick bite and you don't red meat. Huh. And they're getting it from ticks. That's a trick.

Yeah. You take a tick bite, and you don't realize anything even happened, and you go to eat meat, like you eat a cheeseburger or something, you get really sick. Oh, wow. Your immune system gets devastated. There it is. The Lone Star tick injects alpha-gal into the bloodstream, and then the immune system releases immunoglobin E antibodies to fight this foreign sugar.

system releases immunoglobin E antibodies to fight this foreign sugar. After this reaction, the future intake of mammal meat with the same alpha-gal will result in an allergy reaction. Wow. Because meat has, it's like alpha-galactose. They're saying alpha-gal as short, but I forget what it actually is. I forget the actual, see, does it does it say there yeah galactos alpha one three galactos so that's the shit that you're like clipper claven bro shit bro if you do a podcast every day three hours you gotta learn something

it's been around he's done some shit but that's fucked up right that is chat mendez got that oh he'd be devastated he'd be upset man make sure you got that anti-tick stuff on you he would adjust he would adjust

can't see Chad as a vegan well you can eat fish it's mammal protein you start eating crocodiles hunt crocodiles only yeah so the hyperbaric chamber is a good one I've been doing the

the salt what's the thing you've been doing float salt. What's the thing? Oh, you've been doing float therapy? Yeah. You told me to do that a long time ago. That's awesome. And they finally got one right next to our – I own a little Vibe Health Bar in Sacramento, the liquidology, the juice, and fiber.

And they have the – right next door, they have the hyper – or the – The float center. Float center. So I've done that. It's amazing, isn't it? It's cool. I mean, the only problem is I have to have a quiet mind and able to get the most out of it. Like if I'm stressing about something and I go in there, I just like, I mean, I end up like just thinking the whole time, whatever.

I have to be at a right place to go in there, I think. Yeah, maybe it's a personality thing. Like do you. I mean, I like it when I can relax. But like if I have like a lot going on in mind i can't just shut it down and then i'm stuck in this like a thing just thinking and i can't i'm like i gotta get out of here and go take care of this take care of that right right when i when i'm able to chill i love it and i know cody uses it a lot i use it a lot i've one time i had a close call like a astral projection i don't know if you probably yeah

it was crazy i went in there basically it's i was explained to the guy that owned it at the time because i quit going i was like one time it happened i was i felt like grim reaper came over top of me no shit and was like trying to push me down and drown me but i was like sleeping in like a deep trance i got always like my body would vibrate and it like kept coming i would come back to like the wake i was such a sleep deep trance i come back up and i'd finally calm myself back down relax and would drift off into the float and then boom would come like just but the whole time i could feel the hot coils on my back with my face you know because it's still you know you're just above waters around your whole head like three times i finally was like got up and i was like like

so you really felt like something was trying to do someone's i don't know what i was going on anxiety or something crazy crazy wow you have some crazy visions in there last time i was in there i just kept the that has a blue light in there and i got the music going and i was just spinning and like bouncing off this i was just staying busy i couldn chill. I'm not good at relaxing these days. I would think you'd be better at relaxing now, now that you're tired from fighting. Oh, no way, man.

No way. I'll have to like, if jiu-jitsu is going on, and I'll have to like stop. I'll be like, look, guys, we're having a meeting right now. I go, let's cover this over. Like, jiu-jitsu started 20 minutes ago. I need to get that workout in. Otherwise, I'm like, you know, you create yourself a regimen throughout your life

of working out a couple times a day, and that's what you do. And then you go in and try to have meetings all day and, like, deal with this and put this fire out and get on this call. And it's like I was doing that together with being a full-time athlete, so finding the balance has been the key for me. Well, for you, there probably is like a requirement that your body has to like blow out steam too. And that's another thing with the diet. Like you were asking Cody about his diet.

Like I have been like an overeater. He doesn't like to like stuff himself and he's calling me, you know, making fun of me for eating all the time. I'm like just constantly eating and whatnot because I'm used to doing that. You burn so many calories in the day. Now I have to be mindful of not overeating because I'm not putting out the same thing. Otherwise, I feel like crap. Right. You don't want to get fat.

Not even fat. A lot of guys retire and get fat. Yeah. I mean, I'm not worried about getting fat necessarily. It's more of just feeling like shit. Cody's the best instigator ever. Whenever I'm doing it, he tries to accentuate it. Like if he knows that I'm like, man, I'm a little thick.

And then he'll wait like a day and then be like, man, babe, you're looking a little bigger. You're just always trying to make things worse. Dude, you had a jujitsu match with Paul Miao, right? Yes. And you went to a decision with him, man. That's gigantic. We went six overtimes. Yeah, that's gigantic.

That guy is fucking legit, man. Yeah, he's pretty good. For a guy like you who didn't specialize in that and specialized in MMA, and coming from a wrestling background, obviously you have a grappling background and you were great at submissions in your MMA career. But to take on a guy that's that accomplished as a grappler, that's gigantic, man. Yeah, it was cool. I mean, I always tell these guys, and I truly believe it, and that's what I said about Connor too.

In our sport, you have to be able to go with a world champion jiu-jitsu player, a world champion wrestler, a world champion judo player, a world champion boxer, and be able to hold your own. That's the difference with our sport, and that's why it's so impressive. So that's what I was saying for these guys. For that, I was going to train real hard and take it real serious, but then I got the Rampage movie role in the Rocks movie, so I went and spent 10 days in Atlanta.

And then I had told Chad before that I would do this charity fishing trip with the injured vets. And so we did that for three days. I went in there looking like a chubby. There's a picture of me. I look so frigging chubby in that thing. And didn't even train, but I was like, you know what? I take a lot of pride in my grappling ability.

I feel like I'm one of the best grapplers in the sport. So it was good to go in there and do that. Well, you know that and Chad beating Jeff Glover. That was huge. Tapping him. That's fucking crazy. It just shows you the level of grappling that you guys have at your gym. But I've gone, like Jeff Glover and I,

when I first started training in mixed martial arts because I'm from Santa Barbara, when him and Bill Cooper were just kids. I didn't know you were from Santa Barbara. Yeah, I was born in Isla Vista. And we have a house in Santa Barbara, yeah. Dude, I love it up there. Dude, it's, oh, bro, you got to come stay at my house.

I mean, we rent it out. Right now it's rented. In Santa Barbara? I'm renting it out. It's rented out to a family from Sweden. But I'm going to play, I'll hook you up, dude. It's bad. You have to bring your family up there. It's like a. Santa Barbara's awesome. Yeah out to a family from Sweden, but I'm going to play it. I'll hook you up, dude. It's bad.

You have to bring your family up there. Santa Barbara's awesome. Yeah, it's on the Riviera. It is one of the best spots. It really is one of the best spots. So what were you saying about Jeff Glover? You knew him from Paragon? So I've trained with Jeff for years.

So Paragon used to be like the size of two of these tables in a little room. And so I would go down and walk down from my uncle's house and go down to paragon when those guys were just starting and and me and jeff have trained together for years and and bill too bill when he every time yeah bill the grill every time i'd come in there he'd want to go straight straight wrestling like hey can we do some takedowns because he was trying to work on that part of his game but like i've trained with Cobrina. I've trained with Hobson Mora. I've trained with Glover. Whenever I see somebody that can whoop me in jiu-jitsu,

I'm going with that guy. I had Hobson come stay at my house. I go and train with Cobrina all the time. I had Glover. I'd always hit him up and go with him. So I've been going with those top-level guys my whole career. That's huge, though. That's a giant accomplishment for you and even bigger for Chad to tap Glover.

That's cool. You got to see this guy, man. I'm sure. That's what I was saying. I always give you shit. I've said it like two or three times. I'm like, let's roll. And you're like, you just want to try to fucking put it on me and this and that.

And I'm like, no, because you're always worried about me and other people's guards. I said this the other day. I'm like, whenever I'm... You're worried about you and other people's guards. Like, in a fight, I'm talking about your commentary. When have I ever been worried about you and someone's guard? What's his name? Michael McDonald. He's like, Michael McDonald's got a really good close

bottom game. Well, I have to say that because you have to look out for things. I mean, if I'm looking at a fight, I'm looking at what's the possibilities here. Absolutely, I have to say that because you have to look out for things. I mean, if I'm looking at a fight, I'm looking at what's the possibilities here. Absolutely. I'm just fucking with you. He does have a good

guillotine from his back, but you fucked him up, man. He has some good triangles. He's got a good game. That was a big win for you. That was a big fight. That was a good fight. It was a wild fight.

Yeah, that fight, I mean, he was knocking everyone out. Yeah. He's a weird one, man, like in his style because you look at his body, you think, like, knocking everyone out. Yeah. Yeah, he's a weird one, man, like in his style. Because you look at his body, you think, like, how is this guy a heavy puncher? And then he just—

He hits hard. —murk motherfuckers. Oh, you believe it. It's a weird thing. Cody's like that. Look at him, all skinny and dopey. But he can hit hard. I've been giving this guy shit for the last two days because of his black eye.

He got a black eye. He got elbowed by somebody that was covering up, kind of scared. And then he boxed with my little Joseph Morales, who's been with me since he's nine. He's a 25-pounder, just had his debut in the UFC. And I'm like, man, Popo got you with that black eye. And he's like, no, it was the elbow. And I'm like, no, man, it was. I was getting, I mean, he got so pissed.

He's like you're gonna make it a real hard day for Joseph next time he's smart don't you think though that having a bunch of people

around you that fuck with you like that is actually probably good for you when you get into a situation with a guy like say

Dominic Cruz who talks a lot of shit like you're so used to it like that was one of the interesting things about that fight you could tell you're so used to

shit talking it didn't bother you at all it seemed like it charged you up yeah because he was getting fired up he was like man dom doesn't act like that like you know the way he was acting like our um times that we ran into each other i remember at the mizugaki fight he was talking so much shit about me being fatherless and like oh crazy i'm like dude like that was just like really you could tell he sat around tried to research this how he's gonna talk shit you know knew that my father was in prison or whatever i'm like dude that's right every it doesn't matter so i we go through the i'm getting ready to film to walk in to fight mizugaki at 202 and i catch fucking dom at the corner of my eye like look and

look look away and i was like okay i'm gonna have to say something to him now we caught eye so we're up to him he's like what's up man i was like don't what's up man i mean i was like, oh, okay. I'm going to have to say something to him now. We caught eye. So we're up to him. He's like, what's up, man? I was like, what's up, man? He was like, you're going to talk shit on the media about the stupid way you're even saying it. I'm going to knock Mizugaki out faster than you did and I'm going to beat your ass next. And then I was like, look, I don't slam you on the concrete

and not like Biz Bing and Daniel Camaro was right there. And he's like, oh, yeah. And he right there and he's like oh yeah he like looked back and he like he's like yeah he's like you do have daddy issues like said like the off the wall shit like like sorry i know he's not about it like he's a great fighter don't get me wrong but when put when it's in that kind of situation he's not i knew he was a flight and you knew what that he wasn't about the fighter like any in his in his So you mean he didn't want to brawl with you? Exactly. He's not a fighter.

He's an athlete. He's good at what he does. But I knew that he was a different level mentality-wise. But that's a weird statement. I've heard people say that before. He's an athlete. He's not a fighter. But if he's fighting, he's a fighter.

So what's the difference? I think Dominic actually showed, like, I think he got too brave with Cody. There was a couple times where he was like, all right, I'm going to get in there and show him I can hit hard and got him in trouble in that fight. I think he's a fighter. I know what he's talking about with athletes that are more athletes and less of a fighter. Like, people say that a lot about George St. Pierre. Yes.

Like, I don't know if George St. Pierre loves a good nasty like knockdown drag out. I know TJ Dillashaw like loves – can't – he like likes to get punched in the face and punch people back. Cody Garbrandt will stand there and like if he gets punched, he'll march guys down with his face down and like tell them to hit him again like there's those kind of people that like love a fucking like a grinding fight whether he's gonna do it all time or not but like they have an affinity for it like they enjoy it and then some people that are like playing a sport consider themselves tough and don't don't like that kind of yeah it's interesting rumble said that about himself rumble johnson said i'm an athlete he goes'm not a fighter. I'm just really good at it. Which I thought was crazy. Are you chewing over there?

Is that what's going on? Chewing tobacco? I'm drinking. Okay, you were spitting in something. I just had a loogie, man. I don't chew. I don't have any vices. I thought you were getting into that now. Fuck. That fight leading up with Dominic was everyone thought I was

the emotional one. The way that he was acting I was like, man, this is going to be an easy fight for me. now fuck you know it's that fight leading up with dominic was everyone thought i was you know the emotional one or the way that he was acting i was like man this is gonna be easy fight for me right because he's out of sorts he was out of out of it was not like dominic right well you were a big threat that's probably what it was right i gave dominic credit because i know that dom knew that was going to be a hard fight oh yeah i, hey, bro, thanks for choosing the harder route and talking up the fact that Cody is the next guy because he went for the toughest fight. Cody was the toughest.

He knew that. Yeah, he came to fight. He got hit. He got busted. He was leaking. I mean, I was completely gashed. He was still fighting. Like, come on, you know, talking.

But all the way up to that point where I head kicked him and split him open and uh he was talking shit back to me it was funny i was like he's like what you little bitch that didn't hurt like i was laughing like oh don't you lie like don't lie to me i know that one got you know so it was fun like it was figuring him out but still like talking shit to each other and then going and it was great because i'm like this is a guy that i pictured fighting since I was a teenager. You know what I mean? And got prepared for him. But you said once he hit that, he stopped. Right. So exactly.

Every time I'd hit him or I hit him with a good shot or he thought he'd get me with one, we'd go back and forth. And so I head kicked him and my knee hit him and he came back up. And I saw him like, great poker face, man. He's tough. He knows how to, you know, when he's hurt, he keeps it going but his eyes like he looked at the blood and like i saw his pupils go really big and i was hey dom you having fun yet and he didn't answer back like i was like right then i that the third round it was i knew that's okay if i just keep doing what i'm doing i'm gonna win this fight you know i'll end up catching them or you know it's my fight as long as i don't get caught with

something because he throws looping punches and kicks and he's very unorthodox. But I knew right then after that he was like, oh, shit. This is an interesting fight coming up for you to be fighting TJ after training with him for so long and all the bad blood that you guys had with TJ leaving the team and going to train with Dwayne. It's not so much about the team. There's a lot of confusion about what went down and it's funny. Well, let's lay it out for people because TJ trained with you guys for a long time. If I send you a text, I'll show you the four-minute video of him explaining exactly what happened.

You don't have to do that, but tell me from your point of view. So TJ left the team, said, hey, look. First off, it was, it was. Stemmed on Ultimate Fighter with Conor. What's that? With the, go from that, because he was there, and that's when we were defending him. That's why I kind of, like, took it to, because he, like, I'm all about loyalty, and, like, we don't, you don't do that shit. And Dwayne, I never really liked Dwayne, especially the way he left, he was a strange guy and it was always about money and weird things, etc., etc.

But he left and that was fine. That was his deal. TJ was going to try to have him come back and train at our gym for his fight and Dwayne refused to do it. And I had a talk with TJ and he was crying and that Dwayne just wanted to focus on his own gym and this and that. And he's like, whatever. And so he's like, I'm going to spend some time there and spend some time here, et cetera. Like, that's fine. So TJ, when he got there, got some exposure for MusclePharm.

And MusclePharm was like— Let me help people out here. Dwayne Ludwig is a former kickboxing champion who was an MMA fighter who fought in the UFC and then went on to be a coach. For a year and three months. No, no, no. He coaches now a lot, right, with his own gym. But for you guys, he was your striking coach for a little bit. For a year and three months. And he worked with a bunch of your fighters, and he had a very special relationship with TJ.

Right. Then he moved out to Denver, and he moved out to Denver to start his own thing. And then Muscle Farm, which has a big gym in Denver, they invited TJ to come train there. So fill in the blanks for people that don't know the story that aren't maybe big-time fans. So then he basically said that he wanted to – he was doing his camps there for about a year and a half. He'd spent a little time there, a little time here. Most of the time he lived in Sacramento. Most of most time there we'd go work with duane no problem with it i had cornered with duane even after he left with uh with you know guys and stuff like

that wasn't an issue so then i heard duane actually text me and was like duane said something like well i mean there's a whole side of the Dwayne thing which is hilarious that was him getting weird like a year after he left like acting like he was there he like tried to sue me for a figment of his imagination of some money that wasn't even there and like this whole thing he had like as one of his students write this thing so there is something where he said that I had like – I can't even remember. Like something like I didn't give him a discretionary bonus that was supposed to be given or something like that. And so there was like some like interminglings about that, whatever.

So Dwayne texts me and says – and I said, dude, I never said – I had to set the record straight on Dwayne. And Dwayne texts me and says, hey, I'm not the one trying to steal your team and your fighters. I know there's a team out here in Denver being built, but I'm not a part of that. And I was like, are you talking about? And I had talked to someone else that said that, hey, I heard that Matt Brown and TJ Dillashaw are getting paid to be on this team. And so I come in and I was like, hey, we were talking about some team things and TJ was in practice. I go, I got the weirdest thing. Dwayne texts me this. And this other guy said this. I said, are you going to like, are you getting like paid to go be start a new team or something?

And it was Cody was there and Lance was there and all was there. And TJ lies straight to us about the whole thing. He's like, no, man, no, they offered me, but I'm with you guys. I'm team out the mill. He's like this and that. And I was like, okay, whatever. Then time goes on and we have an actual sit down and talk. We go eat sometimes and everything.

And TJ, Chad Mendez, my buddy Phil, we sit down and talk. We go eat sometimes and everything. And TJ, Chad Mendez, my buddy Phil, we all go and eat. And TJ just tells me like, Hey man, my next camp, I'm going to go out to Denver, which he'd already been going out to Denver.

It'd been like a year and a half since Dwayne had been gone. It wasn't like he like gone or whatever. And he's like, but Muscle Farm offered me like some, some real good money to like be part of their team. He's like, but Muscle Farm offered me some real good money to be part of their team. He's like, so basically I'm no longer going to be representing Team Alpha Male. I'm going to do my camp out there, and they're going to announce me. How much money are we talking about?

He told me at the time it was, I think, $4,500. A month? A month. And they were going to rent him a house. And I was like, okay. And Chad was sitting right there. TJ was sitting there. I go, well, shoot, man.

It was nice having you on the team. And he's like, why are you getting upset? I go, I'm not upset. I'm just saying, like, you're off the team then? And he's like, well, yeah. But he's like, but I have a house here. I'm still going to come back and, like, come in and spar when I'm in town in the off season or whatever. And I'm like.

So this felt real weird to you guys. Real weird. And then I said, well, I said, so he was no longer going to be on our team. He was going to be on a different team. But then he wanted to come in. At the time, I'm ranked number three in the world. Cody and him are going at it in practice. It's anybody's given day.

You know, we can look at the footage if you guys have the footage. But – and then holds were 7-0 and had just won the ultimate fighter. And so TJ is basically saying he's leaving the team. I go, bro, TJ, I said, you can – you know, you're welcome to stay on the team. But, like, if you're no longer on the team, like, you know, what're no longer on the team like you know what what does that mean he's like well i mean it's just a good opportunity man they like i don't they don't have to pay they pay me to train and and like you know it's they're starting a team and everything's going to be under one roof and i go all right cool that's anybody ever done that where it worked

i don't know they always tried tried that. Black House did. Black Zillions did. But here's the thing. So then after that, it was like he's going to leave in two weeks. And so me and Cody are sitting in there, and we hadn't said anything. I told Fabio, our instructor, our jiu-jitsu instructor, what was happening. And he told someone in Brazil, as a Brazilian inian in brazil leaked it out that tg was changing camps and there was all this drama and and this and that and then um i said look tj so

he he was coming in and tg was never the best teammate he would like try to hurt people he's a very competitive guy and he has a temper and like try to hurt people how cheap shot cheap shot we always we always the end of the bell Boxing He knee ya He knee ya No knees He's like

I just need him to the bottom Like yeah we're boxing sparring He knees you to the bottom And boxing sparring Dude Ask There's no secret about TJ's I mean he'll

We talked about it When he was still on the team also That he had to be like Reeled in a little bit Right He's just He's just Got a temper

That's why you call him Kilosha Yeah Kilosha Dillash, like all that kind of stuff. I mean, that was his thing, you know? So just super competitive, aggressive guy. And cheap shots, yes. Yeah, the super competitiveness, like I'm competitive. I don't want to lose. Someone takes me, you know, I'm fighting tooth and nail

not to get taken down or get that extra or win that round. It just, end of the bell, knees, you know what I mean? That's why Chris is out, you know what I mean mean need him in the back of the head yeah that's it i mean chris holdsworth that's where the injury i mean i don't want to chris doesn't want us really talking about that well but that that's the truth that's we're talking about cheap shot and that's what was it what was that is i mean he doesn't care if we talk about it i mean i guess the truth that's what happened what how did it go i'm not to say it was I remember distinctively Dwayne used to come up to Chris like hey like grasshopper he's like we have you know TJ's fight and he take it easy on

can you take it easy on Chris is a killer is a killer fucking him up everybody I mean Chris is an animal and I guess Chris choked him out and TJ got out and fucking even in the back of the head when he was down on the mat in a grappling match or were they sparring in the mat it was sparring but

knees to the back of the head that's what wow after Chris submitted him I mean just dirty shit I've been a couple times I've told

so Chris let him up submitted him let him off and then TJ beat him in the back of the head I don't know if that's exactly how it was I remember seeing

the whole thing I don't really want to get into this because it's Chris's gig, man. Yeah, that's fine. But we already got into it. But yeah, so we're talking about TJ being a cheap shot. That's what literally killed Chris's career?

Majority of it. Obviously concussions. I'm real good friends with Chris. They live together. He went through it. That's why his last fight was. He had to fight with a concussion because he was scheduled to fight. It happens twice in practice like that. It's one of the things that when I first came out there, I was never real close with TJ.

I was out there. I was doing well with the guys. And a couple of the guys told me, man, TJ can't wait to spar you. This is when he was coming off as Rafael Sensalas. I was like, cool. Fuck it. I can't wait to spar with him either when he was coming off as rafael since i lost i was like cool like fucking i'm i can't wait to spar with him either he's better and it's gonna be a good round you know and i was pretty worn like hey tj does some cheap shit just you know keep it cool and and either this video i think i have some uh one of the kids that was a boxing and he sent it to me months ago tj like cheap shot me after the bell and i was like

remember telling tj i said look motherfucker you cheap shot me again we're taking the gloves off we're going in the street and fighting yeah I had to talk Cody down twice because of that yeah I just don't ever like that especially teammates you don't do that shit like hey you you get me you get me but don't cheap shot me at the end of the bell and then as soon as you're hitting someone after the cheap shot you're like oh dude I'm sorry like you know what you're doing so anyway anyways, that being said, we knew that was part of TJ's thing. But now he's no longer part of our team. And he's also getting paid to go somewhere else. He's no longer contributing in any way.

And he wants to come in and come in and spar our guys. And like, he basically wanted to be on our team, a benefit of our team, without being a part of the team anymore and getting paid to be somewhere else. Which I would have been fine if he talked to me about like hey i'm going to work something out where i go get paid and do this whatever but then i'm like okay so that whole week he's in there and he's sitting there watching me and cody in practice and he i don't care i mean tj is a competitive he's always looking for edge that whole week prior to telling us that he was leaving, he kept getting like, hey, there's a getting some proprietary series and this series.

There's a single leg guard series I used to get him with. He's like, have me and Martin Camp show him all this stuff we were working on. Hey, can you show me this and show me that? Like the week before. And then, so I was like, I go, TJ, look, man, this is getting awkward in practice. I said, look, we can, I had him over at my house and I said, look, we can build a friendship however we want to do it. I said, but this is getting awkward. And like you being in practice and you no longer being on the team and everything else, like, you know,

let's finish out this, this last couple of days. And then, you know, you be on your team. We can be friends on, on the outside. We can work on that as a as a deal whatever and he's like like you he wanted to come in and train with our team still you know as not as not part of the team right and then i was like but you're welcome to stay on our team obviously if you want and continue to do your camps and whatnot and he is just like like out so that at that point it became him

taking this opportunity going to Denver being with Dwayne getting paid to do the muscle farm thing and then the whole thing with Connor happened on the TV show before this before any of this happened Connor McGregor started calling him a snake because

me and Connor had one conversation we were sitting there and he goes he goes man congratulations on tj defending his belt because he was still on our team his last title defense and i go thanks he goes but what's up with duane saying that no one on your team wants to be champions that's weird i said oh he's just bitter because you know he's trying to get everyone to go out to his camp but He's just being a hater, this and that. And he goes – he took that little bit of drama between me and Dwayne, like Dwayne saying that no one on our team wanted to be our champions, including Cody who sent him a tweet that said, hey, keep my name out of your mouth.

You're like a jealous girlfriend or whatever. And he took that one little thing and then next time he saw TG, he goes, oh, there's a snake in the grass and just built it in this big thing. It's crazy how well he is at manipulating that kind of shit. He's so good at seeing people, right? Yeah. So that took what really happened, which was T.J. got paid to go somewhere else. Me saying, all right, fine, if you're going to do that, it's cool, but if you're on that team, you're on that team.

And then Connor turned the public around on him yeah because it came out later after the thing and so then tj became the victim and then he and now tj's new story is that i i i got mad that he was training with duane ludwig and i kicked him off the team well you know tj now has a snake as his logo i know yeah on the ultimate fighter he brought in snakes you know what I mean? He's at home with it, you know? He's cool with it. So it's all good.

How weird. We winded back a little bit. If you want to be friends, let's be friends. But don't lie. We winded back to it. I remember going to Canada. It was during the Ultimate Fighter, sticking up for TJ. Because TJ wasn't saying anything.

Connor was basically inviting him to fight and and tj's like yeah you know like nonchalant like whatever about it but wasn't defending himself like i'm not a snake someone calling me a snake in the grass and say i was like disloyal to my teammates and shit we're fighting and that's why i stuck up for tj because tj's literally i'm like we're partying in vegas we're having a good time like for the first time kind of a heart to heart with them with him too. With TJ, yeah. He's telling me this shit. He's like, dude, I'm with you guys. I'm not leaving. Fuck that. I'm with you guys. I'm like, this is not even that I'm not that close with TJ,

but he's part of our team. He's a champion. When you're a champion, you get taken care of. I'll defend him. Connor was doing that. He's like, what are you guys going to do? He was talking about TJ. I was like, man, I'll do something about it. You're that. He's like, what are you guys going to do? And it was talking about TJ. So I was like, man, I'll do something about it. Like, you're asking for a fight.

We'll fight. And it broke into the pushing match, and it was going out to the outside. Because that's TJ saying that we were, that he was with us. So I'm like, dude, he's not going to talk about my team. So how does it feel now, knowing that you're going to defend against TJ, with all this weird drama, all this bullshit? For me, I don't ever get wrapped up into it it might look like that with the show and this my life's

been like this yeah I can live and prosper and focus on when it's time to focus and die it's like a flip in a switch like I can be doing the dumbest shit like you're fighting Dominic Cruz we're in the back just doing dumb shit I'm I'm warming up I'm just I'm just flipping the switch I always was like that since I was a little kid, like wrestling, football. When the lights shine, that's when I shine the brightest, I always feel like.

And now with TJ, I don't respect him as a person, but it doesn't mean I don't respect him as a fighter. The guy is skillful. He's mean as fuck, and he's going to bring a fight that's going to be what I love a challenge. With TJ, it's going to be a challenge. I know him like the back of my hand. My coaches know him like the back of my hand.

We were able to dissect Dominic Cruz for me through all their experiences. This is a guy they built up that was there longer than I've been. I went out there at 1-0. I had 10 fights now with Team Alpha Male and 11-0 World Champion. Obviously I was skilled

before I got there we blended together they had the recipe for success I listened and followed the lead with Faber and a lot of other guys on the team and so we know

TJ I know what he's going to do I know what I have to prepare for so I'm excited for it like all the drama bullshit hey whatever

like it's been it's going on too long like I'm just ready to focus on this fight and go in there and do what I have to do to get this win i guess well you have a good mindset and i mean think that is the gigantic part of what makes someone successful in the sport is being able to do that like you said having the confidence that you're going to shine the brightest when the

lights are on and having this mindset like you're appreciating the fact that tj is mean and skillful it's going to give you a great challenge yeah it, it's like, man, I'm sitting on the couch or something. What do you think TJ's doing? He's sitting on the couch. You're getting up and going to do the extra woodwork because you know TJ's a workhorse like that. So that, for me, makes me motivated. I need these guys to keep me motivated. Like Dominic, you know, I watched the

embeddeds of him. He was running alone, you know, like a sob story on Christmas. Like, I just got to do this. I like it. I'm sitting there, you know. We're having a party. Yeah, having a party. Like, man, I'm enjoying this shit. Like, I just gotta do this. I like it. I'm sitting there, you know. We're having a party. Yeah, having a party. Like, man, I'm enjoying this shit. Like, I'm about to fight for my first title. You know, I'll never have this time again in my life.

I'll never fight for my first world title. Now it's, I'm finally getting to defend my title. Who cares? A lot of, we were talking about this,

a lot of people win the title, but what the fuck do they do with it? Right. You know, now it's about creating that legacy. And now I have TJ, who's, man,

he's a bad motherfucker. He was ranked in the pound for pound before and the top 10 you know he's a killer so that's a i'm going to catapult my career with him and i know what i'm going to do to do with him you know i like i've been with i want to know when i was green is how just boxing wrestling athletic love to fight now i've blended and found my own style and just finally getting really composed in there where I can let my skills show off. And I'm fighting higher people, so my skill level rises. I've always was like that.

Now, what is this video, supposedly, of you knocking him out? Oh, yeah. Yep. Oh, yeah, true. True, yeah. How come you guys didn't release it? First off, I don't have it. It's not my video.

I have seen it. It's Justin it was on justin's gopro and dude this i literally that i felt bad not bad for it because it was just whatever tj came followed me around the gym like wherever i would go i put my gym bag away like hey man like i slipped dude i'm like okay literally like he was off his rocker about him okay he's super competitive how did it go down what happened? I remember him throwing a you know Doing his little footwork and then he did the jump down and does the uppercut and I just threw overhand right boom Melton I'm out and he got up and he was literally fighting Easton ready for the Easton flex. I remember the day

He didn't go out cold, like flat out. He just got dropped and came back up. And he was on stanky leg like Walker. And he's going, come on, motherfucker. Hit me. I'm like, just like, paw my jibe out. He was saying that after you dropped him? Yeah, he's a fucking nut. I love it.

Yeah, he's always like, this TJ's a fucking nut. So it wasn't a knockout as much as it was, you just dropped him. Yeah. I dropped him to his, I mean, his legs forward. And then he got back up and started saying, come on, motherfucker. So he was conscious, right?

And he knew that he had hit. He was staggering, bro. He looked like John Dodson had him on skates. I was like, oh, okay. And I was like, I'm not going to hit him. You're fighting in two weeks. I wasn't like that. But literally he had to say he fell forward. He slipped. I'm like, dude, And I was like, I'm not going to hit him. You're fighting in two weeks. I wasn't like that. But literally, he had to say he fell forward.

He slipped. I'm like, dude, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to say anything. And then I was showing Danny how I like Castillo because he likes overhand rights, how I throw my head off the lane, bring the right hand, this and that. And then Buckles comes over. He's like, dude. And it was Christmas Day or something sparring.

Buckles was filming his own. Filming his own sparring. He's like, dude, I watched you knock TJ out. And I was like, oh, yeah. He's like, oh, I have it on my GoPro. I'm like, oh, that's cool. And then nothing ever came about it. And then TJ was saying that he used to make me cry in practice.

No, I have cried in practice before because this motherfucker jumped me on my head before the Alameda fight. I was like super mad about it. Faber comes in, has a camera crew at the Pyrus Labs. And we're going hard. Dumps me on my head before that I made a fight. I was super mad about it. Faber comes in, has the camera crew, the purist labs, and we're going hard. Dumps me on my head. I'm like, I get mad. I'm like, try not to get hurt before the fight.

I never cried. Teej never made me cry. I was like, what is he talking about making me cry? I'll admit if I cried. So when you get dumped on your head, did you get concussed or something? Did you get hurt? Faber thinks I'm like, he cried. Faber comes in, Did you get concussed or something? Did you get hurt? No. More of like, favorite things sound like, huh? He cried.

Pride. Pride. Pride, he's saying. Favorite comes in just off. Come on. I don't barely remember this. I think what's happened, first off, here's the thing. Cody is a dangerous, dangerous motherfucker. If you're not on your, even if he's not trying to, you're getting fucking rocked or hurt

or whatever. So I have to be on A game with him, even if you're going light, unless he's going trying to you're getting fucking rocked or hurt or whatever so i have to be on on a game with him even if you're going light you know unless he's gonna go light but light doesn't work when the guy's accurate and strong and everything else so we had to go so it was just like a like a wizard hip heist launched me dude launched me on my head well because you were coming after me so i know now when there's a camera crew fall in favor it's not light it's it's fucking a fight you know so i'm i'm prepared for that so that's that's where all that came from about the video and like coming out like we have the video of you getting knocked out tj

you didn't make it he was saying he made us beat us all up like with the dominic sit down no i think duane was maybe saying that or something well he said that dominic's like oh you beat your teammates up he's like yeah, yeah, I actually, for a matter of fact, have been beating them up. I don't fall most of the stuff. What's your thoughts on sparring? Do you think that you should be sparring hard

or do you think you should be sparring technical and pull back on shots or do you think you should have a little bit of both? I think a little bit of both. I think beginning of camp, you get your rounds in

to where you're feeling comfortable and then later on camp your technique you know your combos that you're working kind of like fight simulation but get those rounds in because you're not wanting to beat your body up closer to the fight i want to feel fresh at the fight and that's why i've always used i'll literally get 50 rounds of sparring start tapering off towards the end of the end of the fight camp as it called in boxing really no fight try in camp do you try to spar with only people that you know so that you know that you can trust them? So you know, like, especially, obviously this TJ fight's a giant fight.

Huge fight. And it's going to be huge, not just for the division, but for the sport. I mean, all the major fans are going to be paying attention to this fight. Yeah, definitely. I'm safe with it now. Like, we were talking about, I have all these fights logged in, not even just all the street fights, all the boxing matches, the sparring work. I don't need to spar as much, but I need to.

We were sparring 10 rounds for the cruise fight, 10 straight fives, eight to 10 each week. I'm like, buckles is kind of, you know, it worked, you know what I mean? But we were doing smaller glove, more MMA based, you know, it worked, you know what I mean? But we were doing smaller glove, more MMA-based. You know, big gloves, I mean, techniques are out the window. You know, people just sprawl and brawl kind of shit. Like, I like small glove. You know, you're still peppering the shots, hitting them,

but you're working the whole game, takedowns, submissions. So I like that. And also fight simulations. I like fight. Like, having my uncle come out, holder justin's uh the other pad holder for you know and danny favor have like four different bodies where they're on you it's like a fight they're on right next you know you're hitting pads and you get tackled from behind you have to work up things like that it's safe you're not and that's genuinely what i like to do yeah

there is there is nothing like you know like like we talked about running sprinting and blowing out the lungs etc there's nothing like actual like intense sparring to simulate what it feels like in a fight though and it's as familiar as you get with it it still feels horrible when it happens like i've been i've always been known as like the conditioning guy like i can condition and and like never get tired etc etc in fights you get tired it's about the poker cetera, in fights. You get tired. It's about the poker face. It's about being familiar with it. It's about these things.

Yeah, being comfortable there. Yeah, being comfortable with it. So you have to get there sometimes, and it's just being smart about it. Yeah, a cowboy doesn't spar anymore. Really? Yeah, a cowboy essentially does mostly drills and pad work and simulations and stuff like that. And if he does spar, I think he spars super light because he was realizing that he was beating himself up too much in training.

And coming into fights like already kind of a little soft. Not soft, but, you know. Yeah, I trained with him for a week, and that's what he loved to do. Fucking treadmill, bike workouts, and sparring and pad work. You know, nothing really else. Didn't wrestle with jits. He just loved sparring, doing all that. Did he

spar hard though? I heard he's like a killer knocking dudes out of the gym like a nasty sparring partner. Cowboy. Maybe that's one of the reasons why he stopped doing it. Probably.

Maybe all that stuff. Look, you can't always be the hammer. If you're having those kind of rock-em, sock-em, robot sparring sessions, you're going to get tagged for sure, right? Absolutely. For me, I like getting in those. We just had Saturday sparring with a lot of the good guys. Yeah, we had a killer's row of sparring going on this last weekend.

Ten rounds, yeah. You've got to get those in sometimes. Those for me, like I've been out of it for a little bit like just knowing that it's a couple you know weeks knock the rest off you know it's why it feels good but you feel good about it like you're like wow like we're gonna go in here and fight and i know what the fight that tj's gonna bring it's gonna be i hope it's a phone booth you know i hope it you know stand and trade let's let's see i don't know how he's gonna you know because he knows my skills and knows that i've you know literally have gotten so much better since then i was still getting the better of him and i'm not saying even to my own or whatever it's the gym but you're as competitive as he is and competitive i am you're

not going to give an edge in practice i don't give an edge in practice favor takes me down we're going again you know it's vice versa i take favor down like oh it's overtime we go 40 minutes after sometimes it's like this guy's one of the hardest guys to break because he's just i don't mean too dumb to know he's tired or stop going but i'm like so i'm like damn dude like you're like we were just talking about that and now he's retired so he comes in like these guys are like fresh off he's all fresh but comes in like this guy's retired like i'm gonna fuck favor up and this guy's breaking these younger dudes that are killers themselves because he just has that mentality it's a different breed uh and that's why like i said tj he's that breed he is that to that point you know he's an alpha male guy unfortunately

so for me you guys feel like you could ever reckon to ain't style or do you feel like he's crossed a line into some weird sort of you know treacherous area i did so much defending of that guy because of you know he's you know whatever his thing is here and this and that and i have a lot of great friends that are newer i mean like cody's newer in my life but we've got a bond i've got friends that i've had since I was like kindergarten and before kindergarten and growing up together, you know, in my community. And like I've got great groups of friends. So it's like, I mean, I can reconcile whatever.

Just stop lying about what actually happened to save your face. It's like I'd never kick the guy off of a team or anything. And then he gets the one opportunity on national television to say something about me. That's my only qualm with the guy. I didn't like Dwayne because of the things that he had done, but TJ and I were always cool. Yeah, I still made it work. Isn't that one of the weirdest things about running a gym and running a camp

is that you kind of have to manage? You almost have to be like a psychologist. Everyone's personalities. Oh, my gosh, dude. A lot of fighters are prima donnas you're almost not just a trainer not just a teammate but you're also a psychologist

and some sort of a counselor I have to be glue honestly I'm just learning this more and more when I step out of the area too much it's like I have to come back in and put out fires and bring everyone back together.

And that's, I would say that's one of my skills is, is getting along with people and making things mesh and, and finding a culture and building like a healthy environment. And like that can get tweaked so easily. It's, it's crazy. It's cancer. Yeah. And now Justin Buchholz is your main trainer now, right? He's like, uh, we, what we've gone to now is we have like a whole staff of main trainers

because we have so many fighters. I mean, we just had Sage Northcutt, Yair Rodriguez, and Sarah McMahon are in the gym right now. Nice. And, you know, Rick Glenn is about to go, and he's a new guy to the team. And then we've got, you know, Darren Elkins. So we have different guys like Danny Castillo is a head coach. Chris Holder is a head coach. Coach Joey Rodriguez is a different guys like Danny Castillo is a head coach. Chris Holder is a head coach.

Coach Joey Rodriguez is a head coach. Danny Castillo is a head coach. We have Fabio Prado, who's a coach. Dustin Akbari. And those guys have been with us for 14 years, 13 years. And I'm in a lead position as a coach. I run practices and oversee things and coordinate things. It's a co-op.

It's a big co-op. And different people have different coaches that are like their main gig and, you know, different skill sets. Justin's still fairly young too, right? How old is Justin? He's like 34? Yeah, he's 35, I think. And is he completely done competing?

That's a great question. You never know with the fight game, you know what I mean? Yeah. It only takes a yes to be back in the fight game. Sometimes guys, when they coach, they also feel like they're getting better because they understand things more. You see that a lot with jiu-jitsu competitors. A lot of times coaching makes them a better fighter.

Absolutely. I don't know if he'll come back. But what we've got is a great co-op, and it's always a struggle to keep things because there's going to be cliques. There's going to be the potheads and the nerds and the fucking jocks. The dopers. And like, you know, whatever.

Fucking dopers. It's like. Fucking dopers. So are you enjoying it still? Oh, yeah, I am. After all these years in the game? Dude, you know what? You know what?

It was awesome. I went to Mexico City and I missed Chad's wedding to go and Chad's my boy. I love Chad. I love Abby, his wife. And it was, I know I's wedding to go. And Chad's my boy. I love Chad. I love Abby, his wife. And I know I miss a great time. But I got to go corner Joseph Morales,

who's been with me since he's... He's the oldest member of our team. He's been with us the longest. And he was nine years old when he started with us. That's crazy. And he, you know, like Danny Castillo, it was me and Danny Castillo and our coach Joey in his corner.

And Danny was getting all teared up. Like we all got teared up right before the fight. Like we brought it in and everyone's kind of crying and everything. And like Joseph, I mean, he's been through his struggles. When he was going through a hard time, I took him to the front row of, you know, the UFC and just, you know, put him right there and let him visualize. And so that's the stuff I enjoy. Now uh you guys had yair in camp huh what a what a crazy stand at my house right now he's all by himself a big old house what a crazy style that guy's got dude he's talent he's a really talented guy weird style too right like that taekwondo based yeah

kicking and wild shit like when he hit hit BJ Penn with a 360 roundhouse kick to the face. Yeah. You're like, oh, okay. Yeah. He's got good range. It's crazy.

He's got good range. He even said that. He's hands, you know, I'm not so good with the range and like knowing like my kicks, I'm real accurate

with his kicks. And he says, I kick harder and stuff. I think that's just. Yeah, he feels like he's more accurate with his kicks and faster with his kicks

than he is with his hands. Well, there's less consequences if he's not doing it with someone who's also a great kicker because he's able to operate in a range where he's pretty effective and most people aren't. He's a long kicker too. Yeah, and he's been staying at my house the last week, and so I'm getting to know him a lot. I mean, what a cool dude. I mean, that guy is – Very smart guy.

Very smart. He's well put together. I got to hear a little bit about the town he's from, Chihuahua, in Mexico. It's a pretty scary place. And kind of his journey as a young kid is one of the top karate guys in Mexico. So he's been a competitor for a long time. Used to have a coach that used to hit him with a stick, so they left that place, and the guy called him back and was like,

can you please come back? I won't hit you with a stick anymore? Yeah, when he was like 7 and 8. Jesus Christ. He's been in the combat sport for a while. Yeah, I think that Frankie Edgar fight was a very tough fight for him, but a good fight as far as a learning experience. A lot of people had said that, and I was one of the

ones that said it, like, we'll see what happens when he fights a great wrestler. That's going to be the real issue with him, because he's got all this wild kicking stuff, but that stuff doesn't work if somebody grabs a hold of you. Right. If someone can control you. Frankie's on a different level of that, too.

He's great at mixing it together. So, Yair, his wrestling, because I got to wrestle him the other day, he actually posted a little video of us wrestling. But his wrestling is good. It's just like Conor. Conor's boxing is really good. It's just not Floyd Mayweather good in the later rounds. So Yair's made a lot of gains.

He went and trained with Israel Martinez who put him through like a he's a great coach Israel and he put him through like a whole year of wrestling so his wrestling is top notch but it's not you know

not Frank Yeager level when you're a little bit fatigued and you make a small mistake and the guy can capitalize. But it's getting there. Yeah, it's interesting. You see so many different approaches. And his approach is very unique. And it's one of the things that's exciting about him is that he's got that crazy, wild kicking style.

Yeah. He'll throw everything. Yeah. Torpedo kicks, all kinds of shit. Yeah. That's a guy I like to mix up with because you don't see too many of those guys, but once you run into them, you've got to be prepared for them. Yeah, and it's good to watch him and Feely were training.

You know, he got a win over Feely, but, like, Feely felt like, oh, man, I was in that fight. He just got caught. He got popped in the orbital and then couldn't see and got switch kicked to the dome. And so Feely's like, man, it's fun to watch these guys come full circle. Like, Yair beat Feely, and now they're training together and working together a little bit.

And then Darren Elkins lost to Chad, and Darren Elkins came to see us, and he's been on like a six-fight win streak. That guy is a frigging gem, dude. Dude, that fight with Mursad Bektik was one of the craziest moments I've ever seen the Octagon. Getting his ass kicked for every fucking second of the first couple rounds. And he finally gets a hold of him. The damage.

Beats him down and KOs him. And then just screams like a demon. Yeah. Covered in blood. I was sitting there. I left during the second round. I was like, man, I can't watch this. I don't like watching my friends, especially when shit like that happens.

I walked out. The next thing you know, the place goes nuts, and I see Elkins knocked him out. I was like, holy, that kid. You've got to, honestly, to stop Elkins, you have to knock the fuck out. You've got to shut his system off. For sure. So tough. Elkins is the pillar of consistency.

He's always at every practice, listens to every coach. He's going hard. We have these two Chechnyan brothers that come in. They're from Chechnya. They're really talented guys. I'm actually going to go corner the guys over in Ukraine. But they're super skilled fighters but don't have that grind like we have here. And so they keep popping him.

Boom, boom, boom. And then they keep trying to call timeout. They catch him with a couple things. And Elkins chasing after him. Uh-uh, you're not taking a timeout. Uh-uh. He grabs the guy. Why do they try to take timeout?

Because they get tired. Yeah. The funniest shit. They'll be pop, pop. Just flap. His head will fly back. Boom. Hit him there.

Kick him in the leg. And he's like. Keeps forward. Then they're like. He catches him with something and grabs him. Oh, time out, time out. He's like, oh, fuck that, motherfucker. No time out.

Elk is a grinder. Yeah, he's a grinder. He looked great against Dennis Bermudez. That's a big win. Awesome. That's a big win. That's a big win. And he looked smooth in that final. He didn't take as much damage. His name's Damage for a reason because he gets so much damage.

But it's also like the way he's moving looks better. The way he's kicking and punching, his combinations. He looks like he's got less extra steps. It's like there's all smoothness in his transitions and his movements. That's what we've been working on. I think a lot of that has to do with obviously working the footwork. It's like it's all smoothness and his transitions and his movements. That's what we've been working on. Go ahead. I think a lot of that has to do with, obviously, working the footwork. Some of these guys are straight wrestlers and then like, all right, we're going to wrestle and throw punches and try to take you down.

But the footwork is the core of everything. Yeah, you can throw good hands, but if your feet are out of position, you're getting taken down. You're not going to land power punches. So the footwork, I religiously work on footwork daily. Me land power punches so the footwork I religiously work on footwork daily yeah that's all I do is footwork that's Dominic I mean that is his entire thing is his ability to move is just so unusual as footwork is so weird and that's one of the things where you went toe for toe for him toe to toe with him when your your footwork is equally as

good as his is not better and you were landing harder combinations for us master tong was all about footwork and body mechanics and he's back in thailand now and then that's been passed on to our next generation of coaches he did move back after 11 years why did he decide to move back to thailand became a monk for a day he came one for a day because because his parents had. If you don't go and live in the monastery for within a year and a half after, he hadn't seen his son in 11 years since his son was four. And he spent all his time FaceTiming with his family, and he wasn't necessarily allowed back. And when he went back, he stuck back.

He wasn't allowed back? How come? Illegal. Oh. Yeah. Oh, so he couldn't come back to America if he went back, he stuck back. He wasn't allowed back? How come? Illegal. Oh. Oh, so he couldn't come back to America if he went back to Thailand. Yeah, yeah. So when he was gone, he was gone

because he overstayed a visa. Oh, I see. So he, yeah, so that's when you never saw, when you saw T.J. Dillashaw on my corner in Canada, that's because Master Tong couldn't go to Canada. T.J. every every single thing that that that master tong like knew all his his stuff and could hold mints but he was all about that and now which see that's what's great about having all these coaches like justin buckles he knows

he knows master tong's style he knows uh my style he knows uh every coach you ever had in there duane style he knows you know anybody dimitri may donick dimitri may donick style anybody that's been in here he knows uh bob bob's uncle bob's style and so you get a guy like darren elkins that needs to work on that striking and we put him with justin buckles, you know, with the cumulative part of the team, it works wonders. And then you get a guy like Yair who comes in with this striking background and now we've got all these different attributes. You're like a Sage Northcutt who's with us right now.

That guy is the, hey, let's take a moment to acknowledge Sage Northcutt as the nicest guy on the planet. He's the nicest guy. He's legitimately like the nicest dude on the planet. Do you think that guy got into the UFC too quick? Maybe a little bit, but it doesn't matter. Young guy, super talented, and was looking really good in some small organizations, but really didn't have a complete game yet.

I'm going to tell you, he learns really, really fast. I always mess with Cody. I always get this guy, I'm like, man, Sage learns a lot faster than you. It's not really the case. I just like to fuck with this guy. Doesn't Sage have a sister that's a karate competitor too? Yeah. She should fight MMA. She took her first fight

and she lost. She has some potential too. That's interesting. He's a fun case because he's got that weird karate style. He's super fast. He's a fun case because he's got that weird karate style. He's super fast. He's got a mean streak too though. You wouldn't know it, but he's got a little mean streak

and he's got all the knowledge. Because he's nice, everybody wants to help the guy and he's so nice that he's just like, oh, thank you. Learn from whoever tells him. Calls me Mr. Faber. That's awesome. Mr. Faber. Mr. Faber. That's awesome, Mr. Faber. Mr. Faber.

Now when you guys do a camp, like say you training for TJ, who organizes your camp? How do you organize your strength and conditioning routine? How do you organize what you're going to do that day? Or do you do it based on how you feel? Who is the coordinator? Myself, basically. That's what we do.

Faber always would preach about, hey, it's a lifestyle change. like who's who's the coordinator myself basically i kind of that's what we do like favorite always would preach about hey it's a lifestyle change like if you need to do this much work you need to do wrestling get a get some guys on the team and wrestle so i'll figure out what i need to do especially for this fight with tj i know the specific work that i need combos what he throws what he likes to do vice versa so i get with all my coaches like hey i would like to have this much work with chris personals this much work with motion and movement with favor pad work i have my uncle come out and do pad work as well and then i get with my strength conditioning coach where i'm going three times a week right usually one heavy day two like movement footwork you know grease in the body uh so it's

just always like usually on that sunday we're like hey we lay it out lay it out lay it out so you lay out the whole week in advance so like when you have a heavy day say if you have like a rock'em soccer robots day the next day

do you like to do like yoga stretch out do movement hit pads like how do you how do you work it I usually go

Sundays kind of like a what do you call it like a shake out kind of active rest active rest where you're moving doing footwork so I don't feel like garbage on Monday Sunday is kind of like a shakeout kind of workout. Active rest. Active rest where you're moving, doing footwork. So I don't feel like garbage on Monday. Monday we hit it hard, usually morning practice or pad works in the afternoon,

and then jiu-jitsu, so it's usually three on Mondays. Tuesdays I usually just wrestle and maybe do some pad work because I like to kind of be rested for sparring because sparring is a lot. Wednesday. Sparring on Wednesday, and then I'll usually do a strength conditioning workout after sparring because sparring is a lot. Sparring on Wednesday and then I'll usually do a strength conditioning workout after sparring. And on Thursday is usually my no impact day. I usually kind of like, it's wrestling. Sometimes I'll go

in there and just wrestle. If I feel good, I'll drill. I won't go live. And then I'll do yoga or more of my hyperbaric chambers. I like to go towards the end of the week after the sparring because Friday is an MMA practice. So it's like everything. You're doing the sparring, MMA.

You're doing the grappling. So is this trial and error that's led you to this schedule that gives you the thought to take Thursday light and then go hard on Friday, Monday hard, Sunday light? Yeah, this is what has worked for me. As I said, I came out here. Literally, I was in. I was doing my own strength conditioning before i came out to team alpha male and i was hitting pads with my uncle and i'd go in and spar i wouldn't even mma spar i would do boxing with takedowns that's all we would do

because a lot of the boxers i was with wrestle or you know i mean so they would do we would just do the boxing or wrestling so we never do the boxers didn't want kicked right so we're just doing that i get my work and i was working with paul spadafora a lot of these boxers didn't want kicked. Right. So we were just doing that. I'd get my work, and I was working with Paul Spadafora, a lot of these boxers in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. And I finally came out here, and these guys had it like, man. A system. A system, like a wrestling system. And that's why they do so well because they do the drilling. You start out with this.

We're going to go wrestling, and then we're going to go in the clinch, back to strikes, fit-ins. It goes from this. It's structure. So I never knew any of that. The first time I really trained jiu-jitsu was out here, learning it and blending it together. Like I said, I was a good athlete, good wrestler, good fighter, good boxer.

But I found my own style here with going and doing. Really, the first year that I was here, I was just training. I was in the gym all the time. He actually told me, he was here, I was just training like for, like I was in the gym. He actually told me, he's like, bro, this is like a little,

you know, we had to tone it back a little bit, which like I said, we have the, this team was built on over training. It was like, I didn't take a vacation for seven years when I started fighting. I mean, I never took vacations growing up either.

We didn't have money. It wasn't like something that we did. So I'm not like used to like, Oh, we're taking a vacation, but like seven years, I didn't take a vacation. And so it was like this grind, grind, grind, and everybody's kind of keeping up and we've, we've shifted and gotten smarter and had more input and et cetera, et cetera. But the bottom line for me is this, we have a lot of advisors, right? And like, like it's Sage Northcutt's a great example he could he'll he'll listen to whoever's list talking to him and like and people want to talk to him all the time and tell him what to do right so like there's advice there's an advisory like we say hey this is the

coaches and i think that you need to do this and we need to do that but you have to be especially at a high level like this you have to be a thermometer for your own, for your own stuff as well. So we have set practices throughout the day, but if you're feeling way too beat up, you know, cause we're not worried about guys not showing up to practice because they're lazy. We have the best athletes in the world, the right mentality. We trust that the mentality and the purpose is there and right. So if you're feeling too much, you got to let us know. We'll take a little back and do it there. And so this is kind of what we found for him is working.

Now, when you're scheduling everything yourself, like there's two schools of thought on that. There's like one school of thought that says someone should be overseeing everything for you. So you're not telling you what to do. Scheduling is one thing, but what you're scheduling, he's scheduling something with a coach. He's got a strength and conditioning and a physical therapist that are taking that part of his thing. He's got us as head coaches overlooking, saying, hey,

we need to make sure that you're getting this in. But there's coaches every single time for that. It's not like you're just on your own doing your shit. Of course, right. Some people do do it that way. Some people like to do everything on their own, which is interesting, too. Some people just like to be told what to do. Just, here, you're going to do this. Exactly, yeah.

But that goes away when somebody fucks you up. You know what I mean? Yeah. My strength and conditioning coaches, PT coaches, with my MMA coaches, they're all in coordinates like, hey, we went heavy with this. We should ease back this. Maybe do this many rounds. But that's just started doing that.

I think for the cruise fight, the first time I wore a heart rate monitor and tried to track where my heart rate was at. I was getting up high in the 180s and trying to bring it back down. That's the first time I've ever done that. So when you're doing that, are you doing that for strength and conditioning or are you doing that holding pads? That was literally we would throw for 90 seconds we would throw we do it for six rounds i would throw the same combo we had three or four different combos that we'd throw

for 90 seconds and just keep the input up so it's just four or five punch combos and finish with the kick or something whatever the combo so your heart rates get jacked and then you wait until it gets down to what before you go again? And then I think you would. Like 140 or something? I was getting it down, I think, lower than that. And then you're going again. Yeah, so we do that.

How much time are you giving yourself in the recovery times? In between rounds? I like to do 45 seconds because you think a mental thing. I'm going 45 seconds. I got another 15 seconds of, you know. Recovery. Usually you feel good at 30. You're like, oh, I'm good.

I got 30 more seconds. Now to put it to 45, it's like in the fight, you're like, well, because that minute goes fast as hell. Right. You're like talking to your coaches. You might got your bell rung, get stitched or, you know, your eyes fixed. And then you're back up there. So I like to keep it at 45 seconds and keep going.

Now here you are. You're 25, right? 26 now. 26. Champion of the world. When you look at your future, you look at your potential future in the sport, I mean, you could be a gigantic fucking superstar. The world is your oyster, right?

How do you plan? Do you have of uh like master plan for your career you know what my goal was so long to be the world champion and i i grinded towards i had that goal i got that goal you know i accomplished that and then it was boom right into the ultimate fighter boom injury boom fight postponed so i was like i haven't been able to really really set down because like well you know when you're in training you're focused on something for me i'm a creature habit i like routine um so we have just recently now sat down and we've said about it you know everyone can win the champion everyone can be a world title it's what you do with the title now i've set these goals to build my legacy you know

to start going on and who knows who knows what could happen in a year or so like i said i didn't think i was going to be injured you know i never thought i'd be out this long you know this is the the most trying time of my life because i couldn't do something that i love to do i've been in pain and injured and how long have you been injured for man been years it's been since a junior year i started having back problems from football. Whoa. Fucking football. On and off, yeah. Yeah. Fucking football.

Damn, fuck football. So my uncle says all the time. All the time. Is that damn foosball? And so I've dealt with it. But progressively, it was the Henry Briones fight was the fight that I almost pulled out of that fight. It was the first fight I ever pulled out besides, obviously, TJ had to postpone it. I couldn't walk, but Sean Shelby gathered wind of Maddox and our story

and that he wanted to walk, so I just told him, and my back was really bad then. So that's when it really started to come on, and then I didn't fight for, after the Henry fight, I didn't fight for nine months, ten months, and then the UFC kept booking me. I fought Augustusta mendez i was supposed to fight um other brazilian um lineker he got sick the week of the fight replacement and then fought him then almeida and then it was mizugaki then it was cruz so i didn't have time to be like really i just dealt with the pain like there was times where i would take two

weeks off of like really training doing anything or it would switch side to be my left side or my right side so I would go southpaw until that side started messing up I'd switch back to orthodontics like it was a lot of like sometimes working around it working around it because I had to because I went to Germany right for that regenequin procedure and how did that go you know what it felt good I felt like it took the you know inflammation inflammation away so it stopped like locking up and sending the shot you know the shocks down my leg um but still i was i've been doing rehab since and i've been doing rehab monday wednesday and friday and obviously on tuesday thursday doing lifting so i've been doing rehab and getting to become i feel like a better athlete i'm moving more but still it's like from being constantly in a wrestling stance

or a boxing stance, being like that, now I've reprived myself open, and it's the muscles around it are still, you know, I just had a little scare a couple weeks ago. We're good. You know, we're moving on from that. I feel way better. My back feels way stronger. I wasn't able to fight July 8th.

Like, there's no way. We try to get optimistic about it, going to Germany and thinking that it was going to heal. Miracle. Yeah, miracle shots. Well, it maybe would have been if you took more time off. More time off. That's the thing. It's like you're a pro athlete.

So you're not just having these procedures and then taking a long time to recover. You're having these procedures and then trying to get back to training pretty quick literally like you know i had that fight so i was literally seven weeks out from when i had the first demso yeah and they're like take a month off like take four weeks off and then two weeks of trying to so that leaves me with a week and a half to train for my title fight like you guys understand that yeah that's insane and that doesn't even make sense so you're uh october 7th is the fight right uh november 4th november 4th oh yeah that's right mass square oh that's right why the fuck did i think okay that makes that's that that makes it it was rumored i guess i mean i got hit

by a couple of news outlets i was fighting october i'm like yeah that's the vegas right that's the vegas card who's on that card who is uh kevin lee i think it's like oh that's right Vegas. Yeah, that's the Vegas card. Who's on that card? Who is, Kevin Lee, I think is playing. Oh, that's right. Tony Ferguson. Tony Ferguson, Kevin Lee for the interim 155-pound title. Yeah. That whole interim thing is so crazy, right? They just sort of randomly decide when they're going to have interim titles.

Yeah, how they do that. I remember Dominic Cruz had it for a long time, and they let him keep it for a long time. And there's some guys, they're just like, all right, you're done. Yeah. That's what I was with the whole thing. I said, I'm not rushing back if you guys want to make an interim title or take the title from me that's fine i'm 25 years old i'm gonna i'm gonna get the title back it's right i got it here i'm gonna get it back if that's where it happened right so i didn't want anyone to sit you know tj wanted to go down and fight dj because that was my thing i

texted john and dan because i can make 25 that was That was my whole game plan was to fight TJ July 8th. And I got hurt, pulled out, and then I was going to fight DJ in Madison Square Garden. So I was always in my mind I was going to fight in November in Madison Square Garden. It's just a different opponent. Well, somebody's got to fight DJ. I was kind of bummed out that Demetrius decided not to fight TJ. I thought that would be an interesting fight. I never even knew that was an option, just to be like, I'm not going to fight.

Well, he said, and I guess his mindset is that he's one fight away from breaking the record of the most titled defenses ever. And if TJ went down... At being able to beat up anyone in the world in your weight. Yes. Which is the important thing to think about there. Yes, it is. But if he lost to TJ

and TJ didn't make the weight, it would fuck him up. Like if TJ decided not to if he couldn't make the weight. It's a lot of ifs. It's a lot of ifs. Yeah, it's a lot of ifs. So he wanted TJ to fight one time at 125. Oh, to make sure he can make the weight. Make sure he can make the weight and then fight him.

I guess it makes sense, but the other thought process is you're the pound-for-pound best fighter on the planet. You should be fighting the best fight that you can get. And that's a really good fight. It's like Floyd didn't make sure Conor McGregor could make the weight. They just booked the fight and relied on him as a professional. How about when Jon Jones wouldn't fight Shale, though? That's because he hated Shale, though.

Part of it was like, fuck this guy. This guy might have a possibility of beating me. He goes, no, I'll do this through a real camp. He goes, I'm not going to come in here and take this on short notice. I don't know, man. I mean, he took the OSP fight on short notice, and it wasn't his best fight. He sort of prides himself on having a long game plan. That's his mentality, too, obviously, you know.

Man, this whole thing is so depressing with John. It is. I know, man. Apparently, we're going to find out soon what's going to happen with the B sample. Wow. You know, but if the B sample tests positive as well, he's kind of doomed. Doomed to what, though? What would you be?

Four years? Four years. Four years. It's four years. I believe. I mean, obviously, I'm not the fucking athletic commissioner, USADA, or whoever calls it out. But I think the first one was what? Well, the first one was an out of competition.

No, the first one was a tainted supplement, and they gave him a year, right? Didn't they give him a year? Yep. For the dick pills? Was it really dick pills what it was? Yeah, they tested the pills. Wasn't there some sort of estrogen blocker or something like that? Yeah, they put those in these estrogen, in these gas station dick pills.

Yeah, because they make you excited. They block your estrogen, fill you up with, I mean, look, they could put whatever the fuck they want in those things. They're just trying to get your dick hard. They're not thinking that a world-class, world-champion professional athlete is taking these. Going to go on a 7-Eleven and get some dick pills. I mean, he's a maniac. But don't you think, though, I mean, this is what I've always said, that world-class fighters, like professional fighters, are not like any other athlete.

Because they're fucking reckless. They're wild motherfuckers, like Cowboy, like you, like a lot of guys. They are impulsive, reckless, risk- wild motherfuckers, like Cowboy, like you, like a lot of guys. They are impulsive, reckless, risk-taking people. I don't know. I guess that's- Disciplined, for sure. I mean, professional, for sure. He's the Cali kid.

You're definitely different. But there's a lot of different guys in the sport that have different personalities. But a lot of fighters fighters it's a big percentage that are wild and john's fucking wild i'm like if you want to get a wild motherfucker like john who opens up his fight at 23 years old fighting shogun for the world title with a flying knee against shogun i mean that's how you open the fight that's that's a wild impulsive dude he just feels it and goes with it flow state yeah and feels like popping them gas station dick pills just like let's just do this he's redlining it

all the time there's no like yeah he's red well i mean he had all the excuses you know the cocaine was just partying the dick pills that's more the same now this one though is a different thing this is an actual what's he saying he's not saying anything no one's saying anything there's no no official statement talk to my lawyer yeah i mean um they're saying they didn't do anything you know that would be the most fucked up thing in the world if somebody slipped some shit into your water you know just to get you to test positive but you got to watch everything you fucking eat i mean you always have to think people definitely do double cross people yeah definitely in Definitely in this world. Big time. There's somebody who would absolutely put something tainted in your food. All they'd have to do is sprinkle a little bit, a little bit of it in a dish of food.

You wouldn't even notice it. I mean, do you really think that's what happened? I don't think anything. I don't know anything. I wonder. I mean, that's true, though. I mean, there's some fucking evil people out there. That's one thing I've learned is getting older is like just being a nice guy you assume everyone's nice and good and it's like there's some creepy negative people out

there man it's beautiful when you find nice people because of that though yeah it balances it out it's like when you know people that you can trust that really are your brother yeah that's like that makes it all the more like if everybody was cool you wouldn't necessarily appreciate cool people as much yeah Yeah, absolutely. Cool people everywhere. Where's all the douches? He would get mad. I need an enemy.

Yeah, I need someone to beat up. Have you ever fought somebody that you really liked? I fought a bunch of guys. Who did you fight that you really liked, Uriah? I liked Charlie Valencia, Brian Bowles. I liked Scotty Jorgensen. I liked Eddie Wineland. So you're friends with those guys.

I like Michael McDonald. Yeah. I was friends with all those guys. Weird, right? I can say probably one. Who? Mizugaki, just because he didn't speak English. Right.

It's Cody. Honestly, I was like, man, he's like. But Cody from the get-go, he goes, hey, man, I know you're cool, you're pulling us everything, but I like intensity, I like fire. Like, people say that he's got a temper and everything. He's like, no, he's fighting this guy, he's getting that mentality. That's part of what he likes. Right.

My thing is, either you, I whip your ass or you whip my ass. I'm always going to show you respect after, like, hey, you know, it's good. I remember that when I got signed i fought marcus brimage and i don't like shaking my opponent's hand before the fight i never like that i never like glove touch and any of that marcus that we i saw him a couple times in the hotel he's like what's up man like my god like cool man like good to yeah see you saturday you know what i mean and i told him before weigh-ins i was like hey you know go on stage like hey i don't want to shake your hand out there don't make me look like a dick like if I go to shit, you know, right. It's cool. It's cool. Yeah, right on man

I said I got respect for you. Let's put on a show and I'm like walking away I'm like, all right, and he like shook his hand out there and I was like in my mind like I was oh So I shook it again. I remember coming back to buckles was like he got me again with the handshake I probably didn't even realize exactly. Yeah And plus the zones come up to you like hey, I don't want to shake your hand. Let's fight the handshake. He probably didn't even realize his nerves and all that shit. And plus when someone comes up to you like, hey, I don't want to shake your hand let's fight.

How about they throw a brimage against Notorious and against No Love, man? Tough times. It's because he wears that thing. Yeah, that's why. He has to wear that goggles. What is that thing you're wearing? What are you doing?

You in a video game? The post-fight press conference, I had a lot of respect for dominic cruz the way he handled that yeah he just he had no excuses like took it like a man yeah he's like he's a better man he beat me i got no excuses there's nothing i could say yeah he's yeah for sure you know definitely we've had our differences and still might not he still has me blocked on instagram and twitter does he oh man no he went and talked shit on my wife's photo and then blocked me.

I'm like, this motherfucker. Oh, my God. Tell him about when you were doing the, you were going to do an interview. Bro, straight up.

I'm like, you blocked me? Like, dude. And Cody was trying to be cool to him doing like some interview and Dom was trying to needle Cody

and Cody was like, this motherfucker. I didn't even know what was going on, what was happening. I was doing the Fox for the Ultimate Fighter and it was obviously

Karen Bryant asked about me grabbing TJ by his throat. I'm like, yeah, he goes. And me and Dominic got into altercation at Weyans at 207. I literally come out, I'm just weighed in,

I had my hands full with all the paperwork bullshit they give us and George gave me all these waters and refuel stuff. So I come out of the door and I cross paths with Dominic i didn't know didn't even register it was him but at my peripheral i catch something and i kind of like turn back around and he was like had these chick

sunglasses on like these big chick sunglasses yeah and his hood up and he was like get out of you skinny little motherfucker and i was like well i was like dude we're fighting tomorrow man i was like so good i was just laughing like really like he wants to do it now but it's the first time we saw each other and the day before we were in this split room this this much and we're talking shit to each other on a camera i'm like we can't do like sit down obviously like that he has jeremy stevens in there right and i'm like man you got and stevens like a little boy like talking like just riding off of uh dom's hype or off his off dom like he brought in a self-proclaimed savage and jeremy stevens like the counterbalance that i was portraying to

be a savage that's what he kept saying i'm like right like i was like i'll come over and smack both of you guys right now i took my earpiece off i ran through the security and then he was saying i was throwing shit it is the whole build up so we finally saw each other and i was like man i was like being your ass tomorrow like walking off like i'm just hiding and i see jeremy stevens right out here he's like all puffed up he's like you're too small little dude he's like give me one of your teammates and i was like dropped all my shit and get ready to hit him like that and ali my manager comes out of nowhere swoops jeremy up but he grabbed me like he like scratched my neck had a big old scratch on it from his nail,

his little bitch nail. So it was that, and then that whole conflict. So he gets on Skype, or not Skype, Fox Sports. Cody's about to do an interview on Skype. About the situation of Tough,

Karen Bryant asked that, and he goes, he's like, he's just a little dick. You know, he just, whatever, respect him for what he did.

Because he knows that. I always said that. He knew what he had to do in that media for people not to hate him. You know, look how Conor and Rousey sometimes change a little bit after he lost. He took his humble pie and, hey, respect him for that. But I knew deep down that wasn't all the cherries. He's got some turmoil in there. Exactly.

It has to be. I dance all over his ass you know what i mean he's a great fighter i embarrass them you know so be honest how did it really go oh so i come on and i'm completely cool with cool like respect i'm like hey hats off getting tough tough dude we talked after i was like that guy's tough like i've been pictured in this and we come on and uh he's like hey you're getting joined by dominic i'm like oh cool like that's cool like right like it has to be brief that it says we're professionals like okay so it goes on about that he's like yeah you ever been choked up at weigh-ins and if so what would

you do and i'm like really thinking about this i'm like well you know hopefully i'll be professional enough to you know game you know keep my composure and know that i'm gonna whoop this dude's ass tomorrow and he's like huh like Just being a smartass on there. He's like, huh? He's like, so you didn't mean to tell me you've never been choked up. And then it dawned on me. I was like, oh, are you talking about when you brought your self-proclaimed hype man in and scratched my neck with his little bitch nail?

And he's like, no, no. I was like, hey, Dominic. I said, what happened in the fight? I said, I danced around you and beat your ass and made you look like a fool. I said, sit behind the desk and shut up. And then it was like, blah, blah, blah. This doesn't go on Skype. This is all just a private conversation private conversation goes black screen the producers come on like we're sorry how dominic was acting like i'm like dude like i don't mind coming on here and doing this shit but i've

the first thing i said hey dominic how are you and i was like i was just waiting for dominic to say hi and he started off there he goes i don't gotta say hi to you i'm talking to you in a couple minutes and i was like was like what a fucking bitch well you guys are probably gonna fight again if Dom stays in the game yeah so we had to redo

the whole situation again and he was just sitting there like you know I was like man that's cool so that's why

I wanted the rematch with him so honestly TJ should thank Dom for not taking the rematch and finally getting his shot so that's why

after the fight I said TJ TJ, come try me. What's Dom doing these days? You know, I know he has plantar fasciitis. He's got some serious issues with his feet because he came back real quick after the knee surgery and maybe pushed it a little too hard. That's a tough one. I mean, that's why his feet were all taped up. He's doing a lot of commentary.

He's probably getting decent money for that. I talked to his coach. They're going to try to get... Me and TJ wasn't scheduled. But he was trying to fight on the same card or around about. So it keeps in the transition. Who do you think would be a good fight for him to fight? For Dominic?

That's a good question. What about Rivera? Very good fight. That's a very good fight. But I think... Doesn't Jimmy have a fight? He just fought. He just beat the dude that you knocked out. Oh, he fought Almeida. That's right.

He beat Almeida. I think he dropped him a couple times. That was a good fight. Yeah. It was a very good fight. That's right. He beat Almeida, but I feel like he has another fight lined up. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it was that fight I'm thinking of. The day before the fight, like hype before the fight is always so interesting man see how people react see where their head's at like when connor came out with a hard-on against floyd what is what is he doing is he fucking wearing a rubber banner on his dick and balls just to get it hard or is he playing with himself before he gets out there a couple shakes before

he gets on because his fucking dick was half hard, but he's standing there. Unless he has a giant hog, and that's just what it looks like when it's limp. But it literally looked like it was half hard when he's standing there at the weigh-ins. I heard that that's like something that happens. No. I know. I've seen a couple other guys. I think Miguel. Staring at dicks at weigh-ins.

A couple other guys had that same thing. I think it's like an involuntary thing that happens when you're hungry or something. I don't know. I'll tell you what. When I'm hungry and starving. It's like a survival. We have to get real creative on the physical anthropology of why you get a hard-on when you're about to get in a confrontation. Maybe you're going to fight over a female out in the nature.

Maybe. It was such a weird confrontation, too. Connor screaming and yelling at him and Floyd just standing there. Literally like not a worry in the world. It was interesting how Floyd handled it. He didn't have a worry in the world. Seeing that, it's the guy who's composed.

He's so composed. 50-0, man. I'd said that he was the only guy to ever reach that and break that record, but apparently there was some other guy that had fought in a really light weight that made 51-0. Oh, really? Yeah, that I didn't even know.

They were talking about what's-his-name who beat Rocky Marciano. I always thought that that was the record. What about Chavez? Wasn't he up there before he got defeated? That's a good question, but he didn't retire with it. He didn't retire and defeat Ray. I wonder. I think he was like six years.

Yeah, Ricardo Lopez. Yeah, he was an Adam Waite, I think. What weight was he? Does it say? Light flyweight. Yeah. What is that? What is light flyweight?

Minimum weight. Jesus, minimum weight. What the fuck is minimum weight? But Ricardo Lopez, I believe he retired at 51-0. Oh, he retired at what? Somewhere around that range, does it say? One draw. Oh, he had a draw.

51 wins, zero losses in one draw. The one draw. Yeah, the one draw. It's so funny. People worry about that shit. It's so weird. Oh, man. That's one thing about MMA fighters as opposed to boxers.

With a boxer, it was always undefeated record. That was like, that's such a big selling point in the culture. But he has three draws. I mean, I guess it makes sense, though, because, I mean, you're trying to make a case that no one could, you know, there's something intriguing about somebody that no one could ever beat this person. But the difference between MMA and boxing, though, is in MMA you're tested way more on your way up to the title. And you're fighting world-class fighters pretty quickly as soon as you start getting good.

Zero, yeah. Whereas in boxing, you're taken care of and your record gets padded and you're slowly worked up to a world-class fighter if you have a good manager. Maybe 15 to 20 fights and you're trying to maybe start fighting some okay people. Do you think that's the way to do it? No. With those guys, no. Because a lot of those boxers have had 300-400 amateur fights where they fought. They don't need groomed into that. Maybe

to get out of the shoe-shining amateur style. But amateur style is switching with the headgear getting taken away. It's set up and the point system how it's changing. With the Olympics taking the headgear off and away. It's set up in the point system how it's changing. With the Olympics, taking the headgear off and how they're changing all that. So they're becoming more professional setting stuff up, not that pitter-patter shit, the shoe shine.

That's how it's been. But I don't think they need to be like that. But I think in boxing, there's huge records. Like, oh, he's 37-0. It's 28 knockouts. It's a weird gig. I mean, I guess the difference with the UFC is UFC has always had a reputation of putting the best fighters against the best fighters. Yeah. Which I think has gone away a little bit. I mean, they still make sure you got tested.

Do you think it's gone away? I don't think it's gone away. Do you think it's gone away? I don't think it's gone away. I think what they try to do is have even matchups because there's like Ricci and what's his name who's fighting? Alvarez, for example. They just want to see that fight. And they're both very tough guys that could be champion and maybe future champion. You mean Gaethje and Alvarez.

Gaethje, yeah. Justin Gaethje. Yeah, but they want to see matchups. But they do that all the way down. They're not trying to set up mismatches. Right. They're trying to get it more evenly matched. Right.

That doesn't mean that there aren't guys that they could set up with mismatches within the thing. But you very rarely see a guy get a tune-up fight, where in boxing it's a big deal. Like, boxing guys get tune-up fights, and you even call them a tune-up fight. Like, he's getting a tune-up fight before the big match. Boxing guys get tune-up fights and you even call them a tune-up fight. It's getting a tune-up fight before the big match. They go in there and they fight a guy that's not expected to win and then they get set up for the next fight. It tunes them up, gets them sharp

and then they have the world championship fight. That happens to get into the UFC a lot though. A lot. For me, I have over half of my professional fights are in the UFC. I got signed to 5-0. And, you know, so half my fights have been in the UFC against, you know, UFC is obviously, you can say, the premier organization with the toughest fighters.

It's not even close, but it's getting close now. You know, when you look at what Bellator is doing. Right now, UFC is always going to be the top of the food chain. It's always, like, the premier organization as far as the public knows. Right. But as far as the quality of talent, Bellator at least finally has Rory McDonald. They finally have Lorenz. They're growing their own homegrown talent also.

They are as well. Yeah, you're right. But getting Gayard Musasi, world-class guys, legitimately. With pay. Yeah. I mean, Rory has a victory over tyron woodley and a victory over damon maya so he had a victory over the one and number two guys it's interesting you just mentioned rory and go back to what we're talking about with training

rory i mean that's a guy who he's a strange character and like i wonder what goes on is what's his motivation for fighting and what started him, et cetera? I saw him do an interview about his training. I talked about coaches making you do shit and you're just like, do whatever the coach says. He was like, look, I've been doing what all the coaches say. He's like, I keep getting hurt. I keep doing this and that. He goes, I'm going to take things into my own hands a little bit more. He's the guy that did that.

But he's having a lot of frigging success, too. Dude, he looked like a fucking world killer when he beat Paul Daly. He looked perfect. Paul Daly is a savage, too, man. He is. That's going to be an interesting fight. Paul Daly and Lorenz Larkin. Oh, yeah.

Explosive, dude. That's a crazy fight. I like Larkin's style. Super skillful. Sidekicks. Larkin's no longer in the UFC? Nope.icks. Larkin's no longer in the UFC? Nope. Lorenz Larkin just fought Douglas Lima for the title.

He lost a five-round decision. Very close fight. Very good fight. Douglas Lima's another one. That guy is world class. He's right up there with anybody in the world at 170, in my opinion. Yeah, he's been around for a while, too. Yeah.

You know what pisses me off is Ben Askren still fighting over in one FC. Jesus Christ. I am the number one guy saying he's out of his retirement fight. That's it. It drives me crazy. Should have been in the UFC a long time ago. I always wanted to see that guy fight in the UFC. He just pissed off Dana and his style was weird, right?

The style was weird, that's one thing, but pissing off Dana was ultimately the end of it all. He was talking some serious shit on Dana. I can't help it. Dana's like, now fuck you, get out of here. It's too bad, really. It's too bad. Did you see how he mixed up with those guys?

Fuck yeah, I would have loved to see that guy fight the best in the world in the UFC. And we'll never know now. It's really unfortunate. He made some decent money over there in UFC. I hope he did. I hope he did. I hope he did. He's just a fucking phenomenal grappler, man. Here's a perfect example.

That guy destroyed Larkin on the ground. It's not Larkin. Lima. Destroyed him on the ground. Destroyed Korshkov on the ground. Manhandled those dudes. Got a hold of those guys. It was ragdolling fools.

Just throwing them around. That unorthodox, weird wrestling style. I wanted to see him fight the best guys. Yeah. You know who he would have been a terrible matchup for is George St. Pierre. Because George always, you know, he starts hitting his nice little shots, but he always ends up getting the nice takedown.

But what's he going to do in grappling against Asker? That would have been a good one. That's the one I always wanted to see, too. Well, you know, that got him in trouble with Johnny Hendricks, right? But Johnny Hendricks is a different Johnny Hendricks back then. Yeah. It's interesting. Pre-Usada.

Dude, Usada's changing lives, bro. That's one of the things that makes me want to get back into it is now that Usada's in there. I still have Usada test me just in case there's an opportunity that pops up. Do you really? Yeah, they pop in all the time. You look like you weigh about $1.60 right now. What do you weigh? $1.60.

Do you think you could get down to $1.35? Fuck up anyone in the world? Absolutely. Ah, he's still got it in there. He's still got it. Come on. He's still in there. He'll come in, he does practices with us and teaches shit.

We'll always give him a hard time. Like, ah, he's still got it. He's still in there. He'll come in. He does practices with us and teaches shit. We'll always give him a hard time. Like, oh, he's still got it. He's still got it. Hey, I'm – Yeah, he's – Do you think that you're retired or you're kind of retired? No, I'm retired. Mostly retired.

I'm retired. I'm definitely retired, but I'm not – first off, I love to fight. That's the hard thing about retiring is it takes so much time, energy, and there's so much to learn that i'm definitely a better fighter when i retired than i than i was when i was like you know in my prime even yeah as far as skill set goes right but like there's a lot of skilled guys out there and it's just like a focus thing and a motivation thing like so you wish that you saw it was there your entire career oh god are you kidding me

hell yeah did you ever feel any temptation when you knew that so many guys were using shit dude i had i had a couple people sit down and try to talk me into it before what they try to talk you into just like hey you know like everybody's doing it this and that blah blah some dick somebody had talked about it and i had a of that. This and that. A little EPO. Some dick pills. No, I didn't. An EPO. Everybody's doing it. Somebody had talked to me about it, and I had a coach a long time ago that was like, hey, everybody. And I'm like, no, I don't think so. I take a lot of pride in the fact that I had my career, and I'm oblivious.

I'm like, when you're not in the circle, you're definitely not in the circle. Yeah, they don't tell you about what they're doing. They don't want to tell you everything else. like you know like when you're not in the circle you're definitely not in the circle yeah they don't tell you they don't tell you they don't want to tell you you know everything else so i i take a lot of pride in the fact that and i and i you know teach to my guys and that's one of the conversations i had with cody i'm like bro no we don't need any of that shit dude that's all mental it's a mental thing the problem problem is the difference is when you have someone that's strong mentally that is like a scientist on himself and also has

all the attributes, then it matters, right? Right. When you get a guy who's a world class fighter and then on top of that they take some shit. And then I, yeah. That's the mentality, right? That everybody's doing it mentality is what allows like champions to do it as well. Right. This champion never did it. Congratulations. Thanks. Beautiful. I mean. Alright, gents, let's wrap this bitch up. Let to do it as well. Right. This champion never did it. Congratulations.

Thanks. Beautiful. All right, gents, let's wrap this bitch up. Good luck, man. Can't wait to see you. Madison Square Garden, that's November... Fourth. November 4th. That's a big fucking venue.

Huge fight. That's a historic venue, man. That's going to be amazing. Fireworks. Uriah Faber. Uriah Faber's ultimate fitness. Sacramento, California. Uriah Faber's Ultimate Fitness, Sacramento, California. Uriah Faber on Twitter and Instagram.

And Cody, you're on Twitter and Instagram. Yep. Twitter and Instagram. Thank you, gentlemen. It was a lot of fun. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right.

Adios. Adios. Adios. Adios. Adios.