The Joe Rogan Experience - #1814 - Radio Rahim

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

Radio Rahim is a broadcaster, journalist, reporter, and host of the "Til This Day" podcast available on Luminary. Til This Day

the Joe Rogan experience oh yeah and last time I guess I talk really loud apparently no you don't oh you read comments yeah don't read comments don't read comments don't read comments he told me that last time never read comments never read I told the Donnell when me that last time. Never read comments. Never read comments. I told Don L. When Don L and I did a podcast with Ariza, it was so much fun. After it was over, I gave him a big hug. I said, that was fun.

Don't read the comments. And he went on, like, for weeks. For weeks he was, like, on this, like, defensive campaign. But Don L maybe should read a few of the comments. I don't think so. I don't think so. I like him perfectly flawed. I like him as he is.

That's a good way to describe it. I don't want him to change at all. I mean, I'd like him to grow and get better as a human being, but that whole interrupting thing that he does, that's great, man. That's him him i'm a very sensitive guy though i need to know what i've said how that affects people you're in the wrong business if you're a sensitive guy you're in the wrong business fuck you gotta get out of those comments don't read them if they said that you were too loud that means one fucking person thought you were too loud. And they've put it out there.

And then another person reads that and goes, yeah, it's too loud. I was like, am I too loud? No, you're not too loud. You're not too loud. That's not real. Do you not go into your own comment section on Instagram? Like never? Uh-uh.

It is the Wild West in there. And every checkmark, every like legitimate celebrity celebrity everybody's trying to beat each other not just to be the first to comment on anything you post but to have like the smartest quip or the funniest like one-liner yeah that's good it's a talent show and that's good and you're the because you get a hundred followers from having one solid comment on a rogan uh post that's funny the people actually do that they try to get followers from look i probably would do that too if i didn't have yeah i'm not saying that because i'm above it i'm in there too like that's a good one-liner for this well it is kind of a thing on on youtube right like when i read uh youtube comments on other

people i do read them on other people's videos, but it is funny like how people, they develop like a little community, they fuck with each other and go back and forth and they, you know, and then you let go, oh, this guy always has funny things to say and you read his comment. And they dog pile on you. Oh, they dog pile. Yeah. They definitely dog pile. Yeah.

That's why it's, but it's like, that's the kind of people that are doing that. The kind of people that are leaving a lot of comments are the kind of people that complain a lot. Like you don't want – and they're going to be more prevalent because there's more of them. So it's a biased sample group. It will give you a distorted perception of what the actual show was like. People who want to be heard, who want to have their own say on things that really have nothing to do with them at all it's just like their moment to grab a little spotlight people like to talk and also you gotta always take into consideration there's a lot of people out there that are doing

this while they work because they hate their job their job sucks so they just complain about shit fuck this dude and that's like fun to say fun to say say, fuck that guy. You know, like he talks too much. He's too loud. He's not funny. He's that. He's, you know, it's like you can't, you need some feedback, but lucky as a comic, you get feedback from audiences. And I do, I do like audit myself. I do like think about my own self, like what I do, if it's too loud or too this or too dumb or not funny or whatever. I'm my worst critic, so I don't need other critics.

And you performing in front of an audience on a regular basis, you have real-time reaction. A person doesn't have an opportunity to say he's not funny after he's finished laughing. Right. This is too late to bullshit. Yeah, that's a problem. It's just like we're just navigating

this whole new world of social media. It's weird. It's just, you know, we're just navigating this whole new world of social media. It's weird. You know, it's new. It hasn't been. It's not like our grandparents did it. And boy, when you get on Twitter, I'll tell you what happened to me when I got on Twitter. No, they don't fucking, they don't have any data. No one knows.

Well, we're in the moment, I think, that we're learning. Yeah. We're in the moment, I think, that we're learning. Yeah. And we're learning a real valuable lesson right now as to how that, what Chappelle likes to call not a real place, Twitter, affects our real lives. Like this line is being blurred between what's happening online and what's happening in real life. Yeah. You know, I- You weren't with Dave at the Hollywood Bowl, correct?

Yeah, this is what I'm saying. We'd probably be remiss if we didn't address that off the top. Right. Because I'm, what, 36 hours removed from that, like one sleep away from what, in the moment, I recognize as an assassination attempt on my best friend. Like, we have the incredible good fortune to be able to be laughing about it now.

Right. And there's the memes, and everybody is making fun of how this guy got broken up into a pretzel. And Dave's good reflexes and all that only is entertaining. Because he's alive. Because we don't have to have an inconsolable moment of grief,

which was one thought in this guy's mind away from that being the reality today. Right. Yeah, I mean, well, I think the guy was legitimately mentally ill. But also, the security of the Hollywood Bowl sucks every dick that's ever walked the face of the earth. Not that dicks walk. But the fact that you let that guy, apparently people were saying to security, hey, this guy passed the barrier. Like, he got through the barrier and they ignored him. They're just watching the show.

And then he literally made a run for it. Their security is fucking terrible. The fact that that guy got to where he got is terrible. But that's the case with a lot of venues, man. A lot of venues we do we look around. We were in Jacksonville. There was a fucking guy that was sleeping. Sleeping. Security

during the show. They're not paying attention. Not paying attention to shit. It just happens. Security at a venue is most likely minimum wage workers. Not that the amount of money that you're being paid necessarily indicates how seriously you take your job. But it's going to be hard to get 50 people working one venue at minimum wage that take their job incredibly seriously or have gone through some extensive training to be qualified for that job. They definitely get paid get paid minimum wage.

But the point is, they should hire cops. They should have off-duty police. They should have people that are near the stage. Especially when it's Dave after all that shit that went down with Netflix. I don't know what kind of assessments they do about people

and threats and stuff like that. But that guy actually had made a tweet saying, Dave Chappelle, you're next after will smith got got slapped or excuse me after chris rock got slapped by will smith i don't know that there's any level of security that insulate you from real life and a guy like that who we can't say his name we I don't even want to reference this motherfucker because it's the kind of attention that they want. Like part of the idea of a person like that is that now they become something. They become special. Yeah, for a moment.

Because you attacked a special person. Yeah, we want to look at their videos. We want to look at their tweets. We want to figure out who this guy is and speak their name. And for him, that is everything. That's worth everything that happened. But for us, the idea that anybody in this world can get at you, that any thought that somebody has in their head can change literally the course of history and take the people from us that we love. They don't have to be famous.

They don't have to be of great impact to the entire world. But I've lost loved ones. I know you've lost loved ones. Seeing in that moment that I might actually have lost my best friend on the world stage, in front of everybody, on cameras, all of us there thinking that we could protect them, all of us there thinking, well, protect them, all of us there thinking, well, it couldn't possibly be a guy jumping a barrier, jumping on stage with a clean run of Dave, with a weapon, with a knife that's shaped like a fucking gun.

That's inconceivable. That couldn't possibly happen, right? If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. Well, not only that, there's a lot of video of it. What happened to those fucking cell phones being in a bag? I mean. A lot of people had knives. A lot of other people had knives, too.

They cut those fucking bags open. They need metal detectors at Dave's shows now. I'm sure they're going to ramp up things now. We have metal detectors. What? That guy went through a metal detector with a knife? If he came through the normal order of security, then he had to walk through a metal detector. How did he even get a ticket?

He was a homeless guy. order of security than he had to walk through a metal detector. How did he even get a ticket? He was a homeless guy. I mean, you know, these questions are the kind of things that will twist your knots and keep you tossing and turning all night. The broader emotion

I'm struggling with is the reality that we have to have a bit more gratitude for the people that we have on this planet in our lives in our sphere of entertainment and influence while they're here like i don't want to be posting about how much oh we all love dave and what we missed you know uh what we could have said and i don't i don't need a nepsy russell moment. You know what I mean? Nipsey Hussle.

Right. What I need is people to just think for a minute about how we approach the people, even with whom we disagree. Yeah. With this veil of violence, with this veil of like, yeah, fuck that guy is one thing. Yeah. But kill that guy is another thing. Stop that guy. but kill that guy is another thing stop that guy somehow removing that guy from the planet removes the idea that we don't like that that person has or whatever we disagree with must be silenced forever that is what you were saying earlier about twitter spilling over in real life

that's what i'm talking about yeah that's a that the attitude that people take when they're removed from social cues from looking in a person's eyes, from emotions, when you're angry about a person, that's one of the weird things that social media does. It removes you from humanity because you're not really talking to a person. You're just typing letters. You don't see the person reading them. You hope that they feel bad because it's fun, but you don't even know them.

You can interact with someone. So when you could say, Chappelle, you're next, you could say that, but if you were right in front of them and you said, Chappelle, you're next, they'd say, what did I do? And you're like, well, you said this. He goes, I never said that. And then now you're having a conversation. He's like, you're anti-trans.

He goes, I am not anti-trans. And then you have this conversation and all of a sudden you realize it's just two human beings. But instead of you've got Chappelle you're next in a tweet and then this motherfucker living in this like weird disconnected world decides he's actually going to make a physical violent move and there's so much of that that you could ignore somebody saying Dave you're next because there might be a thousand people saying that, but the one guy who actually means it could change all of our lives forever. So instead of trying to find that needle in the haystack

or hoping that the Hollywood Bowl security is on top of their game, or to be fair, all of us who were there backstage in the audience, side stage, who love him, could get there in the moment and save him from impending doom. What if we just police each other in the public space? What if we don't accept that on social media

from our peers, from each other? Somebody jumps on and says some shit like that we can't wait till he's on stage at the Hollywood Bowl to be like, hey man, maybe we should take a look at that guy. Yeah, but you're talking about you're trying to manage at scale amongst hundreds of millions of people if you're talking about that. Like the amount of people that are interacting with people online, within every minute of

every day, there's just millions. It's just constantly. There's no way anybody could ever manage that. But you can manage yourself. Yes, you can manage yourself. But he's a homeless person who's got mental illness problems and black nail polish and he calls himself a they them.

You know, and when he's got a, the dumbest fucking weapon ever, by the way. It's a fake gun that's a knife. Yeah. You know, a smart weapon is a fake knife that's a gun. That's smart because it looks like a knife. Ah, you can't get me. You're over there. Oh yeah, bang. That's a smart weapon. My point is to make that guy stand out more as an anomaly than a than a casual normal comment you might see on

anybody's page at any time well he's more of an anomaly it's just there's a lot of anomalies when you're dealing with hundreds of millions of people that are tweeting all day long every day it's just we this the discourse in this country is so fucking poison it's weird there's so many people fighting back and forth in this way where they're disagreeing in text you know it's just a shit way to communicate with people yeah and as you said it's like it removes the humanity from it completely yeah this is this is just i see this person entirely as a thought or this one comedy made or a joke that you made that i thought we went too far i didn't like it and now all this everything that i feel about that moment or that comment is heaped upon this actual human person yeah yeah it's uh it's a mess it's a fucking mess

that turmeric coffee gets in your throat right? We were talking before this podcast about your former cigarette habit. Like you were two packs a day? Two packs a day, Joe. And I couldn't put it down until I realized that, you know, smokers are, it's a routine thing also. So my thing was I would have two cigarettes left in the pack at the end of every night. So in the morning, before you have that first, like, you know, pee even sometimes, you got to have that first cigarette. Like, that's the start of the day.

How did you quit? I phased withdrawal. Phased withdrawal. That's what I call it. Right. So what I would do is, for instance, those moments where you need the cigarette, like right after you eat, right before you go to the bathroom first thing in the morning, I would take one of those elements away. Like, okay, I'm still smoking. I'm still going to enjoy as many cigarettes as I want, but I'm going to have breakfast first.

I'm just not going to have that first cigarette in the morning before I eat. And then the rest of the day is carte blanche, whatever I want to do. And this is your idea? Yeah. Interesting. I've tried the cold turkey. I tried, like, oh, I'm just not going to smoke anymore. It doesn't work.

But what did work was finding spots, just spots, when you're not allowing yourself to smoke and giving yourself free range the rest of the time. And the more spots you remove, the less smoking you actually do. And you hold to that and hold to that. And after a while, you've phased yourself out enough where then you can kick maybe six or seven cigarettes a day instead of 20. You know what I mean? And so when you got down to six or seven cigarettes a day, then you went cold turkey? Yeah. Then it's just like, then you've got some discipline.

That's smart. That's a smart way to do it because I think they say that that's the smartest way to do alcohol unless you do it in a medical setting because alcohol is one of the rare drugs that when you kick it, it can actually kill you. You become so dependent upon alcohol that your body, if you're an alcoholic, like a severe alcoholic, your body needs alcohol to an alcoholic like a severe alcoholic your body needs alcohol to function same as benzodiazepines benzodiazepines xanax and the like yeah if you have a severe addiction to those and then you kick it you'll die it's one of the rare drugs

uh i've drank a lot in my day i've dabbled in other drugs the only thing i still have cravings i still drink but not as heavily as I once did. I haven't had a cigarette in 14 years. I still get cravings. Really? Do you smoke weed? No. No?

No. So you don't smoke weed, no cigarettes, no tobacco products at all, never dip? Do you ever use those fucking, Brandon Shaw was here last week. He tried to get me to try those little pouches.

Right, that's coffee. They're so, yeah, it's the turmeric. Is that what it is? Like something's like down there tickling my throat. Yeah, like, ahem, it cuts your throat. It's really annoying. I stopped doing it for a long time, and then Laird Hamilton sent me another one of those coffee machines, and I used it here, and I'm like, goddammit, now I got that ahem again.

So I used to do a lot of things in abundance, right? Right. So drinking now, I actually did the same thing with drinking. Because for a while in the pandemic, I think we all slipped a little bit too deep into whatever our comforts were. And I was fortunate enough to be in an environment where I was very happy and energetic. And we were up and we were doing things and producing stuff. And alcohol is my elixir of choice, so I went a little too far with it, right?

So I had to dial it, and it wasn't like, oh, you know what? I drink too much, and this isn't healthy, and I need to get a better mental state, and I should be sober. Bro, I started looking in the mirror, and I could see alcohol in my face what did you see what the fuck i was getting like puffy face and baggy eyes and i started looking fucking old like alcohol old alcohol will fucking age the shit i did not know that so my route to everything was

just like vanity i was like i can I can't. We talked about that. It was an incredible motivator. During those days, man, when we were doing those shows at Stubbs, and it was weird because it was like the world was still kind of shut down. You know, everything was kind of shut down. But then we would have that COVID bubble, and we'd all be hanging out backstage with no masks, and celebrities would come back there and party with us, and we were all be hanging out backstage with no masks and celebrities would come back there and party with us

and we were all drinking and having fun. It felt really special. It felt, because it wasn't just that it was fun. It was fun when no one was having fun. But it wasn't because we were being reckless or incredibly cavalier. There's a regiment of testing and we did all the stuff so that we could have that freedom inside our space.

Yeah, not just testing, but we tested the entire fucking audience. We tested everybody in the audience. We tested everybody backstage. And then there was a couple of knuckleheads that violated protocol and fucked it up for everybody. It's interesting when that happened. When a couple people decided they're going to hang out with other people and

do podcasts and shit and then they got sick. It's like, hey, what are you doing? We had a fucking rule here. Everybody gets tested. You can't just show up on some random podcast without testing people. And that's the thing. You have to respect how much effort and attention, energy, money

went into making sure that we could all feel safe and feel comfortable. You go outside of that for your own personal advancement or your daily desire, well, you're being a real asshole. That's not the fault of the infrastructure. These guys put together something that was really difficult to do at the time, required that they pay very close attention to what the CDC was saying and how we could stop any kind of spread if somebody did go outside the bubble. And so even though, granted, ultimately we all got COVID, we kept it at bay for very

long and it didn't become like a super spreader where people outside of our little world got it. We were able to recover and come back because they were so serious about the protocols. But you guys got it because of a guy that violated exactly like if that guy didn't do that you would have never got well you might have got it anyway i got it we wouldn't have got it then that year yeah i got it in going to an arena i was doing arenas by the time i got it it was like listen yeah but you have a different crowd joe like I was like, let's go. Come on. Enough is enough is enough. Like, come on.

Let's see what happens. I can't thank Dave Chappelle enough for making a space during that time for all of us to do our thing. The podcast that is premiering today that I've been working on for two years, its inception, like the beginning of it, was in Yellow Springs, Ohio during that summer camp. I mean, it was March 20 when I got this deal with Luminary to do a show that followed me around the world as I covered boxing. Right?

It was the perfect idea for me. I was excited. We signed the paperwork, everything. Second week of March. And needless to say, by the fourth week of March, there was no boxing world to follow me around in. There was no fights that were going to be able to be had. Everybody's calendar was getting eliminated.

And I had this deal for a show that I clearly couldn't do. And Dave created this space in Yellow Springs, these shows that attracted the brightest, biggest stars from the comedy world and all these different industries. And I decided, well, it wasn't so much a decision as kind of an epiphany. What am I missing from the life I've been having my entire adult life? I was a teenager. I've been in a wild card boxing gym. I was shooting sparring sessions. I was covering fights.

I've been talking to boxers. That's what my life driving force has been about. And in a matter of a month that's just taken from me completely so what is it that i i miss most what is it i had to like start to do some introspection about what that part of my life meant and i realized it was about the fight in the fighter that i'm talking to with even though the context is boxing, I think the thing that separates my interviews maybe from other ones is that in addition to speaking about the opponent in the ring, I often take a look at what that person is hurtling internally,

like what got them to this place to even be able to climb through the ropes and challenge for or defend a championship. And the interesting ways that people get there is entirely part of what makes me fascinated about combat sports and athletes from all walks of combat sports but boxing is my my passion right so i ended up surrounded by friends and associates that were incredibly accomplished at all different walks of life. A lot of them were comedians because Dave's putting on a comedy show. But he attracts people from all over the world, all different kinds of disciplines.

And I said, you know, that fight that's in these boxers, these life hurdles, well, that exists in everybody. And the people whose names we know, whose accomplishments we can list, well, they've won their fight. Or at least they're constantly besting whatever their hurdle is. And I want to talk about it. I want to learn about the fighting people outside the ring. the fighting people outside the ring. So because of what Dave did, because he was able to create this magnet of excellence in Yellow Springs, Ohio, I was able to sit down with these people and they were so gracious to talk to me about that very same subject, the fight inside them.

And I created this show. You'll love the title, Till This Day. Yeah, we talked about it. For people who don't know why until this day, it's interesting. There's a very famous interview that you did with Deontay Wilder where you were trying to get Deontay to elaborate on things, and he, for whatever reason, because he was upset and he was getting ready for a fight and fired up,

know getting ready for a fight and fired up he had decided that he was gonna like explain to you yeah what it's like to struggle as a black man in america that till this day you're like yeah i know i'm just trying to get you to talk and so he's like yelling at you that we're going to this to this day and you're like yeah yeah you know it's funny because now in with this a bit longer view of it and the events that happened uh the other night i got a lot of death threats from that like you know i joke about the celebrities and shit that were mad at me wait a minute you got death threats from that interview that you did with the are you kidding me yes absolutely Absolutely. You know, I had to take that in stride because I didn't take it that seriously. Right. But to this day, I still get inboxed like, you know, threats.

People took that moment to think that I was some kind of Uncle Tom or I was, you know, trying to pretend as though slavery didn't exist or something ridiculous like that you would just it was so obvious that you were just trying to get him to expand on his feelings like you said that's his face we talked about it the last time you were here but that that interview was but for people who don't know it's like now i mean i'm the renowned uncle tom like It was a classic. But for people who don't know, it's like now I'm the renowned Uncle Tom. That one moment can define how somebody sees you forever. And it's not about me, right? They hate whatever they believe in Uncle Tom represents to them.

Right. And then they think, okay, well, in that moment, man, that guy, he is that. So I am going to aim all my negativity and hatred and visceral fucking comments his way. Yeah. And it takes one moron. That's not me. Like whatever this person's built up in his head about who I am or what I mean to him, I have no idea that's happening.

Right. And if that guy decides that he wants to actually do what he fantasizes about, how am I going to stop that? How am I going to see that? Yeah, that's the problem with the world we're living in. So my yeah, my last 36 hours really I've tried to subside the anger and certainly best the fear. But it's about like gratitude. It's like we can't take for granted anything. I can't take you for granted. Like I think I made a post when I got a job at ProBellum, which is a huge like moment in my career, right? Like I got to be the in-the-ring interviewer post-fight. As I said, the way you do it is a beacon to me.

Like I love that aspect of your work, and that is my claim to fame. That's my passion, and I had an opportunity to do it on this platform. I'm still doing it. But when I got the opportunity, I thought, you know, you put me on this show the first time around about this till this day controversy, if you want to call it that. And it gave me another level of notoriety. It provided other opportunities for me because you were gracious enough and generous enough with your platform to do that. Well, you know, not long ago, people are furious with you.

Some people still so. I'm fine with everybody, you know, having their opinion or being pissed. Everybody gets an opportunity to do that there's a right to do that but talking about taking joe rogan out of the sphere of conversation idiots talking about killed joe rogan that's my friend that's a good guy it doesn't matter whether or not you agree with everything he says it doesn't matter whether or not you even want him to be on air. What matters is that he can, so you can. If he has an idea you don't like and you have a better idea, you think he's bullshit and you have the real shit, do your own experience.

I came here today because I wanted to be a part of the Joe Rogan experience. day because I wanted to be a part of the Joe Rogan experience. Not anybody in the comment section, not anybody in their think pieces, not anybody in their editorials. I'm here for the Joe Rogan experience. And that has been an incredibly wonderful experience for me. Why should you or anybody else be able to take that from me? I think people think too much about why, you know, like you think the people think too much about this idea that you can stop someone from talking. And that's the whole idea about cancel culture, right? Is that you're going to remove someone from the conversation.

You can, and it's worked for some people. I mean, rightly so for people like Harvey Weinstein, right? They, they, that's, that's cancel culture in its best form, right? That's the best version of it. Yeah, I've never heard Harvey Weinstein's perspective on anything. He's a serial rapist. Yeah, let's remove him from society. But we didn't find out about that until people were outraged and until Ronan Farrow wrote that piece.

Because that was like an open secret in Hollywood. So that was the non-cancel culture. That was a let people slide culture. So like, look, he's going to help us and get us an Academy Award. And yeah, he's a scumbag, but thank him when you win your Oscar. Okay. Well, I make a serious distinction between someone's actions that harm other people, as opposed to someone's opinions that you have to go somewhere to heal.

No, no, no. Obviously, obviously. But what I'm saying is this is a weird time in terms of people being able to express themselves. It's so unique and unprecedented that untold millions of people at any time can pick up their phone and go onto Facebook or go onto Twitter or whatever and just start putting your opinion out there. Go on to YouTube, make a video. You know, I was listening to the radio, Raheem, he's on, he talks too fucking loud. And like, you know, and people, and you can read that and you can listen to that and that can affect you. And that's why you have to be careful about, you know, people talk about your diet, like in terms of what you eat. Well, you have to have a good diet in terms of what you take in mentally as well.

It's very important. And that's why you don't want to read comments because you're taking in complaints. And you can only take in so many complaints before you start internalizing them and thinking like, man, maybe I do suck. Or maybe, you know, maybe you get a little defensive. man, maybe I do suck or maybe you get a little defensive. I've seen a lot of people get ultra defensive and get really weird because of reading too many comments. It's like you should do your own personal auditing. You should be objective and introspective and think about yourself and your life and who you are and what you say and how it affects other people.

But you can't take all those negative things in too much. It's like drinking too much alcohol or smoking too much cigarettes. It's not good for you. And you can't take for granted, though, the freedom of being able to express one's views and be authentic. I'm not trying to shut down the comment section by any stretch of the imagination. When it gets violent, though, when it gets to pointing out a individual for harm which right i mean excuse me if i'm ill-informed but i don't believe i've ever heard you do no i've certainly never heard dave do that so you guys to me are models of what it is to be free men in society like to you have to work hard to

defend this space yes and you have some responsibility to not abuse that space yes but it's the joe rogan experience and for people to put on you that anything you say has to be that anything you say has to be according to loyal truth. And this space here where you get to talk about your experience and get from others theirs has to all of a sudden meet the standard of nightly news. Well, the nightly news doesn't hold up to its own standards. Right. They're completely full of shit. And they're completely bought and paid for by advertising money.

So, in the absence of that, in the absence of credibility on the nightly news, where we were all supposed to be able to go get the unvarnished truth and the actual facts, then we find other spaces that are more a place where we are receptive to what the message is that are being put out. The places where it resonates with people. It makes sense because the person seems like they're just a normal human being. They're not a human being that's been hired to say a certain thing a certain way because that's the way the network profits the most. Right.

That's their job though. That's where we're supposed to be able to go and get those truths where we're supposed to be able to go and get actual facts not to people debating what a fact is but being told the truth if they'll in the vacuum uh that the absence of that credibility creates well then you'll find all kinds of spheres of people who will give you the truth that is most agreeable to your predisposition. Yeah. That's dangerous. Yeah. That's their fault.

Well, it's a lot of it is their fault. But what they don't understand is when you spend so much time talking about a person in a negative light, you're going to make a certain percentage of those people investigate whether or not you're accurate. And then those people are going to go hey that show's pretty good i mean i've talked about this before but i gained two million subscribers during the whole cancellation time that's a lot of people yeah you know and it's it's only helped because it's not true it's like if you listen to what i'm i'm not like a minister of disinformation

trying to tell people like don, don't get vaccinated. Don't take medicine. The pharmaceutical companies are out to get you. No. But I'm being honest. I'm being honest about what they have done in the past. I'm being honest about the dangers of certain medications. I'm being honest about expressions of free speech and, like, what it means to me and how important it is that people be able to express themselves.

what it means to me and how important it is that people be able to express themselves. It's an amazing time that a person like me can have this much of a voice. And I do pay attention to it, and I'm aware of it, that it's unusual. I'm aware of it. I'm aware of it that it's a tremendous responsibility. But all I can do is do what got me here.

And that's just be me. Be me, be honest, try to be caring, try to be kind, try to be as generous as I can, as nice as I can. That's it. Yeah. And also, you're on a consistent basis telling people, go do your own research if that's what you've...

Well, tell people to read the actual pertinent information. That's actually a joke now. Do your own research. I did my own research. No, you should trust the experts. Well, not anymore. It depends on what you're talking about. Should you trust the experts on nuclear physics? Yes.

Should you trust the experts? As soon as money gets involved, this whole trust the experts thing gets fucking weird because we know that people have influenced people to make certain statements that do not jibe with the facts. And if you look at all that accurately and you say, you know, trust the experts, like which ones? Which experts? You want to trust the experts in math? Yes. Those guys can't lie because you could do the work.

Everyone can see it. It's math. It's as clear as it gets. Trust the experts in ancient history? Sure, as long as they agree. If they don't agree with each other, then which experts? Like, I was just reading this thing about Clovis yesterday, and I sent it to a friend of mine who is an expert in it. And I said, hey, what do you think about this article?

And he sent it to another guy. So these people are, like, passing this. These experts are passing this article around. And, like, here's the problems with this. are like passing this these experts are passing this article around and like here's the problems with this you know like the idea is that um people were in north america thousands of years earlier than they thought and this is like pretty much established now that's true because they keep finding bones and and all sorts of artifacts that are far older than they thought they were the new article came out just a few days ago about how re-examining clovis first and that

might be accurate and so I sent this article to these other guys I said well who's right is it that people were here 30,000 40,000 years ago or is it the Clovis people were the first people and so they're all breaking this down so experts don't even agree this fucking guy who wrote this article is an expert and I sent it to some other experts and they sent it to other experts. And they're all going, so like, when you say, trust the experts, on what? Right. On what?

And science is an ongoing study, right? That's part of it, to continue to question. And there are things that are proven to work and things that have been established over years that we can rely on. Yes. I think the part that makes it so confusing is what we spoke about earlier, the lack of credibility of institutions. What institutions do you trust? 100%. That's exactly what it is because when you just trust

the people that are in power, then you get a dictatorship. You can't just trust anyone who has authority. That's nonsense. You have to know why they know what they know and how did they come about and are they being influenced? And do they have an agenda and is there of do they have a vested interest in this being accurate as opposed to that? Is there a financial gain involved in it and oftentimes there is and that's that's real

That's that's that's real human beings and most people know that and when you can get people to just fucking step in line and just Listen to authority the problem with that is that doesn't go away. They keep that fucking attitude. And that's the attitude that they have in all these communist dictatorships where the people are under the boot of these fucking evil thugs. How did that come about? It came about because they just had to listen. They have to listen.

And so free speech in a free form, you being able to say that without having some totalitarian government come down on your head or your own research. But you have the option to listen to what you think is credible and juxtapose that with what might not be in line with your current beliefs. How much you invest in that investigation, that's entirely up to the character and the desire for you to know the truth. You can't police that in other people. But the opportunity for them to get that information can't be hindered. don't you think it's also a factor of no one has enough time no one like no one has enough time like if you really want to find out about like the fucking the the spanish flu from 1918 do you have the time how many people have the time do you have the time to research like the waves and how people started wearing masks and when people died and where it came from did it actually come from spain or did it actually come from america they think nobody has the fucking time so when even things that are happening right

now like when they're talking about uh oh you know we've got to stop being so dependent on foreign oil fuck i gotta go research foreign oil i gotta start thinking like how how bad was fracking some people say fracking's the devil. Other people say fracking's necessary. It's gonna fuck up some spots, but it's gonna eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. Fuck, I gotta research this? I gotta go and find out who's right and who's wrong?

I've had experts that had completely different opinions on climate change. And it's exhausting. You know, I'm just like, who's right? One guy is saying that solar and wind can take care of a lot of our energy needs, and we need to optimize those, and if we don't do that, we're fucked, and here's all these examples of pollution, and this is what the carbon is doing to the atmosphere,

and then there's another guy that goes, here's like a thousand-year chart of how the temperature of the earth just keeps going up and down. We're on course. It has an effect, but it has a small effect, And there's a lot of people that are profiting off freaking everybody out and the control that they're going to get from some sort of climate crisis, the same as they would get it from a war crisis, the same as a health crisis. If they have the opportunity to close in and get tighter and tighter control on your actions and what you're allowed to do and not allowed to do, then it's easier to be a dictator.

Because there's a lot of people that are out there that don't like the idea of people voting for things. They would rather just run things. They would rather just tell you what to do. And in certain cases, they can do that. In cases of war, in cases of any sort of extreme medical emergency, in cases of any sort of civil disobedience, they can impose martial law. That stuff's scary. That stuff's scary. Because then you have an

incentive for those things to take place so that you can control things. And then even after you're done controlling things, you could allow things to relax a little bit, but you have more control over the people now than you did a year ago, two years ago, five years ago before the crisis. So what they did with 9-11, I don't think that the United States caused 9-11, but I most likely think, I most certainly think that they used 9-11 to get the Patriot Act through. A lot of stuff that was in the Patriot Act existed before this, long before 9-11. They couldn't get it through.

There was a lot of ideas. They do that with bills. They shove a bunch of shit in there and you're like wait a minute why does it say things about crosswalks in a thing about you know something that's totally unrelated why is it do you guys have a deal with the crosswalk union like why does it why do they why do they have a bad example but why do they have provisions in certain bills that have nothing to do with what the title of the bill is. And the life of those provisions that may long outlive the crisis at hand. Yes, forever. Like the Patriot Act, like the TSA. One guy tries to blow his shoes off. We have to

take our shoes off forever. Like, what is that? What the fuck? And it just, it's forever. And it just keeps going. And it just, you don't, when just you don't when you lose power when you lose power over your decision to make choices and whether or not you want to do this or do that and what you're allowed to do and freedom once you lose that you don't get it back you never get more freedom you always get a little less and they go we're still better off than Haiti we're still better off than Cuba we're still better off than China. We're still better off than China. We're still... That's what the fucking reality is. We're not better off in terms of our ability to make decisions for ourselves than we were before they imposed these things. We're not

as free in terms of government surveillance. The idea that the government could be looking out for terrorists and stop terrorists, yeah, that would be nice. It would be nice if you could prevent a terrorist attack. Okay. Well, the only way we can do that, Rahim, is we're going to have to look at all your emails and read all your text messages, whether you like it or not, and listen to every call you ever make. No, but they do that. They can do that.

Why can they do that? They can do that under the guise you might be a terrorist, which is crazy. That's like the ultimate guilty until proven innocent. It's like 330 million people are guilty until proven innocent. And you got to check everybody's text. Well, that's the kind of thing that happens when they get a little bit of control. And it's a normal human thing, man. And you can get people to agree.

You might even get me to say yes in a moment of crisis. Like, okay, it's 9-12. And if you need to check my emails to make sure that, you know, aircrafts are safe or I can go into the mall without getting blown up. Check the fucking emails, please. And my neighbors, too. Exactly. But now it's 2022. But what if it's you are criticized?

What if Trump gets in office again? He has this power. And what if it's you? You're writing something very critical of Trump. So he starts investigating you and fucking with you because he finds out that it's you because he's looking at your tweets. He's looking at your text messages, even though he's not supposed to know it's your account. He's looking at your phone. He's seeing who you're calling on a daily basis.

Like if that – that's what a dictator can do. And I'm not even saying that it's Trump. Imagine it's someone else. Imagine it's Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-un runs America. You know, you've got to think like that's a real human being in 2022. I know he doesn't live in America and I know it's different over here. I know we're heavily armed, but that's still a human being in 2022 that if you tweeted badly about him, you're a dead man. You're dead.

He's going to fucking kill you. A hundred percent percent he kills his family members right right he has them assassinated that's a real guy like you have to think that's a possible pattern of behavior that human beings follow it's wild shit dude right and this entire government of course is for the people by the people so So whatever pattern human behavior follows, so shall government. Have you ever read what they said about Kim Jong-un's first day of, no, Kim Jong, yeah, Kim Jong-il's

first day of playing golf? No. Ali Sadiq told me about this. I thought he was fucking with me until we started reading it. It is one of the craziest things you've ever read in your life. His first day playing golf. Dude, he's the greatest golf player the world has ever known.

Like a god of golf. Read about this. That is kind of Trumpian. Dude, he is. No, no, no. 38 under, including 11 holes in one at the 7,700-yard championship course at Pyongyang in the very first golf round of his life, according to the North Korean state media. It was 1994 when Kim was 52 years old. Even more impressive, Kim stood just 5'3", yet he was able to overpower a course as long

as any ever played in major championship history. Who knows how good Kim could have been if he had taken up the sport earlier. Who knows how many times he bested 38 under in the 17 years since his first round. How crazy is that?

I mean, come on, Joe. This has to remind you of Trump's first health report. I mean, come on, Joe. This has to remind you of Trump's first health report. Oh, boy. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, to your previous point.

Tremendous health. The healthiest president ever. Healthiest president they've ever had. The thing that freaks me about him is he didn't age in the White House like everybody else does. Biden has aged so much in a year. Yeah, I don't think he was worried about as much. I don't think he worried about shit. I think he was watching Fox News.

They like me. They love me. Yeah. I think, you know, just a finer point on your previous topic. Maybe I don't know is an acceptable answer. i don't know what fracking is going to do ultimately to the earth and it is acceptable right yeah you would think but it doesn't seem to be an acceptable answer nobody wants to admit that you know i don't know i know some things oh this seems to make sense oh math supports that. That seems provable. We've had an

experience here that we can point to that makes this information credible. But do I know enough to say for certainty and game out what happens in 20 years if we take this process? No. No I don't. So we're going to have to make some decisions

based on the unknown. The problem if you say I don't know is someone will come along and say, I know, and they might not necessarily know. And then another expert right next to him will be like, he doesn't know. He's wrong. And we need to debate. Yeah. Well, there's so many things to pay attention to, man.

There's so much to pay attention to. You know, it's just, it's a strange time, man. It's a strange time because there's so much information, but you only have so much storage. You only have so much room in your head. You don't have so much time. Yeah, you made an interesting point about how much time people have. I'll have to confess that I haven't probably an inordinate amount of time to think about what I think about stuff. You have a nice life.

I've not made my life about my opinion. I'm not like an opinion piece guy. Nobody is coming to me to hear my perspective necessarily. but this show that I just debuted this till this day till this day is the first time it made me think about why I do things which is how that show came about and talking to people about what they see as their opponent because that's how I that's how i like phrase it identify the first question i ask anybody before we go on air and there's no pre-interview there's no setup i ask him one question to prepare name identify or somehow describe the opponent in your life what is the thing the hurdle that you've had to best or overcome

consistently as adversity to who you want to be or what you have become? Give me that in a bite size or a noun. And I've talked to 17 completely different people. I haven't heard an answer repeated once. Wow. And so when people say you never know what people are going through, you never know what somebody's struggle is, boy, I never knew that more truly than I have in experiencing this show that I've done. Think about that question asking people

and how few people ever have that conversation with another person. Right. Most of the people you meet when you're working with them, they're going throughout their day you you never try to break down how what was the hardest thing for them to overcome to get to where they're at yeah these are my these are my friends most of the people on the show are my friends or at least you know associates i've had for years people i think i know they're public people people you we think we know as audience members or fans, why these people are just like everybody else and that they have internal struggles.

They have things going on that you would never think of as much as you think you know them. And I learned a lot just from having the experience of other people's lives and the lens through which they see their own life. I got to talk about John Stewart, who was there the other night at the bowl. One thing that mortified me because I look up to him so much as an interviewer in particular, was that the kind of information that we're talking about, him being at the forefront of that information war when he was the most trusted news source in America on a comedy show that was satire.

But because the institution was trusted, because the guy was pointing out the song and dance show of the nightly news and the political spin, we could trust him. He felt like he lost that battle he felt like well they won i didn't have enough of an impact if any impact at all i was shocked by that i i thought like not only did you win but i had no idea internally he would have thought anything else but that's how true he was to the cause like because it's still going on because there is still a Fox News because there is still disinformation happening on all news channels he feels like he didn't accomplish he should have stayed in the game should have he should have stayed in the game look the guy's back

and doing his show now but when he was the host of the daily show he was the fucking man it was i think maybe it was too much maybe he got worn out maybe it was like you know he felt like he'd done enough and he wanted to do something different take some time off or something like that but um i think you get better at something the more you do it you know i think it's important that there is a way, there's a way to distribute comedy and have it wrapped up in the news and it actually is informative and helpful. And that's one of the things that Daily Show did when Stewart was running it. It actually was, he's so likable and it's so, he's so smart and so obvious that he's

smart that you hear him talk about stuff and you go, oh, yeah. Like it resonates, makes sense. I think he's so true to that mission that maybe he cared even too much. fight to feel like you're the only voice and have this platform that every other nightly news, cable news show should be doing what you're doing. And instead you're like fighting them every night and having to point out how terrible they are at doing the thing that most importantly tasked with. So if you see that as a constant struggle and they seem to be unaffected by it, ultimately, even though people are listening to the daily Show and understanding some of the song and dance about mass media, it's still not changing the bottom line, at least from his perspective.

It might just be exhausting, man. I'm sure it's exhausting. One of the things that's come out of this, the corporate news not being trusted, is the rise of these independent news platforms that's what's interesting to me what's really interesting to me is watching how these like online youtube people and online sub stack journalists are changing the way people get their information because there's certain people that have ethics as a journalist as a reporter as someone who's trying to explain the truth the best they know.

And their ethics are unflappable. And they happen to be on YouTube or they happen to be on Substack and people find them. And they're gravitating towards them now. And so those other ones, they don't work anymore. It's like school lunches. Like you could do better than a fucking school lunch, bitch. I know what food is, you know? And that's what this is like.

The nightly news on a lot of these fucking networks, it's like a school lunch. Cable news is like school lunch. Like, this is edible, but it sucks. I'm all about that. There's no secret. My career began on YouTube. Yeah. I couldn't break into the the big

market I wasn't being sat at the table or ringside on you gotta make your own market works there's too many news there's not enough seats at the table right if you think about how many major fights are going on in a daily basis there's not enough seats you know but there's also not enough opportunity I think especially when I was getting in it was thought of to be like an old white man's job or an ex-fighter. You're not one of those two. You want a broadcaster that's established, that has the resume that you're looking for and the salty gray hair, the porcelain skin, or you've had to have been a fighter. But the people like myself who are in the boxing gym shooting sparring sessions,

know fighters personally. I was training, never thought I would be a boxer, but so much passion for the sport that I felt I had a personal experience, a connection to it. I know the sport. I can do this job. And I'm young and energetic and able to handle a broadcast. Right, but they would never hire you.

Never. They would never hire you. But that's okay because it's better this way. Because if they hired you, they would never allow you to be you. If someone just hired you straight up with no YouTube videos, no nothing, they would try to get you to be like, hey, I'm Bobby McPhee, and I'm over here with all the normal. You're acting normal.

You're acting like what you think a reporter is. you're acting normal. You're acting like what you think a reporter is. It's not an accident that almost all those old-timey reporters talked like old-timey reporters. They all had a pattern they had to follow. You couldn't just be yourself. And you couldn't just focus on things that you think are interesting, like sparring sessions, like the stories about people's struggles, like stuff that you actually think is interesting the beautiful thing about something like something like YouTube Or you know any kind of platform that's putting up videos and audios It's like so many people can contribute and you can find those unusual voices There's a lot of them in MMA journalism, too

I could ask the questions that no network would ever permit me to ask You could ask the questions that you want answers to. And so then the audience gets engaged with this. It's not like some cookie cutter bullshit question and you give your cookie cutter bullshit answer to the reporter. No, you guys are having a conversation. Right.

You're getting to, that's what people love. They love to like hear like, like when I talked to Mike Tyson, he was explaining to me his childhood and then what it was like to meet cuss and like what the experience was like learning boxing and being hypnotized by this like guy was a master of psychology as well as a master boxing coach who just happens to be a fucking hypnotist who just happens to be dying who just happens to be at the end of his life and he's got the best

prodigy he's ever experienced and this guy will do anything and he's ready to go and he's fucking super talented at 13 like holy shit this is it it's like his whole life built to that moment like although the work with Floyd Patterson Jose Torres and all that stuff that built to that moment where he met Mike Tyson and as he leaves this earth Mike Tyson becomes the greatest heavyweight of all time at that moment. Mike Tyson smashing people at that moment. Mike Tyson's destroying Marvis Frazier. Mike Tyson's knocking out Larry Holmes at that moment.

And every bit of work, every single day, every round for every other fighter. Before he left this earth, he got to experience the culmination of all his wisdom and being imparted to this one lump of incredibly talented silly buddy. He shaped this guy. You're not going to get that perspective in a regular cookie cutter interview. That guy's got to be able to just talk.

You can't sum that up in 13 and a half minutes for a commercial break. And you've got to let Mike Tyson smoke weed. You have to. I think you have to let Mike Tyson smoke weed. You have to. I think you have to let combat athletes smoke. I don't know if anybody shouldn't be allowed to smoke weed. Well, isn't it still banned in the NFL? I mean, as far as I know.

I was just reading something about these NFL guys that are pissed off because marijuana is banned there. And it's a pain-reducing drug, right? And how many drugs can they use to reduce pain that are far more dangerous, addictive, destructive than marijuana? Oh, look at this. NFL players no longer face the possibility of being suspended from games over positive tests for any drug, not just marijuana. So this is new under February 1st, 2022, under a collective bargaining agreement. Instead, they will face a fine.

The threshold for what constitutes a positive THC test has also increased under the deal. But even then, I mean, it's like- Well, that's a fine. It's not permitted. You're still penalized for it. Listen- I don't want to smoke a million dollar joint. What's the fine, right?

NFL players are balling. You have to hit them hard to make them change their ways. You have to hit them with a big fine. But you shouldn't be high playing, maybe. But don't basketball players love to play high? They love to play high. Jamie, hit me with this. Oh, yeah.

They all play high, right? For sure. I mean, not all, but... I would imagine that it's like anything else that requires a feel. You know? Like, there's a thing about... You feel things. Like, jiu-jitsu players love to get high.

It's very common. Because you feel movement better. You feel balanced. You feel... You think THC is a performance enhancing drug? Yes, I do. Really? Yeah, it is.

It is for some things. I can't even hit the pads high. Yeah, but that's just you, man. Everybody's different. Everybody's different when it comes to the way alcohol affects them. People are different. It's just, I guarantee there are people that have a positive net benefit, and I'm one of them, when they do certain things while high. Marijuana enhances my pool game greatly.

Marijuana, when I play pool, I'm one ball better. This is not like a bullshit pool assessment. I'm one ball better. I'll explain that. 85% of NBA players smoke weed. Yes. Of course they do. I don't smoke weed now, but there was a day.

I used to smoke weed a lot. I think I hit my threshold, which is why I can't smoke anymore. One more joint, I'm a lunatic. I'm going to go like I'm a basket case. You're fine. I would hate to get you high right now and prove you wrong. It would be terrible. I got Mike Tyson weed, too.

This is Mike Tyson weed. But when I did, which was for a decent amount of time when I was young and really able to train crazy, I could smoke after training, and it would help me with the pain, the muscle pain, the joint pain, the swelling, all that shit. Great. I'm having a hard time understanding how being THC high helps a combat athlete. It didn't make my reflexes faster. I wasn't able to focus better. I understand your experience.

But for me, when I hit the bag, when I'm high, I feel better. I feel like I move better. I feel like my I feel better. I feel like I move better. I feel like my balance is better. I feel like there's maybe some little subtle things that I wasn't thinking about before that all of a sudden are at the forefront because it makes you focus on a single thing. It's really good for that. And when that single thing is something like martial arts that I've been doing my whole life, there's something about being high that gives me like a new lens for it. A new lens where you like feel the way your body's moving. You like feel like your hips extending. You feel your abs contracting. You feel when it's the time,

like what's the timing in it. You feel things more. Maybe my, maybe I should push off my toes more. Maybe I feel my toes more. Like I feel things more. Instead of just going on autopilot because I've done it my whole life, now all of a sudden I'm thinking and I'm feeling stuff. It's great for stretching. For stretching, it's the greatest thing of all time. You get super-duper high and just you feel your fibers just extending. You know what? It feels amazing.

I take you at your point. I think this has everything to do with the type of person you are. I am not feeling anything in a fight. In fact, that is almost the point of fighting. It's a meditative state. I can fight drunk. Everybody can fight drunk. But if I had to choose a thousand times over, I would rather be a little buzz on a drink than a little buzz on a

joint because i'm not thinking about anything right nothing's creeping into my mind like it is entirely just the action of what i'm doing i somehow i think that helps me deaden the pain even so maybe i'm more of a sensitive person and if you get me like in my head like weed does i'm starting to think about too many things well i'm in my head every day i overthink it it's the thing is when you don't get high a lot and then you get high then you're in your head and you're like oh shit but i'm always in my head because i'm always high i get high all the time so it's like your default position do you have do you know what it's like to train not high maybe that's the thing no i train no no no i train not high most of the time david goggett said something to me once and fuck i've never been able to get it in my goddamn head.

He goes, I don't train listening to fucking music. He goes, you train listening to fucking music? Then you need that music. That's right. He goes, that shit's a crutch. There ain't no fucking music. There ain't no music out there in the world, motherfucker. Yeah, I think you just found my custom motto.

And he said that to me, and I think about that when I want to smoke a joint and hit the bag. I think about that when I want to listen to music and lift weights, or especially cardio. There's something about boring, dull-ass cardio with no stimulation at all. I used to love cardio, like listening to books. But if you just got to do cardio, just your breathing, that's such a different thing. Just breathing. Just staring at the clock, thinking about your life, knowing you have 40 minutes to go.

That's what running is to me. But at least you're going somewhere. At least when you're actually running, you're going somewhere. There's something about cardio machines, you know, when you're, like, fucking just staring at the screen on an elliptical, knowing you have 45 more minutes of this nonsense and you can't even listen to music no music there's no fucking music out there in the real world i never thought of a an uh in any way i was going to be a professional athlete like i never thought i would compete right but i started boxing in fifth grade. There was a guy

in my neighborhood that had boxing equipment in his garage and I would go in there and he'd train fighters. Now I wish I knew more then to remember who was there and if this guy ever became a real boxing coach of any type. But it was such a

childhood memory of mine where this whole idea started. The fact that I never thought I would do anything for a living that didn't involve talking. Like I knew that was my thing. I could speak, right? That my godfather was my first like adult trainer, like when I was like 19. And he's like, you're not training to compete with athletes you're training to win a fight now boxing is your discipline of choice but the fight you're gonna have won't be in the ring on

thursday at eight o'clock as the two men have decided it's gonna be at three o'clock in the morning after you leave a club in the parking lot with some fucking idiot, and you're going to be drunk too, and you're going to be tired. So that's how we're going to train. And so, yes. What? Yes. I would leave clubs. I get 22, 23 years old. My best friend at that time was Bo Keem Woodbine.

Dana Bratton trained both of us, and we would go from the club, from the bar, from the party, to the gym and spar. Oh my God. Hit pads and train. Yeah. You drunk sparred? A thousand times.

So if I were boxing in a ring, I'd want to be sober, but if I'm in the street where any of my real fights are going to take place, I'm probably better fucked up. That's how we train. We train to win fights completely trash. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. That's a funny way to do it. Yeah.

Did you ever learn any martial arts other than boxing? Learn? No. Try? Yes. Judo? Judo. Judo was the first thing dislocated my elbow in the in the least like

masculine way possible you know how they throw you and you're supposed to slap the mat so i got thrown i went to slap too early oh you landed on a jack knifed my elbow ouchie wow wow yeah so that got me out of judo i love martial arts like any kid. In my time, I was a Bruce Lee fan, like big time. Of course. So then I wanted Jeet Kune Do where there was no place to learn that. So I tried Taekwondo. And I loved the kicking of it all. But to be honest, I didn't have the money.

My mom wasn't going to be able to afford to send me to any martial arts class and pay for the gi and all the stuff. And then I go consistently. So part of it was the money. Another thing was I just wasn't able to be committed enough to make it worth the extra effort to spend that money. Whereas the boxing, it's a poor man's sport. It's like all you need is some old guy in your neighborhood with a hanging bag and a couple hours on his schedule every day. And so that ended up being what I did. I respect the shit out of martial arts, man. I want the mental focus that it takes and the discipline to stay in a particular style or another is what is more

attractive to me maybe the mixed martial arts and then that just might just be because of under my understanding of it right but what i like about boxing also is the finite nature of it it's no disrespect to mma like that is a discipline unto itself i don't have any personal experience with really, but the limited amount of resources that a boxer has, the fewest things you can do, and the other guy has those very same few skills, and so that's how I see the science of it, the chess match, the game of millimeters really in split seconds, because both guys are proficient and they only have these finite amount of tools to work with. The combination of those two things colliding is what really fascinates me about the execution of boxing.

That's what fascinates me as well. It's specialists. People that are doing, like, that's what fascinates me about watching jujitsu matches, too. Because if you're watching jujitsu matches, those are two experts. They're not kicking each other or punching each other. They're just doing this one thing at the highest level possible. Right. Yeah.

Did you see, I'm sure you saw Shakur Stevenson. Of course. Holy shit. Of course. This guy is a beast. He's on another level. That's a great example of that because he's fighting Valdez, who is undefeated as well, and a real fucking world champion, elite fighter. Absolutely. Shakur just put on a show.

Right. And just show that with his training, his execution, his technique was superior. His strategy was superior. His ability to close the distance and move just out of the way. When the punches were coming to him, they were coming like right here. It was like, it was just touching his face. Right. It was wild millimeters millimeters

millimeters and then he fired back and he was firing back and landing flush and it was genius it was just genius shit to watch that's what i love about boxing i mean people say yeah you can't do that if somebody leg kicks you you're right you can't do that that way if someone leg kicks you or if someone takes you down you're right you can't do that but if if someone leg kicks you or if someone takes you down. You're right. You can't do that. But if you want to see the highest expression of that, of using your hands, you have to have only guys using their hands. And that's when you get these super elite striker. Right. That's like somebody saying, you know, I'm on a motorcycle and I'm running an obstacle course. You can't do that in a car.

Right. Well, no, because I'm on a fucking motorcycle. That's why I can do that. That's why people would not recommend boxing as a martial art to practice if you're drunk after a bar and you're going into like,

I would tell you, learn how to take people down. Learn how to trip people. Listen, Joe, you're not going to get an argument from me there. As far as like street fighting, the more things you can have

at your disposal to end the fight as quick as possible, the better you're going to do. It's also your hands break so easy. Hands break so easy, man. You swing wrong, catch a guy on a forehead and you're fucked. Right. I mean, I'm not shy about I wouldn't want to fight a mixed martial artist at the level of a boxer that I am, however good I am, if there were a guy equally as good at mixed martial arts as I am at boxing in a street fight, he's going to win.

I mean, you know what I mean? If we're only left with our body resources, now I might pick up a bottle, I might hit this guy in the brick, but I understand that the more you know you're able to do Yeah, the more quickly you can end a fight and in the street That's what it's all about in the fight as quickly as possible, but what we're both talking about is that if you are Only doing one thing that one thing if you see like imagine if that's how they played Baseball if baseball also featured tackling, imagine if that's how they played baseball. If baseball also featured tackling. You know, baseball also has fights now.

Baseball also, you have to do it on skates. Like, what? Like, it's too many things. You're going to lose. If you have one thing, just one thing like boxing, you get to see the best expression of it. One thing like jujitsu, you get to see the best expression of it. Right. And, like, that uh one of the reasons

why you know jordan burroughs is no olympic gold medalist elite super super elite wrestler like top of the food chain and had been given some uh opportunities to fight mixed martial arts but he's like look i'm an elite wrestler that's what i do i can learn all those things and i can he could probably he'd take any you know regular mma player down at will right he's that good at wrestling but would he want to leave this thing that he specializes in that he's at the top of the food chain at right and could he actually get to the point of taking them down for instance the mma guy that i'm you know theoretically fighting at this bar well he going to have to get through the jab. He's going to have to get through the two-piece. If he gets inside, I'm probably in a lot of trouble.

But the finite nature of the sport, in the context of professional athletes in their sports, that's what I love about boxing. I appreciate in the street, it's a mixed martial art landscape. The reality is when people are talking about boxers, MMA fighters making the crossover to boxing, no one can compete. There's not one MMA fighter who is going to be a world champion at boxing unless they 100% dedicate all of their time to it for a long period of time. And then you're going gonna have to make your way but to to be able to beat the elite of the elite in their own given sport unless you're some

rare outlier freak of an athlete with one punch death power with fucking eight ounce ten ounce gloves on that's there's not a lot of those guys i don't see that ever happening i mean even if we had a Bo Jackson of MMA. But that would be a good example. That would be a good example. A Bo Jackson. A freak. Super freak athlete. Yes. And he was that. Herschel Walker. In both cases though,

there is a team surrounding him that could put him in the best role in that team sport. But because each MMA and boxing are such individual sports, the amount of skill he would have to have in each context, I just don't think one man could get the way you stretch, the way your muscles have to work and contract in boxing and then in MMA,

and they don't, it's not the same. You can't have all of those. Yeah. Log's different. Defense is different yeah for a guy that would and people sometimes take for granted how smart fighters have to be I'm not talking about you know your mathematician skills or how well versed you are in history but I don't know any fighter that at an elite level that isn't fucking brilliant in the ring 100% 100% and so you're using your mind to make choices and decisions and react at an elite level that isn't fucking brilliant in the ring or in the octagon.

100%. You're using your mind to make choices and decisions and react. Exactly. If people think that the only information or the only intelligence that's worthwhile is intelligence so you can recite information, that's crazy. That's not true. Yeah, it's absurd is what it is. It's absurd, yeah.

And so to diminish the idea that these fighters are intelligent is a huge insult and probably means you're not that fucking smart. Well, it's just a lack of objectivity because too many people equate intelligence with education. I mean, it's not that education doesn't enhance intelligence. It most certainly does. But you have a lot of people with great minds that don't wind up using them well. There's a lot of people with great minds that don't wind up using them well there's a lot of people out there because just because you have a great ability to do something doesn't mean you ever do it there's a lot of people that are incredible natural athletes that never get into sports

you know i know people that are like ridiculously physically gifted and they just don't do anything with it they just don't care they're not motivated so that could be the same with intelligence it could be the same with a lot of things things so my point for saying that only was that you to have a mind of a fighter that could compete and Succeed even at the elite levels and then the mind of a mixed martial artist that could compete and succeed at the elite level And be able to do both simultaneously That would be a next level type of genius. The only way someone could do that is they would have to be an elite specialist in one sport and then cross over at a young age.

That is a possibility. And we have had guys like Mirko Krokop. He was an elite kickboxer who made his way into MMA and became an elite MMA fighter. So he was in a sport with no grappling, and he learned takedown defense. He learned grappling to the point where he even won some fights by submitting. He submitted Kevin Randleman in a rematch. So while he was doing that, was he still winning kickboxing competitions?

He would occasionally fight kickboxing fights in his career, but for the most part, most of his career up until the later ages was all MMA after he started fighting in pride. So it took a few years, took a few years for him to, well, it didn't take even a few years for him to adapt, but he was a very specific kind of kickboxer. He was a fast twitch explosive kickboxer. And if you have other guys that are more technicians and set things up, they'll be more fucked because you want a guy that can explode technicians and set things up, they'll be more fucked. Because you want a guy that can explode.

Because he's got to explode to get away from takedowns. He's got to explode to close the distance and knock a guy out with one punch. You might only have one shot. There's guys that are not going to knock you out with one punch. But they'll knock you out if they can piece you up for a few rounds and fuck you up and butter you up. Like Julio Cesar Chavez. One of the greatest fighters of all time. Of all time! Julio Cesar Chavez, one of the greatest fighters of all time. Of all time.

Julio Cesar Chavez, one of the greatest of all time. Very rarely just step forward and smash a dude with one left hook and flatlined him. No. He beat the fuck out of you. All night. Tenderized your ass and then cooked you. I mean, he was a monster, a monster inside the ring. But that's not a style that would translate well to MMA. Because if someone was, if he couldn't stop the takedown and someone was leg kicking him,

he doesn't have enough power in his hands to just fuck you up with one shot. You know, like a guy like Mike Tyson, even if he never fought MMA, if he's fighting against a kickboxer, his power was so substantial. If you give him those little gloves, how are you going to keep him off of you? I don't think you're going to keep him off you. I think a guy like Mike Tyson could have gotten all the way to wrestlers before he was fucked. Okay, with that said, though, and school me, because maybe I'm ignorant, but how long a career is that if as soon as you get to a wrestler, you're in a lot of trouble?

Does he have to get to elite wrestlers? Or can an average wrestler beat a Mike Tyson in MMA? An average wrestler would take almost everyone down. So that's— But you would not fight in an MMA fight without having some training on wrestling takedown defense. And I would assume you would do some live rounds with wrestlers. There's no one who's just going to jump right in, except James Toney. James Toney jumped right in.

Did not go well. James Toney just had a wanted a payday, man. He's like, look, if this dude stands in front of me, I'll fuck him up, but if he takes me down, what am I going to do? He's talking about side check kicks and shit. He was making up words. And we weren't talking about a prime James Toney. I'm not sure it would have went differently if we were, but it might have.

But he's a good example of why I don't want some people to fight in MMA, because James Toney's boxing was beautiful. It was amazing. James Toney's boxing, his ability to shoulder roll and then fire back that counter right hand, my God, he was so smooth, man. I think we have to accept on both sides of this combat sport equation that these are different disciplines. It doesn't make you a lesser MMA fighter because an average boxer can beat you and vice versa. And now if you want to come up with some hybrid sport, I mean, I've seen people try it.

I saw something like in the round. And I've seen different promoters try to come up with some hybrid sport i mean i've seen people try it i saw something like in the round and i've seen different promoters try to come up with some hybrid but until one of those things becomes a thing these are just apples and oranges you know it'd be the craziest shit of all time the craziest shit of all time if tyson fury says i'm just gonna take a couple years off and i'm gonna learn mma and i'm gonna come back i'm going to be the MMA heavyweight champion of the world. I'm going to fuck everybody up. Well, I'll tell you this. The first fight, you won't find a place big enough.

Won't find a place big enough. There won't be a second fight. You'll have to have the first fight on Earth. It would just be destination Earth. Everyone is going to want to tell me we're at Stonehenge. We would all go. Yeah, but I think that that would be, in terms of what people would be interested in, that would be massive.

Yeah. But I think with Francis Ngannou's first leg kick, he would be like, oh, no. Yeah, that's my point. Oh, no, what have I done? The interest exists, but the payoff is not going to be near worth the ticket price. It's going to be the obvious. His fight against Dillian White was magical. It was magical.

Yeah. Interesting. It's interesting to see a guy like that big, that tall, that is in his prime and just deciding he's going to step away, which I don't buy for a fucking hot second. I don't believe that he could resist the opportunity to fight undisputed and then really retire as undisputed, undefeated heavyweight champion of the world. If that is presented to him as an option, and he truly believes that he can beat any heavyweight in the game, including the title

holders at the current time, so whoever ends up with all the other belts except the WBC, I'm certain he has a belief he can beat that person. Him passing on that opportunity, I don't see it happening. He's too competitive a guy. It's too big a fight

and the seduction of being able to be that one guy that ever did that he can't pass it up. I have a theory and this is not my own theory either this is a theory that somebody labeled at me threw it at me. I wish I could remember who told me this but I think it's right. They said now he made his intentions known after the fight

he brings over Francis Ngannou and says we're going to have a hybrid fight with these four ounce gloves on. That doesn't sound like boxing to me. Sounds like a hybrid fight. What do I need all these fucking boxing commissions? And I wouldn't even do the WBC. Everybody's going to get their piece. The fuck out of here with your piece.

I quit. I retire. Have someone fight for this bullshit title That you know is mine You know it's mine It's his fucking title So what are you going to do You take it away and give it to somebody else Everyone's going to know Tyson Fury is still around

But he just retired so he doesn't have to pay you He doesn't have to pay the WBA or WBC Or whoever the fuck has the title reigns And to your point He made that exact case when he came back The last time. No one's ever beaten me. I'm still a lineal champion.

I'm still the guy to beat. And thus far, that has remained true. No one has yet beaten him. So if you put on those little gloves, I'm telling you, it's going to be an incredible promotion. I'll be front row. I'll hopefully be sitting right next to you, but there is no way that Ngannou wins that fight. If it's just

boxing, he's going to have a really hard time hitting him. The smaller the gloves, the more trouble he's in. This guy is a gypsy king. Are you kidding me? He'd just do hand wraps if you let him. And it's only going to make it harder for Ngannou to stay awake.

I want to see the fight. Don't let me fuck it up. But I'm trying to tell you, this guy's in a lot of trouble. Ngannou does have the nuclear option, though. He really does. He does have nuclear one-punch knockout power. One of his knockouts of Alistair Overeem

was one of the most terrifying knockouts I've ever seen in my life. He spun Alistair's head behind while he was looking at the back of his feet. That's how hard he hit him. Now, is he going to land that on Tyson Fury? It's going to be real fucking hard. But the problem is,

what kind of hybrid rules are we talking about? Are we allowed to clinch? Because if we're allowed to clinch, Tyson's in a lot of trouble. Because if Francis can clinch you and can hold on to you and just punch you in the face in a way that's illegal in boxing, watch this again.

Okay. That is very impressive. He does that to everybody. He does that to everybody. I know, but look at that. What's terrible. From the hip. That's a Will Smith punch, man. It's a terrible technique in that regard. But he was doing it because he knew the opening was there and he was just winging it. That's not going to work that way on Tyson Fury.

Absolutely not. No chance. But he's not going to fight that way on Tyson Fury either. He's fighting that way on Alistair because he knows that Alistair is not in his prime. He's just going to smash him. He's trying to make his statement of being the top heavyweight contender in the UFC at the time when he knocked him out.

You know, last one was here. I think, what were we talking about? Pacquiao, Conor McGregor maybe. We were talking about some other MMA... Yeah, they were talking about that for a maybe. We were talking about some other MMA. Yeah, they were talking about that for a while. They were talking about doing that for a while. Yeah, and I was like, I don't want to see it.

I'm going on record right now. I want to see it. I have no interest in that. I want to see it. Small little MMA gloves and these two behemoths. Yeah. I want to see it, but not because it's competitive, but because that's how much a sucker I am for a heavyweight knockout.

Yeah, but even if it's not competitive, I want to see it be uncompetitive. I want to see Tyson Fury pitch a shutout. I want to see him lighten him up. I want the world to see what it's like when the best motherfucker on earth at his given thing gets to express himself with someone who's trying it out. Full-blown destruction is what happens. Unless they allow clinching. Okay, but they don't have to allow it.

In boxing, technically, you're not allowed to hold. Right, but if you could hold and hit, because you can in MMA. It's called dirty boxing. Guys grab the back of your head and smash you in the face. Oh, you mean like... I mean hold on to hold. Right, but if you could hold and hit, because you can in MMA. It's called dirty boxing. Guys grab the back of your head and smash you in the face. Oh, you mean like- I mean hold on to you. Keep you in place. Oh, no, no, no.

See, that's what I'm saying. You'll get fouled for that, for sure. Yeah, but that's not in a hybrid rule situation with MMA gloves. If Francis Ngannou gets Tyson Fury to agree to let him hold and hit- Like you could put a guy in a headlock and just- 100%. Oh, yeah, no. Yeah, see, that's what I'm saying. Okay. If you could hold on to in a headlock and just... 100%. Oh, yeah, no. Yeah, see, that's what I'm saying.

Okay. If you could hold on to a guy, if you could just get an overhook and just completely tie up that arm and just smash him in the face. If you could tie the back, get him in a collar tie where you're holding the back of his neck and you're smashing him in the face. That's legal in MMA. That happens all the time. I would say the closest, ironically, the closest I've seen to that in boxing that was pretty effective and not entirely illegal,

would have been Klitschko Fury. Don't forget, that was a very clinch-heavy fight. Fury was able to make the fight dirty boxing. Klitschko made everything clinch-heavy. Jab, clinch. Jab, right hand, clinch. But only Fury was able to turn that against him. So even in this scenario, I get, okay, that gives Ngannou a much better chance because that's something he's skilled at.

But Tyson is not unskilled at that. That's how he won all those belts in the first place. Right, true. And being the Gypsy King, those bare-knuckle travelers are known for having fights bare-knuckle. That's the whole thing. They have a fucking whole culture behind it. They have bare-knuckle fighting and the Gypsies goes back forever.

That's what I'm saying. He's like, you know, I'm sure he's had bare-knuckle fights. Please, Mr. Ngannou, don't throw me in that briar pack. Smaller gloves, oh no. I would love to see it, no matter what. And I love Francis Ngannou, so I'd like him to get a giant payday,

and I think it would be an enormous payday. Oh, huge. Huge. It would be spectacular. Francis Ngannou versus the Gypsy King for the undisputed baddest man on the planet. Oh my God, it'd be so much money. That's what I want for Francis. And if it's little gloves, man, you can't fuck around with little gloves.

You know, we can't talk about Shakur Stevenson without mentioning the other fight on the night. Like, Shakur Stevenson was crazy good, but it wasn't the fight of the night. I still haven't seen it. You just said you didn't watch that girl fight the girl fight yeah it's a girl fight it's a women's boxing yeah unification undisputed bout Joe but they were the ladies yeah I heard it's amazing it's fight of the year it's good

fight of the year no male-f good. It's fight of the year. No male-female distinction. But again, like I was saying, I don't have time to research climate change. I don't have time to research fracking. Or girl fights. Sometimes I don't have time to watch every fight. You know? All right. Well, I'm not at all lesser a fan of women's boxing than I am of men's boxing.

at all lesser a fan of women's boxing than I am of men's boxing. And so the journey that women's boxing has taken to where there is a competitive field of women's fighters, only now, I think, are we experiencing that. We've had some spikes. We've had some stars, obviously. The Coal Miner's daughter, Christy Martin and Leila Ali. Yeah. You know, Lucia Riker.

The names that we know for sure have had their moments but I don't think ever was there a time like there is now where there are so many good women able to box and making competitive fields Clarissa Shields is one of the guests on my show and

I would have to say in this era she's definitely a pioneer of that her accomplishments in the Olympics, two gold medals, her verbose nature and her ability to back it up makes her a star in the sport. And it inspires another generation of women to be like, you know, this is something that's open to me, a lane I can pursue. These ladies, man, I'm telling you, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano put on as good a boxing match as any two guys could have ever hoped to do. To a sold out, not the theater, the actual garden, sold out Madison Square Garden and every person got value for dollar that night. Damn. So we might be looking at a new era in boxing where, you know, you won't be so cavalier about missing a women's fight like that.

Like these girls are like coming. I'm not cavalier. I'm just busy. I try to watch as much as I can, but I've been overwhelmed the last few weeks. But I, look, I was always a fan of people that are good, you know, and I don't care if it's uh women or men I like watching girl fights in UFCs but there's a big girl fight this weekend Carla Esparza versus Rose Namajunas it's a giant girl fight for the fly the strawweight title yeah I'm pumped about it

yeah I watched the I watched as much MMA as possible and you know to your point if it were if she was on the other foot I probably missed a lot of very important MMA fights because I don't have time. And also, what is going on? Whose fault is this? Why is it? What's going on, you? I feel like you know. Why is it that every time there's a big boxing match on a Saturday, there seems to be, just coincidentally, a big UFC fight on that same Saturday?

Well, this is May Cinco de Mayo weekend. Cinco de Mayo weekend. Boxing always has big fights. Yeah. They always have big fights. But here we are again with a UFC fight, same night. I know for a fact the UFC scheduled this a long fucking time ago. Because it's in Phoenix, too.

It's not even in Vegas or one of the places we go a lot. But we have been going to Phoenix. See, there's some places that still had restrictions, and so they stopped going to those places that still had restrictions. But the UFC puts on a big pay-per-view every month. Right, but is that – I mean, maybe I'm making too much of this. It's not a conspiracy. They're not doing it, no.

Listen, that would be a dumb thing. Because why would you ever want to go back against the wall with Canelo Alvarez having a pay-per-view when you want all those Latino fans? Are you fucking crazy? You know how much money that is? I think the same thing. That's why I can't figure it out. But they do it.

They know. They didn't do it because of that. They did it in spite of that. Because one beautiful thing about streaming services like ESPN Plus is that if I can just stay, well, la, la, la, don't talk to me. If I can just avoid spoilers, I can get home and I can watch it anytime I want and I play it like it's happening live. I love that.

Yes. It's very hard to do. But if you get pay-per-view and it's on a DVR, you've got to go back, you've got to record it, you've got to fast-forward through it and get to the spot. It's a little more complicated because you've got to go home. You've got to watch it on television. But there's no way they would want competition. If they could have a big pay-per-view event like this one this weekend

and not have it go back-to-back against Canelo Alvarez, they definitely would. That's the best way for business. Because if you have two options, you can't watch both things. Most people are going to order one. They're going to order one. That's right. Most people. And if you're a boxing fan, Canelo Alvarez, and Bavall's a real threat, big-ass fucking

Russian light heavyweight, real talented, undefeated, challenge What are you gonna do? You know They're not doing that Like it's not a conspiracy They're just trying to make money It happens so frequently though It's cause we put on a lot of shows The UFC puts on a show

Every fucking month Almost every week How about that? Cause UFC has shows At the Apex Center They have their own Small arena in Vegas And so a lot of the fights

Like all the fights That we did under quarantine Shit we did like A gang of fights At the Apex Center. Like world title fights at the Apex Center with no audience. Now, you know, I say that to say this. I'm a big proponent of the Sunday night boxing match, which is not some like bending of the knee to give away Saturday night to the MMA. But in my regard, let them fucking have it.

Sunday night is the night for fights. That's because you're single and you go out on Saturday night to the MMA, but in my regard, let them fucking have it. Sunday night is the night for fights. That's because you're single and you go out on Saturday night. Everybody else is like, look at, you know, if you're married, like, have the boys over. Have a fucking fight night. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah. Would that possibly be true? Could that be the whole, like, my whole blind spot and stuff?

Well, not only that, your best friend is Dave Chappelle. Saturday night, you're out doing shows. Like, fuck, I don't want to miss the fight. So you're trying to catch the fight on an iPad or something. Oh, no. I've had a huge blind spot. Oh, man, I was so teed up to give my pitch. It doesn't make any sense.

Of course Saturday night's the way to go. When people look for entertainment, Saturday night's the night you want. Because Friday night, even when we do shows, right? Friday night shows, I always tell people, like when young guys are opening for me, I go, you always got to think that that Friday night late show, these people are tired, man. They've been up all day. They worked all day. They got up at 7 o'clock in the morning.

They fucking busted their ass. They commuted. They took care of their family. They got out. Finally got out. And now they're here, and they're fucking exhausted. So you can't dilly-dally on them 10 o'clock shows. You've got to come out guns blazing.

Right. You know, and I think Saturday is the entertainment day for people. They slept in. They don't have to go to church if they're religious. They sleep in. They wake up finally one fucking day where they just don't have an alarm. The one day. And then you're hanging out with your buddies.

Hey, we're going to go see Chappelle. Let's start drinking. And then they start drinking and then they're out. And then they're out having a great time. That's for a fight. That's for anything. Saturday night is the night. See, I'm thinking because of what you just said, there's so much Saturday night competition and so many other places you want to be instead of front of a TV.

If you got tickets to the fight, well that's a different thing. But if I want to stay home and watch a fight, even with my seven closest friends, that does not compete with the things I could be doing out in the world when I don't have to wake up in the morning. It depends on who's fighting. But Sunday night. If Marvin Hager's fighting Sugar Ray Leonard and it's Saturday night, you want to be in front of that fucking TV and your hands are going to be sweaty. You're going to be like, holy shit. It's about to go down.

But that's the same as true for Sunday. And people are home on Sunday evenings. More people are home on Sunday evenings anyway. Sunday's okay. I don't hate it on Sunday if they want to fight on Sunday. Yeah. Wait a minute. Didn't Tyson and Roy Jones fight on an off night?

Yes. Yes. What night did they fight? Wasn't it? Was it Sunday or Thursday? It was an off night? Yes. Yes. I think it was. Wasn't it? Was it Sunday or Thursday? It was an off night. It was. It might have been Sunday.

I think it might have been Sunday because this might have been even where I first was like, you know what? That does work. That's just for your own lifestyle. It's your own lifestyle, dude. I guarantee you. That's, you're just, you know. You're best friends with one of the greatest comedians

ever walked the face of the earth and you do shows with him all the time. You're always hanging out. Well, that's not true. Saturday night. You don't want to fucking go somewhere, watch a fucking fight when it could be Sunday when you got the night off.

It's just personal convenience. Okay, I will admit that there may be some personal gain to me in it, but I'm about the people, Joe. This is like- You also don't have a regular job, so you don't have to go to work Monday morning, commute, and all that.

That's what most people don't want to get hammered on. Sunday's the day of rest. It's Lord's Day. You know, the two promoters of that girl fight, as you put it- The girl fight? Yes.

Eddie Hearn. You're going to make me have to have those girls on and apologize. Shit. And Jake Paul. Wait Hearn. You're going to make me have to have those girls on and apologize. Shit. And Jake Paul. Wait a minute. Jake Paul was a promoter? Yeah.

Without Jake Paul, that fight doesn't happen. He's, you know. He's like a full-on promoter now? Yeah, absolutely. Look, the kid's got to hustle. You got to give it to him. The kid's got to hustle. He is a successful hustler.

I don't even know. I think he might be. He's got hustle. He's not a hustler. I don't even know. I think he might be. He's got hustle. He's not a hustler. This guy is a legitimate businessman. Yeah, a legitimate businessman. But he makes so much money doing other shit. The fact that he wants to do that as well and promote fights as well, I'm impressed.

He put her on his undercard. She got a lot of visibility there. People in boxing, of course, are already familiar with her. But it gave her much bigger notoriety by being on his cards. And then he and Eddie Hearn put this fight together. Again, I can't stress it enough. A sold-out, an actual Madison Square Garden sold-out

main arena fight. That's incredible. Good for him. That was value for dollar, like paid off. Sunglasses. Yeah, he's doing his thing. I like it, man. I don't think this fight happens without him. You know, the conversation he had with Eddie Hearn, where he said, I will knock out any one of your guys that has under 10 fights.

Right. He goes, whoever you want to have, bring me any guy that you have that's under 10 fights. You can see Eddie Hearn like, shit. He's kind of stuck there. You think? Yep. Because those guys under 10 fights, like, what if Jake Paul knocks one of them out? Like, what if you get a guy that, like, hasn't been tested and maybe has some promise and

maybe gets wrapped up in the hype and maybe gets a little nervous and this is his first chance at a big, big, big show and Jake Paul can crack. Yeah. A hundred percent. That knockout of Tyron Woodley is legit as fuck. He can crack. Yeah. A hundred percent. That knockout of Tyron Woodley is legit as fuck. He can crack. But Eddie's point in that interview, and I think the point that just about every boxing aficionado would say is that Tyron Woodley is not a boxer.

Yep. And nor is Ben Askren, who he knocked out as well. Right. We would have gotten some answers if Tyson Fury didn't get injured, or excuse me, if Tommy Fury didn't get injured leading up to that fight because he was the initial opponent.

So if he fought him, we would have got some real answers. And that would be an interesting fight. Agreed. And to your point, I saw people in boxing, when that fight seemed to actually was going to happen, start hedging their bets. Well, Fury isn't this. Tommy isn't that.

I don't buy any of that. I think Tommy is absolutely a legitimate boxing opponent for Jake Paul. Entertain this perspective. If Jake Paul wasn't Jake Paul, if he wasn't this YouTube guy, if he was just a boxer, and you see a boxer knock out the former UFC welterweight champion. Not just the former, but one of the best ever. Knock him out with one punch like that. You'd be like, oh man. Have you seen this

Jake Paul dude coming up? He's fucking for real. Because nothing about watching him fight, to me, screams like he's in over his head. Nothing. He looks like a real boxer. He looks like a real boxer. He doesn't look like a guy who's attempting boxing. That's the difference.

The feints, the foot movement, the way he lands shots. He fights like a boxer. He doesn't fight like a guy who's trying to box in a celebrity boxing match. He fights like a boxer. So if he wasn't that guy, I'm saying if he wasn't that big YouTube star, and you just saw him as a boxing contender, you'd be like, that dude's got dynamite in his hands. Okay, so there's two points to be made here.

First of all, if a guy in his pro debut and the first five fights of his career are knocking out people whose names we know, you're absolutely right. That person is going to get a huge amount of attention and everybody's going to be like, wow, who the fuck is this guy? amount of attention and everybody's been like wow who the fuck is this guy but also if a guy who is on the track to be somebody who has like oh potential from the olympics or he's got great amateur record we're gonna turn this guy into somebody in their first fights they're fighting guys who are like 5 and 27 they're fighting fighting other debut opponents who don't have a great track trajectory in front of them. They're fighting, you know, to mannequins, bums, you know, just completely not competitive opponents. Just to get experience.

And that's fine, right? So when we expect Jake Paul to be fighting higher-level competition, it's not because he has under 10 fights. It's because he talks a lot of shit. Yeah, but that's also why we're talking about him. And that's exactly true. But I think on both sides of the equation, we've got to admit that a young fighter under five fights

isn't fighting great competition. So if you're calling Jake Paul a legitimate boxer, and then you're expecting him to do what legitimate boxers do, I'm not sure he's not doing that, and probably more. That's what I'm saying about the knockout of Tyron Woodley. Because it was just a regular boxer who was just coming up. And what does he have, six fights? Yes, I don't know, something like this.

What does Jake Paul have? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Something what does he have? Six fights? Yes, I don't know. Something like this. What do you mean? What does Jake Paul have? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Something like that, right? No, I think that was his sixth. I was looking at a post he had where he said six and O coming soon. Six and O. So, okay, so he's got five fights. Now, anybody who had just five fights was like doing

small cards and then knocks out Tyron Woodley. Tyron Woodley says, I'm going to try boxing. And some guy starches him with one punch and talks mad shit. You'd be like, wow, that guy's hot. Right. But the fighter doesn't... A 5-0 fighter who's knocked out five guys isn't

saying, I'm ready for Canelo. Like, no guy... But you do if you're crazy and you just talk a lot of shit. It's not like Canelo's waiting to fight him. Canelo's got a lot of shit. It's not like Canelo's waiting to fight him. Canelo's got a lot of things he's doing. He doesn't have any time to be waiting around on Jake Paul. He's not really going to fight him.

He's got to fight Golovkin in the rematch if he beats Bivol. He's got things lined up. He's talking about fighting Usyk. Have you seen that shit? Yeah. Yeah. And he's interested in that. And so am I.

Yeah. So am I. Yeah. And I see Eddie Hearn trying and so am I. So am I. And I see Eddie Hearn trying to put that together. Please put that together. Please put that together. I'm interested. Imagine if he wins.

The trajectory Canelo is on. Look at this. Canelo Alvarez expresses interest in heavyweight title fight with Alexander Usyk at 201 pound catch weight. Which, by the way, Usyk used to be a cruiserweight champion. The fact that not only is Canelo interested in this fight verbally, but I actually believe him. Most fighters that would say something as crazy as that, like, all right, well, he's trying to get some headlines, trying to say something that's not going to happen. I think Jake Paul probably knows he's not getting that canelo fight anytime soon but just say something crazy like that yeah to show that much confidence in yourself is going to get people's

attention this guy means it he means it and the opponents that he's chosen thus far with the ability that he has to guide his own career you can can't take anything from him. Not a thing. I don't know that I could name another fighter, certainly not in the modern era, that has challenged himself more consistently than Canelo Alvarez. Absolutely. Yeah. You can't criticize who he's facing. And no matter who he faces, there's going to be somebody else you want him to fight.

But you can't say that the guy in front of him right now isn't a worthy opponent. And he goes one quality fight to another quality fight to another quality fight. Yep. B-Vol is a hell of a fighter. Mm-hmm. The weight that they're fighting at,

175 pounds? Mm-hmm. For Canelo to just decide to fight at 175 pounds again in a title holder of Beville's ability? Which is a step up of Kovalev. Kovalev was on the slide. When he knocked out Kovalev, Kovalev was kind of on the slide. Yeah, and the challenge in it, and people would try to criticize that,

but I'm like, he's 175 pounds even on the slide. Right. That's a huge challenge for Canelo. Yeah. And, on my scorecard anyway, Canelo was losing the fight. Yeah. Until the knockout. Yeah. And so, for him to decide to dabble in those deep waters again, if he was losing a fight to

Kovalev, who, you know, arguably has less skills than Bivol, although bigger, I think. The one thing is that Kovalev, who arguably has less skills than Bivol, although bigger, I think. The one thing is that Kovalev is a big 75. Bivol is not. I think these two guys are going to be about the same size on fight night. So with the exception of the weight differential that happened, or the size differential with Kovalev, the skill matches up much better with Beville.

If he beats Beville and acquires another title at 175 pounds, you have to actually start talking about Canelo already in the annals of history. Where does this guy place now before he retires? No matter what happens from that day on this guy's got to be in the conversation and if he goes up and he beats usic now you're in now you're in crazy town if he goes up and fights usic it does does usic have an automatic with anthony joshua are they exercising that yeah yeah absolutely so they would have to pay Joshua step-aside money. I don't see that happening. I do.

I do. You never know. Didn't they offer actually, wait a minute. Didn't they offer Anthony Joshua step-aside money for Usyk to fight Tyson Fury? Wasn't that on the table? Yeah. How much do they want to offer him? I mean, you know, there's only rumors,

right? What would you rumor? What would you hear? I heard 10 million all the way up to like 30. 10 million to just chill? Yeah. Ready to chill? But who knows what the truth is? The only guys who know the truth is the guys who got offered the money.

Two versions of it right there. Okay, two versions of it. Anthony Joshua denies step-aside deal. He denied that he's agreed okay but they might have offered it to him a report earlier this week claimed that Joshua was close to accepting 15 million 20 million pounds 20 million American dollars deal at his end but he since hit back at this and branded it bullshit Hearn told DAZN boxing show there's been an offer Okay, so he wasn't close to accepting.

That's not true. But they did offer. Well, see, here's the thing. We don't actually know. Like, those conversations are behind closed doors, and no one's going to tell you what actually happened, right? So we know that offers were on the table. I do believe it was a possibility, though. Now, let's not forget, Joshua was shopping for trainers.

If he doesn't take that fight immediately, that doesn't mean anything other than he is being smart. If he doesn't have a trainer that he's confident in at the time, why would you immediately run into the rematch? Also, Usyk was fighting in the war in Ukraine up until like a week ago. Yeah, that's current, but while we were having that discussion, the Ukraine war wasn't even like a thing.

But wouldn't you take $20 million to not fight all day? Especially with that shallow pool of talent in the heavyweight division. He's the top of the food chain. He's always going to be a guy. You need a big opponent for a big fight. Anthony Joshua's there. Who the fuck else is there? There's

Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder, Luis Ortiz is 150,000 years old, right? And he's still in the conversation, right? Andy Ruiz hasn't won, well, he did beat Chris, what's his name? Rumor. Oh, Arreola.

Arreola. Rumor that he asked for more. Oh, heavyweight champion Tyson Fury is said to have gone berserk when his boxing rival Anthony Joshua asked for an extra 3.7 million pounds in step-aside money for the Usyk rematch. So he wanted more than the 20. But if you could take that just to, like, you have you have uh andrew ruiz is fighting they are fighting he is fighting lewis ortiz which is an interesting fight right because andy ruiz is getting in shape now he looks good he's lost a lot of weight he's taking it more

serious but tyson fury beat or excuse me um anthony joshua beat him in the rematch that's just how it is yeah he had his moment in the sun yeah he had his moment in the rematch. That's just how it is. Yeah, like a clinical beating. Yeah, he had his moment in the sun, and then he came back, and he also was like 380 pounds during the fight. It was crazy. Yeah, he admitted that he didn't train, he didn't commit to that, which is like the cardinal sin of boxing.

Being beaten in a heavyweight fight is not something to be ashamed of unless the reason you were beaten is because you didn't prepare like that's a disrespect to everything the sport means the biggest victory of your life changed your life you'd knocked out the heavyweight champion of the world yeah i mean it's but my point is anthony joshua is always top of the food chain if he just takes 20 million bucks stays top of the food chain got 20 million in in his pocket. More time to train. More time to like whatever the corrections and changes this new trainer is going to give him.

More time for those to set in. More time to recover. All those things are true. But I think Anthony Joshua is very aware of the inconsistent nature of boxing. And you can't count on anything tomorrow. Like, nothing. That's why you should take $23 million. Free $20 million.

I mean, I guess to your point, if he had taken that step-aside money, the fight still hasn't happened. But what if, let's say he takes the step-aside money, $20 million. This guy is not missing any meals. So $20 million in his bank account right now isn't going to make a change in his lifestyle. Don't you think he lives a luxurious lifestyle that needs to be funded?

Yes, yes. But Joe, if he passes on that opportunity and Usyk fights Fury, Fury beats Usyk, Fury retires. Those belts scatter across the pond like little lilies. No. Fury retires. Those belts scatter across the pond like little lilies. No, he retires, then Usyk and Joshua rematch for the title. It's simple math. This is not MMA. This is not MMA. No, no, no, no.

Then each sanctioning body gets to decide who the title is. Call Ring Magazine up and go, guys, let's cut the bullshit. I'm only fighting for your title. And legacy matters to decide. Fuck that. Ring Magazine. Call Ring Magazine up and go, guys, let's cut the bullshit. I'm only fighting for your title. Fuck all these people. In legacy matters to Joshua, pride, I think, might have been part of the equation.

To be a boxer at all, certainly at that level, you've got to be a bit delusional. He can't accept that maybe it's better for him to step aside or lose the opportunity to reclaim all your titles at once. I feel like there should be one boxing champion in each weight class. Of course

there should, buddy. You know what I mean? This whole governing body thing doesn't make any sense if there's so many of them. There should be one news channel that tells you all the truth. Yeah, but that's different. We're talking about a 147 pound world welterweight champion, right? What? There's one. There's only one.

You can't be world champion if that guy's world champion. That's crazy. That's crazy. Right? But when they do that with MMA, it's just a cringe. Which belt is the belt then? Ring magazine. Okay. Fuck everybody else. How about that? They're

historians of the sport. They're people that follow the sport. They don't make a living just off of sanctioning people, but the Ring magazine's a cherished belt. It's the only publication that has a cherished title attached to it. All that would really

require is that everybody agree. If fighters stop fighting for the other titles, and if people stop... This is how we get killed. There's so much money involved in sanctioning bodies. Let me rephrase that. If that's what you want, Joe... That's not what I want.

I would like four or five more people to step in and start sanctioning fights. More belts, the better. As much as I agree with that, and I do, I have been seduced now into this undisputed kind of world of, well, you know what? Having to go around and collect all the belts to get, like, there's champions, and then there's, like, undisputed, which is king of kings, which is, like, the guy who's been, and that's that's the elusive like moniker everybody wants now. Right. So there is something to, I think there's too many. Like I would be far happier if there was just,

just three period. Right. And no inner international champion and no like regional interim, but just three titles in every division. And then the undisputed champion, if you can get all three. That might be something that's more doable, and I kind of like the idea that just winning one belt, beating one guy doesn't necessarily make you king of the division.

I'm giving you an argument for you, for your position on this. This is what I like. You can't have Usyk versus Joshua and Tyson Fury versus Deontay Wilder for heavyweight titles because they can't all fight each other. If there's only one heavyweight title, then those fights aren't heavyweight world titles.

They have to be heavyweight world titles. Usyk versus Joshua 100% is a heavyweight world title fight. Tyson Fury versus Deontay Wilder is 100% a heavyweight world title fight. There you go. But you can't have those fights as world title fights if only one guy holds the heavyweight title.

That's true. That's true. This is something... We had there what I like to call the final four of boxing when we thought that this thing was actually going to bottleneck and everything was going to work out perfectly. That was maybe the most exciting idea in heavyweight boxing. In decades. In decades.

And you just can't trust boxing to get out of its own way and let a series of fights happen the way they should go. Well, there's still potential. I really think that Tyson Fury, I forget who fucking told me that, that that's how they were going to do it. I wish I could remember. But that Tyson Fury is going to give up his titles, I've retired, and then he's going to fight Francis Ngannou with the little gloves on, make a fuck pile of money, and then take a little time off, and then, oh, I'm back. I changed my mind.

I'd like to fight for the title again. But then what happens to that WBC title? Who gives a fuck? Let it float. Throw it in the river. Who gives a shit? Just keep moving. He comes back. Who gives a fuck let it float throw it in the river who gives a shit just keep moving he comes back who gives a fuck who's got the title tyson fury's back baby i've never been beaten

okay but do you agree that let's say tyson fury comes back and they don't he doesn't they don't reinstate him as a wbc heavyweight they don't reinstate him he fights for the title he's a challenger yeah but then who gives a shit that like, who knows who's going to have that at that point. Who cares? He's only got to come back to fight undisputed. Like, you can't come back and fight for every belt but the WBC or just fight for the WBC again. Listen, if Usyk and Joshua –

Okay, let's say Usyk and Joshua fight, and this time Joshua wins. Okay, so Joshua beats Usyk. He beats him in the rematch and decides he's going to retire. Fuck it, I'm good. I'm done. And then Tyson Fury comes back and Joshua says, Actually, I'm not retiring anymore. Let's go.

Neither one of them has a belt. Who gives a fuck? Who gives a fuck? I'll come up with the JRE World Championship, and I'll fucking fund that. I'll fund that. It's a world title. We only have one fight, heavyweight division world title. It's for the JRE belt.

You would think. You would think. But I think the legacy of it, the history of it wouldn't matter. Tyson Fury retired undefeated. Anthony Joshua revenged his two losses that he had. Revenged both of them. He's the fucking world champ that retired. Tyson Fury's the other world champ. Call it undisputed.

That's the name of the promotion. That's a prize fight. Undisputed. They call it undisputed with no belts. Just undisputed. That's a prize fight. Yes. And I think that might be what Jake Paul is actually doing.

He should. Prize fighting. Yes. Right, right, right, right. I made a video. I made kind of like one of my very, very few editorials that I put on YouTube about what this Jake Paul experience is and means to boxing. And I categorize it as a prize fight, which isn't a diminishing term to what this guy is doing.

It's phenomenal. But to try to put him in the context of a traditional boxer who has taken the path of a career fighter in boxing and make what he's doing make sense in that context, you're always going to have a screaming match on both sides because that's not really what he's doing. He's creating a revenue-based, attention-oriented audience for a spectacle that not anybody else, at least to this point, who isn't a traditional boxer, who hasn't built their legacy that way, has been able to do. You say

that Tyrone Woodley fighting a guy who's under five fights and getting knocked out, well that's going to put a tension on the guy. But in that fight, Tyrone Woodley would have had to have been the draw. It wouldn't be this guy that we've never heard of. And they certainly wouldn't get those pay-per-views or sell out

that building. The difference is everybody wants to see Jake Paul fight whoever Jake Paul picks to fight. And he is an expert at picking guys that people want to see and turning that thing into a spectacle. Well, prize fighting was a part of boxing history. Prize fighting is something unto itself. And to hold that stage is something that I think should be regarded. That's like its own category. You're never going to convince boxing purists

that Jake Paul is a boxer of any tradition. Except prize fighting. If you can find a guy who can pack a fucking stadium, who can sell pay-per-views, who you want to see either win or lose, and facing a guy who's got a chance, well, that guy has created an audience for boxing that is not traditional, but is to be respected and is clearly worth a few hours on a Saturday night. Or a Sunday. Or a Sunday if you're smart. a few hours on a Saturday night.

Or a Sunday. Or a Sunday if you're smart. I think this prize fighting thing, which is what I also think of when we see Tyson and Jones come back for the one night. That's a prize fight. Like you say, there's no belts on the line. It doesn't even make a lot of sense.

We just want to see these guys fight. Do you think Jake Paul has the stones to really follow up on a Mike Tyson fight? Because he talked about fighting Mike Tyson. I think it would be a terrible idea. A terrible idea. You would realize when you see him warming up across the ring, that's still Mike Tyson. Yeah. Even though he's 55, that's still Mike Tyson. When the bell rings and you see him shuffling for you and bobbling and weaving, you're like, oh no. Yeah. Oh no. There might be a moment of reality there. I bet he can be 30-year-old Mike Tyson for about 45 seconds.

That's all he needs. The problem with that fight is that, first of all, if he does beat Mike Tyson, we're going to hate him forever. Forever. If he KO'd Mike Tyson? hate him forever. Forever. Like, if you even, if you... If he KO'd Mike Tyson?

Oh, the guy would be... He would be shunned from society for giving us that. People need to know how bad people hated Larry Holmes after he beat Muhammad Ali. Exactly. People hated him. Yeah. And Larry Holmes is one of the most underrated

heavyweight champions that's ever lived. Because people didn't love him because he came after the most beloved heavyweight ever. That is exactly right. And to take a guy like Mike Tyson out of retirement who we all love and the only reason we want to see him in the ring again is because we want to see some glimpse

of the old Tyson. Right. And if you make him look like an old man or you hurt him in front of us no amount of reason or logic is going to keep people from hating you forever. And then if he goes in there and Tyson destroys him, well, then you've just ruined your whole premise for being a cash cow.

Why would you do that? It's true. Yeah, both things are lose-lose. It's a lose-lose. Total lose-lose. And to be fair, I don't even want to see it. If that fight was, I was like, oh my God. You would be right next to me, buddy.

We'd be holding hands. I would feel like I had to watch it, but I wouldn't be like, oh, I can't wait to see this. Like there's nothing. The moment that bell rings, you would be fucking excited as shit. Are you crazy? I would only be curious about impending doom. Because we talked about this, if that happens, you and I are going.

We're fucking going. If that takes place, because I think if he backs up the Brinks truck and brings it to Mike's house, I think Mike will sign on board for that. You remember how it felt watching Holyfield? Yeah, but that was different. That was different. First of all, I watched Holyfield train, too. I didn't like the way it looked. It didn't, you know, look like he was kind of like shuffling through things.

When I was watching Mike Tyson hit mitts with Rafael Cordero, I was like, holy fuck. That was holy fuck. Bobbing and weaving, moving forward, ripping to the body. I'm not saying he's Mike Tyson when he was 20 years old. Yeah. But it's still Mike Tyson at 55. Mike Tyson at 55 is like, how deep was your well originally? You know?

We've lost a few hundred thousand gallons. Okay, but how deep's your fucking well? Some people have a deep-ass well. That motherfucker has the deepest well that's ever been. That's a great question. If you can do that now He can pull out then he can pull out also with today's science like a 55-year-old man is not really a 55 year old man. He's doing all kinds of crazy shit with

electrodes you know where they put these like electrical muscular stimulation devices on you and yet they have you lift weights and it leads to like great gains and strength and recovery of range of motion and he's got like legit scientists with him yeah it does make you wonder like the athletes of old if they lived in today's modern technology what they'd be able to do but i wasn't comparing holyfield to tyson's modern conditioning or even opportunity to win, but just the feeling of watching Holyfield get beat down, it stays with me. Like it's sad and it's infuriating, and I wish I never had to see that. And what we love about Mike Tyson and what gets you excited right now

watching him train, I don't want that diminished. I want this guy to ride off into the sunset of life with us all being like, he's still got it. Right, right, right. Yeah. So who would he fight then? He was supposed to fight Holyfield. Nobody! Like stop fucking fighting people! What if he wants to have fun? I mean, I feel like he's gotten away

with it thus far in grand fashion. Like, man, I was against I'll be honest with you, I was against the Jones fight. I was like, one of these guys is going to get hurt or something is going to happen that we will never forgive ourselves for just because we all wanted one more night. Do you think they made an agreement? That it wasn't going to get. Yeah. Like, I think they may have said as much.

Like, it wasn't a knockout kind of fight. It seemed like that was not on the table. Yeah, which is good thank god because they didn't promote it that way for obvious reasons but if that was agreed to which i think you're correct about thank god yeah well it's not the right size anyway roy is just not the same size as great as roy was when he beat john ruiz he was one of the lightest heavyweight champions ever right he was a 200 pound, and he was barely 200 pounds. And he's always known for being a super middleweight and a light heavyweight.

That's Roy Jones. Mike Tyson's a fucking heavyweight. A real heavyweight. He was 190 when he was 13. I mean that that is that is what makes the idea that a Canelo would fight an Usyk crazy as crazy crazy and that Roy Jones has won the heavyweight championship of the world before oh yeah crazy crazy crazy I wish Roy when he had come back from beating Ruiz had really taken his time to get down to 175 again or maybe never did it again because it is not easy to lose muscle it's not easy and when he went up if you see pull up a video of uh Roy Jones Jr. versus John Ruiz Jr. because John Ruiz the

the quiet man he was uh you know he was a legit heavyweight champion. He was a big guy. And Roy was quite a bit smaller than him and not an ounce of fat at 200 pounds. Now, if he had to go back down and fight at 175, what is he losing, man? I mean, he's losing muscle. There's just no way he's not going to lose muscle. I think he weighed in, I remember correctly like 201 or some shit like that he was real light

but you see Roy's like considerably muscled up he looks great you know let's not forget he's also not 23 like this for the guy to have had the career he'd already had yeah and now be challenging for a heavyweight title

crazy and winning it and winning it and winning it he'd already had and now be challenging for a heavyweight title. Crazy. And winning it is crazy. And winning it and going away. And against a guy like John Ruiz, hit him with some big shots. John Ruiz is no pushover. Yeah, they were going after it. John Ruiz was a legit heavyweight fighter. I mean, a legit world champion. So to go from this fight, which also, here's another thing.

You know every fight you're in. You see Ruiz clipping him with a big right hand there. Every fight you're in takes something off. Every fight. Every war takes something off. When you move up multiple weight classes above your natural weight class and then fight for a heavyweight title, that fight's going to take a lot off. The shots you get hit with by a heavyweight, they take a lot off. And then you drop down to weight, to 175.

You've got to dehydrate the shit out of yourself. I remember when I watched him fight Antonio Tarver, I was looking at his body and I was like, man, he looks smooth. He doesn't look like he used to look. He used to look shredded at 175. smooth he doesn't look like he used to look he used to look shredded at 175 and i think that sometimes the struggle of getting down in weight is the it's not it's the juice is not worth the squeeze guy's bodies just get so weakened by it you can't maintain like striated muscle mass and it didn't look good he didn't look like like he was a coiled spring ready to go like when he fought

james tony like back in those days when he was a coiled spring ready to go like when he fought James Toney. Like back in those days when he was fluid and loose and his fucking punches were lightning bolts, man. It seemed like that weight loss, that's not an insignificant factor. Look at what you're demanding of your body. Let's say you're not paying attention to hitting a weight mark at all. Just training in that way with that intensity, the demands you put on your body your joints your muscles your even your digestion your everything that it goes into just being in that kind of conditioning and then on top of that you want to be 200 pounds today and 175 tomorrow and then back to 68 until you go back to 75 like the terrible stress terrible your body's incredibly

stressed and then you have to perform at the highest level yeah yeah that again imagine doing that and then also on the weekends i fight mma what the fuck this is not happening it's i really would like to see one person jump over and try it. You know, if anybody could do it, I think it would be Crawford because Crawford has a background in wrestling, and Crawford's sons wrestle. And I don't even know if he would need to kick. He would just need to know how to stop kicks, how to check kicks, and how to move close enough to close the distance.

He knows how to wrestle. Terrence Crawford is an elite athlete, and he's the best switch hitter alive in boxing right now. His ability to switch stances, that's a big deal too because there's a lot of guys who, say if you're a right-handed person, in boxing you would stand with your left hand forward. Well, in wrestling you'd stand with your right hand forward.

So a lot of wrestlers, when they're fighting a striker, a dangerous striker, you'll see him take a southpaw stance because then all they're thinking is i gotta get a hold of that fucking leg so the left leg his left leg is in front of you right if he's a boxer i want my right leg in front of me i don't want to have my left leg there that's an extra couple of inches and i'm not used to grabbing that way and i'm not used to pushing off of my left leg. Wrestlers when they're right-handed are used to primarily pushing off their right leg. So they want that right leg out front. Terrence Crawford could switch hit.

He's the best at it. I understand where you're coming from ability-wise. What I love about Terrence Crawford, one of the many things is that— What is he doing? He's wrestling somebody? There's a bunch of videos of him wrestling. Who is he wrestling? I don't know.

They just got a flannel shirt on. Really unlucky guy. That's like in our radio show or something. Is that a radio show? There's a lot of videos of it. Oh, Terrence can fucking wrestle. See, this is my point. Like, look at him here.

Like, he wrestles like a real wrestler. And he's the best switch hitter in boxing. So he doesn't give a fuck if he has his right leg forward or his left leg forward. He'll fuck you up either way. He's the only guy in boxing that can do that. Like, fights just as good southpaw as he does orthodox. And he's the only guy in boxing that I know of that fights

at a world championship, top of the food chain, pound for pound, best level, that also has this kind of wrestling skills. Yeah, and more than all of those things that are incredibly important, he's got this competitive killer instinct. Killer instinct with everything.

If you put somebody else across from him, I don't care if there's a cage around you or ropes or a playground. Whatever you want. He'll do whatever the fuck. He's going to do whatever he has to do to win. And by the way, he'll do that with Frisbee. What do you want to play, bitch? He's a killer. He's just trying to win. He was challenging me to a game of that with Frisbee. What do you want to play, bitch? He's a killer. He's just trying to win. He was challenging me to a game

of pool. I was like, what are you saying? Are we gambling? He realized as we started talking that it was a bad idea. I was like, no. He's a pool player, though. Lennox Lewis thought he was, too. I lit him up.

Sorry, Lennox. I didn't know this about you. I like your play. For regular people, I play real good. For a pro, I play like shit. I'm like a B level. A B player. A B player is so much better. A B pro is pretty good.

Yeah. When I'm playing at my best, I play like a B player. You ever play pickleball? I have not played pickleball, but I hear it a lot lately. I think it's because I'm getting old. When old people start talking to you about, let's play pickleball, you're like, what? I'm going to go shoot things. Not a lot of movement.

The fuck is pickleball? I refuse to act like an old person. I do young people things. Let's not frame it that way. There's not a lot of 25-year-old dudes on a Saturday night looking to play pickleball. They're too busy watching the fights. If the fights were on Sunday, we'd be playing pickleball on Saturday night.

I just didn't even know what pickleball was until a year and a half ago. I played it at a friend's house and I didn't know. Is your friend in the retirement community? No. He has a court at his house. What kind of crazy person has a pickleball court at their house?

Did he put it in there? Yeah. Yeah, he installed it and all his friends go and play. And I was fortunate enough to get invited over. And I've been obsessed ever since. It's like, you know, I like tennis too. You know what, Joe, if I weren't covering boxing, the only other

sport that I really love is tennis. I don't play it at all because it's too fucking hard to be like, because I'm so young. Running back and forth. Yeah, Mike. Rough on the knees. But yeah, the pickleball was a

welcomed sport that was close enough to tennis that I could play it and have as much fun. Don't get into the old man shit. Just accept that there's something new that can be brought to your life that can be fun and athletic. I'm just talking shit, my friend. That's what I do. I talk shit. If you bring up something like pickleball, I gotta talk about retirement communities.

Listen, I bowl. I bowl with my kids. I like to go bowling. That's a stupid old person sport, too. Oh, man. Old people love bowling. My grandfather loved bowling. He was a bowling champion. He had bowling trophies in his house. He was all happy when he bowled. They would have a bowling league

and he had League Nike. Guys back in back in those days man like old dudes they would they would love that there was an excuse they could all get together one night a week and take away some of the drudgery of working every day you know so one night wednesday night it's league night i'm going out with the boys and you get your fucking bowling ball and you get your car and you drive and you have like an obligation to the boys gotta go to the league and you're your fucking bowling ball and you get in your car and you drive and you have like an obligation to the boys. Got to go to the league. And you're rolling some stupid ball down this wooden fucking platform until it hits some pins. I only know that culture from watching these old TV shows.

Right. Like Jack and Cleason, you know, with his bowling shirt. I loved it, man. That culture back in my grandpa's days, that was what they did. They all bowled. Everybody bowled. Now, yeah, but archery is your sport now. Well, archery is a discipline. Archery is something that I love to do because when you're pulling back a bow

and you're aiming, you don't think about anything other than perfect execution of the arrow. That's all you think about. And there's meditation in that. I think it's like a martial art. I think I really do. I think archery is a martial art. I don't think it's a martial art in terms of like you'd use it in a fight, but obviously it started out as something that people use in war and to get good at it and accurate meant that you could kill more things. And probably, I wonder what it actually started out. I wonder if it started out as a weapon of war or it started out as a weapon of hunting. I wonder what they use first.

Had to be, right? I would imagine so. I would imagine the imperative would be to get food before it would be to fuck somebody up unless that person had some food. Right. Right. I mean, think about how easy it is to get food today what the way we get food for now they keep talking about fucking food shortages inflation food shortages food isn't there plenty of food why are you guys talking about food

shortages is there though how about prepare so that there isn't food shortages? I mean, I'm a city boy. Like, if the supermarket's closed, I'm in a lot of trouble. Yeah. There's no farming. I don't have tomatoes in my backyard. Like, Postmates is not delivering. I'm going to starve to death. You just got to get to Dave's house, go to Yellow Springs. A place like that, like Ohio, is a great place to be if the shit goes sideways.

Because there's plenty of farms. There's plenty of... Yeah, but there's also the kind of people who live on farms. What the fuck? I don't want to be in Ohio if this shit goes upside down. Where do you want to be? You don't want to be in New York. No. You don't want to be in LA.

You know what, man? You might want to be in Ohio. You know, you got to ride it out like COVID and take a couple of years. I'm going to be at the Joe Rogan Experience. Wherever you are, that's where I'm going to be. You're the only guy I know that has a bow and arrow and is a good shot, has some idea what we should eat if it were raw, for Christ's sake. You can eat most things.

Most meat. Most of my friends don't have that uh mentality about meat you just i can most i can definitely help you get meat um but i would use rifles if if i do bow hunting because it's harder and because it's it's a discipline and because i i love archery but if we're just trying to survive we're bringing bullets i'm not taking any chances on missing an animal i'm you know look if you are close enough to an animal and you have good discipline and you you practice with a rifle it's pretty much a gimme you just with a bow and arrow it's never a gimme a bow and arrow you have to wait for the perfect shot perfect like they have to turn a perfect way you want to catch them broadside, because you don't want the bullet, or the arrow rather, to hit bone.

When it's a bullet, you don't give a fuck. You're blowing right through the front shoulders, you're killing that animal with one shot. I've never even considered whether or not my arrow might hit bone. This is why I've got to be wherever you are. I don't think Dave's ever thought about whether or not that arrow is going to strike bone. You have to. You have to use the right arrows, too. You probably got enough elk meat in your freezer to last us right through the apocalypse.

You probably wouldn't even have to go out. I got about a year's worth of meat right now. I like to keep a lot of meat. I have two commercial freezers that I keep here. Yeah. These big-ass freezers that I keep here yeah these big ass freezers filled with wild game meat then I have freezers at home too if you don't have meat

you don't know how you're going to eat if you don't have rice, if you don't have food in your house I don't have to go anywhere to eat I can stay home for weeks and not have to go anywhere to eat that's important to me because I don't trust. After this COVID thing and the power went out here for a week last year

and everything got kind of sketchy, the roads were all shut down because they don't have any fucking plows here. I don't trust things to be always okay. I like when they're always okay. I'm not hoping that I get to use my prepper skills and fucking the apocalypse. But I keep an eye on where the deer are in my neighborhood. I watch them. I say hi to them.

My kids say, oh, so cute, so cute. And I say, yeah, they're beautiful. They're beautiful. But I think about putting one right behind that front shoulder. Every time I drive by, I look at their front shoulder. I go, right there, buddy. Right there, buddy. Because I'm going to eat you. And you've been at this a lot longer than COVID existed in our minds.

Yeah, but it's just society. Society's run by people, and people are wholly untrustworthy. Not always. Most of the time, they're trustworthy. Most of the time, people do their job, and they keep it together. But people fall apart all the time. People kill themselves. People have drug overdoses.

People steal. People fucking ruin other people's businesses for no reason because they're assholes. People are nuts. To trust people and to say, well, the people that are in charge of agriculture, they would never do us wrong. They would never fuck this up. Everybody can fuck up everything. You got to have a certain amount of autonomy. So if things do get fucked,

you can at the very least survive. I can survive. I know how to survive. How long have you been this way? I grew up without a dad. So I've been this way forever. I haven't talked to my father since I was seven years old. So I didn't grow up with anybody taking care of me. I haven't talked to my father since I was seven years old.

So I didn't grow up with anybody taking care of me. I grew up with people telling me I was a loser or I was never going to amount to anything or whatever the fuck they said that was discouraging. And I was like, oh, okay, okay. That was always my idea. My attitude was always, I don't trust any of these fucking people. I've watched people that were supposed to be people in positions of power be shitty

I watch people be mean to their spouse and mean to their parents I watched I watched a lot of that growing up So I never trusted people to just I felt like you could find some people and trust them and you need to find people of Exemplary character people who and where do you find those people? They have to be doing difficult shit. So I gravitated rather towards martial arts because the people that were all really good at it, they had the ability to overcome incredible obstacles to get good at something that's very difficult. Those are people of considerable character. Those are the people that I was interested in. I was interested in people that figured out how to make it in a thing That's very hard to make it in and that's why to this day. I'm still obsessed with fighting

Well you want to become an Alexander or sick you want to become a Terrence Crawford? You want to become an Earl Spence you you're a fucking unusual human man. That's a human of the exemplary ability very unusual outlier status in terms of like their discipline their mind their ability to push their ability to find a way to victory that's what's exciting to me and i just most people fall apart most people crumble most people panic most people when all them when the shit hits the fan and everything's on the line they don't know what the fuck to do because they don't know who they are because they have all these ideas because maybe they base who they are on what other people's opinions of them are

and so when things go sideways they're fucked when a girlfriend breaks up with them they're fucked when they get in a dispute with a friend and the other friends take that friend's side even if they're right they're fucked because they don't know who they are now now my friends are mad at me and my girl left me i lost my job you don't know who the fuck you are because you're all tied up in all these things you and i have that in common i didn't grow up with a father either my father in fact was murdered when i was two years old by his best friend oh my god and so growing up with the reality of death looming is part of what makes something like it happening other night so so real to me and it can overshadow so many other incredible things that are happening like on that

night like yeah that was the fourth night at the hollywood bowl dave chappelle showed out sold out all of the nights that happened right before black star came on stage to wrap some of their album the first album back after 24 years all that was happening that night. The people that were on the side stage, that's because they all showed up to see Dave, see Blackstar, to be a part of that moment that Dave created there in that building.

And some... I don't... It's hard for me to even characterize this individual was willing on that one moment to take it all away from us. You know what a lot of this is? I mean, with that guy in particular, there's people that are left out in society and that's a guy that was left out in society. That was a homeless guy. I mean, a homeless guy who's non-binary calls himself they, them on his Twitter. Like to be a part of any group is so special and to be a part of a group that's united against someone

who probably never even watched especially doesn't have a fucking TV how's he gonna watch it you probably just hears Dave Chappelle's transphobic so he's gonna attack him and to get the love of those people if you if you actually did it you know much love you would get if you want to attack this person you know this yeah for attention would get if you want to attack this person, you know, this for attention, for some kind of validation. Oh,

my life means something now. Exactly. Cause I ripped this life away from everyone else. Look, you were very fortunate that when your father died, you, you, you made it through and became a great adult.

But many people have horrible things happen to them along the way. And then they find themselves homeless. They find themselves drug addicted. They find themselves falling apart. We have a whole sea of possibility of potential bad results and good results in all of our communities, but nothing like the homeless community. The homeless community is almost 100% bad results. Yeah. Yeah. And it all comes down to how you deal with that adversity. The way you describe your father not being in the home and what that did to your young psychology.

Well, that set you on a trajectory. That set you on a course. Didn't mean it was going to be sustainable. I'm sure you've had many moments in which you had to find your resolve. Is this really, can I do another day of this? Can I find my way in the world in spite of this and that and the accumulation of trauma and challenges? That's also what my show is about.

That kind of thing. The difference between Joe Rogan and a guy right out by the lake in a tent might be one choice. One thing that he couldn't overcome that made the difference between millions and millions and millions of people listening to the Joe Rogan experience and this guy begging for food outside of a tent in a lake in Austin. Yeah. I think a lot of it is exposure to dangerous drugs. Like some people, when they do need an escape early on,

they have close proximity and they have exposure to something like fentanyl. And they get something that they get hooked on, something like heroin. They get hooked on it, meth, hooked on it. And then, you know, some people do break through from that and actually even wind up being athletes You know there's been guys in the UFC that there were elite fighters that fought that had had fucking overdoses and had to be Resuscitated they were they were dead and be brought back, but they're beating those demons They're winning whatever that fight is and I and I don't think that the fight is drugs when it's drugs like drugs is a

that the fight is drugs when it's drugs. Like drugs is a symptom of whatever's underneath there that you're trying to overcome or that you're trying to forget about. When you talk about your dad and putting you on that focus, does that like a survival mentality or is that like, I'm going to be something because he wasn't there and people don't think I can be anything this probably both of those things happen simultaneously but there's definitely a survival thing because you realize that no one's looking out for you you know

when you realize that no one's looking out for you and then you look at the flimsy structure of society and how all I have to do is like power goes out for a week then what are you gonna do all the fr refrigerators are bad. All the food's bad. How are people getting in? How are you getting in and out? There's no transportation anymore because you're out of gasoline because you can't pump it and you can't refine it because there's no power. All it would take is the power grid to get killed. And it wouldn't take much.

A solar flare. An attack from a foreign government. The foreign government wanted to take out the United States power grid with missiles. They used drones, and they sent drones over with missiles and took out the power grid. It's totally doable. If the power goes out, man, how long do you think it is before we figure out how to turn it back on?

Could be a long time. If it's up to me, it's never coming back on. But even if it's up to the best minds, if the grid gets crushed by a solar flare for instance yeah there's solar flares that we talked about this once jamie there was one that took out um what are those things morse code and then there was the other thing that they used the old-timey the western they would send a telegraph remember those they took it took those out took those out in the 1800s.

There was a solar flare that was so powerful that it fucked up anything that was electric, electrical devices and ruined things. And this is like, we're lucky. The same strength solar flare didn't happen today when everything is electronic and everything is using electricity. Like, it could have fucking torched our society. And everything is using electricity like you could have fucking torched our society Like a real legit solar flare Which is a fairly rare event in terms of like the long the length of time that a human being lives

But very common in terms of the length of time the Sun lives It's just whether or not you catch one while you're alive So while you're alive a massive solar flare erupts and torches the entire power grid we're fucked i don't imagine that would have ever occurred to me had you not brought it up and i don't think you trust anything i do i trust a lot of people I trust I trust my instincts I trust truth I trust a lot of things it's not that I don't trust things it's just I see the whole picture I see all the vulnerabilities it's like I used to have a problem when I was young and in particular when I was young I couldn't just accept a person for what they were I would always find their vulnerabilities I always find

their weakness and and would annoy me I'd be like this lazy bitch is three minutes late every day like get up three minutes earlier I would obsess at it. I would find like the holes in them. I bet he quits easy I bet if shit gets I would I would think of people that way I think people like what would how what would it take to get that person to cry? What would it take to get them to quit? What would it take to get him to fall apart because What would it take to get them to quit? What would it take to get them to fall apart? Because I was a fighter.

I was finding vulnerabilities in people. I was like a little predator. So the problem was that I wouldn't just accept what a thing was. I would say, okay, but what happens if this happens? What happens if that happens? Is there a fallback plan? Does anybody know what the fuck to do if the power goes out? No, no one's ever just showing up at work every day and hoping the coffee machine works.

No one is paying attention. This could go sideways, and it has throughout history, multiple times, numerous times, where civilization's been basically brought down to its fucking knees by natural disasters, and then society had to rebuild. If you do that with people that you know and you're friends and that you love, that's got to take a hell of a toll on your relationships. If you're finding- Yeah, I stopped doing that when I was young.

It took me until I was like in my 20s, my early 20s, I realized I was doing that all the time. I would just, I would pick on people for what they did that was like lazy and weak. It would drive me crazy because i hated it in myself dude i was so married so crazy rather when i was young that i was married to the idea that pleasure was weak like i i had to i had to figure out a way, like when I was like in my teens, that I didn't feel like a pussy because I wanted to have sex with a girl instead of training. I literally had to put it in my head that like the idea that pleasure wasn't bad. I felt like pleasure was weak because it was like weak.

It was too easy to slide into. Anybody could have pleasure. You could go out pleasure. Oh, great. What's difficult to do? It's difficult to train hard. And it's difficult to fight. It's difficult to go out there and win.

And that's what you should think about. Not getting your dick sucked and fucking and all that stupid shit. No. You should only be thinking about fighting. Is that because fighting is discipline? Yes. And pleasure is giving in to a desire. Oh, you're going to take a nap afterwards?

It's that shit. It's so dumb. I mean, so contrary to the way I think now, but I remember very clearly when I was young thinking that. What changed it? I just got smarter. I realized what was wrong with the way I was thinking. I'm always editing my, not editing, I'm using introspective thinking on my own life, on my own. If I have an interaction with someone, if I have a disagreement with them, I always

want to like, okay, I don't want to believe that I was right when I was wrong. I need to know, what the fuck did I say? How did I say it? Could I have said that better? Maybe they misinterpreted it. I always want to know. I had a conversation just yesterday with a good friend of mine and we were talking and he was telling me about the story. I go, okay, do you know for sure that that's how he took it? Maybe he took it this way. Did you ask him this first?

I want to know, did you do this work are you just assume you want you want to call me and tell me that you and this guy got in an argument because you want me to tell you you're right or do you want my actual opinion and the only way I want to get my actual opinions I need to know what your opinion is and the only way I can trust your opinion is if you've looked at your own self so if you tell me I got in a fight with this guy man I sat down I thought about I was like okay was I being a dick what did I do wrong um and then I thought well no because he knew this and I know he knew this because he

brought this up so maybe maybe I didn't explain myself right and so they don't think about how I explained myself and I was like well maybe they misinterpreted what I was saying I thought I was joking around then I'll try to think of that I'll do the work so if I ask someone a question if they're having an argument someone, okay Do you know of this and then they start raising their voice and now fuck him and okay? You haven't done the work So you don't even see you're you're so attached to being correct here that you're ready to dig your heels in the sand and then Fight for your side

Regardless of whether or not it's correct. That's Twitter for your side, regardless of whether or not it's correct, that's Twitter. That's Twitter in a nutshell. That's what people do. That sense of certainty is something that does come with youth. I had it. Yeah, of course. I had anger issues. I wasn't a provocateur or aggressive.

I wasn't a bully, but I had a very, very thin line between I'm totally cool with this and I'm ready to kill anybody that's involved in this. Yeah. There's no yellow light, right? That's also not being protected when you're young.

That's a lot of that comes from. Ah, I didn't make that connection. And also exposure to violence while in the womb. Right. Yeah, that's what's really crazy. Michael Irvin told me that once on a fucking flight to Australia. He was on a flight to Australia, just randomly, same flight.

And he was going over there for a football thing, and I was going over there for the UFC thing. And we were talking, just because it was a fucking 16-hour flight. We were just hanging out in the galley, chit-chatting and he's telling me about these guys that he works with that are experiencing they they these these guys came from an environment where their mother was exposed to violence in the womb so they're getting hit or they're seeing violence and the cortisol level rises and it's literally preparing the fetus for a violent world so those guys come out of that world and they have a shorter fuse, quicker to violence. And that's they wind. A lot of these guys want to play in football.

And then what happens when you wind up playing football? Well, then you're in a place that rewards violence. It rewards explosive behavior, explosive speed. And you're getting hit all the time. And then you get hit all the time. And what happens then? Well, you get even more impulsive. Guys who have CTE, guys who get brain damage, they make poorer decisions.

They're more impulsive, more prone to violence. And so you're dealing with this literally from the fucking womb. But to come to that realization, to understand that, usually is attached to an experience. It's not, you didn't just get smarter. Things happen to you. You experience things where you had to pay a dividend for being dumb. Yeah. And what's that?

Like there had to have been a moment where you. It's not a moment. It's cumulative life experiences. But it's also learning early on from martial arts that you have to pay attention to all of your weaknesses. And you have to fix those. You can't have like a weakness of technique. You can't have like one thing you only do and you can't do other things because you'll get hit.

You can't have like bad defense. Okay, that's fair. You can have bad footwork. But you described pleasure as a weakness. Yeah. And training as the discipline. So train instead of fuck because this is something that I I can do that makes me stronger and this is just giving into a weakness yeah how

did you recognize I realized it was dumb I realized it was dumb I would just like alone thinking about how stupid it is and it's horny oh for sure I was horny but I think I also abandoned it because I stopped fighting when I was like 22 so it was young enough so that I had adopted a new life. I started doing standup at 21 and somewhere along the line, I realized I can't do both. And then I quit. I think I had my last fight.

I was either 21 or 22. I had a three kickboxing fights. So that was young enough that I could have abandoned my old life. The old life, the old life of like extreme discipline and like this crazy focus on this one thing because this other thing needed a different approach. The comedy. Yeah. Comedy was like,

one of the things I used to think of when I bombed early on was like, fuck this. I'm going to go back to fighting fucking cause if fighting, I didn't give a fuck if people liked me, I would just take naps. I would like before I would fight, like I would go to tournaments. I would look at everybody, be nervous and I would just lie down and go to fuck if people liked me. I would just take naps. Before I would fight, I would go to tournaments. I would look at everybody, be nervous, and I would just lie down and go to sleep.

I liked it. I liked the fact that they didn't have to like me. I liked when people were cheering against another person. I liked it. I liked it. I'm like, no one can help you when you're in here. As soon as this starts, no one's going to help you. All these people that are here, there's no one here for me.

I'm here for me. No one's gonna help you all these people that are here. There's no one here for me. I'm here for me And I'm you know and that was like this attitude like that I didn't care because I knew that I was working hard enough I knew that I was putting in all the work. I didn't need anybody else's opinion, but it comedy you needed everybody's opinion You need everybody to like you you need to be like a bull then you're like god damn I have some blind spots that I realized i had some blind spots in my own personality because my personality was geared uh towards uh success in a violent execution world that was always about was kicking people in the face so that was what i was geared for success at we really are flip sides of the same coin the fighting was like so personal

for me i didn't i would never want to do it in front of people for the sake of that or I wasn't even about Destroying the other guy it was about working through that anger and working through all of that like Pint-up yeah aggression and getting it out and healthy it felt like getting high Yeah The liking me part and and being an affable guy and being able to communicate well and speak, like, huge, huge objective. Like, I wouldn't even like to have to admit

how much and how important it was, especially for me younger, to be liked, but also to be thought of well. I think that's for everybody, though. I think everybody wants to be liked when they're young. I think maybe the aspect of not having a father could be

a blessing in the sense that I don't need this one guy to like me. Maybe that one guy wants you to do a specific thing. Or just can't accept who you actually are and you spend your whole life trying to be whatever that guy wants you to be. But at the same time it gave me this You can't accept who you actually are and you spend your whole life trying to be whatever that guy wants you to be. Yes, yes.

But at the same time, it gave me this desire to not be the stereotypical because you're a white man. But a black guy without a father is a stereotype. White man without a father, well, that's sad. So for me, it's like, well, only this much is available to you this guy's single mom i didn't have any siblings we didn't come from any kind of real money so he's only going to be able to do this he's only going to be able to go that far oh you know he's a likable guy but there's no way he can achieve anything beyond something very you know average right i didn't go to college but that was because I was pursuing something that I believed I had special talent at but even then even though I had success in high school I had a radio show in

high school I was very well like not going to college well that's it for that guy he's only gonna be able to go this far wait till that dream putters out that's why I went to college yeah And that's why I didn't. I went to college just so people wouldn't think I was a loser. That's the only reason I went. I mean, I'm so glad I didn't fall into that trap. Well, I got out of it. I mean, I did three years of college, but it was not full time most of the time.

But my feeling about what we're saying is that all that adversity can fuck you over, or it can really help you. It really depends on how you address it and how you get through it. Obviously, it helped you. Helped you form your opinion. Most people that I know that have had bizarre lives are interesting. It gave me resolve. It gave me resolve that, like, you know what?

Knowing the finality of life at such an early age, I'm not living it for anybody else. With that said, I want people to like me. Part of my career choice is going to require that I have an audience that wants to hear what I have to say or at least trust me and likes me enough to come back tomorrow. But I'm not going to trade my desired experience on this planet for somebody else's judgment. Yes. And the way I see you attacking life, well, you went to college just so that people wouldn't think you're a loser. Yeah. How important was it at some point that it wasn't that everybody else didn't think you

were a loser, but that you realized that you weren't a loser? When did you stop? Well, I realized I wasn't a loser when I got really good at martial arts. But the problem was there was no money in it. And so the saying that I didn't want people to like me or I didn't care if people liked me, I didn't care if people liked me in the realm of the most important thing in my life, which was competition, because it didn't matter. Like, you didn't have to like me.

If I weigh, you know, 154 and you're in my weight class, you don't have to like me. I don't care. If I weigh 154 and you're in my weight class, you don't have to like me. I don't care. Like this is just – the most important thing is this chaotic moment that happens when we have to bow to each other and then we fight. So that was all I was focused on because that's what matters. That's the crazy thing. When that didn't matter anymore because then I wasn't doing it anymore, then I had to address like my whole way of approaching life was so aggressive and it was so weird it was so like that i was only focused on this one extreme thing and then i realized like oh like i missed out on

like most high school experiences that a lot of people had because most i was traveling around the country fighting in tournaments my whole high school all through like 15 16 17 until i was 21 years old i was fighting everywhere just that's all i did so like all the stuff of partying i wasn't partying if you party then you're hungover if you're hungover you get kicked in the face you have to train you're gonna train and get kicked when you're hungover get the fuck out of here it's not worth it there's nothing worth worth it. It's too scary. So I didn't party. So I can count on one hand the number of times I got drunk or high when I was a teenager.

It was very few, very rare. When you stepped outside of the ring or stepped off the mat, does all that other shit come rushing back? No, because I felt like the thing that I learned from martial arts is that I can be, there was a first time in my life where I didn't feel like a loser. Like I felt like, oh, all I have to do is learn how to get really good at something.

Like put a lot of effort into it, a lot of thinking, and you can get really good at something. And when you get really good at something, all of a sudden people admire you. So instead of being a loser, you know, when I was like four time Massachusetts state champion and I would, I would enter into this weight class and I would see people like get upset that they were going to have to fight me. I'd be like, that's right, bitch. Here it comes. Because it was for me, it was exciting. Like I was a somebody now I was something, you know? And it's like when you don't have anything and then all of a sudden you become a something like you realize like, oh, what did I do?

How did I get here? I found a thing. I found good instruction. I found good training partners. And I fucking fully, completely dedicated my whole life to it. So although like my approach to it was so aggressive and probably not healthy in the realm of the rest of the world, like what I learned from that, though, is that by completely focusing on one thing, you can get better at it.

And you're not a loser. You're just someone who hasn't, you haven't done anything yet. That's all it is. You haven't figured out how to be good at something yet. With no guarantees in life, nobody to just pad your path, you found something you were good at.

You were really good at it. It satisfied that need in you you how do you then leave that for something like the comedy stage where again there's no guarantees you can't be very good at it at the beginning yeah how do you make there's a lot of luck a lot of luck but why would you even do it well one of my good friends this guy steve graham talked me into doing that when i was like 15 years old he told me i was funny because what it was like i would make people laugh in the locker room because we'd all be real nervous we'd have to go out there and spar or it would be in a bus on the way to a tournament everybody be nervous and i would be the one who talked a lot of shit because when we're nervous like for me it was an opportunity for me to get attention like everybody's nervous so i'm

gonna say some fucked up things so everybody laughs and i realized that it's a good icebreaker and people enjoy it because they want to some sort of a relief from the weirdness of knowing that you're gonna go fight in a full contact tournament and so i would be the guy that like would crack people up by doing impressions of people and talking shit and so my friend steve was like dude you really should be a fucking comedian and i was like you think I'm funny because you like me. I go, other people think I'm a fucking asshole. But I went to an open mic night, and then I realized on an open mic night, I was like, oh, everybody sucks.

They all start out sucking. I thought you're Richard Pryor, or you're not. No, no, no. It's like everything else. And then I applied my martial arts mind to it. I was like, oh, you just got to be dedicated. You got to find out what that thing is. But then I realized like, no, there's so much emotional intelligence that I'm lacking because all I've been thinking is kicking people in the face for most of my life. Like, okay. So I had to like rethink what I

thought was funny, rethink how people thought of me, rethink why did people think of me this way? Like why did, why was I nervous when I was around some people but relaxed around other people i had to try to like work my way through it but what i was worried about was brain damage um i was in a place in boston where especially when i was kickboxing we would do some hard sparring hard sparring they're basically fights we were fighting with 16 ounce gloves on and um i remember watching guys deteriorate guys had been doing it longer than me and then i'd seen them you know like maybe when i was 21 they were 30 and i'd see them start to slur their words and i'd see them you know like do fucked up things like drunk driving and you know getting in a fight with their girlfriend they get arrested and then they're back in the gym and I'm watching

the deterioration and then there's still hard sparring and they take a lot of pride in the hard sparring and I would be laying in my bed and I was one one night I really remember in particular I was laying in my bed with a headache my head was pounding bang bang bang just from being hit and I was realizing, I'm giving myself brain damage, or someone else is doing it to me, but my choices for sparring and fighting, I'm getting brain damage. And I'm like, how do I know when I become that guy?

Does he know? Are you 100% aware when the deterioration sets in? Because the quality of my thinking, my ability to solve problems is what kept me sane my ability to like work my way through things my ability to obsess at things and figure out how to get better at them that was the only thing that brought me any joy and all of a sudden that's gonna go away and I'm relied on what only my physical gifts but what about my mind am I gonna have a hard time communicating? The quality of my thinking is gonna suffer based on my choices?

And then I started really thinking about it and I was like, I can't keep doing this. And thank God for me at the time, there wasn't a viable professional option. Because if there was a professional option for fighting for me, like I thought about boxing, one of my good training partners actually became a middleweight boxing champion in New England, Dana Rosenblatt. He was a good training partner of mine. We sparred a lot. And he went on to beat Vinny Pazienza. He beat Howard Davis Jr. He knocked out Howard Davis Jr. He was a legit pro boxer. And when we started out together, he was a kickboxer. And he had made a career in boxing. I was like, man, but that's, fuck. I just knew that that road was fraught with peril and there wasn't a clear path.

It wasn't like when I was starting out doing Taekwondo where there was a clear path. Like I wanted to get into the Olympic Games. There wasn't a clear path with boxing or kickboxing. That probably would save me. Because if there was a clear path, I would have just dedicated myself to being a fighter and i would have never become a comedian did you mourn it when you when you had to step out of the ring you mourn the excitement the fear the fear of competition and then the fucking exhilarating feel feeling of victory the exhilarating feeling of victory is wild

when you're at home and you're like looking at this gold medal you're like holy fuck I did it so for me the person who was low like I said I felt like I was a loser like most of my life until I was like 15 or 16 I started getting good at martial arts I was like oh my god I'm good at something and it's like this insecure feeling like a loser was replaced with this feeling of like accomplishment and confidence and Just a good feeling that I didn't really have in any other Way in my life. I didn't have that good of a feeling of the feeling of accomplishment of victory. So I was gonna do

Everything it took to keep that feeling. So that feeling was my new friend. So that feeling was like, what does that feeling need to keep it going? Oh, it needs me to train every fucking day? Good, I trained every fucking day. I was teaching, I mean I was teaching at Boston University when I was 19. I was teaching an accredited Taekwondo course.

Yeah, I'd won the American Open by then. I'd won the state championship four years in a row. I was all in. That's all I did. Did comedy give you some of that feeling back? No, comedy kicked me right in the dick and taught me. Comedy doesn't give a fuck how good you are at kicking. Comedy wants you to be funny. And so it was a completely new challenge that made me rewire what I thought was necessary. It's not just effort. It's intelligent effort. Just effort. Like, I'm just going to write all the time.

No, you have to think. You have to think. You can't just write. You can't just perform. You have to think about what do you perform. You have to create your own material. Because comedy is one of the weird things. Comedy makes you.

You are a writer. You're the producer. one of the weird things that like comedy makes you you are you are a writer You're the producer. You're the editor. You're in you perform it you had to do the whole thing like oh god Yeah, it's so difficult. You got a it's but not unlike fighting. Oh, you got a punch You got a defend you have to have footwork. You got to be able to grapple a little bit You got to be able to win in the clinch. You've got to remember your game plan. You've got to best the other guys. When you step off the stage and you killed, you got the last or the bit work, is that comparable to winning a match?

No, not even close. Not even close. It's normal. It's normal. And you don't think about it too much because you think, got another show tomorrow night. Get the notes out, enjoy it, that was fun, that's great, but I almost don't, the more successful I get, the less it's extraordinary.

And the more it's just like, that's what you're supposed to do, stupid. Get back to work. But fighting was always like, holy shit. I would always, I remember going back to my house and sitting in my room after a big tournament, like looking at a medal going, what the fuck, man? And then I had like VHS tapes. So I'd watch like a VHS tape of me kicking someone's head off and going, what the fuck,

man? You're watching your VHS tapes instead of porn. I had porn too. But it just seemed fake it seemed like because the the stark contrast between being a loser and being a winner was like so immediate because it was like i was a loser when i was 13 i was a winner when i was 16 and i was winning all the time it's like this is crazy and luckily i had physical talent like just natural born with certain amount of physical abilities.

So that like when I learned, I didn't just learn, I was really fast. I was really fast and I could hit really hard. It was unusual. So I'd found a thing and it wasn't just a thing that I could focus on. It was also a thing that I had gifts for. Is it the being a winner or the not being a loser that's driving you? They're the same thing. No, they're not though. Yeah, they're the same thing. If you're not a loser, you're a winner or the not being a loser that's driving you they're the same thing no they're not though yeah they're the same thing if you're not a loser you're a winner and if you're if you figure

out a way to not be a loser it doesn't mean that you're not going to lose you're going to lose but what is a loser a loser is a person who just gives in to losing and you never figure out how to get better it's not you win every time. That's not a winner. A winner is someone who is in the process of evolving and developing and getting better. A loser is someone who quits. You give up. You can't take it. You lay down.

So when I would see that in other people, that would drive me crazy. That was like the predatory. I could smell it. I would just smell the weakness. I was like, ugh. I couldn't be friends with people like that. It would drive me nuts. I'd want to pick on them like a dog does. Yeah.

That's an evolved way to look at it because the competitive nature of me, and we both talk to very competitive people all the time. The most. Every loss feels a little bit like a loser. It's almost a reminder that at any point, well, I can go from being a winner to being a loser. If I lost this, what if I never won again? I believe that, and I think that most fighters feel like that.

When a fighter loses his title, like when Anthony Joshua lost to Usyk that night, I guarantee you he felt fucking terrible. But what did he do he immediately went back to the drawing board immediately called for a rematch Immediately started searching for other trainers because he's not a loser. He's a winner He just lost the difference is someone who just fucking lays down and says woe is me And you know you can make that argument for Tyson Fury at one point in time even though he didn't lose He acted like a loser like he was gonna commit suicide. He was drinking. He was fucked up He had depression and but cuz he's not a loser. He figured out. This is not good

He's like I got a course correct And he did course correct and went back and became the fucking heavyweight championship of the world again. Champion of the world again because he's not a loser. He's a guy that lost, but it doesn't mean that you can't fuck up. It doesn't mean that you can't make mistakes. It doesn't mean you can't come up short in whatever you're attempting to do. But figure it out, regroup, get back in there. How did you figure that out though? Time.

Just time. Just time. Time and thinking. How did you figure that out, though? Time. Just time. Just time. Time and thinking.

You know, the lessons that you learn, that you apply from martial arts, you can apply to everything. The things about really difficult physical pursuits that involve emotions, like fighting. And nothing involves emotions like fighting. Someone beats you in a basketball game, they beat you. You could always say, but I could fuck you up. If we want to take this shit outside, talk a lot of shit, I'll smack you in front of the fucking,

in front of the coach. I don't give a shit. I'll fight you. If I fight you, that's real beating. You know? Like, if someone beats you up,

you can't say, yeah, but I could fuck you up in basketball because no one cares. No one cares. Fighting is the end of the line. It's the end of the line. And so, that, it And so there's emotions involved in that that are inescapable. But you can't let them define you.

When you lose and you have those horrible emotions, you've got to use that as fuel, and you've got to get back into it. Oh, man. I wish I could have thought my way through to that epiphany. I'm there with you, but it was a hard road. Yeah, it's a hard road. It's not easy. I burned my life down a few times.

I'm sure. And each time I was like, well, this is it. I guess it's the ashes for me. Well, there's a lot of people out there that think that way right now, listening to this. Yeah. And again, I hope there was something more grand in my character than simple vanity. But if I'm honest, to point to like, well, I can't be here. It's all dirty.

I look like shit here. I can't have this fat face. Stomach. Yeah. All these people. I got to quit drinking. I can't die of lung cancer and be coughing in front of girls. My God, man.

It's that. I was like, I can't live the rest of my life at this level. So I find something else to get back on my feet and take what I've learned, take a little bit of what I can get out of the ashes and put that as a part of the next thing. And so, you know, here I am. And hopefully this house doesn't catch on fire. And certainly I'm not the one with the match. It's so difficult, man. Yeah, it's difficult. You're not going to catch your life on fire. and certainly I'm not the one with the match. It's so difficult, man.

Yeah, it's difficult. You're not going to catch your life on fire. You're not. You're not dumb. It's like people define themselves by failures and successes, which is good and bad. It's good because you can kind of get a tally and a running score of whether or not you're doing the right thing. But it's bad in that with each thing that doesn't go right,

you have this feeling that nothing's gonna go right. And this is it from here on out. I'm just a fucking loser. It's all gonna fall apart. And some people, that becomes, they're fulfilling a self-fulfilling prophecy. They decide that that's who they are. And they don't course correct.

They don't regroup. And they never't course correct. They don't regroup. And they never do. They never rebuild. And they'll sabotage. They'll believe you can only get this far. And then if I get any place past that, then they end up destroying it themselves. Because they can't see themselves in a different light. Anything better than what they've conceived of prior.

Yeah. It's very limiting. It's very scary, too. Because when you get stuck like that, man, fuck, dude, it's so hard to get out. It's so hard to get out when you're stuck like that. Yeah. It's so hard to do.

Like you'd have to find something that you're successful in and then sort of build up your confidence from there. Yeah. It's something to live for bigger than your anxiety or bigger than your defeatist mentality. That's hard, especially if you're a grown adult. See, with me, with martial arts, I found it when I was a kid. So I didn't have a job. Couldn't have a job. It's not even legal.

It's not legal for me to have a job. I have to work out. I had to do something. But if you are an adult, and then you have to pay your bills, and you have a family, and you're falling apart, and you have an idea of some new thing you want to try, but it's really risky, that's hard. And you're falling apart. Yeah, and you have an idea of some new thing you want to try, but it's really risky. Yeah That's fucking hard that's the hardest is broadcasting MMA

Some like a way you found back to the sport that maybe you thought for a while You were gone from completely no because I never stopped training. I always did something You know, I I started doing jujitsu. I kickboxed for a while, even when I wasn't fighting. I always trained. Once I had knee surgery that I had to get done in the early days of my comedy career, I tore an ACL. That's actually probably one of the things that kept me from fighting again, too,

because I probably would have, from bombing, I would have at least tried a couple of times just to get a good feeling, because I knew I could win some fights. But when I went to different gyms, like in California, I was doing the Jet Center, I was training there, and then I started doing Jiu Jitsu later after that, so I always did something.

And then the UFC needed a backstage interviewer. And just sheer luck, my manager, my comedy manager, was friends with one of the guys who was the producer of the UFC, this early producer, this guy, Campbell McLaren, who's a great guy. And he hired me. He's like, do you like the sport? I go, I fucking love the sport. Because I was watching the UFC on, you know, it was on satellite.

It wasn't even on cable back then. I remember. I used to have to get the red on, like, satellite. It wasn't even on cable back then. I remember. I used to have to get, like, the red box, like the... Yeah. Had to get the Jimmy little box so I could watch it on the Scraggly channel. It was banned from cable. I got DirecTV specifically because that was the only way you could get UFC fights. Because they banned it from cable.

That's how crazy it is. And now it's on ESPN+. You get it on your fucking phone. It's on ESPN, regular ESPN. People are getting their arms broke. Oh, yeah. People get fucked up. With their heads split open.

Yeah. Bro, the first events that I went to live when I worked as a post-fight interviewer, you didn't even have to wear gloves. You could wear wrestling shoes, bare knuckles, punch people in the dick. Guys in there with geese. Intentionally breaking arms. Like, it was no... You could give guys wedgies.

For real. Was that a thing? Yeah, you could grab guys by their cup and like yank their fucking. Oh, I think I would remember that. Yeah, somebody had their cup broke in a match. Valid Ismail, Valigi. He's this like legendary jujitsu guy.

He was fighting and it was like UFC 13 or some shit. I forget which one it was, but it was early, early in the day. And the dude he was fighting was literally giving him a wedgie while he's fighting. Half his butt cheek was hanging out of his shorts. Yeah. God, did he tap? No. No, he beat the fuck out of the dude.

I don't remember who won the fight, actually, now that I say that. But he's a guy who had a jiu-jitsu match with Hoist Gracie on the beach in Rio de Janeiro when Hoist Gracie had won the UFC and he choked Hoist Gracie to sleep on the beach. That's not easy to do. Oh, my God. It was incredible. See if you can find that. Valid. It's W-A-L-I-D.

When you say on the beach, what do you mean on the beach? They set up mats on the beach. And they had a, I think it was at Copacabana Beach. And then they surrounded it with just spectators. And then they put up. No octagon, no fence. Look at it. This is it.

This is them. That's literally sand. That's sand around the bat? Yes. That's crazy. So there's a match and then there's sand. And this is, they're literally fighting on the fucking beach. It was, and this is BJJ history, right?

Because this is, for them, and it says that in the title of the match, and this is 100% true, because this was also like different schools of thought, like in terms of like the strategy of jiu-jitsu like carlson gracie was a hard style that was where uh valide ishmael came from and hoist was with his dad ilio gracie which is a more technical style like they and believed at this point in time he was a fucking animal man physically super super guy, and came from this real aggressive team, Carlson Gracie team. And Carlson Gracie was also one of the early pioneers of jujitsu no-holds-barred matches.

So he had no-holds-barred matches, and he beat guys that Elio Gracie, whose hoist his dad lost to, like Waldemar Santana. So they brought in Carlson to beat him. Carlson's like one of the greatest jiu-jitsu fighters that ever lived. And that was the first gym that I started out was actually Carlson Gracie's place. Actually, I did Hickson's first,

but I only did it for one class. But when he choked out Hoyce Gracie, he got him with what's called a clock choke, and put Hoyce Gracie to sleep it was that what we're looking is that what no no not yet they're still scrambling right now but he's well actually he might have a hand on the collar right now yeah he did he's got it already he's got it he put him to sleep

yeah oh yeah how do they even I can't that was it yeah he so he did have it or they even sleep down I should know that. I haven't done the Gi clock choke in a while. The way the Gi clock choke works, you get a grip on this like this. Like here's a person's collar. You grip here and then this hand goes underneath the armpit and you spin like this. And when you spin, you have his neck wrapped up in his collar and then you have your arm on the other side. It's like if you had a rope.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, watch how he does it. So if you watch how he rolls, what he's rolling, it's hard to tell because it wasn't the best cinematography, but he's got his one arm is wrapped completely. See that? His left arm is under and attached to his neck, and the right arm is under and attached to his collar, and the right arm is under and attached to his collar,

and he puts him to sleep. He's lucky. This was fucking huge in the jiu-jitsu world. Because there was a... The jiu-jitsu world is pretty united now. Like, everybody's... There's competition, but everyone is just, like, supportive of the fact

that jiu-jitsu is this amazing martial art. But back then, there was, like, some serious factions. There were schools of thought. There was teams that hated other teams. They would fight on sight if they saw each other. Like gangs. Oh, man, like gangs. Yeah, there was a lot of dojo wars back then

where guys from one school would show up at another guy's school and want to fight. Like an actual kung fu movie. That's what every kung fu movie is based on. Those were real, dude. We had those in the Taekwondo days, too. Guys would come in from other gyms, they'd wanna spar right away.

They wanted to fight. They wanted to come and fight, and you would fight full contact in the middle of the gym with someone you just met. And somebody coming to your gym asking for a fight is mad disrespectful. That was the old days, they all did it. There was dojo wars.

They all did it back then. Like, and this great uh video is called gracie in action and the gracie in action videos a lot of those videos are someone would come to their gym and talk some shit and they'll go do you want to fight and they're like i want to fight you right now motherfucker like okay great we're gonna set up a camera and they would set up a camera and this guy would come in and try to do some kung fu and then someone like hoist or hickson or horian or any of these Gracies would take him down and fuck him up. And Horian, in his infinite wisdom, used that as an advertisement for jujitsu.

And see if you can find some Gracie in action. Because, first of all, Horian has that beautiful Portuguese-Brazilian jujitsu accent. So he's got his original language is Portuguese. So the way he talks, everything sounds so smooth. So he's explaining to you, the jiu-jitsu practitioner takes him to the ground

easily and submits him with a choke. Oh, this is perfect. So like, these videos, this is Horian Gracie back in the day.

With the increased popularity of our self-defense system. See, it's beautiful, right? Straight out of Scarface. For us to introduce the first series on the basics of Gracie jiu-jitsu. I feel confident See, it's beautiful, right? Straight out of Scarface. By the way, let me just say this. Corey and Gracie, back in the day, when they made this video,

he offered money to fight Mike Tyson in Playboy magazine. He said he'd fight Mike Tyson in a no-holds-barred match for a million dollars. Yeah, no thanks. Yeah, no thanks, but if he got a hold of him and grabbed him and dragged him to the ground, Mike Tyson would be fucked. I'm saying no thanks for Mike Tyson. On his behalf, no thanks. So he was trying

to find ways to popularize jiu-jitsu, and he wound up starting the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Horian Gracie is the mastermind behind the UFC. So when the UFC is taking place this weekend and I'm doing commentary, none of that shit would have happened if it wasn't for that man that you just saw in that video.

See if you can find the Gracie in action though. Just title Gracie in action videos. I think that the Gracie is what got me so addicted to the UFC back in the day when I had the hot box. Yeah. Those are the guys breaking people's arms and shit, right?

Hold on. Go back and I'll tell you. That one right there where it says combatives in action. See right there? There it is. Okay. Perfect example. See, this guy's got fucking pants on.

Thinks he's a badass. And he's going to get strangled. Oh. And there's a shit ton of these and they're all like really grainy vhs tapes where these people didn't know what they were doing and they thought they were badasses and they went and tried to have a street fight and now he's tapping but there's a ton of these well that's actually uh henner henner gracie when he's just doing this and showing. But this is an actual challenge match. But there's a ton of them, man.

They have a shitload of them. And they basically accumulated a database of showing that they have a superior martial art. So it was a style war. Like, okay, we fight this way. You fight that way. Which fight? The early UFCs were basically an infomercial for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Right.

It was basically an infomercial for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu eventually, and then it became an infomercial for the power of steroids and wrestling. Ground and pound. Then it was like Muay Thai, kickboxing, leg kicks. There was a lot of different styles that sort of showed what they could do until it became what it is now, where it's like just fighting, like the best fighter. What's your style? How would you characterize your style?

Well, I started off as a striker. I started off kickboxing and taekwondo, but then I have a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I learned jiu-jitsu later in life, and that was – I have a black belt in gi, and I have a black belt in no-gi, so two different kinds of jiu-jitsu. It's both Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but one you're wearing that collar where, you know, and the other one you don't grab the clothes at all. The other one is no-gi. And in no-gi, it's just about clinching and submission holds and position dominance.

It's more like you're using wrestling control and then applying submissions to it. Nobody in modern MMA would be wearing a gi anymore, right? Some guys do in other organizations. They still allow them. In Japan, they used to allow guys to fight with the gi. And it was a huge advantage for the guy that's used to using a gi because you can do a lot of chokes with it. If a guy comes at you and he has a gi, you're going to grab it.

You don't even know why. If he's trying to grab a hold of you, you're going to hold on to his clothes because you think, oh yeah, well, i'll fucking grab your clothes like yeah that's what they do every day right so if you're a guy who doesn't train with a gi and you fought hoist gracie back in the day hoist would just close the distance get up and people would just grab him they just they didn't they couldn't help themselves they just grabbed that gi and the next thing they'll boom they're on their back boom their arms getting fucked up boom they're getting triangled you said that you thought about returning to jujitsu when you bombed on stage no no it wasn't that wasn't jujitsu that was uh kickboxing

yeah because i just wanted to do something that i was good at because i sucked at comedy what was that it was just like bombing in comedy at comedy. Was this like bombing in comedy, like a depression? Bombing. I always say it's like sucking a thousand dicks in front of your mother. But I think there's someone- I can't risk it. What the fuck are you talking about? There's someone out there that probably likes sucking a thousand dicks in front of his mom.

Like, I'm doing this because of you, mom. 99. 100. There's someone out there that would like sucking a thousand dicks. No one likes bombing. No one likes it. It's just utter failure. You would have to hate yourself so much

to like bombing. If you like bombing, you'd probably hate yourself so much you shouldn't be alive. Okay, so let's call that depression. It's not fun. But it's just a loss. It's just a big loss. The thing about fighting is if you lose to someone, it fucking sucks.

It fucking sucks. It eats at you, and it drives you to get better, and it just rematch. But there's something about bombing on stage. Like, they don't like you. It's not like your performance stage like they don't like you It's not like your performance sucked. They don't like you Like I don't like you like whatever you are sucks Boy yeah, you're right. I gotta stop reading the comment section. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Don't read the fucking comments How do you deal with that? Are you I mean everybody bombs as you said you can't win them all you just got you

gotta deal with all losses as an opportunity to learn and grow but then before you were this wise i was i wasn't that wise back then but i was wise enough to know that inherently and i just had to like regroup deal with it suck it up and and keep going. And it wasn't easy. You know, that's the thing that I think makes a lot of like potentially really good comics quit is they can't take the pain of sucking. And there's no structure, right? There's no like if you want to learn music, you can go to Juilliard, right? You can go to there's people that teach guitar lessons. You can go and you can learn.

You can go to, there's people that teach guitar lessons. You can go and you can learn. You can watch videos and you can pick up technique and you can learn how to play saxophone. It's available. It's possible. There's no one that can teach you to be funny. And I can't teach you because your style might be different than Don L's style. Don L's style is going to be different than my style.

My style is going to be different than David Tell's style. David Tell's style is going to be different than Jim Bre my style is gonna be different than David tell style David tell style It's gonna be different than Jim Brewer style. Everybody's got a different style. There's no style dojos for comedy. Nothing There's no classes the classes are all taught by has-beens or wannabes, right most of the time I'm sure there's some professional comedians out there to teach comedy classes I don't want to discourage them or disparage them But most of what I've seen when I see people teach comedy classes. I don't want to discourage them or disparage them. But most of what I've seen when I see people teach comedy, they're not good at it in the first place. And they're applying, like, I've seen a few classes where they're applying things that probably would be detrimental

to your overall career, like cookie cutter, formulaic versions of how to write comedy. But what they do do is at least they allow people to get on stage for the first time. But what they do do is at least they allow people to get on stage for the first time. So that might be enough. They just get their beak wet, get them moving, and then next thing you know, they're actually doing comedy. And they're showing up at open mic nights, and they're part of the community, and they're trying, and they're writing and getting better. When you showed up at that open mic, the first time in front of people who were not your friends already. Right.

Did you bomb? I didn't bomb the first time, but I did did not have a good set the second set I ever had was pretty good I had a bunch of laughs and that was super encouraging. I didn't bomb I think until like maybe The fourth or fifth set I had a bad one I was like, oh, I didn't know that could happen and then you know, but then none of them were good You know none of them like I'll tell you my material was polished and uh, but none of them were good. You know, none of them were like, I'll tell you, my material was polished. But I got some laughs, you know. I got some laughs to the point where, okay, I see the road. You know, I don't know how far I have to go, but I see the path.

And I think I'm going to keep going. It was one of those things. Like goal-oriented? Did you see the path to being a comic on TV with a special or a sitcom or like, oh, this is my road to somewhere? No, no, no, no, no. No, I thought I could make a living. I think I could be a professional. I think I could be a professional. That's what I thought.

I saw professionals in town in Boston, and I was like, that guy's pretty funny. I wonder what it's like to be him. He's a professional. He makes a living just telling jokes he doesn't have to deliver newspapers or do construction or whatever the fuck i was doing at the time right yeah were you doing other jobs at the time oh yeah in the early days for sure yeah yeah the early days i was teaching for a little while but then i realized i couldn't teach and uh do comedy at the same time because I wasn't into it.

I wasn't teaching. I wasn't just teaching. I was teaching and taking people to tournaments. So I would take students to tournaments and I would coach them, and I was realizing I wasn't in it. I wasn't in it mentally. Like before, I was obsessed. And if someone was a student and they were obsessed too, I would take them to tournaments. I'd help them fight.

I'd train them. Like there was quite a few people that I'd taken, even young people, that I'd taken and, you know, brought them up through the ranks and gave them higher belts and brought them to tournaments. I couldn't do that anymore. I didn't care. I wasn't thinking about that anymore. All I was thinking about was comedy, and I was trying to get good at comedy,

so I had to quit. And I did everything else, such as delivered pizzas. I drove limos, construction. I worked for a private investigator for a while. I did a bunch of things. What did you do for a private investigator? It was a guy that became a very good friend of mine who died a few years ago.

Dynamite dickless Dave Dolan. He was the best. Probably the funniest guy I've ever met that wasn't a comic. Definitely the funniest guy I've ever met. wasn't a comic like definitely the funniest guy did he name himself yeah yeah it was hilarious he was leaving messages on my voicemail dynamite dickless dave dolan here he was a character but he had lost his license from uh drinking and driving and he just needed a driver and it said like private investigator's assistant i'm like well that looks like a fun job so he hired me as a private investigator's assistant i can already see you in the fedora

like the gumshoe the smoky door with rogan on the front you have to wear normal clothes you gotta you know the whole idea is like you gotta blend in a lot of it was um insurance like busting people that were uh pretending they were hurt but they were really working under the table somewhere else they were taking insurance money because this is pre-internet you know people could get away with that shit there was a lot of that no like cheating spouses one of those there was one of those that was pretty significant i wasn't involved in that case too much because i think david already got his license back by then but my god

He loved telling me about it. I Would help him sometimes I'll go with them sometimes if you needed a certain person cuz Dave and I stayed friends and it was just by sheer coincidence Dave was the cousin of a guy named Bill Downs and Bill Downs was one of the owners of the comedy connection Sheer coincidence and so like when I start working for him like he tells me that his cousin owns the fucking comedy connection so i saw him at the comedy club too yeah he was a guy who quit drinking like that too i was always super impressed by that he had that one fucking car accident ran from the cops got a dui realized what the fuck am i doing and just quit he didn't go to

meetings he didn't fucking oh i got my coin he did none of that he didn't give a fuck he just quit he didn't go to meetings he didn't fucking oh i got my coin he did none of that he didn't give a fuck he just quit and he goes that that wasn't for me i had a good time but i'm done and he never drank again yeah that's admirable that's the most i think that might have been my weed experience believe it or not dude it's already 5 o'clock. Is it? Yeah, we've been talking forever. How long have we been talking? He said, mm-hmm. How long? 3.20? 3.20 minutes.

How crazy is that? That's a good mark. I like 3.20. That's a good way to end. Till This Day is available on Luminary. Is it available on anything else? Well, yeah, it's going to be on Apple Podcasts. You can get that show there

and you can subscribe to Luminary. But Joe, I have one more question for you. Okay. We went down this road. I want to know what or whom or how you would characterize your opponent in life. Me, for sure. I mean, there's uh stuff on the outside but ultimately you're dealing with the way

you attack it so why do you attack it a certain way is it the right way or are you tricking yourself into thinking it's the right way because it's more comfortable that way um is it all your fault but you want to blame other people like the the deciphering me is the hardest and then discipline you know because you have adversity in life but it's not like adversity all day every day i'm dealing with me all day every day every fucking day it's me the alarm clock goes off at 7 a.m., and me is like, fuck that, I want to sleep. So I got to fight me. Hey, pussy, get up. I got to press the stop, get up, wake up, start moving, walk, drink water, go pee, get going.

All right, get to the gym. Like, well, maybe I don't have to go to the gym today. That's me. Every day it's me, fighting with that me guy. So me is 100% my biggest opponent. Obviously there's external forces and things that are, you know,

points of adversity that you learn from in life, failures, but a lot of it was my fault. And so like a lot of that, other than the things that I couldn't handle when I was a child or rather that I didn't have any control over when I was a child. It's all me.

It's weakness. Yeah, weakness. I heard what you said. Yeah. And the one through line for all of it was that you're constantly combating weakness. Yeah. And it makes perfect sense why you look like a monster when I hug you. You're like a tree trunk.

You are disciplined enough to have this experience, the Joe Rogan experience, do MMA, UFC broadcasting, have a comedy career, have all of these things going on simultaneously. I still have to compartmentalize the stuff that I'm doing, which isn't all that different from what you're doing, but clearly not at this level. So I can appreciate how much discipline it takes to put a life like yours together and execute it so excellently. Well, thank you. That's very nice of you. The fact that every day and all day you best your weakness might be the greatest victory of all in life like if you can beat the

weakness inside you well then all this is possible yeah but you really don't even win you just win for the day that's exactly right this is like see you tomorrow bitch exactly oh by the way you're getting older one of the weaknesses is thinking that you won. Yes. Oh, that's enough. Yeah. I also do it for mental health. The working out stuff is like I need my workouts to be so much harder than anything else I ever do in life because it makes everything else easy.

So the workouts are so goddamn brutal that everything else is easy so a lot of like my build is a it's a factor of the work it's not like a goal to like be built like a brick shithouse it's like the work requires so much strain and so much effort and the end result is you just look jacked but it's just i'm doing it for mental health more than anything it's like i need it to be hard it can't be easy i can't i'm not a stroller i don't stroll i'm not out strolling i'm just gonna go for a walk yeah i'm not strolling even that is an example of you beating the weakness in your mind that, well, this is good enough. I could do this level of conditioning and stay in shape, but I'm not challenged anymore. There is the guy who does that and just maintains.

And then the guy who you are that continuously adds one more plate because that makes it just hard enough to know that boy couldn't get any harder and i still did it that's strength bro there's a little bit of that to it too but it's it's it's not even that i don't i don't feel like a sense of satisfaction when it's over i just i just feel like okay we shored up the gates for the day that's it it's not it's not even a great fucking workout i feel physically good i feel relaxed and i feel comfortable but i never feel accomplished i never feel like yeah gotcha bitch no every day it's like you gotta conquer that inner bitch every day that's the one yeah the inner bitch then her bitch is a monster fight that inner bitch till this day that's the real opponent when I say me it's my inner bitch we all have an inner bitch yeah and that's what we do until this day I

have t-shirts to say it conquer your inner bitch I've been saying that forever yeah you go to higher primate calmcom. I have a lot of faith in that with, if you could do something that you find that's very difficult and it tests you and it makes you rise, it makes you push, it makes the rest of the life easier. I really believe that. And I think that's a philosophy that a lot of people should embrace. It's not my way. You could do it other ways. You could do it through running. You could do it through yoga. You could do it through meditation. You could do it, but you should do something that's hard. I don't think people should be living a life where everything's easy. That's a nonsense life. I don't think that's good for you. Right. And comfort and being able to just continuously do what you're good at and not stretch, not go into that other space where it might not work, like the skill set that you have and have at home.

That's what I had to do when COVID hit and boxing stopped. Yeah. That was the premise for that show till this day. Beautiful. And that's what we did here today. Yeah. The conversation you and I had is much like the structure of that show. And finding that inner bitch as your opponent is what I had the opportunity to do with my other friends as we had a discussion not unlike ours. me to go outside of my comfort zone, not talk to boxers, but talk to people who I thought I knew and see if the conversation there about the passion that I have for understanding

the fight in them could be made something that was interesting to everybody, including the guests. And I think that we did that here today and we did that 15 times until this day. Indeed, my friend. Luminary is where you find it. Apple Podcasts is also where you can get it. Joe Rogan, thank you for this experience. My pleasure, brother.

It's always great. We'll do it again. We'll do it again, for sure. Thank you very much. You're very kind and generous. And as are you. Thank you. As are you.

All right. Goodbye, everybody.