The Joe Rogan Experience - #2063 - The Rock

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is an actor, producer, entrepreneur, and retired professional wrestler.  https://therock.komi.io

the Joe Rogan experience what's happening man how fun was that that was a blast we had a good day dude that was three hours yeah we got Shane Gillis Brian Simpson Asana mod Tony Hinchcliffe, Duncan Trussell, you and me. We had a fucking banging workout. Then we did the sauna. We did the cold plunge.

We did the whole experience. We did the sauna again. Yeah. Cold plunge again. I did it twice. Cold plunge, man. Yeah. That was great.

And I love what you're doing down here, by the way, with the boys. Yeah. Getting down here, giving them this opportunity to get after it, not only in their craft, but also getting in shape. Yeah. Those guys are really getting in shape. Two dudes with diabetes today. They just don't work out, you know?

But we're doing it now. This is the third week. Yeah. And we've been talking about it forever. But when Shane moved to town, he's like, dude, I got to get in shape. I got to do something. I go, listen, let's start on Monday, nice and light. And so we started nice and light.

Today was a pretty hard day for them. Yeah. But generally, it's pretty easy. I just have them do push-ups, body weight squats, and a series of very light kettlebell routines, just simple stuff. Right. Just get them used to it. Yeah. Right?

And then I started adding the bag at the end. The sprints on the bag. The bag was great, by the way. Yeah. It's a great way to end it. Yes. Great way. Great way.

But I like working out with those guys. You feel it. Yeah. You feel their desire. None of them quit. None of them. No, they hung in there. Pussed out.

They were there. They hung in there through the sauna. They hung in there through the cold plunge. Everything. Yeah. It's just, they want to do it. You know, sometimes people just need a little help. They're not used through the sauna. They hung in there through the cold plunge. Everything. Yeah. It's just they want to do it. You know, sometimes people just need a little help. They're not used to doing it.

They know they want to get in shape, but they don't know how. That's right. They don't know how to take that first step, and they just need a little bit of help, especially if it's different with you. And luckily for me, too, we grew up in that environment where it pushes us, and it's what we do, and it's part of our DNA. And all those guys, it's really cool. They look to you for the show me the way and they do it. Yeah, well, they realize once they've done it a few times,

they walk out here, they feel so good. They feel so, like I get text message from each one of them. They're like, God, I feel fucking great. I feel great. I'm like, good. You don't want to walk out of a workout beat up you want to walk out just a little energized feeling better and then slowly gonna ramp things up so this is week three today was their hardest day but it was just you know you were here i was like we gotta we gotta the rock's here we gotta go we lit it up we lit it up

but they hung in there and everybody walked out with a big smile on their face we all had a great time it was so good, man. Yeah. It was so good. And I told some of the boys this. Like, I miss that kind of stuff because it's been a while, you know, since I worked out with the boys back when I was wrestling. We'd all work together because we were traveling together every night

and going to the same gym every day or different cities. But I miss that, that camaraderie. Yeah, the camaraderie is nice. I kind of use my workout. Most of the time I work out alone. I used to work with a trainer, but after a while I realized, like, I don't need to help push myself. I just write a routine, and there's a certain meditative aspect

to being alone with your thoughts. Yes. And just I like to put fights on so I can watch something in between sets, but I just like to be and I like to be accountable 100% from my work like I know what I have to do I know what I do it and it sets the tone for the day which sets the tone for my life that's how I feel it's just same thing with me in training I love training alone I and it's been a long time since I trained with the boys that's why it was a real treat it was fun man it was fun those guys are all hilarious so it's been a long time since I trained with the boys. That's why it was a real treat. It was fun, man.

It was fun. Those guys are all hilarious. So it's just- Fucking hilarious, dude. Yeah, it's all just a lot of talking shit, laughing. Some talking shit and some jokes. Doug is so out of his mind. He's just so great.

And Shane, it was great. It was amazing. But the training alone though, that is important for the mental. I feel like for me, it anchors my day. But also too, life is so busy and crazy from the moment you wake up and you walk outside, everybody's wanting something from you. So for many of us, by the way, whether it's celebrity or not. So it's nice to have that anchor in the

morning. Do you train in the mornings? Always. Yeah. Always in the morning. But sometimes I do it in the afternoon. If I, if I've, you know, some sort of an appointment or something, I'll, I'll work. I just get it in. I must, must get must get it in. But I like to start the day with it. That's what I like to do. Yeah, me too. It's the best way. It's like you get it out of the way, and also I like to do it fasted. So I wake up and have a cup of coffee, get some pre-workout in me,

and just fucking let's go. That's it. Yeah, let's go. And I go right into the cold plunge. That's the first thing. So the first thing is suffering. Like right away, suffer. If it's cold outside, who gives a fuck?

Get in there. Suffer. Suffer for three minutes and then warm yourself up through working out and then get into it. But we did it reverse today. Was it because – how come we did it reverse today? Well, those guys are not really ready to get in the cold plunge first. Don't dive in first. Yeah, that's next level.

I get them in the cold plunge after the sauna because it's easier because your body temperature is already heated up and there's a certain amount of relief when you get into the cold water because you're in that 185 degrees for 20 minutes. Yes. When you get in that cold, then your body relaxes. And I just did it. I just want to get them accustomed to doing a sauna and press the shit out of me. Three minutes is the first time.

You did too. Three minutes your first time. Thank you, three minutes, your first time. Thank you, man. Yeah. You just stayed calm as fuck in there. I felt like that's the thing to do. Yeah.

You get in and I heard you coaching the boys. Breathe. Yeah. You're good. Just accept it. Just accept it. Don't because your brain goes, we got to get the fuck out of here.

I got to get the fuck out of here. I can't do this. I can't do this. And if you let that shit roll around in your head, but it's also good practice for not letting that shit roll around in your head. Then you're up. But it's also good practice for not letting that shit roll around in your head in everyday life. Because there's times in everyday life where you just like can make a rash decision because your brain ramps up the wrong way. And if you just stay calm, you could see a rational solution or a rational way to handle something.

Any kind of shit that's going down. Any kind of shit that's going down. Yes. The ability to keep your head together. That's right. And that cold water is like, ah, you want to ah, get the fuck out of here. It goes against every fiber

in your body. And as you know, like today was my first cold plunge. I ordered it. It gets delivered next week, but today was the first one. So that's why I had to get it. Which one did you get? I don't know which one I got. Which one did you get? I don't know which one I got. There's a bunch of good ones out there. I know I needed just a

longer one. Yeah, you need a bigger one. You barely fit in ours. You're fucking switched up in there. It was hilarious. Great. Yeah, that one is interesting because that's called a blue cube, and the blue cube has a very cool option where you can crank up the water flow.

So you get it down. So it spins. Yeah, so it's 37 degrees. And then you hit this switch and it's just like a raging river. So you never get a thermal layer. So the thing that happens in the cold plunge is like a minute in, your body develops sort of a thermal layer. And it actually is more tolerable after a minute than it is for the first minute but not with that raging river when that shit's in there like it's never tolerable you just sit there the

whole three minutes just white knuckling it so it's harder how often are you doing the raging river part um i just do it without these guys yeah i don't let these guys that i'm trying not to get anybody to quit you know today i was worried i was like yeah fucking kind of pushing them because we added renegade rose today we added windmills i added a few things to the routine but the last two or three workout two workouts i've been finishing them with the rounds on the bag so you do this tapata tapata sprint so it's 20 seconds of just going out and then 10 seconds rest. 20 seconds, 10 seconds rest. It's an amazing protocol for developing cardio.

Yeah, yeah. No, it was amazing. I'd never done that before, and it was great. You know what I also loved I noticed about the guys is after the workout was done, they're spent. They're feeling good. They're feeling great about themselves. And I think pretty much all of them said, hey, we're doing this tomorrow, right? Yeah.

It was good. Because, you know, when that shit really kicks your ass, you don't ask that question. Well, if they wake up sore, who knows? Because there's a few things that we did that are going to, their legs are going to be sore for sure, for like the between the legs stuff and the windmill stuff. But we'll do something different tomorrow.

So tomorrow I'll get them in here. We'll do something different. Keep them going. Are you banging them out, like, would you say five times a week? Whenever they want to come. So, like, right now it's been three days a week. But I'm like, if you guys want to go five days a week, we'll go five days a week. You let me know what you want to do and we'll do it.

And I just try to give them some stuff. Like, if you're on the road, just do the push-ups and the body weight routine. Just try it. You don't have to do 100. I do 100. I do sets of 20. Do sets of 10, 5 just do it and just make sure that if you so say if you do like 50 push-ups and 50 bodyweight squats one day the next day try to make it 60 try to get to 60 try to eventually

get to 100 and if you have to do 10 sets of 10 that's pretty easy to do 10 and not hard you know and then that last one you're like and eventually you'll get to a point where you could do sets of 20. And it's just, it's easy. It's not that hard to do. Like when I do 20, at the end of 20, I could do way more, but I just relax. And then I do the body weight squats. And if you keep doing it, it just conditions your body to be able to do that all the time. Yeah, absolutely.

And it's great warmup, 15 minutes, and you're sweating. That's right. Yeah. So we started off with that, and then you go right into all the time. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a great warm-up. 15 minutes and you're sweating. That's right. Yeah. So we start off with that and then you go right into all the other stuff. So while that body's already heated up,

you're ready to rock. And ready to go. Yeah. And also, too, I feel like if you, especially for guys like that who are just getting into it and dipping their toes into it,

feeling good, they know they have to do it. Yeah. Because they're going to add some years to their life, right, and take care of their families. But also, it was cool that you realize that as these guys are doing it, they're, they're not, again, they're not giving up, but also you could see it kind of computing

in their head, like, okay, two steps forward, maybe one little step back. You had the math and you do that every day. You're far down that road. You're far down that road. And that's what I keep telling them. I said, this is just a thing where you got to not slide off because the slide off is the hardest part. Like the discipline is very hard, but the slide off, it's so hard to avoid the slide off. When you're used to eating bad food and fucking around and staying up late and drinking like all these guys do, it's really hard to be disciplined. drinking, like all these guys do. It's really hard to be disciplined and just to say, no matter what, even if I travel on the road, I got to get workouts in because I can't lose ground. That's right.

That's right. Especially like wrestling. I feel like comedy is a lot like wrestling just in terms of the schedule because you guys are working at nights. Yep. Sometimes twice a night. You start at 730. You're done by, I don't know, maybe midnight, maybe longer.

So it's that kind of lifestyle that we really got to be disciplined. Were you always disciplined even when you got in comedy full time and you were on the road and doing all that? I was more disciplined than other comics, but not that disciplined. Not like I am now. I think as I get older, I realize, like, you only have so much, like, your body only has so much energy and if you're not in shape your body's gonna have less energy and as you get old i have so many friends that are my age that

look like they're dead yeah and i'm like jesus christ you know 56 and at a certain point in time you realize like okay this can't be uh like a thing you do three days a week there's got to be a thing you do every day. That's right. My body has to like know for sure it's going to work. And every day work has got to get done. Yeah. And if it doesn't do that, I feel like it's going to slide off.

And when I've taken days off and then I get back to it, it's like I feel way more slide now than I did when I was 20 or 30. It's like the slide is like, you know, it's steeper. Yes. It's steeper. It lasts longer. It's harder to get back like, you know, it's steeper. Yes. It's steeper. It lasts longer. It's harder to get back up there again. Like, okay, stay here. Don't let it slide.

Yes. Yeah. Is your slide, is it usually come by way, like if you catch a fucking cold or something like that? Yep, that could happen. It's usually that, right? Yeah, that could be it. Or too many days of no sleep. Yeah.

Too many days of no sleep will get me you know if i'm just traveling a lot or doing something that's like very intensive and i have to get up in the morning or have to handle something family stuff or whatever if i have to get up early it's just that that wrecks you that's the one that gets you yeah and then you take a day or two off and then you're like fuck yeah and then you gotta travel again and you know maybe you're going overseas and you know then it's a long travel. It's a whole thing, man. You got to plan out your workouts.

But you just have to do it. If you don't, if you just decide, oh, take a nap, then you won't do it and then you're going to, take the fucking nap later. Let's go.

Yeah, let's go. Let's go. When you land, this is what I like doing, when I travel out of the country and I land, whatever time it is, right to the gym.

Hit the gym. Yep. Yeah. Yep. It's the only way I think to avoid like significant jet lag. Yes. The other thing that they say is to fast. They say even if you're on a 16 hour flight, don't eat on the flight.

They say don't eat on the flight. And the idea behind that is. I don't know why, but everybody that I've talked to says to avoid jet lag. why, but everybody that I've talked to says to avoid jet lag, one of the best ways is to not eat on the flight and to just sort of land, get a workout in and let your body get back on its normal cycle and you won't have the same kind of jet lag. And still not eat when you land, just land, train and then eat up? I can't do that. I've never done it.

I'm on a plane, I'm eating. I'm going to eat three, four times. Gotta eat, brother. Fucking eating all the time. I just, I don't like the idea of not eating when I'm on a plane. Like, I want to eat. Got to eat. Yeah.

I think there's 100% something to the workout, though. That seems to reset me as good as anything. It's the best. Maybe not eating and then a workout would be even better, but I've never tried it. How do you do this? Because I think about this, too, as well. I've never tried it. How do you do this?

Because I think about this too as well. Like the difference between when you're tired and you feel like we've been here before. I know I'm fucking fatigued. Yeah. But I'm still going to push through this. And like you said, I'm going to get it in, whether it's at midnight or seven. How do you know the difference between that and compared to. Something's wrong. Dude, I got to listen to my body.

Yeah. I think it's just an education. You know, you have. listen to my body. Yeah. I think it's just an education. You know, you have those. Over time, right? Yeah, you have those days where you do push it when you shouldn't and then you get sick. Yeah. And you go, okay, I see what I did. Yeah.

Or you have those days where you push through and you feel way better. I've had those too. And you got to kind of feel them out. And the only way you know is if you know your body. And the only way you know your body is if you push your body all the time. And try it. Yeah. When you have a fucking insane schedule, I mean, I know a lot of people with insane schedules, but yours might be at the top of the list.

You're right up there with anybody. I don't know how you maintain all of the things that you do and still have energy. Yeah. What I try to do is try to schedule my day as best as I can. And you know, when you're busy and all of us are busy in our own way, so I really try to make sure that I'm paying attention to the schedule, I'm really looking at it, and I'm going to take a fine tooth comb through it and go, not that. Not that.

Because it's easy just to say, yeah, I'll do it. Oh, this thing is for 10 minutes, Joe. Can you? Yeah, okay, I'll do it. And before you know it, all that shit. it's easy just to say, yeah, I'll do it. Oh, this thing is for 10 minutes, Joe. Yeah, okay, I'll do it. And before you know it, all that shit. It's an hour. And then it's two hours and all that. So I really try to make sure that I'm looking at the schedule and try to be smart about the moves these days. And I also learned, man, there's just power in saying no.

Yeah. No, I'm not going to do it. You've got to have you time. Yes. You time is important. One of the things I always tell everybody, discipline is really important but also enthusiasm is really important. That's right. I tell these guys with comedy, if you feel burnt out, take some days off.

Yes. There's no harm in that. Like you want enthusiasm. There's like something about being enthusiastic with comedy and I think with a lot of things. Like you want to have that – you don't want it to be a drudgery. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want it to be a drudgery. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

You don't want it to be a colonoscopy. You want to go in there. Yeah, you want to have a good time and you want to appreciate it. And sometimes when you overdo things, you just don't feel that enthusiastic about them. So you got to balance it out. But again, it's an education. So you got to do it the wrong way and then go, okay, what did I fuck up? And learn from it.

Yeah. Dude, I always say with enthusiasm, you can really move mountains yeah yeah really move mountains with enthusiasm because it starts with that mike tyson had a great phrase he said discipline is doing what you hate to do but doing it like you love it that's real discipline yeah that is that's i mean that that's what made mike tyson yes you know and know, and the proof is in the result. But that's real. If you could just force yourself into being enthusiastic about everything, even shit you don't want to do, like you got to do hill sprints.

Fuck you, we're doing these fucking hill sprints. Fucking get after it. Let's go. Yeah. And then you get excited and then it becomes something stimulating instead of a drudgery. You know what it is too? It's that thing where I think like you learn about, especially when it comes to training and that kind of thing, where it's either you look at it like, fuck, this is something I got to do or I get to do. Yeah.

You get to do it. I get to do it, man. Yeah. What a privilege this is. I mean, there's a lot of people out there that are like seriously ill and injured and they can't do it. God, they would wish they'd fucking give anything to be able to do it. One more time. That's right.

And we are lucky. We're lucky as shit. Anybody right now that's able-bodied and hears this is lucky as fuck. Lucky, man. Just lucky. Lucky and privileged. I would say that. Yeah, super lucky.

For sure. And if you can just keep that in your mind. That's the problem. People get just accustomed to whatever they have. And then they want more. They're not satisfied. but gratitude is so important i know it's one of those hippie crystal fucking wooden beads things that annoys the shit because you know you hear it from the wrong people attitude of gratitude yeah there's certain things that get co-opted by the like the word god i think

is the same way it's co-opted by some people, and then people have this negative association with it. But I think gratitude is one of those. It is real, and it's really important. And if you could just appreciate your friends and appreciate your life and appreciate people and appreciate what you get to do, you can fucking change your whole tone of existence. You change the frequency you exist on. Where you vibrate, you can change, man. You change people around you, too, because they get excited by it. Yeah, that's right.

It affects them, too. That's what I love to do with these guys. I get excited. We're having fun. We're exercising, but we're all laughing. We're having a great time. It was fun. They were looking over you.

They're like, are we fucking working out with The Rock? Shane kept going. He kept nudging me. Dude, we're working out with The Rock. What the fuck? What the fuck? It was awesome. It was awesome, man.

It was awesome. But enthusiasm and appreciation. It's like there's key concepts in life. And even if you're not where you want to be in life and you're grinding and you're on that hustle and there's a lot of people i get it i get it keep grinding but also appreciate it appreciate that hustle appreciate this thing appreciate this fucking beautiful chaotic unknown existence you're in thing we call life yeah that you that you don't know what the fuck is going to happen. It's open-ended. It's wide. Yes, man. It's a complete open loop experience.

You don't know what the fuck is coming next and you're just trying to enjoy the ride. You have no fucking idea. No idea. It's a thing, man, when you think about it. It's like, and I feel like I want to know about you too here. I feel like it was a learn thing. Like I, of course the concept of, Oh,

gratitude. Sure. I felt like I'm a pretty grateful guy, but once I started realizing that a lot of the shit that I was trying to get after, and there's the North star, there's that thing, whatever it is, it's always there.

But really the shit that matters most is the stuff that's right here. Yeah. Like right in front of us. Yes. You know, this thing, life, family, loved one, kid, whatever it is, job even, you know. And sometimes if you concentrate on the North Star too much, you don't even enjoy it. That's right. You don't even enjoy the whole experience.

Of being present. Yeah. Of enjoying the ride, enjoying the fucking journey. I mean, that's another thing. You know, it's about the journey. Ew. People have fucked up that expression, but it's real. It is really about the journey.

Yeah. It's just hard when you're not where you want to be in life, and if you're listening to this and you're just not satisfied with your position in life, it's hard to think that way. All you want is that thing. But you've got to somewhere along the line figure out how to enjoy yourself. Somewhere along the line figure out how to just go as hard as you can but also enjoy it. Try to enjoy it because that changes the whole tone of the experience. And I think that makes you more successful. I really do because I think you have more energy, you have more focus, and you collect better energy around you from other people.

They feel your energy. They're inspired by the way you live your life and how you treat people and what you do and how you do things. And they want to do a similar thing. They want to do something that makes them feel that way. And they want other people to feel that way as well. And it's got the butterfly effect. It just goes through all the people that are around you. Brother, it's like attracts like.

It's that thing. It's that thing, man, especially if you're grinding. And you're right. There's a lot of people out there who are just fucking busting their ass and unhappy. You and I were both in that place at one time. We were like, fuck, I don't like the position I'm in. I want more. I want something more.

But this idea of, but I'm going to try and enjoy it. But I got to tell you, it wasn't, and I wanna know about you too, like earlier on in my career, I felt like it's the grind that we love and sink our teeth into it and just fucking go and get after it. But I wasn't having fun. But man, that time when it switched in my mind, like exactly what you're saying,

let me enjoy this now. Because I've worked hard to get here, wherever this thing is, just like everybody else. But this idea like let's have fun while we're doing it along the way. And you're right. It has that butterfly effect. It affects other people and it attracts other people. Before you know it, everybody's vibrating at this great place with enthusiasm and excitement and fun.

I realized when I was young, I got a development deal for Disney when I was, I think I was 25, 26. And I got this development deal and all of a sudden they gave me like, I think it was like $100,000. And I had money in the bank. I was like, this is crazy. Because I felt later. I was like 26, I think. And it was a development deal for a television show. And all of a sudden I had money.

Like my whole life I was poor. Like my whole life I was poor. And my whole life I was like wondering how I was going to – when I was on my own. And it was like how am I paying the bills? How am I eating? I remember like taking like a loose jar of change and counting it all out so I could go to Subway and get a sandwich. You know, like that kind of shit. You don't forget that kind of shit. You don't forget that kind of shit.

But then the moment I got that check I remember feeling light Like like weight had been lifted off me like now. I didn't have to worry about my rent now I didn't have to worry about food, and I remember thinking immediately. Oh, this is the key You just gotta not get to a place where you're not worried about your bills So that means like spend less money. If that means like live a, like a more prudent lifestyle, whatever you have to do, but get to that place where you're not worried about bills.

Cause that shit hanging over your head causes stress that fucking ruins lives. It ruins people. Yeah. And so then I was like, okay, now the most important thing is fucking keep going. Yeah. Like make sure you don't lose any ground here and keep going. Because now you know what it's like to be successful. Continue that.

Do whatever the fuck you have to do, whatever work you have to put in to continue that. Yeah. And then when I got to a place where I felt like I have enough money that I feel really secure, then I started to learn how to be happy. But in the beginning, it was just drive. It was just all go. And it was just very selfish thinking. You know, I'm just thinking only on what I'm trying to do. But that's all we know.

But especially if you grow up broke and it's the thing that you make up your mind, I feel, and it's the same thing that happened to me. I made up my mind like I'm broke today, but one day I'm never going to be broke and I will never fucking go back to being broke. I'm at least I'm going to do all I can not to be broke. So when you have that mentality, you have the blinders on. Yeah. This is the way you're thinking. It wasn't until I think we get a little older and we achieve the success. We understand that it starts to go like this a little bit. I i gotta ask you something

i heard this and i always wanted to confirm it with you you started early with martial arts yeah right and you said there was this great quote and it was something like it was martial arts i think that gave you the confidence to know that oh wait i'm not going to be broke one day or something like that is that right yeah martial arts is the first thing that i realized wait, I'm not going to be broke one day or something like that. Is that right? Yeah. Martial arts is the first thing that I realized, like, oh, I'm not a loser. Because I felt like I moved a lot when I was a kid. We moved from New Jersey to San Francisco when I was seven, lived in San Francisco until I was 11,

moved to Florida from 11 to 13, Boston from 13 to 24. So it was always moving. Dude, I lived in 10 states by the time I was 13. Why were you guys moving around? Well, my stepdad went to school in Florida. Well, we moved to San Francisco just to experience something different and just get away from New Jersey. Moved there. And then my stepdad went to school in Florida. And when we went to school in Florida, we had to go to the University of Florida at Gainesville. So we were there for three years. And then when we moved to Boston, he was going to the Boston Architectural Center. So we moved there so he could finish it and get his architectural degree. So we were just

always going where we had to go. And when we did that, I would have to make a whole new set of friends and so was this thing about being insecure and young and you know life is kind of fucked up and chaotic and you're you know you're meeting these new people and kids are fucking cruel and I you know I always was insecure because we're always moving around a lot and my life was kind of chaotic my family life is chaotic and I just felt like a loser. I always felt like I just had to hide from people. I was like socially nervous around people. And I just felt like there were certain people that were winners in life and I was not that. I was a loser. And then I started doing martial arts and I got really good at it. Like I was obsessed and I got really good at it really quickly and I realized like oh

I'm not a loser like I just have to find a thing thing and fucking Really get after it in a way that I know some people that have had an easy life They're not gonna pursue it like it's gonna save them and I was pursuing it like it's this is gonna save me Cuz I knew as I kept getting better I started getting this feeling like oh I'm good at something like I'm good at something dangerous and then I got really good at it and then I started winning tournaments and competing and traveling all the road and so my whole life from 15 to 21 was just traveling around competing that's all I did I was kind of it's kind of like socially fucked up because I wasn't hanging out with many kids my age. I wasn't really partying

I wasn't doing training. I was just training competing training competing and teaching I was teaching at Boston University when I was 19 years old Wow I was teaching an accredited course on taekwondo was like pass fail a but it counted towards your GPA So I tell all the students I said listen Show up you get an A. That's all you have to do. Show up and try, you get an A. You don't have to be awesome at it. I just want you to just show up and do your best and you get an A.

It's that simple. And so they knew that that counted towards their GPA. So I had this big fucking class. And it was great. I did that for a couple of years. And then when I started doing stand-up, first of all, I started kickboxing. And when I started kickboxing, that's when I started getting brain damage. And I was realizing I was getting brain damage.

We were sparring hard. Oh, for sure. Like, for real, you were. Yeah, legit. You were getting digged up. I was, like, laying in bed with headaches after sparring. And there was no money in it. And I was like, what am I doing?

Like, I'm 21. What am I doing with my life? Like, I can't keep doing this. And I had already started doing open mics. So I had already started doing standup comedy, but I was kind of like just dabbling in it. And I was, I thought I could do that too, but I was, I still had these competition aspirations. And then the brain damage thing was scary because I knew quite a few people around me that from the time I was 16 until the time I was 21, I saw them deteriorate, like noticeably slurring their words, forgetful, not knowing what

you were talking about like moments ago. And I knew that's coming. And I knew that was coming for me. And CTE back then wasn't in the conversation. Like that wasn't in the lexicon, right? Brain damage was people would talk about people being punch drunk. Right. But I knew too many people that I saw it in them. I saw a deterioration from young people. I saw slurring in their words and they would have like one drink of alcohol and it'd be like they were hammered because something happens when people are punch drunk, when

they drink, they just fall apart. Yeah. And I saw that too. And I was like, when they drink. They just fall apart. Yeah. And I saw that, too. And I was like, okay, I got to stop doing this. Like, this is dangerous. Because we weren't sparring smart. We were going to war. Like no headgear?

No. No headgear. Sometimes headgear, but most of the time no headgear. Most of the time it was just going to war. Yeah. And you weren't really sparring. You were fighting. We were fighting all the time.

And just getting guys getting dropped all the time. And that was just the kind of gym that I was in. It was a hard-ass fucking kickboxing gym. And beat the fuck out of each other. And I was realizing, like, okay, I got to get out of this. Like, this is going to ruin me. And then if my mind gets ruined, my life is ruined. Because then you can't think.

You can't do things. You don't know what the fuck you're doing in life. You're it's like you literally everything is your, the quality of your ability to think. And I knew that I was putting that in jeopardy. So then I went all in in comedy, but I realized from martial arts that if I go all in on something, I could be successful at it. That's right. Like that's the anchor. Yeah. That's it. You learn. Yeah. I thought that was cool, man. When I read that. Yeah. There's things in life that you, man, I think every kid should do something difficult, whether it's playing chess or whether it's soccer or whether it's wrestling, something that really fucking tests you. Cause you learn that you can,

you can get better at stuff and you learn that you can overcome all those feelings of weakness that are inside yeah and and it acts as like a forcing mechanism for discipline yeah and to work through that shit and also i feel like it's like with you in martial arts and then transitioning over to comedy i feel like it also for me it it forces also our kids to find their thing and even if you get a little, you know, in your teens and in your early 20s, because, fuck, dude, in my early 20s, I was still trying to figure out who I was and what I was going to be and even into my 30s. But I feel like the, as you're searching for that thing, it's like with me and football, like I thought football was my ticket. That was the thing that's going to allow me to, I'm going to buy my parents their first house. Right. Because I didn't live in a house until I was 27.

I was WWE champion. It was the first fucking house I lived in. That's amazing. It was amazing. So I thought football was a ticket. And then I realized down the road, like, I have to finish this chapter in my life because I don't have that skill set to go on. I could continue to push it and push it and push it, but no. But like I was saying, it forces kids too as well and older kids as you get into adulthood to find your thing.

Right? Because a lot of times we're in the thing. We think it's the thing. Yeah. And it's going to be our ticket out, but it's not. And if you can find one thing, you can find many things. Yeah. Right.

It's like the Miyamoto Musashi quote. Once you know the way broadly, you can see it in all things. There's some real wisdom in those words because there's something about finding a pursuit or a passion or something you truly love that's engaging and challenging that is exciting for you and it

advances you as a person and the lessons that you learn in pursuing that thing you apply to everything in your life everything in life man yeah yeah everything in life there's a great you probably know it bruce lee quote from enter the dragon do you remember when he was like his it was a uh one of his students and he told the kid, it's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Yeah. And he slapped him in the head. Don't concentrate on the finger.

You're going to lose all that heavenly glory around you. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So back to being present. Yeah. Bruce Lee was a bad motherfucker. Dude.

He was such a bad motherfucker. People really don't appreciate what he did because what he did was introduce martial arts in an exciting way to the whole world everybody was wearing kung fu outfits and everybody was fucking taking martial arts classes everybody wanted to be like bruce lee he was the fucking coolest guy that ever existed in movies oh dude all of a, you got this little ripped Chinese guy who's fucking everybody up. And everyone thought they were Bruce Lee, by the way.

I remember getting my first pair of nunchucks. But I fucked myself up with the real ones. You hit yourself in the back of the head? Enough times that I was like, oh, they make rubber ones that you're supposed to learn with. Dude, I did that. And what did he do?

I feel like he was groundbreaking in a way, right, when he came over here. There was something about what he was teaching. Was it Jeet Kune Do? Yes. Right? So was he the first or he was taking a version of it? Well, he was the first to combine. The thing was, there was the thing about loyalty in martial arts.

Like if you were a judo practitioner and you started training at a kickboxing gym, people would frown upon that. Like they, why are you training Muay Thai when you're a judo practitioner? Judo is the way. And the same thing was, I had a very open-minded Taekwondo coach and who actually encouraged me to start boxing and doing some other things. But most of the time, that's not the case. A lot of like Kung Fu practitioners, they don't want you practicing karate. They only want you going to a Kung fu place what bruce lee said is use everything that's useful everything that's useful and he put together a system of martial arts that incorporated everything that he learned from grappling from gene labelle and karate from chuck norris and

tang su do and you know kung fu from Yip Man from Wing Chun. He put it all together with Western boxing and wrestling. He realized, like, there's so many different ways to fight. And the style is having no style. The way is no way. Like, figuring out. He said that. Yes, yes.

Yeah, figuring out how to adapt and move to every situation to be like water. That's right. And be formless. Yeah, that's right. And he taught that philosophy. And that philosophy eventually became mixed martial arts. Bruce Lee was the first true mixed martial artist because he was the first true guru that was shouting it from the top of the hills to use everything that's useful, everything from all styles and put it together. But back then that was really frowned upon.

Really, it was like kind of dangerous. Like people would go after you if you disrespected Kung Fu. Yeah. Yeah. To prove you either prove. So not only try to prove you wrong, but like physically try and go. Yeah. You were disrespecting their art, which was like literally like a religion to a lot of people. Martial arts are very cult-like. And when you get into a martial arts school, the, a lot of times the instructor is almost like a cult leader that you think that person is invincible. They can't be beaten by anyone. You know, you have this like weird ideas about your master. master. I mean, even call them a master, you know? And so there's this like very rigid thinking that used to exist before. But not anymore.

No. Where there's no referential to master or... No. The UFC just fucking put that away. Like there's still schools out there that run like that, but they're not legitimate and they're not the good ones. The really good schools, they're just teaching you something beautiful. They're teaching you how to use your body in a way that is challenging and effective and it makes you so much more confident and it makes you, if a physical altercation happens, you have a massive advantage over almost anyone. Yeah protect yourself Yeah

It's literally like a superpower to have that and to walk around to know that most people have zero idea how to fight right? Right and so you've all seen these fucking Instagram videos the guys have no idea how to fight in their fight in each other and they don't even know each other and they're Swinging just swinging for the fences. Yeah, I mean something connects. Yeah. I mean, if you're a trained fighter, that looks hilarious. Yeah. It's like, oh, this is, what are you doing? Stop for a second. Hold on.

You're moving around like, dude, you're going to get hurt here. Like, stop. Yeah. Yeah. When was the last time you got into a fight fight? I never really got in fights. I mean, I got in like one or two in high school. Yeah.

But once I started training, I was just competing all the time. I never got into like street fights. Right. like street fights right and they're stupid they're so stupid and stupid just like it's just your ego that keeps you there if it's one thing if you have to defend yourself someone's a shark in you yeah or something's day or someone's attacking someone you love but to just get into fights because you know how to fight is so crazy because like you think oh if I do what you do I'd be beating the fuck out of people no you wouldn't because they'll shoot you yeah come back with a gun and fucking shoot you you think people just like getting head kicked no they're right they're gonna fuck you up man yeah

what are you gonna look over your shoulder the rest of your life yeah yeah no you can't do that you can't do that it's so fucking silly it's so dumb it's so dumb but also that's people that haven't trained they don't understand that. Right. But I tell people like the best way to stop bullying, it sounds so counterintuitive. Teach people how to fight when they're young. Yeah. Teach bullies even how to fight. They won't be doing that. That's right. Because they, in a way, inherently have a respect.

Yeah. They're insecure. Yes. The reason why they're imposing their strength on other people and trying to make people feel bad is because they feel bad. And they think somehow or another by being a piece of shit to someone who's smaller than them that somehow or another that boosts them up. But it doesn't. It just gives you like you have low self-esteem. You can't think of yourself as like a hero if that's the kind of life you're living. It's a terrible way to live. It is.

Yeah. And they don't – but people don't understand that the way to cure that is not to like just simply punish them. The way to cure that is to teach everyone how to fight. Like it should be a thing that men learn. And I think some women, too, like not mandatory. I'm not saying everyone should have to do this, but it should be an option available to you. And if that option is available to you and you take it, I think it'll better your life. And I think it'll stop a lot of this bullying. I really do. Absolutely. And the spirit of learning how to protect yourself, right? In that anchor of learning how to protect yourself and then learning how to fight, learning how to throw a punch, knowing how to do this, do this. Yeah. You also learn the value in difficult work

and in getting better at things. And some people never learn that. They never learn that. I mean, that's a whole idea about training really fucking hard. You know, the value of putting in that hard work early. I always tell athletes, and I know you feel the same way, it's like whether you're on the football field, basketball court, in the cage, whatever it is that you do, whatever kind of athletics, it always, always starts in the gym. And once you're done and you're playing days are over, your fighting days are over, wrestling days are over,

you go back to the gym. It all starts in the gym. Yeah. That hard work you put in. You just have to keep your body healthy. If you don't, if you can, if you can't keep your body healthy, I understand. But if you can, you've got to do it. It's something that everyone should do. It makes your life better. It just does. You know, and there's so many intelligent people that I know that ignore their body because they're so concentrated on their mind. They're so concentrated on intellectual pursuits that they let their body become just a wreck. Yeah. A physical wreck. pursuits. They let their body become just a wreck. Yeah, a physical wreck. And we only got one, man. Yeah, it's frail. Only got one body. And your intellectual energy is dependent upon your physical energy. If your body's tired, your brain's not going to function as well, even if

you have an amazing brain. Right. You're not giving it what it needs. That's right. That's right. Yeah. I agree. And it's also the best way to filter out the noise of life. Like if you choose to do something that's much harder than anything else you're going to experience and it's voluntary, the rest of life is easier. It really is easier. Yeah. Stress and bullshit and criticism and fucking haggling and nonsense and chaos. Like you can get through that. Especially today.

Right, there's so much fucking noise. So much noise. And bullshit. So much bullshit. And toxicity. So much toxicity. It's just out there all the time, and you're right. It's the kind of, that kind of anchoring balance

and training gives you the leg up to swat the bullshit away, swat the bullshit away. The bullshit today is fascinating because it's social media bullshit. It's a different bullshit than people have ever experienced in all of human history. Yes. These people that you don't know

chiming in about everything. The good part of that is there's a sharing of ideas and there's a way of communicating that never existed before and people are learning so much more about things than ever before. Social media allows people to break news stories long before mainstream media. It allows people to tell you about fascinating stories that maybe you would have never heard of and amazing archaeological discoveries and scientific advancements and it's incredible

in that regard. But it's also you're dealing with human beings in a weird form where they're not in front of you, they're not talking to you eye to eye, they can say the shittiest things and they don't feel anything. That's right. And they're trying to hurt people's feelings and they make it like an activity. Like their activity is not jujitsu. Their activity is like shitting on people online, starting trouble.

That's the trend. That it's just to shit on everything. But you're right. I want to back up for a second because it's so important that people hear this too as well. I think, especially coming from you and I, we're kind of in the public eye and we deal with the shit and the noise and all that, but we also deal with the good stuff. And like you were saying, I am an optimist, I think, in my DNA, so I like to look and search for the good stuff that's out there, the stuff that's going to make me better, help me stretch out my aperture up here,

looking at things like, oh, I never looked at it like that. Thank you for bringing that up. That's great. I don't know if I agree, but let's talk a little bit more. Compared to the ones who are the experts, toxicity. And it's this interesting thing that some people have to I'm going to go out of my way to try and make you feel bad.

Yeah. And make people feel bad and shit on this whole thing and really not offer anything, I think, constructive. Right. You know that we can talk about and chop up. Well, it's almost all damaged people. And the problem is a good percentage of the people out there are damaged. And there's a thing about the kind of fucking interaction that people have on social media that just makes their life worse, whether they realize it or not. That just makes their life worse, whether they realize it or not, just fills their life with anxiety and and this weird need to constantly check. See who responded to what you tweeted and what are the comments on your Facebook post and reading them all. And and you're not living your life. You're just wrapped up in this weird battle of opinions with strangers

Yes, you know and you see people defending themselves online like I have done this and I've done that. What are you doing? Yeah Dude You argue with some fucking 15 year old troll who's in a basement is hiding from his stepdad You know like what are you doing? And you know the what I always love is the tap as typing in all capital letters as if somebody is yelling. And the how dare you and this. What the fuck are you doing?

Well, it's a sport. It's a sport and trying to get the best response. And there's skill to it. You know, the skill to shitting on people and learning how to go after people. It is a kind of a game. You're trying to like zing them. And then you look at the comments and everybody's agreeing with you yeah yeah get them yeah it's like living in that in in the uh just the the clickbait culture you know and you want to raise the profile yeah so let me ask you this um and it was this is

something you and i were texting about last week is is how can you tell the difference between the bullshit noise and the toxicity that's always out there compared to, oh, that's an opinion that is worthy of my attention. I just want to look at and look at this for a second. How do you differentiate the two? It's difficult, right? You got to try to be objective and you got to try to be unemotional when you read something that someone's writing. Like say if someone's like Palestine and Israel is a great example. Yeah. Because it's the tension is so heightened and anything you say on one side or the other people will attack you on.

Sure. And so this is one that if you have an opinion, a political opinion, a cultural opinion about the conflict and you post it, boy, you are opening yourself up to a world of people agreeing and disagreeing and chaos and fighting. And some of those people are going to have points that make sense. Like, say, if you are 100 percent pro-Palestine and you read something about Ham Hamas, and you read something, you go, wow, that's fucking terrible. You know, you have to be willing to say, oh, there's both things. Yes. The fact that they live in what's essentially an open-air prison is fucking terrible. Also, the people that are ruling them are terrorists.

That's terrible, too. Like, you can't ignore any aspect. This is a complicated thing. Some of the Israeli soldiers have done some evil things to Palestinians. There's videos of them shooting people. Also, what Hamas did is fucking insanely evil. What has to be done to fix that? I do not know. But to pretend it's binary and to pretend it's one side good, one side bad, that seems insane. It's all bad. It's all bad. It's all fucking heartbreaking. Yeah. It's all devastating. And you're right. And what I've learned, I feel like we've all learned or trying to learn at least is because it is so complicated. And that is a part of the world

and historically thousands of years that I find complicated and that is a part of the world and historically thousands of years that i find complicated and i try my best to understand i also try to go out with an open mind because it is all fucking crazy it's crazy yeah it doesn't seem like there's a real solution either and there's the things that you said yes and i want to get to that in a second because i was thinking about that today is the everything you said absolutely this part of it is devastating this is devastating this side this side um the 240 hostages that still I haven't come home yet but also where does it go right where does it go where does it go that's the that's the thing that I think really grabs my attention because usually I think in – I'm not saying a situation like this, but there's a lot of stuff that goes on where you feel like I think this is the path to finding a resolve or at least maybe the first steps of resolve.

But in this case – I don't see it. Brother, I don't know. No, I don't see it. But I but speaking to what we were talking about earlier You can learn from that's where separating the noise from the intelligent perspectives I've read some very intelligent perspectives where people give you a detailed history and the conflict of the region and you realize like oh This is like incredibly complicated and to have a binary viewpoint or a very black or white viewpoint is dangerous it's not it's not and it's so easy for people to do people love to do that they love to other people it's a natural human trait it's a tribal trait that we have and that is what led to

world war ii and the fucking the holocaust is that they othered these human beings because these human beings were jewish and you're you're seeing people doing that now with Jewish people. And you're seeing people doing that now with Muslim people. There's people that are angry at all Muslim people because of what Hamas did. All of it's crazy. And what we need to do is realize that othering human beings is insane. And if you could look at Earth from space, this is one of the things that all the astronauts have said, all the people that have gone to the space station. There's a moment where you are up there, when you look down on the Earth, and you see this magical thing that's floating in the heavens and you realize

how insane these conflicts we have over territory of lines in the dirt and fighting over resources and it's so ridiculous we are one life form we are one gigantic super organism that needs each other because like yes human beings need each other we do not survive alone the worst thing they could do to you in prison is put you in solitary confinement yeah we we need each other it's a part of what we are we're this one gigantic group of of beings that are trying to live our lives all together on this fucking magical thing that's floating through space. And we unfortunately come from tribal backgrounds. All of us.

We evolved in these small groups of hunter gatherers thousands and thousands of years ago. And we carry that DNA still. We carry that fiercely loyal tribal DNA that allows us to look at people that aren't a part of us as something less than us. And we've got to- And other them. Yeah. And what I'm hoping is that as technology allows people to communicate far more freely and to translate languages more freely, and where information is going to get exchanged more freely and it takes

long time for this to happen yeah but we'll eventually understand each other to the point where that's way more difficult to happen because it's so easy for it to happen if you don't speak their language you don't follow their religion they're bad you're good you know and then you're othering people that's right and we gotta that. That's that's a fucking insanely ridiculous thing That's being done by world leaders They gather people together against other people that you don't even fucking know you don't even know It's one thing if you have a conflict with an actual human being that's like doing something to you Yeah, this is like you don't even know these people and these world leaders have told you that somehow or another, these people are bad and you're good. And we got to go over there and fuck

them up. Like we're still doing that. That's insane. It's insane that human beings are still doing that. And I'm hoping that as we get to know each other more through technology and through what has become the most connecting innovation, the most connecting technology ever, which is the Internet. I'm hoping that's going to continue to evolve and connect people further and further. The problem is if it along the way, it can get co-opted by governments and it can get controlled and censored. And that's the enemy. That's the enemy of all truth. That's what we can't have.

We can't have that. Yes. We need to fucking ride this out and let this thing ride itself out and figure out the right way to live. But it's definitely not through war. Look, I feel like I agree with you on that. And my hope was in the spirit and vein of what you were saying is that riding it out, getting more information, being open to difference of opinion. Here's how I feel. How do you feel? But tell me, truly tell me a little bit more just so I can understand it. But even in that, the spirit of that, I feel like you get so much more out of that and so much benefit. But I

look, I feel like, like you were saying, we have to, things got to get recalibrated, man. And I don't know, especially over there, I don't know what the end game is there. I don't either. But I agree with you. Yeah. It's terrifying. It's terrifying because it can lead the whole world into nuclear conflict and then civilization's over.

And then we're back to caveman if we're lucky. Yeah. If we're lucky. If there's anybody left. I mean, there's a real possibility we can nuke the whole world and there's no one left except maybe some people living on an island somewhere that got lucky. Well, what's crazy is that is a possibility. And that's-

It's happened before. Fucking wild. Well, the thing is it's happened before with natural disasters. There was this, what was that super volcano? Was it Toba? Was that what it was? Yeah. The Toba super volcano 70,000 years ago that reduced the entire human population to a few thousand people.

Wow. Yeah, we came that close from a super volcano 70,000 years ago to being down to like very few people. They don't even know how many people it was. But the estimates are a few thousand, I think. Is that what the estimates are? See with it. I think that's what they think. But that's great.

A few thousand people is nothing. Like, how? That's nothing. That's a concert. That's like, go to a concert. A theater. Not even a fucking big show. It's my first wrestling match. And then imagine, that's the whole human race on planet Earth. And then you're dealing

with, back then, of course, you're dealing with predators. You're dealing with natural disasters and even normal shit like freezing to death in the winter and starving. Yeah. You know? And if you're dealing with a super volcano, you have all sorts of nuclear winter. Super volcano coats the earth in ash, and it's one of the things that kills everybody is the temperature drops. No sunlight gets through.

Plants don't grow. Everything's fucked. And then, you know, you're cannibalizing. There's a lot of that yes yeah i mean there's a high possibility that our ancestors were cannibals and that the people that had to survive through a lot of these things they probably ate people did what they had to do yeah yeah did what they had to do which is fucked yeah i always i'd start with my quad it's a lot of meat on that thing.

Yours too. I don't think I'd eat myself. I'd probably jump off a cliff. You know, the thing is like, you know, people, it's a scary thing what people resort to. Like the Donner Party, right? You know when those people got trapped trying to make their way across the mountains? It's terrifying. Yeah. When you're realizing you're starving

and people are like trying to draw straws to see who's gonna kill who to eat. Yeah, yeah. You know, you said, you talked about the, who was it, the astrophysicist you said, what did we talk about? Yeah, NASA, the scientists, when they look up, there's an overview effect.

You get up and then you look, and it has that emotional impact on them. It really puts things into perspective on how we're just on this spinning thing. We all do need each other. I always like to say too, because I feel like it connects to what you said, which is try to keep in mind history is always watching and when you think the decisions we make today, years from now, history is going to look back at this time. And I think if you really think like that, it kind of – it just helps force another forcing mechanism to try and make the best decision possible.

At least I try to think that way. History is always watching, man. But we have the benefit of living a good life while this is happening. Imagine being someone trapped in Palestine. And imagine being someone trapped in Gaza while they're bombing. And this idea is that they're supposed to get rid of Hamas. They have no food. They have no money.

They have bad water. Like, what are you talking about? Like, what are they going to do? They're occupied too. They're occupied by whoever's leading them. You know, when you're deeply impoverished and there's no way out and you're literally like trapped in this one place, you can't even leave. What are your options? Like saying that they need to rise up and organize like they're going to get killed.

Do you understand how that works over there? It's not that simple. No, that's the thing. That's why I go back to where's the wise brains here and open hands who is. What's the resolve? I don't know. What's the beginning of it at least you know I haven't heard anyone have like a solution that really makes sense that I think is workable that they could actually pull off I think before October 7th you know there probably would have you could have had options right but. But after that, it's like, God, the Israelis are so bloodthirsty.

And now these, the people that are like the free Palestine people are bloodthirsty. And you see anti-Semitism everywhere now. A level that I never saw before. Open anti-Semitism online. Open anti-Semitism. People chanting death to the Jews openly in public. It's crazy to see. It's crazy to see it's crazy to see yeah never yeah it's it's so wild and you would imagine that in this day and age in 2023 we would be moving away from away from all that yeah but to see it ramped up in

our lifetime is so insane because well that's why it concerns me though right and i know you too and a lot of people out there like where does that go right where does this escalate to yeah not a good place no and then where is that person human group who's going to come in and say let's right try this. And how do we do that? Does something tragic, really tragic, not anything that's already happened has been horrifically tragic, but something horrific at a large scale has to happen that really wakes people up, like a nuclear bomb hitting a city. And people go, Jesus Christ. Like, we went from 1945 until today without doing that.

If we do that now, and then they retaliate and then that and then it's over Then we're fucked. I hope that's not the case brother. Yeah, I hope it's not the case too But sometimes I think something has to happen to wake people up and like one of the shake and recalibrate everything 9-11 did that Yes, like you remember after 9-11 everybody had those American flags on their car even in LA Yeah, which is you know, super liberal and they never would everybody had those American flags on their car, even in L.A., which is, you know, super liberal and they never put a fucking American flag on their car. Everybody had them on. It galvanized. Yeah.

Brought us together. Brought us together. And it made people realize like, hey, we are literally a country. We're all in this together. And without that conflict, I think people start looking for conflict amongst the people that are around them. I think human beings, unfortunately, have a natural desire to seek out conflict or to embrace conflict or to be a part of conflict. And, you know, and to go after people whose opinions don't align with theirs. And, you know, if there's no real problem in the world, you find problems. It's like that expression, like the worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you.

That's right. If it's daddy taking away your Rolls Royce because you drove drunk when you're 16, that's still the worst thing that's ever happened to you. Yeah. But if your life has been this fucking chaotic system of foster homes and drug-addicted family members and crime, and then you get free, something that would drive someone up a wall won't affect you at all. That's right. Because you've been through so much. That's right.

And I think, unfortunately, there's a lot of people in this life, in this world that we live in, especially in America, that live soft-ass lives. Oh, yeah. And they don't encounter real hardship. They encounter like kind of like minor league hardship that they have blown up to be the end of the world.

It's not the hardcore shit that really shapes you. Yes. That a lot of people need. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. It's just

we're going through a very strange adolescence as a species. And we're going through a very strange adolescence as a species. And we're going through this teenage process of fucking up and figuring out who you are with nuclear weapons. And if you looked at the actual civilization on Earth itself, the human civilization, It's going through this chaotic period of trying to grow and get better while also engaging in ridiculous conflict. And it's all happening in the blink of an eye. It's happening so rapidly.

Things have changed so quickly from the time you and I were kids. I mean, when you and I were kids, it was Russia. Everybody was worried about going to war with Russia. And then when the fall of the Soviet Union, there was just like, ah, this calm that went through the whole country. The breath, yes. And I thought we were done. I thought, oh, we're done with all this. This is great. We figured this out.

Yeah. But no. Well, that's why I wonder, where are the call for leaders? You know what I mean? Like, where? I mean, it's a big question, but. Well, nobody really wants to be president. It's fucking, they crawl up your ass with a microscope.

Dude. It's not fun. They've talked about you being president. I know. I remember at one point in time, it was like, they were saying, we should be The Rock and Oprah. They should be president and vice president. Dude, so one of the parties came to visit me.

Oh no. At the end of last year asking for me to run oh jesus christ i mean it was for president president wow it was first of all incredibly fucking surreal right because i was the guy you know who was wrestling in flea markets right years ago looking for free corn dogs and hot dogs and shit, selling my headshots for five bucks, trying to make money. And then all of a sudden I'm having that conversation.

But it was just incredibly surreal and so wild, but also so incredible that they had all this data that they had said, if this happens, here's the result. Oh, wow. It was really fucking deep. And then I started to think, again, surreal, because that's never been my goal. I appreciate it, and I'm fucking honored,

because I'm like you in here, in our core. But it made me think, it's either this is an incredible thing and I got some pretty decent leadership skills or things are so fucked up. They're turning to the pro wrestler movie star to try to run the world. But who are those leaders, whether president or not, but I just, I wait for, as it relates to the conflict over there, like who's – not necessarily step up, but just information.

As you were talking about, we live in this time with incredible technology and communicate so fast. And you could be as open as your aperture stretches out to be and you could get as much information as you can. So where are those people who are going to – They don't want to be president. They're running their own lives and they're looking on the sideline and wishing that someone with real leadership skills and real wisdom and real empathy and a real moral compass who's not governed entirely by money. Well, you just said it. I mean, those things, empathy. Yeah.

You know, those kind of qualities, integrity. Yeah. Especially the empathy part. Yeah. And looking at everything as open. Yeah. You know? But if you're a person that has empathy, how do you conduct a drone strike where you know

that a certain amount of civilians, 100% are going to die, but you know that a certain amount of civilians 100% are gonna die but you know that a terrorist might be in this apartment building how do you green light that you know because you kind of have to if you want to get rid of this terrorist I mean but we know the the consequences of drone strikes there's some insane number of people that are innocent civilians that get killed it's hard it's been explained to me by my friends in the military that it's very difficult to know the truth because oftentimes truth in terms of what brother,

you get lies from either side. Look for sure. 100% for sure. In terms of the reasons for the orders that they can, not just the reason for the orders, but the amount of people that died that were innocent, but for sure, innocent people die.

The question is how many of them. You know, when they say someone, they bombed a wedding party, that's real. That's happened. Like thousands of people have died that way all over the world. Whether it's in Yemen or wherever they're conducting bombing raids, there have been many people that have not been a target that were killed. But what are those numbers? And what's the reality of it? Because if you're on that side that get bombed, you might put out a press information.

You might put out something that says a thousand innocent civilians and they bombed a children's hospital. But the reality might be it was actually 20 insurgents and 50 civilians. Like we don't really know what the real numbers are unless you're on the ground doing a census. I don't know if we get accurate information from either side. But if you're a president, you have to deal with that horrible reality that if you do an action, if there's some sort of a military action that has to be taking place, particularly like a drone bombing in a civilian area, you're going to kill some innocent people. That is a crazy thing to have on your conscience if you have a moral compass. It's crazy. And what are the options to risk our service members and have them go in there and get

gunned down and blown up and lose 50% of them because you didn't want to kill the same number of innocent civilians? And then you get into that conversation. It's like, what's the fucking – what's the solution there? Yeah. Other than we shouldn't be at war with anybody. We should figure out a way to stop this. Before that happens. Before that happens.

Yes. All over the world. Right. Because usually you could kind of see it coming down the road. Yeah. You could see the scenario happening coming down the road. So maybe the ability to strategically get in, that there's a military industrial complex that wants us to go to war. They profit off war. And they can, you know, if they're the people that are funding political campaigns and they have massive amounts of money that they're using as influence, they can make certain politicians make decisions that are not in the best interest of the United States or the people that are the citizens. They can do things entirely to make money. You know, like you see it and you see like the amount of money that's

involved in something like Ukraine, whether or not you're pro us helping Ukraine or not. Where did we come up with all that money? And why don't we have that money to fix America? There was one point in time we talked about this where there was $6 billion they accidentally paid to Ukraine. They overpaid them $6 billion. That's the exact amount of money it would take to rebuild every single house in Maui. Exactly. Yeah. And no discussion about that at all.

Instead, the Maui people get $700, a one-time payment, which is insane. What are we? Are we a community or are we not? If we have the money to donate to some guy who is a fucking literally used to be a stand-up comedian who used to play piano with his dick. That's Zelensky. He did a thing. There's a video of him playing piano with his dick. It was like one of his routines.

Wow. He was a comedian and he played a character on a television show. Zelensky was a comedian? Yes. Zelensky was a comedian and he played a character on a television show that was- Zelensky was a comedian? Yes. Zelensky was a comedian and he played a character of a regular guy who becomes the president. I forget what his job was in real life, but he becomes a president and then ran for president in real life and became president. And we're just sending this guy billions and billions and billions of dollars. And some of it is just like, where is it all going?

Like, do we have an accurate account of like, is anybody siphoning this? Like, we know that there's massive amounts of corruption all over the world when it comes to this kind of stuff. Like, where's that money going? Yeah. This is nuts. Yeah. Why don't we have that money to fix inner cities? Why don't we have that money for infrastructure?

Why don't we have that money for the school system? Why don't we have that money for infrastructure? Why don't have that money for the school system inner cities? Yeah homeless. Yeah. Yes school See what's going on in San Francisco? Sanfrancisco's Ji Jinping is going to visit and a bunch of Chinese a bunch of world leaders But Ji Jinping particularly and so they cleaned up all the homelessness They took all the tents out and they put fences up everywhere so the people can't camp out anymore. We don't even know what they did with them. I was just going to ask. What did they do with them?

See if you can find a video of it. It's crazy. And then you got Gavin Newsom on TV who's making excuses for it. He's like, yeah, we did. Well, when people come over to visit, you clean your house up. How about you fucking clean your house up all the time? If you can do this now, you can do this always. I'm assuming you did something ethically responsible with those people and housed them and put

them up somewhere. I'm hoping that's what you did. You didn't just move their tent to the fucking middle of the desert or something. What have you done? There's some before and after pictures. Yeah. Insane. Well, this is just a couple of pictures, but the really wild ones are the fences.

They put fences up everywhere so the people can't camp there anymore. They put troughs up right there. What are the troughs for? I don't know. That's weird. What are they for? Troughs are weird. But they hose down all the streets.

Like, hey, guys, why don't you fucking do this all the time? Like, why isn't this always like this? Yeah. This is what San Francisco used to be like. You ruined it. Now we know that you could fix it and fix it quick. Now we should be really upset. As upset as people were before about the homeless problem in San Francisco, they should be fucking furious about it now because they always had the ability to fix it quickly. And they brought San Francisco back quickly to safe and clean and no homeless people in the street.

Now, is this temporary? Are you going to go right back to tents when Xi Jinping leaves? That's crazy. Where'd they go? Do we know? I don't know. What's the explanation? It's wild.

It's like, oh, you could have always done this? Yeah. Why didn't you do this from the beginning? Yeah. What Nordstrom's wouldn't have had to close. All those Walgreens, all those, everything's closed in San Francisco. They're all leaving the city. It's like the city's a fucking zombie wasteland.

And you could have cleaned it up at any time. Mm-hmm. Wild. Especially with that money. You said they overpaid? Overpaid $6 billion to Ukraine. Yeah. Whoops, sorry.

No worries. We're going to pay them more money in the future. That was the idea. We'll just add it on to the money we're gonna pay him more money in the future. That was the idea. Like we'll just add it on to the money that we're gonna give him in the future. But no discussion at all. People have completely forgotten about Maui. No one discusses Maui.

It never comes up. Well, brother, you know that those are my people. Yes. Polynesian people, my grandparents are buried over there in the islands, my family. So we started that fund, the People's Fund of Maui. And now we've helped over 8,000 people, $1,200 per person who has verified over 8,000, which is really amazing. But one of the biggest things, which first of all, the whole fucking thing was so heartbreaking, but then also don't forget about Maui. And it's crazy

because the work that now that me and the team have been putting it, it doesn't end. It's a continuous calling these corporations, hey, remember, these are our American people. They're not just out there on the island. These are our American people. We can't forget about them. So it's a wild thing. It's wild that that's not done by the government. Why wouldn't they do that?

It's the biggest wildfire, the worst disaster- In 100 years. In 100 years. We don't even know how many people are dead because so many people are unaccounted for and they can't find their body. There's nothing left. They're incinerated. So how do you find who's missing and who's gone? You don't know. It's going to take a long time to sort it out. Well, and the bill back to stand everybody back up on their feet and the families, it's going to take a long, long time. A long time. But if you think about it, we stood this fund up on its feet,

brother, within six weeks, just like that. They're still waiting for the governmental money. It's insane. It's insane. It's insane. It's insane when you think about how much money we donate to other countries. And we flew in after that, after the wildfires, man. And it's like something you've never seen before. And you feel the weight and the heaviness of the area.

You know, when devastation like that happens in that way, like you just land. And, you just, you land, and you know, you've been to Hawaii a whole bunch of times, I feel like when you land, you feel that aloha spirit. It feels good. The mana. It's amazing, right? And it's, but you land there and you feel the-

The heaviness. Fucking heavy. Heavy. It's heartbreaking. Heartbreaking, and it will be for a long time. Yes, but I'm proud of them. I'm so proud of our people, you know, because it's like it's what you do in times like this. You fucking come together.

Well, the people that did survive and do come together, they will never forget. And it'll be a part of them. And it'll probably bring those people closer together. For sure. Especially the people that helped everybody. Yeah. But it's just insane that the government doesn't do anything about it. And they still could.

They still could. They're writing these billion-dollar checks to Israel and billion-dollar checks to this and billion dollars. Come on. Fucking step up. Everybody would approve it. No one would say, what are you doing? Why are you spending all that money on Maui? For our own.

For our own. For our own people. Yes. Which is crazy that Hawaii is America anyway. I mean, it's great that it's protected by America. But isn't it crazy you have to fly five hours over the ocean and you're still in America? You literally land in a beautiful volcano in the middle of the ocean that's created islands. Yeah. And that's America.

50th state. Yeah. It's fucking wild. But if that is America, we should treat it like it's America and we should protect it like it's America, we should treat it like it's America. And we should protect it like it's America. And we should help them like it's America. Protect it to the core. And $700 per person is not doing that at all, a one-time payment.

It's so insulting and so insane in the light of all this public knowledge of the amount of money that we're sending to other countries. Yeah. You know what we did on this fund, just so you know, it's $1,200 per month. Oh, that's great. It's great for months. And anyone who's verified, and, you know, with Polynesian culture, there's a lot of people in the house at times, like aunties and uncles and grandparents.

And so there's some houses that are getting $4,000, $5,000, $6,000. That's great. That's really great, yeah. Yeah, that's something. And, again, it should be coming from the government. and it could be done. It's not something that couldn't be done. I mean, it's something that everybody would support. Take care of our own. Take care of our own. First. Yeah. I mean, what are we? If we're not a country, if we're not. It's the same thing with family. Yeah. Like you would take care of your family first. I take care of my family

first. Yes. Take care of our American people. It's a community. We should be a community. Yeah. And we're so divided and polarized right now. And I think a lot of that is accentuated by social media. And also accentuated by the mental illness of being obsessed by social media. Because I think it is a mental illness. I think it's a mental illness just like gambling addiction is a mental illness. Yeah. gambling addiction is a mental illness. I think it's just that people are goddamn addicted to apps and their phone and,

and just reading stuff and attacking each other. And it's, it's, it's caused this divide to be reading stuff and believing. Yeah. Well, it was when I was a kid, you can have a Republican friend.

Like it was no big deal. It's no big deal. Like, Oh, Bobby likes George Bush. Of course. Who gives a fuck? You were a supporter of Bill Clinton. He liked George Bush. Nobody cared.

Nobody like, fuck you. It wasn't like, you're a Nazi. I'm a Nazi. I just want lower taxes. What the fuck are you talking about? How did I become a Nazi? It's the craziest thing. I have friends who support Trump. I have friends who support Biden the craziest thing i have friends who support trump i have

friends who support biden i have friends do you really have friends to support by i do come on no no no no here's here's what i do i have i have friends thank you that's a good check because that's important this is important context they support the democratic party i have friends who are loyal to the party yes and they're the progressive right yes loyal to the party support trump i have friends who are like fuck it i'm not voting for either one last election this election so it but it's that kind of thing that i would love to see us get to that place where it's okay yeah it should be yeah you vote for that person no problem people should be able to have discussions about

the differing opinions and not turn it into just some crazy insult fest, which is what you see online. And you see it all the time. You see it online even with political commentators. They get in these interview sessions and they fucking start yelling and screaming at each other. It's like – it's fucking stupid. It's insane. It's bad for you too. It's bad for the people that are engaging in it.

It's bad for everybody who's listening. you, too. It's bad for the people that are engaging in it. It's bad for everybody who's listening. Well, so, yeah, and it's unhealthy. Not only unhealthy for yourself, but also just in terms of humanity, man. Yeah, it's bad for humanity. Yeah, absolutely. Let me ask you this. You talked about even for our guys, our military boys and girls who are on the ground, to get information that they feel is really accurate.

Like what have your guys said? Like, for example, Marcus Atrell, who's our friend, and Tim Kennedy, and I have two Navy SEALs in my family, two cousins. Like what are your guys saying? How do they combat the idea of not getting the correct information? Well, they do their very best, and especially like special operators, SEALs, Rangers. I mean, they get pretty solid information for what their objective is. But obviously, their objective is very narrow.

They deal with whatever the situation is. They have to go and take care of it. They need to know how many enemy combatants. They need to know who's in the house, what's there, how to get in. It's a very specific skill set that these gentlemen have and they have to rely on accurate information and for the most part they're the very best at getting their accurate information to those special operators but when it deals like with a worldwide scale like trying to figure out what's real and what's not and who's telling the truth and who's not. It's like, fuck.

Good luck because there's so much Russian disinformation and Chinese disinformation and American disinformation. I mean there's just entire groups of people dedicated to these troll farms that just go online and make things up and attack people and try to organize these campaigns against a certain idea or a certain political candidate. And it's just organized. And it's, you know, it's funded. And it's hard if you're a person and you have a family and a job and interest and you check the news every, you know, once a day, twice a day. Try figuring out what the fuck is actually a day, twice a day. Try figuring out what the fuck is actually going on. It is true.

Yes. So I always tell people, especially younger people, like, hey, be careful. You could read it, but be careful about really what you believe. Yeah. And what's funny is, and I'm sure you notice this too, and for a lot of people listening, is when you see the trolls and these campaigns that are funded, right, and they look like they're legit and they got all their shit together, is what I always find interesting is the loudest shit talkers on there who are saying really like enough where it really stops you in your tracks. Like, wow, you really took the time to type that. They have zero posts on their account.

Yeah. Very few posts, very few followers. And the only thing they want to do is that. They have zero posts on their account. Yeah. Very few posts, very few followers. And the only thing they want to do is that. And that's probably a funded person. There's a lot of them. There's a lot of them. But of course there are. It's an effective technique to get people. Yeah, yeah.

Kill Cliff. This is my own flavor. What is it? Spicy pineapple. That was my nickname in college. Ooh. Yeah, there's a report they did on Facebook. The top 20 Christian sites, 19 of them were run by Russian troll firms. 19 of them were like stirring people up and the resurrection is coming.

Jesus. Now, how do people up and the resurrection is coming. Jesus. How do we navigate and combat that? Mind reading. Yeah, we have to get to a point where technology allows us to legitimately read people's thoughts. And I think that's coming quicker than we realize. I think that's around the corner. I think that's 10 years from now. If we don't blow ourselves up within 10 years, we're going to be able to read intentions.

We're going to be able to know thoughts. We're going to be able to know things about technology. How do you think? Technology. Yeah. Probably some sort of a wearable device initially. And then for probably higher bandwidth applications and especially for people that have neurological conditions and spinal cord injuries, they're going to start implanting like Neuralink. And one of Neuralink's first goals is to try to bring people that have spinal cord breaks and people that have lost control of their muscles and to bring them back to mobility.

And they think that that's possible, which is amazing. Wow. Great. Yeah. And they think that that's possible, which is amazing. Wow. Great. Yeah.

What they're going to be able to do is bypass – I'm crudely phrasing this. If you're a scientist, I'm sorry. But they're going to be able to bypass the human neurological system in terms of like how you move your arms and body and muscles and do it electronically. And they think they can do that. And they think that's going to be one of the first medical applications for this kind of a thing. But the other thing that Elon said to me, he said, you're going to be able to talk without words. Now, when most people say you're going to be able to talk without words, I'm like, yeah, man, that'd be wild. But when Elon says it, you're like, for real? You really think we're going to be able to talk without words? He's like, 100%. What's the B side to that? What is that

exactly? It's going to be something. That technology. This technology will be some sort of an implanted device that allows you to have constant access probably to something akin to chat GPT and AI or the next level of it along with some interconnectivity with other people that are wearing the same device. And it'll probably initially be something that translates languages instantaneously. And then as it advances, it will be able to read thoughts and you'll be able to transfer images, things you see. I will be able to have this thing in my mind and show my friend Greg that I'm sitting here with The Rock having a conversation and he could see that through my eyes. We will have universal connectivity with all minds, all minds that have that thing. The real problem is the haves and the have-nots.

Because just like if you go back and watch Wall Street, like Michael Douglas had that fucking big-ass brick telephone. He was walking on the beach like, look at this guy. He's got a phone. He's walking on the beach. What a baller. Now anyone, you know, you can go to fucking T-Mobile and get a flip phone for like 50 bucks. You get a cheap cell phone where you could talk to a person. It's a tiny thing.

It sits in your pocket. It's so much better than what Michael Douglas had. Yeah. And everybody can get it. But back then, it was super expensive. Nobody had it. And the haves, like Michael Douglas in that movie, Greed is Good, they used that thing to advance their career. Multiply that times a million, and you have the advantage of the initial adopters of whatever this thing is. Because if they integrate with artificial intelligence initially and they integrate with some sort of a universal internet system, they're going to be able to accomplish things in business and in terms of like manipulation of financial markets and in terms of acquiring resources. They're going to be able to do things that the people without those things are not going to be able to do.

And they will have massive amounts of wealth and power almost instantly. Within years, it will be a change, a giant shift that will go over to the people that have these devices. And that's fucking – that's the most insane have and have nots because you essentially have super humans essentially have something that it's almost like an alien yeah that exists with these advanced primates which is what we are yeah does Elon feel like that will happen within a decade he thinks is gonna happen pretty quick yeah it probably will be within a decade yeah he thinks that once they start implementing it, they've already started trials with human beings.

And I think the first trials they're doing are with people with neurological either conditions or injuries. Yeah. And, you know, I've also heard it talked about vision. They're going to be able to restore people's vision. They're going to be able to do some wild shit. By the way, brother, I mean, 10 years is right around the corner. So quick. 10 years ago was 2013, which is nuts.

Nothing, right? That seems like if you have a 2013 car, that's a fucking pretty new car. Yes. How is that 10 years ago? That's crazy. I always tell people this. When I was in high school in 1981, a 1970 car was a classic. Yes.

It was only 11 years old. Yeah. But if you had like a 1970 Barracuda, like, wow, look at that fucking thing. Yeah. It was a classic already. But time seemed to move different then. Like 10 years back then seemed like a long fucking time. Like 10 years back then seemed like a long fucking time.

And as society and technology and innovation just spins at this insane, ever-rapid pace, 10 years feels like nothing. Dude, it's the acceleration that we live in today. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's so much going on. And I think when that does happen, there's two battles. What was your first car? My first car was a 1973 Chevelle. How old were you?

I was 16. Yeah, I was 16. Yeah. Yeah, it was a hunk of shit. I think I bought it for 350 bucks. I'm positive I bought it for 350 bucks. It was worth 300 bucks. It died the next day.

It died the next day. Yeah, but the dude took it back. There was something wrong with the engine. I'm like, dude, the fucking engine seized up. Was that like your boy from your hometown? No, it was a guy I knew. A guy I knew But the dude took it back. There was something wrong with the engine. I'm like, dude, the fucking engine seized up. Was that like your boy from your hometown? No, it was a guy I knew. A guy I knew. But he took it back.

It died the next day. Yeah, it died the next day. And then I got a... I was always into muscle cars. I had a bunch of muscle cars. That was always what I was into. How old were you when you got your first one? 16.

Okay, so I'm 15. I'm in a bar in Nashville. And I had no business being in a bar it was downtown Nashville and on lower broad because at that time I had this fantasy in my head that I was going to be a country music singer

well you know I love country I know you wanted to be a country music singer yeah until I was like oh I sing in fucking keys that don't exist it's going to be a short lived Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Until I was like, oh, I sing in fucking keys that don't exist. So it's going to be a short-lived dream. That's hilarious. But, dude, so I would go down to these honky-tonks.

So I was down there with a buddy of mine named Downtown Bruno, who's still one of my best friends today. And a drunk walks in. He says, hey, who wants to buy a car? And I had no car at that time, no money. We just got evicted out of Hawaii. And I said, I'll buy it. And I had no money.

I said, how much? He goes, 75, 80 bucks. I said, cool. I tell Bruno, how much money you got? He goes, I only got 40. I said, give me 40. So I give it to the drunk, who was probably high, too, as well. And I said, here, I'll come back and give you the other 40.

So speaking of cool cars, it was a 77 Thunderbird. Ooh. Right? Blue. There you go. That was it. Only cleaner. That's it. So dude, check this out. So it was

a hunk of shit. This is a beautiful one here on the screen, but mine was a hunk of shit. Give the drunk 40 bucks. He, um, I said, hey, I'll come back and give you the rest tonight. I get in the vehicle. I start driving down the road. Downtown Bruno's following me in his car.

I'm like, fuck, I got my first car. You know how it is when you're a kid, right? You're like, this is it, brother. This is it. I'm driving down the road on I-65 down to Nashville, and I hear a lot of noise, some rustling. You know, in those big bodies, they have the back seat and the floor is really wide.

There was another fucking drunk on the floor. Oh, no. And he was running. I was like, what the fuck? He's in the car. He's in the car. So I drive over. I pull over.

And he's just high as fuck. He's probably a crackhead. And I was like, dude, I bought the car. You got to get out. This is my house. That's my house. He gets out. And then the next day, I go to put gas in the car.

By the way, I'm 15. I have no fucking papers. The car's probably stolen. Probably. I try to put gas in it. And the guy, the drunk, the crackhead, didn't give me the gas key. Oh, Jesus. Remember those old school cars that had the gas key?

So I ditched it at a fucking Burger King. That was my first car. You get the Chevelle that broke down the next day. You just left it there? I had no choice. Why didn't you just jimmy the thing open? Because even at that time, and I appreciate me as a 15-year-old, I'm like, you know what? I don't think the universe

really wants me to have this fucking car. And by the way, my mom's going to come. She's going to go, what the fuck is this? Where'd you get this car? Right. No insurance. Nothing. No inspection. Nothing. The first car, the first time that you could just go wherever you wanted to go No insurance. Nothing. No inspection. Yeah. Nothing. Dude. Yeah.

The first car, the first time that you could just go wherever you wanted to go, to me that was magic. I could just go wherever I wanted to go. Yeah. I just remember just getting in the car and just driving for the sake of driving. Yeah. Which I rarely do anymore, but every time I do, I enjoy it. Sometimes I like to just get in a car and just drive. Is that the best?

Oh, yeah. do i enjoy it sometimes i like to just get in a car and just drive just the best oh yeah just when you can't i remember um i had my car repossessed when i was uh 21 when i first started doing comedy i just went broke and had a uh full-on they came and they took it oh yeah they took it right in front of my house they fucking towed it and i knew i was behind on payments and uh now i didn't have a car. And I remember that feeling of like having to take the bus and having to take the train. It was such a fucking drag. And then when I earned enough money to get another car after that, it was like this giant weight got lifted off to me. Now I could just drive around. It's like the freedom of being able

to go places when you're a young kid, that's an amazing freedom. Just to be able to just go. I need to go to work. I need to go this place. I want to go to my friend's house. You can just go. Just go. It's incredible.

It's the best. It's a great feeling. Where was that at? Boston. In Boston. Yeah. And then what kind of car do you drive today like what's your go-to well I have a lot of cars um I collect cars I have too many cars but uh my car I you know I

drive my Tesla a lot I love it yeah I love that fucking thing and I drive my everybody who I talk to as a Tesla loves the Tesla fucking great yeah Jamie's got one. He's got the one I have, the Plaid. They're the shit. They're so fast. It's a time machine. How about, that's what I hear. Is there an SUV available? Yeah, they have an SUV and they have the Cybertruck that's coming out. How about a pickup truck? That's the Cybertruck. Have you seen it? No. You haven't seen

the Cybertruck? All I drive is pickup trucks. Oh, Elon brought one here the other day. It's fucking insane. Mad ass? It's insane. It's insane. It's a spaceship. It looks like something. Seeing it in real life is so fucking cool. There's something about photos are kind of, they don't, it's not, you're not in context. You're not physically there where you get to look at it.

Yeah. But when you're physically there and you look at it, you're like, oh my God, this thing is so fucking cool. Yeah. Because it doesn't look anything like any other car. That's it. Wow. It's bulletproof, by the way. It's also arrowproof.

I shot an arrow at it the other day. He told me it was arrowproof. Yeah, I pulled the fucking arrow back, and I launched it into his door. It bounced right off. Barely scratched it. You could see a very slight mark where it hit it. But he said it'll stop a 45 slug. Wow.

Why? I go, why? He goes, because it a.45 slug. Wow. Yeah, why? I go, why? He goes, because it's cool. I was just going to ask, why? Because it's cool. Like, that's literally what he did. I mean, the whole thing is made out of steel. The whole thing is made out of steel.

Is it heavy as fuck? Heavy as fuck. That's me shooting the arrow at it. Wow. So you see, that's like right when the arrow releases, it hits it. It's fucking sparking up. Look at that.

Yeah, it was, I mean, fucking just ate it like it was nothing. Yeah. It's just cool. I mean, he just decided to make it like it's, you know, just make the fucking coolest cyber vehicle that he can. Yeah. He just likes, look, he's the best kind of billionaire to me because he does wild shit. He's the best kind of billionaire to me because he does wild shit. I mean, he made the fucking tip of the SpaceX rocket pointy because he wanted it to look more like the one on Spaceballs.

Literally. I mean, that's literally what he did. He's just a wild fella. Yeah. You know, and he just decided. So idea, make it happen. It's hard. I mean, he detailed the process of going from an initial concept, making, you know, a demonstration vehicle, and then production. How difficult it is and how many things have to line up.

Right. Especially when you've got something that's incredibly innovative and complicated. I was going to say, so the innovation, the complication, the production cost on that and how heavy it is, what do you think that's going for? I think there's going to be three different tiers, he said. Yeah. There's going to be a beast mode, which is like the most insane, you know, 1,100 horsepower, three electric engines, zero to 60 in under three seconds, which is insane for like a 7,000 plus pound vehicle. Three seconds? Three seconds. Wow.

Yeah. Okay. And then there's going to be a lower tier model. Three seconds three seconds Wow. Yeah, okay, and then there's gonna be a lower tier model But even like if you get a model 3 which is like their entry-level Tesla. It's fast as fuck It's so fast. It's so competent and it's so it's a joy to drive Yeah and if you've never driven an electric car you got to get past the fact that it doesn't make any noise because a lot of People love the rumble of the v8 and all that jazz

Yeah, but if you can get past that, the sheer ability that they have to just go, just take off. Mine goes zero to 60 in 1.9 seconds. Do you miss the rumbling of the muscle cars? No, I just drive a muscle car when I miss the rumbling. Yeah. Those feel different, though, to me. When I drive those, that's like I'm on a ride.

That's like I'm on a Disneyland ride for adults.'s like whoo yeah I mean we have to go fast just a rumble and a shift in the gears yes it's glorious it's I love them those things are there in my DNA you know because when I was a boy those were the coolest cars those were the cars that everybody all my friends we all wanted we all wanted muscle cars all wanted muscle cars. Everybody wanted a 1970 Challenger or a 69 Camaro. That's what everybody wanted. So those are the cars that I really love.

What's your baby that's a muscle car? I got a bunch of them. I like them all. I have a 1970 Barracuda that's fucking insane. Color? Roadster shot built. Silver. And it's got a 900 horsepower Mercury engine in it.

Yeah, it's a racing engine that goes to like 9,000 RPMs. That's my car. Wow. Have you opened it up? Oh, yeah. Yeah? Yeah, that thing's a beast. Look at that.

That thing is really fun. That's really fun. But that was the car my mom had. My mom had a 71 when I was a kid. Oh, wow. So there's an emotional thing there. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. To me, that was always the car my mom had. My mom had a 71 when I was a kid. Oh, wow. So there's an emotional thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. To me, that was always the car.

Barracudas were just, they only made them cool for like three years. Yeah. But in those three years, that body shape is just so badass. This is what John Wick had in John Wick 4. Yeah, dude. You know, that 71 Barracuda. You know, it's crazy when you tell me that because it informs a lot in my head. Like, oh, hey, my mom had that car.

So just emotionally, there's a real emotional connection there. So growing up, I never had muscle cars in my life, and even my dad. So what's crazy is wrestlers, and I know you've had some few wrestlers on, especially my dad's era in the 80s, those guys. It was always important that the wrestlers either had a Cadillac or a Lincoln. So they're always flossing, always looking amazing, pulling up to the arena in a Caddy. That was a prerequisite.

And then we'd drive home to our fucking trailer park. But it was crazy. So growing up, for me, it was less muscle cars, even though I appreciated them in movies. It was more, dude, I can't wait to get a caddy. Yeah, caddies are great. That's the thing. You know what I mean?

It's like just you're floating. Yeah. Just floating down the road. Yes. Those were the shit. But it's also that thing, too, about just the emotional connection. And then I realized when I got my first caddy, I was like, well, hold on a second. It actually represents what we call in the wrestling business,

working the gimmick. Meaning, oh, the guy's working the gimmick. And I thought, I don't want the caddy if it makes me feel like I'm working the gimmick. Right, right, right, right. You're flossing, like almost stereotypically flossing. Yeah. Everybody does. Correct.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I went to pick up trucks. Christian Bale drives around in a 19, what's it? No, it's a 2003 Toyota Tacoma. And so that's like before. Christian Bale's worth like $150 million. No, no bullshit. Before he became.

No, no, no, right now. That's what he drives around in. 2003 Toyota Tacoma. That's what he drives. What's the emotional thing about it? Do you think there's a connection there with Christian? He says it's good. It's a good car.

It never breaks. He's like, if someone needs me to carry something, I can put it in the back. He's just fucking, he's an artist. He's just pragmatic. Just doesn't give a shit. He doesn't give a shit. He's not interested in material possessions. Of the bullshit.

Yeah, for him, I drive a 2003 Toyota Tacoma. It's a fucking bulletproof car. They never break. That's awesome, man. You get a Toyota, those motherfuckers go forever. I drive a 2003 Toyota Tacoma. It's a fucking bulletproof car. They never break. That's awesome, man. You get a Toyota, those motherfuckers go forever. I have a Toyota Land Cruiser. I have a 1995 that I drove here tonight. I love it.

Yeah. Mine's all redone. It's got like a supercharged Corvette engine in it. Oh, shit. It's all been redone. What year? 1995. So, 1995 was finally when I came out of Miami, University of Miami, and started wrestling.

Oh, no, in 96. And that was my first car, after the crackhead car, that I had to leave it. What'd you get? Land Cruiser. Oh, those are great. Used Land Cruiser. They're great. Oh, great.

They will go hundreds of thousands of miles and not fuck up. Yeah. Yeah, those cars are, they just over-engineered them. The Japanese, they know how to over-engineer a car to make it incredibly durable and reliable. Yeah. And that was great, too, because that put a lot of pressure on American automobiles. Because there's a lot of people that didn't want to buy American cars for a while in the 80s because they fucking broke all the time. Yeah.

But those Toyotas, they fucking never break. Yeah. Lexuses. I've had three of those Lexus big trucks. They go forever. They never fuck up. Those Lexuses, yes. Those SUVs those Lexus big trucks, they go forever they never fuck up those SUVs there's never a problem, electronics work flawlessly, everything's flawless

you never have an issue they're just over engineered and that's you know, it's like it's developed a loyal fan base but you know you can have a 2003 and be Christian Bale and it's not going to break you're set man there used to be a thing where they would You can have a 2003 and be Christian Bale and it's not going to break. That's your set, man. There used to be a thing where they would sort of build in the fact that you're going to have to buy a new one soon.

They wanted things to break down so that you would have an incentive to get a new one. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. There's this great Merle Haggard quote from one of his songs. I wish a Ford and a Chevy would still last 10 years like they should. It's really cool. Yeah. Yeah.

They do now. That was back then. I was going to say, they do now. They do now. And I drive Fords all the time. Yeah, they're great. Now, if you go on a ranch, almost everybody has an F-150. Oh, that's my jam.

Because those fucking things are bulletproof. F-150, 350, the Raptor. Oh, yeah. I love them. I have a TRX. That thing's the shit. It's a badass, isn't it? That thing's my jam. Because those fucking wheels are bulletproof. F-150, 350, the Raptor. Oh, yeah. I love them. I have a TRX. That thing's the shit. It's a badass, isn't it? That thing's the shit.

Mine is a Hennessey, so it's 1,000 horsepower. It's a 1,000 horsepower, because the 700 is not enough. It's not enough. Yeah. What kind of wheels and tires are you putting on? Oh, the Hennessey puts them on. He does a whole suspension change and upgrades the brakes and yeah, that's

what mine looks like. Fuck. Yeah, that's not mine. Mine's black, but it looks exactly like that. Were you opening that up? Not really. I don't really open it up. I just like that it can do it. It's just fun that it can do it. It sounds glorious. It sounds like America. You turn that thing on, it's

sounds like America, yeah. It just sounds perfect. It's the best on, it's boom. Sounds like America, yeah. It just sounds perfect. It's the best part, man, yeah. And if you're in Texas, I think you have to have a pickup truck. I think it's a law. If you're a man and you're in Texas, you probably want a pickup truck. Dude, I used to live here in Texas. Where'd you live?

Dallas. Love Dallas. I love Dallas. My old man was wrestling for a very famous family, the Von Erich family. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. And they got a big movie coming out, by the way. On the Von Erichs family, the Von Erich family. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. And they got a big movie coming out, by the way.

On the Von Erichs? On the Von Erichs, yeah, called Iron Claw. Oh, that's not the, who's starring in that? Zac Efron. Zac Efron. Zac Efron. Yeah, that is a Zac Efron movie. That's great.

Some other actors, too, I think, right, who's in it. But, yeah, that's a. That's it. Oh, okay. There they are. Official trailer. Yeah. right? But yeah, that's a... That's it. There they are. Official trailer. All right. Anyway. That's a wild family.

A wild family and just tragedy. Yeah. But my old man wrestled for their dad, which is the guy on the left. That guy looks like the dad of a bunch of pro wrestlers. Yeah, it is. Look at him. A little hard ass with his fucking tape on his knuckles. Fritz Von Erich.

Look at his knuckles. The guy's covered in sweat and he's wearing a fucking, like a regular work t-shirt. It looks like blood on it too as well. The guy in the middle, Kevin Von Erich, is the only one of the brothers that's still alive. Wow. The guy all the way on the right, Kerry, was my hero, man. And what's crazy is when my dad wrestled for Vince, I'm sorry, for Fritz Von Erich, we

lived in Dallas and every week at this famous arena called the Sportatorium, this tiny little arena, the size of like a little flea market. Those guys, I used to wrestle with them in the afternoons and just roll around the ring. Wow. It was wild. That's wild. Yeah. Anyway. How old were you when you had your first pro wrestling match? I was 24. Wow. 24 years old. So how about this? So I, again, like we were saying earlier, football for me was a ticket.

Like that was the thing that I was really going to make it. And then I didn't. And I thought I'm going to shift my focus onto something I think I'm going to love. I think it's in here, passion. It's pro wrestling. And so I'll tell you a quick story. So my coach from Calgary, I played up in the CFL. I got cut from the CFL.

He got cut in October of 95. He calls me in December of 95 and says, hey, I want you to know, even though we cut you, I want to bring you back next season. I think you've got some real potential. I want to have you back. Dude. I think you've got some real potential. I want to have you back. Dude, so I'm on the phone. It's one of those old-ass phones that are on the wall. I'm on the phone.

I see my dad over there in the chair. My dad's just an old-time grizzly wrestler. We're living in his little apartment in Tampa. My mom's over there on the couch, and I tell the coach quietly, Wally Buono's his name. Great guy. I said, hey, thank you for the opportunity.

I really appreciate it. But I'm going to have to close this chapter in my life. And he's like, I hear him kind of softly talk. OK, yeah. And I said, so thank you very much. I appreciate it. Hung up the phone. My dad said, who was that?

I said, oh, it was a coach from Calgary. He said, what do you want? Oh, he wanted to offer me another contract for next year. By the way, the contract was, I was making 300 bucks a week, Canadian. Wow. So there was no money up there, at least not for me. And he goes, so when are you going to go? My old man said this.

I said, I'm not. He said, what do you mean you're not? I said, I think I'm done. I'm done with football and the pursuit of it. It's just not in my cards. He said, what are you mean you're not? I said, I think I'm done. I'm done with football and the pursuit of it. It's just not in my cards. He said, what are you going to do? I said, I'm going to get in the business. He went, what business?

I said, the wrestling business. Dude, we got in the biggest fucking fight. Really? The biggest. He didn't want you to do it? He didn't want me to do it. But my old man was a groundbreaker. First black tag team champions in WWE.

He was jacked. Pull up my dad if you can. Rocky Johnson. I want to show you. Oh, I know your dad. Jacked, man. He was jacked. He was part of that group in the early 80s, right?

Who were like bodybuilding. Look at that shot. Dang it. That's the genetics, son. That's it, brother. That's where those genetics, son. That's it, brother. That's where those rock genetics come. That's it. Yeah.

Oh, my God. He was jacked. Yeah, and we bonded. He used to get me up and take me to the gym when I was five, sit in the corner, and that's how I got to really bond with my dad. He didn't want me to do it, and we got into the biggest fucking fight. My mom's crying. I'm crying. And he said, what do you think you have to offer?

I said, I don't know. Maybe I'm going to fucking suck, but I got to give this a shot. And ultimately, it got to a place where I said, either you're going to help train me, I'm asking you to help train me, or I'll go to somebody else. And at that time, Bret Hart and that whole family had his dungeon up in Calgary. I said, maybe I'll go to Calgary. He agreed to train me, but I realized he didn't want to see that happen

because he felt like, hey, look around. And I was one of the successful ones in wrestling, but I got a little fucking apartment that I can't even afford to pay 500 bucks a month. I don't want this for you. So we got into a huge fight. He eventually trained me. I call a guy after three months of training,

call a guy named Pat Patterson, who was Vince McMahon's right-hand man, very brilliant mind in the world of pro wrestling, first openly gay wrestler, tough motherfucker. I call him up because my parents knew him and I said, hey, Pat, this is Dwayne Johnson. Who? Dwayne Johnson. Uh, Rocky Johnson's son. Oh yeah. What do you want? Hey, I'm going to, uh, I'm trying, I'm training to get in the business. What fucking business? It's a recurring

theme. Everybody's like, what fucking business? The wrestling business. Why the fuck do you want to do that? You're to do that you're just feeling like you're just getting bombed right right left and right by these ogs so i said i'd love for you to come down and just watch me train and if i got anything to offer just let me know and if i don't just let me know that that's all i want he agreed he came down watch me train he said to me as we're training he goes can you work as a heel? Which is, as you know, bad guy in wrestling parlance. I said, sure, I'd love to.

Start the match, I'll work as a heel, more aggressive, dirty, cheating stuff, right? He goes, okay, done, done. I had trained in a boxing ring, and as you know, boxing rings are fucking hard. It's like this, right? So getting suplexed on a fucking table, so it really hurt. That's how I came up in wrestling.

He's smoking a cigarette. I said, what do you think? Do I have anything? He goes, yeah, you just keep working. Take care of yourself and leave. I was like, did I just fuck? Because he had a lot of power. He was like the vice president of WWE.

I said, okay, well, thank you so much for coming out. And I said, just keep working. He goes, just keep working. Kind of blew me off. Kept smoking a cigarette and walked off. And I was like, man, I think I really fucked things up. Or maybe I'll take his word for face value. Take it for gospel.

I'll just keep working. Little I knew, he went home and he called Vince McMahon. He said, you gotta see this fucking kid. And Vince said, who? Rocky Johnson's son. He goes, all right, let me see him. Bring him out this Monday on Raw. I'll throw him out in a match before the show starts.

Whoa. Corpus Christi, 15,000 people. Whoa. Dude. This is your first match? First match. Oh, my God. So Vince says to Pat, okay, great.

How long has he been working? He goes, he hasn't worked. He goes, what do you mean? He's never had a match. He's like, he's never had a fucking match. I'm not bringing him out. He's never had a match. He's going to stink up the ring.

Pat said, just trust me. So they fly me out, Corpus Christi, 14,000 people. I go out and have my first match, and I'm 24 years old. I have my first match. Because usually when you break in, you're wrestling at a farm or there's a barn, 10 people. 14,000 people. I wrestled the Brooklyn Brawler, who's famous in the world of wrestling. And I get backstage. Everyone's, hey, great job. Great job. Keep working. I see Vince McMahon. He says,

you did a good job, but be prepared. I'm going to give you a little bit more tomorrow. I went, great. Okay. I see Pat Patterson smoking a cigarette. Come here for a second i said yeah he goes your punches i went yeah they fucking suck it's riding me riding me riding me so that was my first match first experience man wow yeah and then he he by the way he said if you're if you have a shred of opportunity to make it in this business you're gonna have to learn a lot of shit, but learn how to throw a great punch. What was wrong with the way you were throwing a punch? It just didn't look real.

And the best of punches, like you got to be snug. You lay them in a little bit. But you pull it back a little. You pull it. Well, you can pull it back a little, but I found the best punches is you follow through, but learn how to just tap a little bit. And then, you know, that's where you learn that kind of timing. You know how some guys, they hit a rope or a piece of string or something like that? Right.

So, yeah. So I worked on the punches too as well. Wow. That was crazy. That was my first match. That's insane. What was the next match? Next match was the following night.

Whoa. So you were right into it. Right into it. What's the second match like versus the. So you were right into it. Right into it. What's the second match like versus the first? You've already done it. You've already been in front of 15,000 people. I'm feeling pretty good because, as you know, and people out there know, if you prepare, then, all right, I'm as prepared as I possibly can be.

Right. So we'll just see how it goes. So the second night, I had a little bit of confidence, but the guy they put me in there with was a guy named Chris Candido, incredible wrestler, does a lot of acrobatic stuff, flying stuff. He called the match, had me flying all around and doing all the stuff. But it was a great experience. After that, I met with Vince.

He said, you're not ready for WWE. You're not ready for the big time. I'm going to send you down to Tennessee, and that's where you're going ready for WWE. You're not ready for the big time. I'm going to send you down to Tennessee and that's where you're going to learn how to work. And it was just a smaller company, minor leagues. He said, but you're going to go down there. You learn how to cut your teeth down there, learn how to work, learn the business. And when you're ready, if you're ready, I'll bring you up. I was like, thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I went to work. So dude, as I'm leaving Vince McMahon's office,

he says, hey, by the way, I turn around. He goes, don't go down there and cut your forehead up with razor blades. I went, okay, got it. Because in wrestling, there was a time where that's how you bled, with razor blades. And he goes, I want to protect this. I said, good.

I do, too. All right. Then years later, I'm fucking doing this up in WWE. That ought to be a good feeling, though, that he had some real hope in you. That is my second match. This is insane. Right there. Look at that.

This is insane. Wow. Does it seem surreal watching this? This is so surreal, man. Look at this. By the way, you see people still coming in, right? Yeah. Empty seats.

Wow. That was it man first match memories first match wow that's crazy it was incredible and then

to go from there to where you became had to be surreal it was the most surreal thing because finally when they

called me up to WWE it was November Vince brings me in and I go to a big pay-per-view called Survivor Series because finally when they called me up to WWE, it was November. Vince brings me in, and I go to a big pay-per-view called Survivor Series. All the wrestling fans out there know what this pay-per-view is. It's November 1996. There it is.

There it is. Dude. Look at that fucking haircut. Look at you. Ray Charles cut my hair back then. I was like. Wow. So this is Madison Square Garden.

22,000 people. There's Jerry the King Lawler. The guy's a legend. Here's a little bit. Watch this. There we go. Here's a double leapfrog here. Wow.

Dropkick is coming up. A little punch. So even if you see that punch, it was a little shitty punch anyway. So that was Madison Square Garden. Sold out. Vince McMahon tells me an hour before I go out, you're going to win the whole thing tonight. Whoa.

I went, what do you mean? He goes, you're going to win the whole thing. I'm throwing you right into the fire. I'll never forget this. He said, you're either going to fucking sink or you're going to swim. It's New York City. It's up to you.

And I went, okay, great. I talked to all the guys and by the way in order to make someone like that you need the other guys right to say because i always like to say you never beat anybody right in wrestling truly beat you the guy allows you to beat him right so all those guys in that ring right there I'll forever be grateful for them because they allowed that to happen. So I win the match. New star is born in the world of pro wrestling. This rookie kid, Rocky Maivia.

This is the one, two, three here. That wrestler is Gold Dust. Comes from a very famous family. That guy was amazing. You remember him? He was amazing, man. The whole Gold Dust thing was crazy crazy so can you pause that for a second go back to my hair so i didn't know look at this pause i didn't know that i i went to the

hair person who was backstage i said can you give me something that's gonna make my hair like nice and like go down and she gave me like a thing that made it frizzy and then that's what you get by the way just a fucked up haircut on your debut. Like, luckily, the people of New York was like, we kind of like this kid. His haircut is really fucked up. You look like Kid N Play. I look like the bigger version of Kid N Play.

Look at this. Look at that thing. Fuck. That's a solid foot above your head. That's awful. Right this time, the referee's like, hey, get the fuck out of the ring. Come on, we got a show. So you.

Well, so go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, so we win this match and things are ascending. The dream is coming true. Like, this is it, man. I finally feel like this is what I was born to do. And, man, it's feeling so fucking good guys in the locker room all everybody take me under their wing there's some political bullshit that you always want to stay away from i've always stayed away from that but for the

most part everybody's supportive um because even though it's a cutthroat business backstage you still need some guys you know who are going to show you the way so i wound up becoming the youngest intercontinental champion, beating Triple H, or he let me beat him. Right. Everything was doing this. So at that time, this interesting thing was happening in the world of pro wrestling where it was fans were cheering the heels.

And anti-authority, fuck the boss, led by Stone Cold Steve Austin. Giving everybody the bird, fuck Vince McMahon. Fans were loving that, gravitating towards this. That guy drives a pickup truck, drinks a beer, tells everybody to go fuck themselves. Now, in wrestling world, that's supposed to be a bad guy, but now he's becoming a hero.

Then you have this kid who's 25, who's coming out. Here we go, you know, the fucking old school. And Vince and the company always told me, hey, you can't smile enough. I was like, what do you mean? You go out, you smile, I want to make sure everybody knows you're grateful, gratitude of attitude. And I said, no, okay.

And it started not to feel good to me, because I said, well, these nights I'm getting beat. But I still want you to smile anyway. So you have this thing happening over here, the rise of the attitude era, and then you have this kid who's just smiling away, everything is good, even when he fucking loses. And it never felt right to me here.

And then fans started to turn. Booing every night. Got to a point, dude, going into my first WrestleMania, Chicago, I'll never forget it. Every night they were chanting Rocky sucks. And I had to smile through it. The bosses were telling me, no, you gotta smile. Don't had to smile through it. The bosses were telling me,

no, you got to smile. Don't keep smiling. Ignore it. Ignore it. Just ignore it. If you're paying your hard-earned money as a fan, even though this world is fiction and it's not real,

the best of the wrestlers always came from a real place. So I was smiling away. I get to WrestleMania, Chicago, sold out. Stone Cold Steve Austin's on top in the main event. I'm defending my title. WrestleMania, 20,000 people start chanting, Rocky sucks.

So imagine that. You're a kid, 25 years old. You got the belt on you, pressure. You're in there. And the guy who I was wrestling, the Sultan, who was actually my cousin, Rikishi, from my Samoan side, he had me in a rear chin lock. Whole arena's chanting Rocky sucks. He's whispering to me, don't listen to him.

Don't listen to him. Now I'm like, fuck, this is my life now. Right. We get out of the match, I go backstage, Vince looks at me and Pat and just says, I don't know what we did wrong, but we have to make a change. I know what that means.

Two days later, I drop the belt to somebody else. Now I'm getting beat every night, getting beat every night. And then I get hurt. I tear my PCL, a wrestling guy named Mick Foley. Now by this time, it's May. Vince says, take time off, heal your knee. I don't know what we did wrong or where we went wrong, but we got to really figure things out with you. I don't know if this is gonna work out. Woof, yeah man. And this is 1997, summer of 97. Now, you'll appreciate this part.

In 97, during that time, while I was still going out to LA and working out, we were crossing all the MMA guys. Pride just opened up in Japan. So I was seeing all these MMA guys going over to Pride. You remember that time, right? I think you might have been with UFC at that time, right? Yeah. And at that time, I was making $150,000 wrestling 235 days a year.

So do the math of that and how much you're making per match. We start hearing, hey, these guys over in Pride are making $250,000, $350,000, $500,000. And I thought then, well, fuck, I don't think I'm going to make it in WWE. People are booing me out of the arenas. I can't be myself. They're telling me to fucking smile. I don't want to fucking smile. It's not who I am

I start talking to Ken Shamrock at that time who was wrestling with us I run into Mark Kerr I start talking to him he told me a little bit about pride

and I have this idea in my head well maybe I should maybe I should train to MMA and go to pride and make money real money

and then I don't have to smile I'm sure I'm going to get fucked up over there and knock one of my lungs loose, but maybe I could do something like that. Find the right coach and train. So I had this whole thing in my head. I was talking to my wife at that time.

I said, I think that's the way to go because those guys are paying real money and these fans are booing me over here for 150 grand. I get a call from Vince and he says, how's your knee? I said, it's healing up. I don't tell him about this idea after I've talked to Shamrock and Kerr and all these guys. He goes, I want to try and bring you back one time,

see how it works out. I want to turn you heel. And we have a faction called the Nation of Domination, who DC loves, by the way, it was his famous, it was his favorite, Daniel. The black militant group, he goes, I want to have you join them and we'll see how it works out. I come in, I said, okay.

But I still got this MMA thought in my head. Again, I just want to make money and I want to be myself. When I get to the arena that night, I'm I just wanna make money and I wanna be myself. When I get to the arena that night, I'm gonna join the nation. I went to Vince and at that time, there was only just two hours of live show, Monday Night Raw.

Now there's six hours of show, two different programs. So I said to Vince, hey, tonight when I go out there, could I just have two minutes on the microphone? And he's like, I don't know. He goes, it's live. All our time's accounted for, allocated. I said, I just need two minutes. He goes, why? I said, I just want to be real and just tell the fans how I feel. And I feel like I need to recalibrate things here. He said, fine. A minute, you got. Great. Get on the microphone. Now I'm walking out. They're booing me rocky sucks but now i'm a

heel with this heel group i grab the microphone and i say something like listen i'm a lot of things but sucks isn't one of them and joining the nation isn't a white thing it's not a black thing it's it's a me kicking your ass thing and i'm gonna earn this respect one way or the other dude that was the most freeing thing for me in my career. It was like, you know how you have these defining moments? Even in that one little moment, I was just fucking ripping all this open. Here I am. Now you can fucking boo me, but now watch how I respond.

I'm going to be real. Now you don't have to smile anymore. I don't fuck the smiling. I'll smile when I want to smile. Right, right, right. But now watch how I can respond. Watch my words now. Watch my actions. Dude,

the fans felt something that night. Within a month, I became the hottest heel in WWE. Wow. I think this is it. That's the gratitude I get from you pieces of crap

for all my blood, my sweat, and my tears. Look at that baby face. Look at that, dude. This isn't about the color of my skin. This is about respect. I became the youngest intercontinental Champion in WWF history. And what did it get me? In arenas across the country, I heard chants of Rocky sucks.

Well, Rocky might be as a lot of things, but sucks isn't one of them. You know, hey, that's not a black thing. It's not a white thing. And hey, let's talk about a racist faction. You wanna talk about a group that's prejudiced, let's talk about the DOA. The DOA epitomizes racism.

But hey, you know what, the hell with the DOA. I wanna make one point to all you jackass fans out there. Rocky Maivia and the new nation of domination lives, breathes, and dies respect. And we will earn respect by any means necessary. That was it, brother. And that's it. That started off the heel journey. That started it off, man. And then that was it. But. That's it. That started off the heel journey. That started it off, man.

And then that was it. But you know what it is? I look back on that and I feel like it's just a life lesson for all of us, which is the most powerful thing you could be is yourself. And even in that crazy world of fucking fictionalized pro wrestling that some people love, people don't that idea of yeah ripping it out being who you are here i am man yeah vince is just so interesting he's such an interesting guy the fact that he's driven for so long for so long this guy's been just fucking getting after it for so long and just lives and breathes this idea of crafting narratives and figuring out who's the good guy and who's the bad guy

and how to set up a storyline. And paying attention to what's happening politically, what's happening, tapping into that, trying to always have his finger on the pulse of what's happening. I can see how he tried the thing about you smiling all the time. You got a great smile, friendly, good-looking guy. Why not? Have a smile.

It's smile. See if people like it. And you know what he said? He goes, I'm going to give you a push, but I want to make sure if you smile, then people will know you're grateful. And I was like, okay, I get the conceit of that. Right. But there's other ways I think I can be grateful because otherwise

I'm coming across as being a phony and that's just not who I am. So, by the way, years later or even months later, I mean,

he admitted, he said, I totally get it now, I understand. Did Japanese pro wrestling come out of American pro wrestling or was it a separate thing that evolved on its own?

I think it was a separate thing that evolved on its own. Well, I think everything evolved out of American wrestling that started off originally, started off in the carnivals, started off in catch wrestling and things like that, which eventually evolved to one of MMA techniques. So the carnivals, for people who don't know, literally they'd have traveling carnivals where someone would take on anyone in the crowd. That's right. And these were real wrestlers, real catch wrestlers who knew submissions and they would pin guys and get them in ankle cranks.

Oh, yeah. And so the thing that started going sideways, which required a Vince McMahon type, oh, wait a second, we're not doing this right. Because these guys who were just these fucking badasses, you know, they go to the carnival, you know, 10 bucks, five bucks. You come in and try your luck. If you could beat the champion, the champion beat the shit out of all of these guys. But every once in a while, you got a guy who came in out of the blue off the street who

knew how to protect himself and hold his own, might have known a hold or two, and wind up beating the champion. And this started to happen, and before you know it, a promoter or promoters, or whether it's the fighters, whoever it was, the wrestlers possibly, but someone was like,

hold on a second, we need to work this, because otherwise we're running a risk at us getting fucked up. Like, what if we took the show on the road? Right. So that's how this idea of pro wrestling out of the carnival started to happen. It's really interesting because wrestling itself

is one of the most dynamic and difficult amateur sports. But they never really figured out a way to take actual competitive wrestling and make it a legitimate professional sport that's watched by people, which is really insane because it's so exciting. So many people don't play tennis, but they still enjoy watching tennis. That's right.

How is it that wrestling never got to that place? And I think it's probably because of the carnival wrestling, pro wrestling became a thing that everybody kind of knew was entertainment yes and it became all these characters and killer kowalski and all these guys that were like you know i'm gonna rip his throat out and shit down his neck and everybody yeah and the crowd goes nuts yeah and to try to have just actual like freestyle wrestling become a sport where you're competing for cash prizes like you would do with tennis or something else. I never made it there, which doesn't make any sense to me because so many people wrestle. So many people appreciate wrestling.

Wrestling is the cornerstone of MMA. It's one of the most important. I think the most important. Because if a guy is a kickboxer and he doesn't know how to wrestle, wrestlers are just going to take him down and beat the fuck out of him every single fight. Every time. Wrestlers can decide whether the fight stands or goes to the ground because once they grip you, you ain't doing shit. That's right. You're going to get ragdolled.

That's just a fact. And for whatever reason, boxing has a legitimate professional application. There's even professional karate. There's all these different things. But wrestling as a competition, an actual athletic competition, never took traction professionally. No, it didn't. And as you were saying, I think the cachet in the entertainment value just started to become more appealing, I think, to people. And if you think about it, back in the early 1920s and 30s. And at that time, fucking times were tough.

And people were trying to stretch the dollar. What do I want to go see? I want to go see this wrestling event. It feels like, plus those matches, they would work those matches, whether they're fucking an hour, hour and a half, like long matches too as well. Crazy. But I will say one of the most important elements, which I know you'll appreciate, and a lot of MMA fighters appreciate, is the, as you say, wrestling's a cornerstone of MMA, but also for decades and decades and decades,

and even still today, having a great base of wrestling is important. Even though there's antics and showmanship and this guy's jumping off this thing and going to the building and bringing the car in and doing all this shit. There's still the basics of wrestling is always very important because, as you know, with catch wrestling, like it taught a lot of wrestlers and myself included because I came up old school to have real respect for the holds. And to be able to get out of holds, people in holds know how to work them or know how to apply them where you fuck someone up if you had to so i always appreciate that about the basics of pro wrestling did you ever amateur wrestle so dude yes so especially in pennsylvania i was i got there in allentown the whole area in Pennsylvania. You know, like they're great wrestlers coming out of Pennsylvania and Ohio. But I love pro wrestling.

So I was 15 years old. Wrestling coach who was also the football coach was like, hey, why don't you come out for wrestling? You come from a wrestling family. I'm like, yeah, great. I had this thought in my head. I'm going to fucking kill this. I've already got my – because my dad was working my ass out on the mats when I was five, right?

And the Von Erichs were working me out when I was five, right, so I had this base, holds, lockups, everything. And my first wrestling practice, I was like, fuck, this is the most boring shit I've ever felt in my life. And I told my guys who I was, I was like, guys, I don't, because I was just so now conditioned. Now, of course, it's the hardest fucking sport out there.

It's the hardest sport. Hardest fucking sport. I have so much respect for it. But you know what it was? It was just me at 15. Dude, I love the pile drivers. Right. I love the bad guys.

I want to be a pro wrestler. I get it. I get it. Yeah. It would have been an interesting turn of events if you wound up going to Pride. Oh, my God. Did you have an idea where you were going to train? I had no idea.

I was just – I felt like I'm spinning here. Did you have any experience in striking? A little bit. Very little. My dad was a great amateur boxer. He sparred with Foreman a few times, sparred with Ali. That was a little bit more of a show. Great amateur, golden gloves in Canada. He was a badass. So he was teaching me how to hit at a young age, heavy bag, speed bag, things like that.

I had a little bit. And I felt like I've always been very coachable in whatever it is that I did, whether it's football, wrestling, track, whatever it is. So I felt like, hey, I'm going to go into this if there's a shot at this and I could go to Pride and make money. By the way, I just, I had this thought of Pride because it felt like, oh, those guys there, they're making money. They're putting on these big shows. There's 20, 30,000 people in these shows. This looks incredible. And not only that, but then I think when you're talking to guys and they're in it and they're saying yeah you could do it you could do it well you know um Shamrock was very smart by the way which I really appreciate about him and at that time we were

wrestling each other every night so I got a chance to get to know him very well and work out with him and he was just like you might just stick with this first. Like, there's a real shot here. Like, you got something here. Stick with this. And if you remember, he started in pro wrestling. Yep. And then went over when you were there, right, in the early days of the UFC. Yeah, he was dominant in MMA in the early days.

He was one of the first guys to figure out conditioning. His gym, the Lion's Den, was notorious for being absolutely brutal with their strength and conditioning routines. Yeah. They would put people through a fucking gauntlet to join that team. And it was one of the most difficult teams to join. They were like legendary sessions that they would put you through.

They would try to break you. Yes. And he would just try to let you know the worst thing you want to be in a fight is tired. And you are going to get tired as fuck training with us so that the fight is gonna be easy easy Yeah Wow, and they developed some amazing fighters so many the early days of MMA his brother Frank Yeah, one of the very best He was one of the very best complete MMA fighters in my opinion the first truly complete MMA fighter

We saw and a guy with insane cardio. Insane. And that was one of the things about Frank, is that he could just fucking go forever. Yeah. And he, like, when he beat Tito Ortiz, he beat Tito was much bigger than him, stronger than him, and he just overwhelmed him with volume and cardio, and eventually beat his ass.

I remember that, yeah. And that taught Tito a giant lesson, too. And he was in crazy shape, too. Crazy shape. Both of them. Jacked. Jacked. Frank and Ken. Yeah he was in crazy shape, too. Crazy shape. Both of them. Jacked. Yeah. Frank and Ken.

Yeah, and Frank was fighting. I mean, he had been training for like a year and a half, and he was fighting in Japan. Yeah. I mean, just insane. Insane. But he was just a quick learner and just fully committed. And by the time he became UFC champion, I mean, he just had an arsenal of skills. He was the first truly complete MMA fighter. And people, for whatever reason, they forgot how good of skills. Yeah. He was the first truly complete MMA fighter. And people, for whatever reason, they forgot how good he was.

Yeah. But he was, in my opinion, the first real complete, fully well-rounded submission artist. He could knock you out. He was a dog in a fight. Just incredible conditioning, built like a god. He was the first. He was the first. Let me ask you this about these guys.

Say, for example, to take Frank Shamrock, Ken Shamrock, I love that guy, Mark Kerr, who I've gotten to know very well. Do you think these guys, I don't want to say were they ahead of their time because they were all founding fathers. Yeah, they were pioneers. Pioneers, man. How do you think those guys would fare today, even with the insane mindset that those guys had?

I feel like with the different kind of coaching, how they were coached back then, I feel like they would still dominate. I feel like all champions have a quality that in any era, dependent upon the skill level of that era, they would rise to whatever that skill level is. Yes. What's going on today is you've got guys with one, two fights in the UFC that are elite fighters. They might have 30 amateur fights, 11. Yeah.

You're getting these guys that are competing now that are first fight in the UFC. They're world class. You see like how smooth and technical they are. You're like, Jesus Christ, these guys are so good. Back then that wasn't the case. So you could get away with a lot more and you didn't have as high a bar to aspire to. But champions rise to the level of competition that's around them. That's right. And I think guys like Frank Shamrock or Ken Shamrock or Hoyce Gracie,

they would rise today. They would all rise today because they're champions. There's a mindset. That's right. They would just have to do things differently, and they would have to check leg kicks. In what way? They would have to know every aspect of it.

Like Hoyce in the beginning, very little striking. He would just kind of throw kicks just to try to get a clinch and get a hold of you and his jiu-jitsu was so Superior to everybody's that once he got you to the ground you were fucked. Yeah, but that's not good enough today Yeah, like now everyone's a black belt in jiu-jitsu now Everyone knows how to move on the ground now everyone knows how to defend and everyone has nasty stand-up and you have to have everything Today, but hoist would have developed that. He's a champion. There's a mindset of someone who can win one of those gigantic tournaments that he won like in the early days.

He's fighting guys 270 pounds. When he fought Dan Severn, Dan Severn was giant. He catches him in a triangle. Hoist is a champion. And multiple fights a night. Multiple fights a night. Multiple fights a night. Yes.

Champions are champions. And the thing is, the level of competition today is so high that it's like there's more required of everyone. But I feel like champions are a very unique breed of individual. And champions would rise in any era because they would figure out what they need to do in accordance to, like, what's the competition and who's around them, and they would rise to that occasion. That's right. That's what I think. It's the capacity that they have. Yeah, they have.

And back then, nobody knew. I mean, Marco Huas was the first guy to show us leg kicks. We were like, Jesus Christ, look at this guy. He's just chopping at Paul Varlin's legs. Yeah. Marco was like 220 pounds, and Paul Varlin's the polar bear. He was huge. He was fucking huge.

He was like 300 plus, and Marco's just kicking his legs, kicking his legs, and eventually the guy collapses, and we're like, oh, my God, you can kick the legs. And then it became a thing where everybody started kicking legs. And then Pedro Hizzo comes around, and he's the most devastating leg kicker. And there was these guys that learn from what they're seeing around them. And you see that now. We were talking about the calf kick. Relatively new thing in MMA, but it's devastating.

And everyone does it now. And if you don't know it and you don't know how to check it, you're fucked. One or two kicks to the calf and your leg's useless. And done, right? Foot goes numb. Yeah, your leg doesn't move. You can't stand on it right. So you're compromised.

And so all your balance is on your left leg now because your right leg's fucked. So you switch stances and you put your left leg forward. Now that gets kicked. And you're trying not to show your shit. Exactly. You're trying to keep a poker face. Let me ask you this. Do you think it ever goes back to at any point where it's different weight classes against each other?

It could. Some wild organization in Russia I'm, is doing that right now. There's always someone who's trying. Japan did a lot of that. They had some crazy freak shows. That was the thing about Japan. They loved to put Bob Sapp, 350 pounds of solid muscle, and they put him against Minotauro, who's the champion,

who was like 220 natural. But Minotauro, who's the champion. He was like 220 natural, but Minotauro won. It was one of those cases where jiu-jitsu prevailed over a larger, scarier opponent. But there's a moment in that fight where Bob Sapp, at the beginning of the fight, pile drives Minotauro. I remember that. And he fucked his neck up for years. His neck was probably never the same again after that fight.

Wow. Bob Sapp was huge. I played against Bob Sapp. In football? Yeah. Yeah, he was giant. that fight. Wow. Bob Sapp was huge. I played against Bob Sapp. In football? Yeah. Yeah, he was giant. Fucking giant. Giant.

Like a cartoon. He didn't even look like a real person. And the body. Yeah. It was insane. 370 with abs. Yes. Yeah, you would see him and you would go, what?

Like when he was across the ring in Pride, that's what they loved. They loved that freak show aspect of it. That Bob Sapp standing over there just not even looking like a human being, looking like a character in an Avengers movie. Look at the size of him. This is the round one. So this is Bob Sapp. So Minotaur shoots for a shot. Bob Sapp picks him up, drops him on his head, bro, on his fucking head.

I mean, insane. And Minotaur's got to be in agony right there. He's going again. Yeah, but he got a hold of the leg this time to stop that. But, I mean, it went back and forth, and then Minotauro, he hits the switch, and he eventually gets on top of Bob Sapp at the end of the fight and gets him in an armbar. But it was a grueling encounter. Yes.

He spent a lot of time on his back getting beaten up by this enormous, super powerful dude. Incredible. And then did Bob gas out? Yeah, Bob g out yeah i mean bob was so big i mean the cardiovascular requirements of someone who's that big i mean jesus christ but also minotaur jiu-jitsu was next level yeah yeah just super next level he was really one of the first brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts to have an elite guard so like when you were on if you were on top and he was on his back you were in still dangerous waters yes because this guy was just an elite black belt

in jiu-jitsu and for jiu-jitsu when he caught him in this arm bar it was the biggest win ever i remember me and my friends after coming back from that yes me and my friends are watching this and when he catches him in this arm bar and he eventually gets it, we fucking jumped up and cheered. Because like, fucking jujitsu. Yeah, look at these tapping.

Right away, yes. And we're like, no way. He did it. He fucking did it. He was our hero. He was the jujitsu hero. Really?

Yeah, Minotaur Noguera was the hero. For sure. Wow. Because he represented jujitsu against the worst case scenario. A fucking super athlete. Yes.

A person that didn't even look like a person. Just dumped you on your fucking head, by the way. A massive guy who was battering him, was beating him up and slamming him on the ground. And he prevailed with skill. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like Minotauro.

That guy would be a champion today. He'd be a champion in any era. Yes. Just champions. Yes. Fedor would be a champion in any era. There's guys like that that are just, they're special. They're special people.

Did you wish that he had his run in UFC? A hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent. What happened there? I don't know. There's a lot of different versions of the story. Yeah. There's a lot of characters in Russia that were connected to Fedor that wanted, they

had some heavy requirements of what, you know, they wanted from the UFC, and the UFC wasn't willing to give it to them. Sure. It got pretty testy. It got dangerous. It got, you know, there's some real people over there. Yes.

Some real dudes. But, you know, I feel like that's, it reminds me, that's just, that's the fight business. That's really the fight business for Russia, too. Yes. I mean, these are hard men. And Fedor was the hardest. That motherfucker never changed his expression. He was beating people into a bloody pulp and he looked like he was sipping tea.

The same. Yes. Yes. He was a special guy. That mentality, man. Oh, my God. He was a special guy. He fought Kevin Randleman.

And Kevin Randleman suplexed him on his neck. Just threw him through the air and slammed him on his neck. And within moments afterwards, Fedor had him in an armbar. Moments afterwards. Just a machine. He was a machine. Stoic.

Stoic and deceiving. Deceptively, right? Because even Kevin Randleman, just the body. You know these guys who look like a gazillion dollars. A god. A god. And you have Fedor.

Just had like a fucking sloppy body. Looked like he just ate a bunch of god and you have fedor who just had like a fucking sloppy body looked like he just ate a bunch of potatoes and drank beer big old roll of fat just fucked everybody up so here's the fight and you look at fedor that does not look like the best fighter in the world when you look at his body unbelievable but if you look at his movements yes movements were fucking perfect yes he had such good striking too and he was so elite on the ground. Yeah, and he was one of the first You know guys who could do everything ground and pound stand up blast you standing up you there. Here's a slam This is just the beginning. This is the beginning of the fight But at one point in time

Fedor figures out a way to get up and then random and suplexes him and when he suplexed him right here right on his neck Boom, I mean, right on his neck. Boom! I mean, but look, Fedor just immediately rolls. Yep, ate it. He's good. And so they get into this scramble. And this is back when you could throw knees to the head on the ground, too, prided.

But look, you reversed him. Show how you reversed him because it was fucking beautiful. Watch this. So Randleman, who is an elite wrestler, you got to imagine what kind of skill it takes to be able to reverse a guy like that. Yes. You know, a real elite college wrestler. You see that fucked up leg? Yeah.

See the veins on his legs? That's from a fight with Pedro Hizzo. Pedro Hizzo would kick your leg so hard that all your arteries would burst. And that's what happened. And guys would get compartment syndrome in their leg, where their leg would fill up with blood. And it would take them like six months to recover from a Pedro Hizzo fight. Wow. Yeah, Pedro Hizzo was the scariest fucking leg kicker that ever fought in the sport.

And look at this, immediately, locks up a Kimura and that's it. That's it. That's a wrap. That was Fedor. And look, never changes expression. Look at it, even when he wins. Nothing. Nothing. No yeehaw, no fuck yeah. Look at this. Look at it, as he's getting slammed. I mean, right on his fucking neck, man.

And then catches him in the Kimura. I mean, that was Fedor. He figured out a way to win against anybody. And for a period of time, he was the greatest ever. I don't know. You've got to look at guys when they're at their best. And Fedor in pride was one of the greatest of all time, if not the greatest heavyweight ever.

Yes. Yeah. He was a monster. I always wish he had that run. I do too. Him versus Brock Lesnar would have been fucking insane. It would have been fucking insane. Him versus Cain Velasquez would have been fucking insane. When Cain was at the top, Cain's another one. There's an argument when Cain was at his very best, like when he beat Brock, when Cain was just destroying everybody, there's an argument that he's the greatest. But his run was less because he was so tough that he broke his body. He was just so mentally tough.

He just fucking pushed so hard. In terms of training. Yeah, tore his knees his shoulder his back everything everything just started giving out and then he got to a certain point in his life where he just like his body just didn't perform anymore yeah and that was it i mean he has multiple surgeries he had a bunch of things wrong with him and he just couldn't train like he used to be able to train anymore and that was was it. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that with a guy like that. How much of that is coach compared to him? I mean, ultimately he'll make the decision to train, I believe, and push himself. But at what point you think coaches step in and say,

it's hard to say because Kane is another one that was so stoic and he would never complain. And the, also the training sessions. Yeah. And the and the training says I mean him and DC were just going to war all the time and aka was just this talent filled shark tank of a bunch of assassins just beating the fuck out of each other and just all iron sharpens iron and you're gonna get banged up you're gonna get banged up in training you're gonna get banged up in these fights against guys like you know these fucking huge super athlete fighters you're gonna get banged up yeah and but in that time when he like when he beat minotauro jesus christ this is this is like when you could see the levels of competition as they pull up um cain velasquez versus minotauro. Because this, in my opinion, this is prime Cain Velasquez when he just seemed unstoppable.

Because he was a heavyweight, but he had the cardio of a welterweight. Yeah. And he had speed and precision, and he never was out of position. Everything he threw, he just threw precise and perfect and technical. And he was so fucking game. And when you watch, look at these leg kicks. I mean, he was so fucking game. And when you watch it, look at these leg kicks. I mean, he was so fucking smooth. Everything he did was precise.

Like the way he's throwing these combinations and head kicks and his defense is on point. Kane was a monster, man, in his time. And like in this time, like this Kane Velasquez, I put this Kane Velasquez against anybody that's ever lived. Yeah. And I would love to see it. He was so fucking good. that's ever lived. Yeah. And I would love to see it. He was so fucking good.

He was so good. Yeah. And then he lost to Junior Dos Santos, but what a lot of people don't know is that was like the first fight on Fox. It was like this big, big fight. I remember that, yeah. And Cain tore his knee before that fight.

His knee was fucked up. Look at this. Look at that combination. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's Cain. That was Cain at his best. That's the fucking, that's elite Cain. Look at that combination. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's Kane. That was Kane at his best. That's the fucking elite Kane. He was a monster.

Monster, man. Everybody's terrified of that guy. He never got tired. They call him Cardio Kane. Never got tired. Yeah. Never got tired. And he could just go and go.

I remember that. Arizona, I want to say. Arizona State, or he came out of. Yeah. Arizona State, then went to AKA to begin his MMA career, and just was a monster. And was like nothing anybody had ever seen. The guys would get this thousand-yard stare in their eyes when they'd be in the second round with him. They couldn't believe they had four more rounds to go.

This is fucking insane. And he's not breathing heavy? No, just fucking marching you down, beating your ass. Who's next big heavyweight star? Tom Aspinall, the guy who just won the interim title. He's phenomenal. And he is, again, the next advancement of the evolution of the sport. How so?

Well, because he can do everything. That guy's got elite jujitsu. He's got elite takedowns. His striking is outstanding. I mean, he knocked out Sergey, who's the scariest fucking striker in all of MMA. Yeah. And he knocked him out in the first round. And the way he did it was just picture perfect.

And he did it with a fucked up back. He fucked his back up and wasn't able to train. He fucked his back up in one of the sessions when he was because he only got the fight call two weeks before i was just gonna say right like it's just he didn't even train early he didn't even train he couldn't train he couldn't train couldn't train so he just went out there and fought he just said let me back let my back heal up i'm fit enough yeah i'm in shape enough i'll do whatever i can do in training but he couldn't wrestle yeah he couldn't you know couldn't do much sparring,

his back was fucked up, so he had to kind of let it heal as much as it could in like 10 days, and then go out and fight the fucking scariest guy in the sports. Fucking crazy, did you call that? Yeah. I know you called it, but did you have him? Oh no, I had no idea, I had no idea.

Both of those main events, I had no idea. It was like, you couldn't, Sergei could connect on anybody and put them to sleep. He just knocked out Derek Lewis in one round and knocked out Taito Iwasa in one round. He was a monster. And so you watch Sergei and you go, I don't know. You watch Aspinall. I knew Aspinall was going to have a speed advantage because he's faster than any heavyweight. And that's something that his coach drilled into him when he was young. Speed. Like, be fast. Like, you've got to be fast. That's what's going to separate you from everybody else.

Speed kills. Speed. Yeah. And he's a giant dude, 260 plus pounds, but he moves like a fast young guy. Yeah. Like a light guy. And so that's what's, and he's also just so well-rounded. And he's just beginning.

Yeah. I mean, that was really the first big test of his career. He had fought some good guys up until that fight. Incredible, yeah. But that is the first guy where you were like, boy. Every fight before that, Aspinall was a heavy favorite in my eyes. Yeah. And then that fight, I was like, whew, I don't fucking know.

I don't know what's going to happen here. Yeah. So for him to do that, what he did, and to perform that way under those situations, in that circumstance where your back is fucked and you can't really train. Incredibly impressive. That's incredible, man. But I want Ngannou back. That's what I want. That's

the champion. I mean, dude. That's the champion. Fuck. And that guy, he relinquished his crown. And what he did with Tyson Fury is probably one of the greatest performances in combat sports history. Ever. Ever.

Yeah. To have that guy go over there with no one gave him any chance. Terrence Crawford was sitting across where you are right now and he's like, zero chance. He's going to get knocked out. Zero chance. And then when he dropped Tyson Fury in the third round and then was battering him in the eighth and then at the 10th round at the end of the fight, you're like, I don't know who won. I don't know what's going to fucking happen here.

I don't know who won. And one judge saw it for him. And one judge saw it for, and the other two judges saw it for Fury. But it was that close. It was that close where you, and a lot of people are saying that this puts Tyson Fury's argument of being one of the greatest of all time in jeopardy. Because now people are saying, well, hey, man, you got dropped and brought to a questionable decision by a guy with zero boxing matches, which is crazy.

Yeah. But that's the kind of freak that Francis is. Francis is, man. He's a freak. He's the freak of all freaks. If you're, and you've seen Francis up close. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the thing. And so you know the kind of freak he is. If you're him and if you're his people, what's that? What's his next move? Get as much money as you can. Of course. This is what I think they should do. Put him in with a heavyweight boxer that he can beat that has a good record, like someone who's in the argument of like a top 10.

And if Francis knocks that guy out, then if they can try to coax Tyson Fury into a rematch, that would be fucking bananas. And I think Saudi Arabia has enough money to actually pull that off. I think so too. I think so too. They might be able to fucking bait Tyson in with some just fucking life-changing generational money. So here's the thing about Tyson, who I love and respect. I love that guy.

I love that guy too. There's two train of thoughts here. It's either, well, I don't actually need to fight him again. Right. There's that train of thought. But then I wonder if it goes back to the champion mentality that you talked about is, as a champion, I need to fight that guy. It may be that. Do you know what I mean?

He is certainly a champion. And he's certainly one of the greatest of all time. And I think he certainly underestimated francis yeah and i i don't know how he trained for francis he said he trained as hard as any fight ever which is possible because he always looks that way he always like like fedor he has like this very disarming body and he jokes around about it look at this fucking belly and he's a character. I love the guy to death. I think if he knows now what he's up against and he just boxes, just boxes, with a real understanding of the consequences of making a mistake,

I think it's probably a different fight. If he doesn't engage and just uses that beautiful jab and movement and stays away from him and just does what he does when he's at his very best. And one of the things you see from Tyson Fury is when he does have a rematch, he performs so much better. Like the Deontay Wilder fight is a perfect example. First fight, down to the wire, gets dropped in the last round. It's a draw. Second fight dominates.

Third fight dominates. And was put through adversity. Dropped. I mean, I think he got dropped four times over the course of their three fights Yes, by the hardest fucking one punch knockout ever man Deontay's got Lightning in his hands. He just just electrocute people

Deontay's he's the greatest knockout artist ever if you look at his career. It's like mostly knockouts That's it right and also Yeah. And also, too, I feel like tall. So as you're tall, your muscles get elongated, as you know, and then it becomes deceptive. What's a leverage thing, too? Yes. Because he's got broad shoulders and insane speed. Yes. So when he drops that hand on you, it's just when he turns it over at the end with all that length and torque and leverage.

Yes, yes. He's like nobody. Like nobody. He just starches people. Yeah. I always go to the Luis Ortiz fight. When he cracked him in the head and Ortiz gets up and he's like, what the fuck? He hit him on the forehead.

Yeah. Hit him on the forehead and just shut the lights out. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Deontay, what Teddy Atlas calls it, the eraser. He's like, any mistakes that he has, he just erases them with one shot. And it's true. You can win every round with Deontay, and you just zig when you should have zagged and

blap. And he almost did it to Tyson Fury. I was going to say. He did. He almost did it. If it any other man, it might have been the end. But Tyson is just so game. He's just such a fucking warrior.

He figured out a way to get up and hold. And he got dropped again. He got back up again. And then wound up stopping him after that. That's right. Yeah. And an amazing, glorious finish to the fight that cemented him as one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. Of all time.

I think really to get it back, to really get that reputation back, he should fight Francis. I really think he should. But he probably wants to fight Usyk first, unify the title, and then if they come to him with just gigantic banana money, just cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, like what?

How much? Yeah. $200 million? Back what truck up? Fucking crazy like that? Yes. He might just go, all right. Which you know the resources

are there for that. Oh yeah, they can do whatever the fuck they want. They got, they got, fuck you, fuck you,

fuck you money. All of you money. Fuck everyone money. They got fuck the planet money. Dude. And I like that they're putting together that fight.

I like that they put together that fight and I like that they're putting together a bunch of other fights. They're trying to do a lot of crazy shit over there. I love it. Good.

Throw that money out there. Absolutely, man. And I love it for the athletes because they're going to get paid. Love it for the athletes to get paid. And that's why I think with Tyson, it just feels like just in here, it's a fight that I need just in terms of as champion but mentality. Yeah. The champion that's in here, the mana.

I need to do that again. Well, right now, it's got to be in his head. I mean, he's a sensitive guy. I'm sure he's responded to all the criticisms, probably eaten him up, probably drives him nuts. And I bet you'll see an entirely different Tyson Fury in this next fight. In this next fight, you will see a focused fucking assassin.

But he's fighting the craftiest heavyweight maybe of all time yeah usik is so slick he is i mean he's the guy who's trained by the same guy that lomachenko was trained by so he's got just unbelievable movement his angles the way he boxes his fucking feints and movement, total next level. Yeah. But he's quite a bit smaller. I mean, he's really, he was a cruiserweight and then went up to heavyweight. Yeah. So there's money in that fight, and I would hope that the winner of that fight then fights Francis.

Whether Usyk would want to fight Francis, who knows? But if Usyk wins, if he beats Tyson Fury, that's pretty incredible. Just announce the date for that fight. February 17th in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia going crazy. Yeah, there you go. That's a very, very interesting fight. Yes.

And although Usyk is smaller, man, that fucking guy is so skilled. Yeah. Those Anthony Joshua fights were insane. Insane. By the way, Tyson is like 6'9". Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Usyk is not that much shorter.

Well, Usyk is wearing shoes in there, and Tyson is not. Oh, okay. Tyson is right after the fight, and they're standing there staring at each other. Ah, okay, okay. So Tyson's quite a few. But it's also his arms are longer. Just the reach and distance is such an advantage because you could hit a guy where he can't hit you.

Yeah. But we were talking about Mike Tyson earlier, that Mike Tyson made his height an advantage. Because he would come in and bob and weave and you'd be like, oh, Jesus, where's this coming from? This fucking tornado coming at you with punches that just moved way faster than any heavyweight. I was going to say, any other heavyweight with that kind of speed, quickness? Yeah. Sure. I don't know.

I'm asking. Nobody, right? He's the fastest of all time. I feel like he's the fastest of all time. The fastest of all. You can go to Ali with his hands. I don't know. I'm asking. Nobody, right? He's the fastest of all time. I feel like he's the fastest of all time. The fastest of all. You can go to Ali with his hands. Ali had hand speed. See, Ali, there's Ali before they forced him into retirement because he wouldn't fight

in Vietnam. That Ali, if you go to the Ali that fought Cleveland Big Cat Williams, that Ali's one of the greatest of all time. I mean, the greatest fucking heavyweight in terms of movement. And he could move like Sugar Ray Robinson, but he was a heavyweight. Tall and switching stances and popping you with a jab. And you couldn't touch him. And he's standing right in front of you with his hands down.

That Ali was a different Ali. But then when they made him take three years off, Ali really didn't train for those three years. He didn't do anything. So when he came back against Jerry Quarry all those years later, he was physically soft. He didn't look the same. Pull up Ali versus Cleveland Big Cat Williams. So this is Ali Ali. And this is Ali when there was never a heavyweight like him before.

There was no one like him. And no one knew what to do. And Cleveland Big Cat Williams was a fucking killer. He was a bad motherfucker. Look how powerful he was. Serious knockout artist. And Ali would just stand right in front of him and just start tuning him up. And he just starts popping him with the jab, hooks.

And Cleveland was just trying his best to close the distance. What's happening? Is it freezing? It's a video breaking down the whole fight. Oh, I see. Look at that. It's not just the fight. So it's doing stop motion while someone's explaining stuff.

Look at that hook. Jab to the body and then the hook, and he's nowhere to be found. Catches him with the hook coming in, and then immediately off the ropes, out into the center. Right out. You just couldn't catch him. Incredible, man. He was something special, man.

And then eventually he starts tuning Cleveland up and drops him a couple of times. He knew. He knew. There it is. This is the end. And then he stands over him with his hands up. Look at this. Bang.

Bang. And then the right hand. Bam. I mean, come on, man. Nobody moved like him. No one, dude. But Tyson. Could you pull up a picture? It's different. Dwayne Johnson, Muhammad Ali. I got to show you this picture, dude. But Tyson, Tyson was different. Could you pull up a picture of Dwayne Johnson,

Muhammad Ali, I gotta show you this picture, dude. Oh. Yeah. When did you meet Muhammad Ali? When I was a kid. Oh wow. In New Zealand. I told you my dad was sparring with him.

So here's a picture of me sitting on his lap. Do you remember what year this is? Would've been 77, look at that. Wow. Isn't that cool, man? Ollie and some little girl. That's me. So, dude, how about this?

So when I started the nation turn, the heel rock, right, that you saw earlier, not a white thing, not a black thing. It's me. It's a respect thing. I started calling myself the people's champion just to piss people off. Like I'm your champion. I'm the people's champion. And the Rock is the people's champion. And we were wrestling down in Louisville, Kentucky, and Ali's family came to watch. And his wife was there. Family was a big group. Afterwards, they were waiting to say hello. Now, again, I'm going out there.

I'm grabbing the microphone. And the people's champ says, I'm just laying it all in. So when I come back, I say hello to the family, his wife. And I say, hey, I just want you to know, if you could let Muhammad know, I call myself the people's champion in a way to pay homage to him out of respect. in a way to pay homage to him out of respect, but I'm going around the country saying it and people are shitting on me. Cause that's what you want as a heel. And I said, I told his wife,

so if you could please tell him if he doesn't want me to use this, cause I know what this meant to him being the people's champion. Uh, I won't. And dude, she said, he told me to tell you it's yours. That was one message.

He told me to tell you tonight. I was like was one message he told me to tell you tonight. I was like, I got emotional. It was just incredible. He was such an important cultural figure. Oh, my God. Because he was the first boxer, the first professional athlete of the highest regard who stood up and said the Vietnam War is wrong. I'm not going to go fight some Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever did anything to me.

Didn't call me any names. I'm not going over there. That's right. I'm not doing it. And they took away Cong. No Viet Cong ever did anything to me. They didn't call me any names. I'm not going over there. That's right. I'm not doing it. And they took away his livelihood, and they did it for three years. And when he came back, he was a fucking hero, a cultural hero. My parents, who were hippies, made me—well, didn't make me, but we all watched his rematch with Leon Spinks because it was on TV. And it's like that's how much he transcended

the world of sports. He was an important figure for like the beautiful qualities of human beings. That this guy had character and stood up for something that was more important than sports and told the world, he used his platform to tell the world, I'm not gonna participate in this, this is wrong. And they took away his livelihood and when he came back,

he was a hero in a completely different way. And when he fought Leon Spinks and he beat Leon Spinks, everybody was like, oh my God, everyone was so happy. It was like, because when Leon beat him, it was like, no, no way. Then he had the rematch and he beat Leon and it was like, oh my God, he won. Like the world was better. You felt it.

Yeah. You felt it. And there's a guy, as you said, who stood up and also, it's one thing if you stand up, but it's another thing, I stand up and the willingness to know I'm going to lose it all. I can lose it all. Yeah. And he did for that moment. He tried to take it all away.

Also what I thought about a lot when I was worried about brain damage He I thought about him a lot when I was having headaches from these sparring sessions because he was already deteriorating by then Mm-hmm You know this was you know after he fought Larry Holmes and which was a horrible fight to watch where Larry was just teeing off On him and you knew that the end was there and he fought Trevor Burbick and it's like, God, oh these are horrible fights to watch. This guy who just needs a payday and can't let it go and he was our hero and now you're watching the worst cliched ending to a great career.

Which is a great boxer just getting beat up by the up and coming guys. It was sad. It really ruined Larry Holmes' career because people hated Larry after that. And Larry was one of the greatest of all time. Greatest of all time, man. Out of Easton, Pennsylvania. Easton Assassin.

Yeah, Easton Assassin. One of the best jabs of all time. And just doing his job. One of the best jabs of all time. So not only were people hating him back then, but Tyson was watching that fight. Remember that? And Tyson watched that, and he knocked out his hero. He beat his hero.

Tyson already made that promise. I'm going to come back, and I'm going to... Well, there's a famous moment where Ali comes up to Tyson before he fights Larry, and he says, get this motherfucker for me. Like you said... In the ring. Yeah, he just walks up to him and says, get this motherfucker for me. Like you said, in the ring, yeah he just walks up to you and says,

get this dude for me. Wow. And Tyson was like already just so charged up. Just already, I mean this was like a legacy making fight. And when he knocked out Larry Holmes, it was like, everybody was like, oh my God, no one's ever knocked out Larry. No dude.

That was crazy. And he was a big heavyweight. Yeah, he was a big heavyweight. Here it is, he comes up to him and is like, look at this, get this That was crazy. And he was a big heavyweight. Yeah. Yeah. He was a big heavyweight. Here it is. He comes up to him. He's like, look at this. Get this motherfucker for me. Wow.

Look at that. Look at the nod. The light nod. And look at Tyson. He's fired up. But I'll tell you something, man. Larry was older then. He was an older fighter.

Yeah. You going to let it go? Wow. Yeah, sure. Larry was an older fighter. Yeah. You going to let it go? I'm not going to let it go. Larry was an older fighter back then. Back then, this is 36, in the age of no testosterone replacement. Yeah. Larry had taken some time off and came back for this fight.

He was still very, very good, but Tyson was on another level. Oh, another level. He was just the new destroyer. He was the new Sonny Liston. He was the new destroyer. He was the new Sonny Liston. He was the new Joe Lewis. He was the new Jack Dempsey. Combined. He was just something special. Yes.

And combined also because of his trainer had all the videos of those guys. So he watched all those guys and studied their movement. Cuss and Jim Jacobs, who was his manager. Jim Jacobs, who's a boxing historian but mike tyson was just something different man he was just something different and when he starts battering larry and beating larry up i mean it was just even in body language you could just tell yeah i mean it was just seek and destroy yes you know and larry any mistake that he made was met with hands that were moving far faster than any boxer he'd ever faced before. But Larry came out in this round and showed that jab.

This is round three. Yeah. This is where you see Larry, like when Larry was like 25, he would have given anybody fits. Yes. But then Mike catches him, boom, and drops him. And Larry's in like real trouble there. And I remember watching this. I was a kid. I was like, oh, my God, he's going to get him. I can't believe he's, and drops him. And Larry's in real trouble there. And I remember watching this. I was a kid.

I was like, oh, my God, he's going to get him. I can't believe he's going to get him. Nobody liked Larry Holmes. It was so fucked up. He never got his just due. And then Tyson catches him right here with his right hook. Boom. It's kind of like over the top of the head.

And then when Larry gets up, he's in real trouble. And then Tyson closes the show. Yeah. Larry, he was so hurt. It was so bad. Like right there, that overhand, right? Yes, yeah. I mean, he's just fucked. You know it's coming.

And when Mike is coming at you, the punches are coming so fast, you can't anticipate what angle they're coming from. Boom, and here's the right hand that comes here. Boom, and then the second one. Boom, that was it. Out cold. Oh, man. That was the legacy-making fight for Mike Tyson. That was the one one. That was it. Boom. That was it. Out cold. Oh, man.

That was the legacy-making fight for Mike Tyson. That was the one where everybody's like, God damn, he might be the greatest ever. And he still might be the greatest ever. I think Tyson in his prime, damn, I put him up against anybody. Anybody that's ever lived. Yes. In his prime. I mean, you can't look at Tyson when he lost and Tyson later in his career.

I feel like you can only keep up those RPMs when you're fucking there after it for so long before Guys, it's a way to be and they lose their body doesn't perform the same anymore. They're too many wars Whatever it is, but if you look at the Tyson when he was storming the gates when he was in his prime Like no one ever and And motivating, too. Oh, my God. I remember watching his fights and just ready to fucking run through a wall and train anything I could do, dude. Yeah, do anything.

You're just like, what? How is it possible that a person could be that proficient at something? Dude, so at about the time when I was my first amateur wrestling days in high school and all that, again, as you're 15, 16, you're looking for a way what's my thing and you're just thinking about money like i want to make money and so i was kind of had a connection to boxing my old man box we watch all the fights tyson michael spinks 87 i think or 88 remember that yeah and i think that spinks was champion spinks was uh he was the

light heavyweight champion and then he beat lar Larry Holmes, won the heavyweight title. I think he had one version of the heavyweight title. I think it was a unification fight. Is that correct? It was the one in like 90 seconds. Yeah. Right? And I remember, and at that time Mike was coming up.

Here it is. Yeah, this was. I think Mike said that he fought this with a venereal disease don't we all but you know sphinx was just terrified going to this fight you you saw that in their face off too you saw it right it was just an execution i mean tyson was just and michael was really he just drops him to the body there Michael was really a light heavyweight I mean he blew up he put on some weight to make it up to heavyweight, but he just never had the kind of power He was an amazing light heavyweight, but at heavyweight. He just did not have the kind of power to in here comes the bomb about boom

Yeah, and like a ghost fucking punch it comes out of nowhere, right? Just a fucking ruthless right hand. And that was it. So, dude, so during this time in my life, I'm thinking, you know, I got an idea. Amateur wrestling I don't, I'm not jiving with. I like pro wrestling. My old man has taught me how to box just a little bit. That's what I should do. Wow.

I should box. Because at that time, my eyes were on Michael Spinks. And I used to think at that time even though I got a lot of respect for the game and I always think everybody's got a one punch chance right I was like I know I bet you I could work my ass off and in two three years with the right coaching and discipline and training

I could be up there and if Michael Spinks is heavyweight champion I got a shot I think I got a shot dude now again I'm fucking 15 right of course yeah I'm like I got a shot. I think I got a shot. Dude. Now again, I'm fucking 15. Right. Of course. Yeah. I'm like,

I got a shot. I see this fight and I went, there's no fucking way with Mike Tyson as champion that my dreams of boxing and making money would ever come true.

Yeah, where does it go? It goes to getting executed. Like if everything goes well, you get executed. If all the training goes well and the discipline, the road work, you get executed. Yeah. Yeah. There's levels.

Well, listen, brother, it's been awesome to sit down and talk to you. And you're an inspirational guy. You really are. You're a guy that just, you're just a workhorse, man. guy you really are you're you're a guy that just you're just a workhorse man and you're such a fucking expression of positive energy and in all of the things you do in life and i just appreciate you very much and i really appreciate you coming on here brother look i appreciate you thank you and uh this has been years in the making man years to make it and it was really fun to get to hang out together no cameras no bullshit oh it's great We just all got together and had a good time and worked out.

Just working out. It was fun. It was fun. Well, I appreciate all you do. Thank you. All you are. Appreciate all you do too. Appreciate the brotherhood.

We'll do it again. We'll do it again. Do it again. Thank you, buddy. Bye, everybody. See you guys.