The Joe Rogan Experience - #225 - Urijah Faber

Episode Date: June 7, 2012

Joe sits down with Urijah Faber.

Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. shot that he's got coming up in a little over a month right with henry yeah right about a month you are a busy motherfucker because i keep hearing you on radio shows i keep seeing you places i keep seeing all these interviews how much uh publicity have you done like in the last just a couple weeks oh it's been a lot and then i'm coming off the show too so i was filming for three nights living in vegas i haven't been home in four months wow god damn before that i was traveling too so it's been nutty. How difficult is that psychologically for you? I mean, it's one thing to go away for an eight-week camp, but when you're doing that show, it's like 13 weeks, right?

And then you're there afterwards doing publicity? Well, I had a trippy upbringing where structure wasn't like the thing. It wasn't like you got up at this time and the meal was at this time and this and that. It was like whenever you get it done so i'm not like uh needing to have like exact moments in the day so it works out fine for me you just accept the fact that this is what you're doing right now yeah that's what i'm doing i've been busy my whole life right just different kind of busy more money yeah it's more money it's more publicity it's better better busy yeah that

is a you know it's a funny thing that people can really learn from it isn't it you know the the attitude that you have about what you just have to do can really affect the way you feel the way your your day goes the way you interact with everybody you can do the same thing and have a great attitude about it and it really does like it's a choice that's one of the few choices in life that you get you can choose to just fucking just just gotta deal with it this is what it is not being a bitch about it yeah i mean the bottom line is everybody's got to do something during the day some people are pissed off about the little things they have to do and some people love all the shit that they have to do it doesn't matter you know it's all about how

you're interpreting it and whether you're gonna to be positive or negative about the whole thing. It's busy. I say it because I know that a lot of fighters have had problems with it. A lot of fighters get real upset when they have to do big publicity tours right before fights, especially important fights. They feel like it detracts from training. And we were talking here about you doing 15-minute runs on the treadmill and then just fucking jump in the shower. You just got sneak them in it's hard yeah that's what it takes

too you know it's just like you know just enough to make sure that i feel like crap right at the end of it right you know then that's a that's a good worthy workout and you could do that i mean i could do that in probably three minutes if i needed to take it up to like 12 and then like you know put it on incline or do whatever. I mean, you can get yourself tired and push yourself in a short amount of time. That's a crazy workout, man. It's really – it's funny. Everybody thinks you have to go to the gym and work out for an hour and a half. But, you know, you can do some crazy shit on an incline treadmill

and you're done in three minutes. Yeah. I mean, you could – if you're doing it hard enough, there's all sorts of shit you can do to get yourself exhausted and just like mentally tapped like in a short period of time. So you've got to sometimes utilize that. Yeah, so when you're on the road, you just think, okay, whatever I can get in, I get in. Do you ever do hotel workouts?

I've done some hotel workouts, but it also helps. I've got folks all over. I mean, really, if we needed to, we could go after this and go get a roll in right right or something like that and i've got guys all over all over the u.s and all over the world now where you know if i'm in town i'm like let's hey let's get a workout in hit mitts get a roll in yeah sparring i mean everyone's always down yeah that that's so true it's one of the coolest things about working for the ufc that i even get to do that like i get to train like duke rufus trained me a few times and de la grufus trained me a few times, and De La Grata has trained me a few times.

Both guys are badass. Badass. Cool dudes. That's one of the things that a lot of people don't realize about martial arts is most of the people that are good at martial arts, they went through a lot of shit to get good, develops character, and you're dealing with a majority of people who are really fucking cool you know like john hackleman cool as fuck you know what i mean so many of these guys de la grata cool as

fuck film nurse yeah just fucking real greg jackson one of the nicest guys on the planet earth just a bunch of cool motherfuckers in this game it's really amazing very few people realize it they don't the the key to having a bunch of cool people is having a bunch of people their ego in check yeah why why is there a reason especially a guy like i mean you look at duke rufus and you look at delegra you look at phil nurse and jackson all these guys and they've been there like phil's never broken his hand but he's got a lump like a mountain on his hand wow he's been in fights and and rufus is uh what's the lump from if he didn't break his hand just little uh compounds over time just built up

i mean these guys have been through wars nothing to prove right they know they're badass and and yeah they respect everyone and yeah there's the worst aspect of men is men that aren't sure of themselves and want to convince everyone around them instead exactly you know they want to be uh the the guy walks in the room and everybody cowers in fear because they're secretly in fear themselves. Exactly. Yeah. It's the weirdest thing in the world when you see a guy like that get their ass kicked.

That's right. You know? It's real gangsters don't flex much, I think they call it. They don't have to, they don't run fast because real gangsters don't have to. Real gangsters. What a fucking distorted word in the 21st century. It's become something different. It's like something's good.

It's gangster. That's all quoted from Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangster. Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangster. It's a great song. One of the best songs ever. I want to come out to that. If they would let me come out to other songs when I fight. They will only make you come out to California Kid?

I tried to do a couple of them. Dude, we got to talk to Dana and have Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangster. You come out to some old school ghetto boys. I'm going back to Cali. I was going to do Brass Monkey. That's a good one, too. Why can't you do I'm Going Back to Cali? Is it because I have to pay?

Is that it, maybe? No, they're all about marketing. I mean, that is my song. When people hear it, that's my song. Yeah, but going back to Cali would be the shit. It would be awesome. That would be the shit for this next fight. When I'm not in Cali.

Yeah. Why don't they just mash it up? Have somebody mash it up for you. I tried that, too. Dana won't let us. God damn it, Dana. We're going to have to talk to him. That's ridiculous.

Going back to Cali is the shit. Going back to Cali. Chilling. A bikini, small. Heels, tall. That's right. She said she likes the shit. Going back to Cali. Chilling. A bikini, small. Heels tall. That's right. She said she likes the ocean. That's right.

That's a classic, man. Why can't you come out to that, Dana White? What the fuck? Dude, when I first started at the WC, I wanted California love, and they would not let me come out to it. They had me come out to, I forget what I used to come out to. I was like, I want to come out to California Love and I always mix it up, right?

They wouldn't let me and then I took a stand my first Jen's Pulver fight and I told them, I'm coming out to California Love. Why did they have an argument over what fucking music you come out to? They think they know it's cool. Was this Reed? This was Peter Dropik.

Bless his heart. How dare you, Peter? Peter. He wouldn't let me come out to California 11. What the fuck? I'd probably come out. Somebody probably tells him, right? I'm sure.

I'm sure. I'm sure. But I was like, look, let me worry about what's cool for me. You guys just fucking run the cameras and shit. Well, it's sort of like become a part of your thing, though, man. It is. It's a pretty fucking dope song, too. Actually, if I had to choose between which song I like better,

I like that song better. But it would be cool to mix it up. Yeah, every once in a while, mix it up. Yeah. Yeah, well, I like when guys come out to one song. I don't know why. Mike Brown, I like when he comes out to Simple Man. I don't know why.

He always does. Like when Matt Hughes would come out to Country Boy Can't Survive. That was part of the fun of it. Joe Benavidez, Stranglehold. Yeah, fuck yeah. I love that song, too. That's the song that Randy came out to when he fought Mark Coleman. Yeah, Joseph was all upset, man.

Oh, really? He stole his thunder. He's like, Randy Kutcher, he challenged him on Twitter and everything. What? And then Mike, our finalist. What do you mean he challenged him on Twitter and everything. What? And then Mike, our finalist. What do you mean he challenged him on Twitter? No, it was a crack up. He made some comments.

He made some comments. About Randy Jack and his music? Yeah. That's funny. So fighters can claim the music? Unfortunately, Randy can do whatever the hell he wants. Well, not only that, Randy's 48. So Randy, like Ted Nugent's Stranglehold, that was when Randy was young.

Yeah. You know what I mean? But that was when Randy was young. Yeah. You know what I mean? But he's had some other songs. Yeah. I mean. That's a fucking badass jam. Especially when you're coming out and submitting black belts and letting people know who's boss. Yeah, yeah.

Randy Couture, if he had adopted that strategy early on in his career, I think he could have submitted a lot of guys. Oh, yeah. Once he started really concentrating with Neil Melanson on submissions. I mean, he's such an expert grappler. He would just have to go right to that from the beginning. If he embraced Brazilian jiu-jitsu right away, he would be a super black belt. He would be ridiculous. Well, a bunch of these guys.

How about a guy like Mark Coleman? Dude. I wrote about this in my book. Did you? It's called Use Your Head Whatever Way You Can. And it basically talks about how I was at a bar in Vegas with Coleman. His buddies were like, oh, Coleman, back in the day when headbutts were legal, nobody could beat Coleman. And Coleman didn't really say anything, but his guys were going on.

He didn't like disclaiming at all. It's tough to fuck with that big dude on top of you, headbutting the shit out of you. Headbutting the shit out of you. That is a real weapon, right? How do you feel about headbutts and elbows to the back of the head and strikes to the back of the head? Well, if somebody's got me in a position where they can hold me down and elbow the back of my head, fuck, go for it. I mean, I fucked up. Right, right, right. you know what i mean i know

what you mean it's like you get to that point where uh headbutting or and elbowing someone in the back of the head is like like the position you're in you probably get your ass kicked anyway so go ahead and do it yeah so it's weird we got a weird rule system you know it's it's kind of vague you know and then the back of the head sort of changed i had heard it was a mohawk you know it's it's kind of vague you know and then the back of the head sort of changed i had heard it was a mohawk you know it was that now you just got to touch the ear you have to touch the ear like striking a guy part of it has to be like here like some part of it has to touch the ear so vague and it's you know and like situations like eric silva when he got disqualified in brazil it was like that was bad that cost chad a penalty did it really yeah because that ref got yelled at for doing the brazilians who was it mario yamasaki yamasaki who's an awesome awesome

ref but he told us in the back somebody grabs the cage we're deducting a point period you know if it stops to take down right then he gets he puts himself in that position doing the bad call where it was like i mean that guy won the fight. It was a bad call. But, you know, it's one of those calls that you should have the power to reverse it with instant replay. Because it was clear that the guy was hurt, that Prater was hurt. He was hurt bad. It wasn't clear when you looked at it that it should have been stopped from strikes to the back of the head.

So then you've got to play it back. And then when you played it back, everybody was like, come on, man. It was just like maybe there was one. Why don't they do that? They should. I don't know why they do it. It's weird when they have rules. They just say, this is just how we do it, and this is how it's written.

That's nonsense. You have some new technology. The average person, the average intelligent person would say, well, let's look at a video so that way we can be sure. This is a career defining mistake. Didn't they take that away from football too or did they reinstate it? Because when I was a kid, I thought there was always an instant replay. I don't know. I don't

follow football. I haven't followed it since I got laid, actually. You wrestled all throughout high school? I wrestled all throughout high school. I played football too. Did you really? Football was my first love. Really really from like third grade on up and i think i stopped following football once i got laid and it was like saturday and sunday was no longer about watching football it was about chicks yeah that almost uh cost me my competitive taekwondo career when i started getting pussy it was like i barely showed up to train. And they're like, oh wait, these girls like me

because I'm kicking everyone's ass. All right, hold on a second. Let's reevaluate. Yeah, I showed up at class once all tanned and my instructor

was making fun of me. I'm like, where the fuck you been? He knew what was up. This is right around the same age. Pretty girlfriend followed me everywhere I went.

That's awesome. That's a huge distraction for athletes, isn't it? It is. Well, it is well it can be can be how about the guy that that gets all hung up on chicks because there's like different kinds of there's chicks that'll be like waiting on your hand and foot you don't have to worry about them this and that and there's the like the chick that you have to watch out because if you turn your back your buddies are going to be on top of her oh yeah you gotta watch out those are the ones you got to watch out for. I've seen guys that actively go after chicks like that, and it's just retarded.

It ruins them. Some dudes just love sabotage. I think a lot of it is guys also that are unsure in their life, and they're subconsciously looking for something to distract them from all the bullshit they really should be handling about their own life. I think it has to do with their moms could be that too like they're like going after what they what they know at home which is your mom's a crazy bitch yeah you know well that's probably the case because my mom was like really nice and like really easy going so is mine everyone else you ask yeah but ask your high school friends oh really yeah right yeah it's uh it's that that is the grand trap and picks it picking the wrong people to

spend your time with especially like a relationship oh gosh like you know like i was reading about some guy who killed his girlfriend you know she broke up with him and he killed her and i was thinking you know what a what a terrible situation for that girl she fucked up and got like worst case scenario one of the biggest idiots in the fucking world that so can't handle a breakup he has to go back and kill you you know what a fucking loser like that that it does like loser defy but then you gotta look at her too i mean like what made her attracted the guy that was gonna kill her i mean it's like probably violence i think sort of correlation there too could be but it also could be youth But then you've got to look at her, too. I mean, like, what made her attracted to the guy that was going to kill her? I mean, it's like...

Probably violence. Some sort of correlation there, too. Could be, but it also could be youth, you know? I mean, I've done a lot of stupid things when I was young, and they don't really define me. They just define that I didn't know shit at the time. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole... the process of life is about, you know, learning from fuck-ups. She shouldn't have to get killed because she had a weird thing for some thug life type dude.

Yeah. Dude, I remember. I mean, I've seen girls get ruined. I was from a small town. It was like Mexicans and cowboys. It was like a thing. I moved there in the seventh grade. And you'd see a girl just take the wrong path.

And next thing you know, she's got a neck tattoo. And she's pregnant in the ninth grade. That was it. Right. That's a cowboy right no where did you grow up i was in lincoln the lincoln of lincoln where's lincoln it's like outskirts of sacramento uh i moved there in the seventh grade and like you know country cruisers like 7 000 people now there's like 40 000 wow and, you know, country cruisers, like 7,000 people. Now there's like 40,000. Wow. And we got a lot with a lot of crap, like jumping cars out in the country. Like we got in trouble one time, uh, we had off campus lunch.

And so we'd have, you know, in the springtime seasons over and all that kind of stuff, we'd be out in the country driving around drinking beers on the roof and like doing crazy stuff and somebody called in the school and uh was like we saw uriah and will crager and jim cannon on the on the roof of the car drinking beers and this and that and i go back and and i had their principal loved us and she's like we had reports that you're drinking beers sitting on the roof and like we were on the roof but we were not drinking beers and she's like that's what i told you guys wouldn't be doing that pretty clear 7 000 people what is that like that's got to be weird growing up in a really small that's pretty small right yeah that's very but you know everybody right yeah does everybody know everybody oh of course see that's weird i

don't know anybody in my neighborhood you know what though it's good though i mean that's that's better i think it's good yeah i mean everybody knows you know you can't be a slime ball if you're right everybody knows your slime ball it's a real community yeah it's a community and and uh you're you're forced to have a conscience that's actually uh interesting i don't trust chicks from from new york or new jersey really not? No. Only small town girls? Not only small town girls. But you prefer? I would say I'm a pretty good judge of character

but I feel like over there the girls are dealing with guys that are on a different level like the guys on Jersey Shore a little bit. They have to adapt and become a mild version of that, which is like a full-on

version of like a player out in California. Yeah, the kind of aggression that you have to deal with on the East Coast is very different. There's a lot of douchey dudes. Yeah, like blatantly, oh, I want to take you out, girl. I've heard some funny stories and seen some stuff where guys are like, ah. Yeah.

I grew up with those idiots east coast is a different vibe man it's totally different they're hardened i got my mom and my dad calling me right now good problem and bad problem to have it's like okay guys your parents uh they were they were um kind of hippie is that the what the deal? Yeah. Yeah. Back in the day, you know, they're, well, I was, I made the seventies, 1979 and my parents were out in Isla Vista, California, which is like the college town right next to Santa Barbara. And they weren't going to college. They were just chilling.

You know, my dad was, you know, working odd jobs and, and they actually met at a restaurant and stuff, but they're like part of a hippie Christian commune. Oh wow. It's like good. A hippie Christian commune. Oh, wow. It's like good. A hippie Christian commune. How'd they work that out? I don't know. I was barely there.

I was like four. When we left, it was like four. The communes always seem like a great idea until some dude starts fucking everybody's wife. You know? It's always that. That's what always, it always starts like,

what a great idea. We're going to form our own community. This is going to be beautiful. There's a movie right now. What's the movie that's out right now That's what always starts. What a great idea. We're going to form our own community. This is going to be beautiful. There's a movie right now. What's the movie that's out right now? I don't know. It's hilarious, though. It's about the commune.

They stop in. They're going to get married. And the car breaks down. And they pull into this commune. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who the fuck is in that? Is that Jennifer Aniston? Tommy, you remember?

Oh, my God. We're talking about a Jennifer Aniston movie. Yes. We might be a couple of queers. Oh, stop god we're talking about a jennifer aniston movie yes we might be a couple of queers we're talking like excitedly about jennifer aniston is there anybody that nailed the female genre more than jennifer aniston just lock that shit down if a girl tells you she wants to take you to a jennifer aniston movie you go oh fuck yeah you know if someone says like you're gonna go to a meryl Streep movie, that shit could be anything.

Did you ever meet her, Joe? Meryl Streep or Jennifer Aniston? Jennifer Aniston. No. I saw her once in real life. She had a great character. She was right there. It's like as close as you are to me.

And Courtney Cox was there, too. Were you looking through a window? No. When I was on NBC, I was on news radio, and news radio was like the redheaded stepchild of NBC. They didn't get any promotion at all until after it was canceled. When it was canceled, then it became popular. It was really weird, like through DVD sales and through people watching it like on late night TV. But we would go to these things where you would have all the publicity things.

Nobody wanted to talk to us, especially me. Nobody gave a fuck about me. I'm on this sitcom that's barely hanging on. At one point in time, my friend Joe, who was one of the writers, would write down on his shirt. I'm sorry, Lou. Lou Morton. I don't know why I called him Joe. Confusing the guys.

Lou Morton used to write down on his shirt what the number was that we were ranked on TV. He came in one day and said 84. We were like, fucking 84? Friends was number one. We said 84. We were like, fucking 84? Friends was number one. We were 84. That's awesome. The president of NBC was on, what's that Fez show that's off?

Ron and Fez. Ron and Fez. I think it was Ron and Fez. And he was talking about after Phil died where Andy wanted more money. Yeah. Did you hear that interview? Oh, I know the whole story. I wouldn't have ever brought it up

because it's a terrible story. The president brought it up. I'm sure. Well, you know what? You know Andy. Andy's Andy. He's fucking crazy. But the thing that he said to him.

You know about Andy Dick? Yeah. Oh, man. I was on a sitcom with him. That guy is nuts. What happened with you and him? He came. Is he openly gay?

I don't know if that's a secret. Oh, no. But he was saying some absurd stuff to me. One time I met him, and the first time I met him, I was at a hotel downtown in L.A. Can I get you to talk right into that? Yeah, it would be a lot louder. Hello? There it is. See, we can both hear each other great but on the recording people get pissed at me it was like we were there at a uh at a just a little bar in in this hotel and i'm with my

manager and just kicking it he starts like coming on to me like hard and then he's like uh he's like coming on to me like hard. And then he's like, I'm like saying stuff. I thought he was joking. And then he's like, he says, how old are you? And I was like, 27. He's like, you're too fucking old. Like that. I'm like, wow. This and that.

And he's like being absurd. And I just like basically took off. Then the second time I met met him he was with a band does he have a band or something probably he was with a band at the uh at the hard rock and i i fought and i was at the elevator and his buddy's like oh man we're big fans some band they were with like i forget what band it was and they're like come in and meet the rest of the band and he's in there and he's shit-faced and he's like starts chasing me around the room he's like taking a piss like stumbling around it's like the middle of the day and he's wasting he's like taking a

piss and he like comes out right after he's done taking a piss and he's like chasing me around the room like come here little fucker i'm gonna yeah this and that i'm like jump i'm like whoa whoa like pants fall down i'm like what the hell is going on with this guy? So I was like, I just fucking beelined out of there and was like. But he's got kids or something, doesn't he? Fuck yeah. He's got a bunch of kids. Okay, well, I don't know if that was a secret, but. It ain't a secret.

No, he's crazy as fuck. I've worked with that guy for five years. And he's always like, you are an asshole to me. Did you ever bang him? No, I never banged him. were an asshole to me. Did you ever bang him? No, never banged him. Never banged him. We got inappropriate

for the story. I talked to him the other night and I was saying like, I was like, man, I want you to come back on so bad,

but I don't know. Get the fuck out of here. What's wrong with you? He's such a nice guy. What's wrong with you? Dude, he's so awesome. Yeah,

but did you just hear what he said? Did you just hear what he said? Yeah, I had to deal with that for five years. wasted the whole time. This this guy he doesn't want it he never wants to believe that anything's him he's like you're an asshole to me like do you know what you were

like you crazy fuck he he knocked on my door in my room and like and he goes open the door i was getting changed i open up the door it's like just like he's like you're in there fucking aren't you and he had his dick out. He was like beating up. I've talked about this before, but what's fucked up about it was he didn't even have the fucking, didn't even get hard first. You're like, look, you came here to get it hard. Not even that enthusiastic.

This is very, it was insulting. You would rather have it hard. At least he was hard. I can understand why he was going so crazy. Okay, so I'm not alone. It was insulting. You would rather have it hard. At least he was hard. I can understand why he was going so crazy. It was disrespectful. At least he thought you were cute. He's a talented motherfucker. What he is is a really, really funny guy, but he's crazy.

He doesn't mean to be a bad guy. He doesn't give a fuck, which is interesting because most people do give a fuck. So there's that element of it. There's a couple people in this world that really don't give a fuck and are entertaining yeah you know and he's definitely i really love the guy i mean uh it's just it's just too much work you know i i wish him the book the best but it's just i don't you know the the one podcast we have the most plenty when he started talking about how attracted he was to me i was so attracted to to you. We worked together. My top five podcast of all time. Yeah, because you're a sick fuck.

You got problems. The chemistry between you two is amazing. He means that. It's real amazing being around a crazy person. Yeah, but somebody that you know, and you know that he's not going to go crazy on you. No. When I say crazy person, I mean, like I said,

I would still, you know, if somebody came up with a sitcom and it was going to be me and Andy Dick, I would still have to consider it. God, that'd be the best. Like Booze and Buddies. I don't want to ever do a sitcom again, though. I don't know. It's hard to get a guy like that a gig,

unfortunately, because he's made a few mistakes. By the way, Joe, didn't he beat someone up or something? I don't think so. I think he's pulled out his dick on numerous occasions. Yeah.

The Donkey Kong video is on YouTube, by the way. Yeah, the way yeah i heard grab it everyone download that because it's on there it's from it seems like it's from another country it's from they played the episode overseas they're playing the episode well that's ridiculous yeah then it's on the internet yeah that's it yeah wow those silly bitches they got so greedy they they figured we'll just sell this episode to like denmark or something and not air it in America. Well, in other countries, there's no problem with that because they drink that shit. Well, that's where... The thing about Fear Factor is you have to...

Someone has to eat it in some other part of the world for us to serve it. So when people in New Zealand started drinking shots of horse cum, they would sell it at bars as a goof. You have a cup of tequilas, and then you get Randy. Like, let's have a fucking... That's a bad New Zealand accent. And it was also horse urine. You never said that.

It wasn't horse urine. It was urine. Just urine. It was actually cow urine. I never said donkey urine because I would have to tell the truth. It wasn't donkey urine, but it was donkey cum. It was cow urine and donkey cum. Wow.

Wow. Who was the test dummy for that? Well, that's really crazy. We had some people that worked for us. It was cow urine and Donkey Kong. Wow. Wow. Who was the test dummy for that? Who like? Well, that's really crazy. We had some people that worked for us. He's under a cow just working it. We had some people that worked for us that had to actually do it as well as the contestants.

We had to get people to test it to see if it was possible. Right. So we have PAs. And they would only get $100 to drink, like, 24 ounces of Donkey Kong. And I had more money on them, so I gave them a few hundred bucks out of my own pocket

for having to do it. But I was just like, this is the craziest fucking thing I've ever seen. That's nuts. I had a friend that was just on your show. Harsh.

Yeah? On Andrea Summers. You know who that is? No. Little blonde, San Diego, her and her boyfriend. Maybe. How'd they do?

How well did they do? She was 15 seconds away from winning. Oh, really? Yeah. Why can't I remember? What's her name again? I think it has something to do with... Pot?

You think? Yeah. Alpha Brain or Pot? Alpha Brain. No, you know, there's too many people. I did 148 episodes. Holy smokes. There's too many people.

148 episodes. Holy smokes. There's too many people. 148 episodes. Most of the time, it was like six, eight people. You'd have to remember every week. Four. You would get down to four. And then the next week, it would be a whole new people. And my memory bank would just erase. There's a thing called Dunbar's number.

Oh, there it is. There's a thing called Dunbar's number. And what Dunbar's number is, it there it is. There's a thing called Dunbar's number and what Dunbar's number is, it's what is that language? We probably shouldn't play this, dude, because this is people are going to get sued for that or something. I assume.

That was the Donkey Kong episode. Yeah, did you see the size of the bucket that's in front of them? We could show it to you if you want to watch it. It is on TV. I mean, it is on the Internet. That's pretty intense. Are those twins?

Are those blonde twins? Wow. They were twins, and there's brunette twins, and then two dudes that were twins. It was a twins episode. That's awesome. How many hits is that? 427. Oh, by the way, it's on more than one.

Oh, yeah, because the other one was on TwitVid that I saw earlier. It's on a bunch of different formats now. I knew it would come out eventually, but man, it's crazy. Twins are awesome. Yeah, they're very hot. All of them are. It's disturbing. I would love to have, when I have kids, have twin boys.

I would hate to have twin girls. Yeah, I know. That'd be the worst. Everywhere they go, someone's have kids, have twin boys. I would hate to have twin girls. Yeah, I know. That'd be the worst. Everywhere they go, someone's thinking about fucking them. Yes. Yeah. And they don't even have to be that hot. Yeah, let's not have this on, Brian.

I think folks, if they want to find it, it's out there. Can we just flash to it right when they're drinking the white stuff? No, no, no. I just don't think we should. I don't know what the legal status of all this stuff is, and I don't know what my position is in that. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Just a little flash, huh? Just because I don't know what my position is, that might be illegal for me to do. Right. I might get sued or something. The show was canceled because of that, which it was a good thing. Wait, the show was canceled because of that?

Yeah, because of the people that would drink dunk. I mean, essentially, they had a real hard time finding advertisers in the first place. And then after this got on TMZ, they were like, get the fuck out of here. They were pretty convinced it was going to be brought back before that. Well, now with this internet video leak, maybe it will be. Maybe it will become this. You know what, man? I'm happy it's done.

I wouldn't do it again. I did it,'m done it was it's it's an actual job that's what you said last time i did but yeah but this time this time i'm totally serious because i did try it i took six years off and tried it again not really anyway back to you uriah let's talk about you man fuck fuck me um tell me more about this uhie childhood because you, like, grew up with, like, holistic medicine and, like, apple cider vinegar, that kind of shit. Yeah. Well, starting out was basically in the hippie commune, you know, like, I love this. It was, like, you know, free-spirited Christian.

Like, everyone, like, you know, you go to church and it's, like, people, like, reaching up to the sky and, like, people crying and stuff like that but uh that kind of wore out really that must have been really trippy it's called new hope new hope church or whatever it didn't last no i mean that that my family on my dad's side is first my dad's first generation american from holland and they're really really strong christians on the dad's side and my mom's side is not so much, you know, my, it's, like, not, not, not anything like that, so I think it was, like, a mixture of the two, my dad, you know, was, like, you know, grew up, he's the first guy, first guy from his family to be in America, and, like, in the 70s, it was kind of, like, a wild child, and stuff like that, and then, like then born-again Christian after a certain amount of time.

So they spent like the early parts of my childhood were in that environment, and it kind of lasted. Some of the stuff lasted throughout my life, but my parents got a divorce when I was in kindergarten. So that was like then I went back to one side kind of having it, one side really not. Wow. That must have been a an interesting

childhood to go from that how do you go from that to being a mixed martial arts fighter uh well the thing is about the mentality is just basically encouraging you to do whatever the heck you want you know and and my parents aren't like you know never had anything mapped out it was always like my dad's like super proud of anything that we ever had done and my mom's like you know always just pushing you to be uh you know the best at whatever you do so this is just what i was drawn to i always used to watch the boxing all my favorite movies were karate movies and then you know all that kind of stuff and and how many kids grew up with you it was my brother and my little sister. My little sister was 13 when she was born, so it was just me and my brother, really.

She was 13 when who was born? My sister was born when I was 13. Oh, okay. Yeah, I swapped it. So what do they do now? My brother lives in Sacramento, and actually he's an interesting case. He actually went to college on a scholarship and had like a complete mental breakdown at the age of 21.

Whoa. Yeah, so he's never really been the same. It's kind of actually in my book I talk about it, like the whole effect that it had on all of our lives and everything but um he went away on a scholarship was like the captain of the football team captain of the wrestling team went away to a christian school got recruited by this church called international church of christ and was like trying to live this perfect life like not thinking about sex he was eating less sleeping less he was giving like 25 of his money that he's working at a cafe at Nordstrom at the time

and giving his money away and had a breakdown, man. We don't really know exactly what happened, but he works with my family when he can and stuff like that, but it's been kind of an uphill battle for us. How many years ago was this? 14 years ago.

My senior year in high school. Jesus Christ. So he was this? 14 years ago. Whoa. My senior year in high school. Jesus Christ. So he was this bad motherfucker, and then he blew a fuse. Like he hit the red line too hard too many times. Yeah, we don't know exactly what happened. I mean, we got a call from his boss at work at Nordstrom, and then a family that he was staying with. We checked in, and they said yeah

he's been he's been uh he's lost a lot of weight he was like 165 pounds in high school wrestling 165 pounds he was like 130 125 130 pounds had been like wasn't smiling was like washing his hands obsessively and my mom and my stepdad and my my my pop and, and his wife all jumped in a car on New Year's day in 1998 and drove to LA and, and brought him home. Wow. Yeah. It's been a crazy, if you read, if you read the chapter, there's a chapter on it, my book that talks about just life's hiccups and the uncontrollable stuff. And it was, it was pretty crazy, man. and the uncontrollable stuff.

And it was pretty crazy, man. Also some good stories because after 13 years, you know, it is what it is. And you just kind of deal with, you know, what life gives you. And he's a funny mofo. He's funny. He's funny. I mean, he's still really intelligent, but he's unpredictable. And, like, you know, like we've got. So is he a different guy?

Oh, yeah, 100%. So, like, a fuse blew and your brother's gone and there's a new guy there now. Pretty much. Whoa. Yeah. And, you know, it's been a trip, man. And my little sister is 13 when she was born. And my brother is two and a half years older than I am.

So she's never really she's never really remembered him as i grew up with him you know what i mean as my older brother and everything else it's been like a modified version of that and i mean he goes up and has some great times and then has some some bad times too but it's definitely interesting i did and there's nothing they can do about something like that when it's not like is it a counseling issue or is it a physical aspect of the mind that they don't understand my mom doesn't like to call it schizophrenia but that's basically the the matrix of what what's going on is just anything that they deem is like don't know what it is they throw in that category right and he definitely has different signs throughout time

of having that kind of, you know, schizophrenic behavior. So it's just unpredictability, man. It's crazy. You live a wild, crazy fucking life. I mean, you're a professional cage fighter. Do you ever wonder, like, you know, I know that just from, obviously I've never fought in MMA, but I know from seeing all the fucking championship fights that I've seen,

all the high-pressure situations that I've seen, like, the toll that it must have on your psyche for a lot of dudes is pretty fucking incredible. Do you ever, like, see your brother and go, you know, is this possible this could happen to me? Could I blow a fuse too? I mean, it's possible for anybody, you know? You think so?

Oh, yeah. Yeah? Definitely. I mean, I think... Do you worry about it? No. No? No, you can't walk around worrying about life in general.

You never leave the room. If I had a sister that was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, I would go, God damn, I might be fucking crazy too. I might be in denial. You know? I might just be... At least you're successful crazy. You know what I mean? Who knows? Maybe your brother should get into comedy.

It sounds like every comedian. Irresponsible. Hilarious. He definitely has his moments. Lost his shit because work was too fucking crazy. That sounds like a comedian, man. And you said he's funny. He is funny. Get that dude into stand-up comedy. you're in northern california plenty of places to do it up there you'd have to meet my bro i mean there's there's uh he's he's an interesting cat man yeah yeah and we all love him and uh i don't know if he could he could definitely uh he could definitely

have a a couple moments i'm gonna pull up some videos of him on the phone actually okay does does he work he does work periodically but it's it's just when he can't because it's just unpredictable there's times where he'll go like a whole year where things are straight for him too much stimulus happen or you know even sometimes a year and he just kind of so it's almost like he really did redline his brain yeah yeah wow and we don't know what happened i mean we don't as far as you know when you when you see guys like the highest level of any any sport especially when it comes to like um wrestling or anything where it's like super ultra competitive and you hear stories of a guy like a dan gable you know you hear stories about a guy who he was a little crazy

man fuck yeah he was crazy yeah he i mean that guy paid the price for it physically too like today he's got hip replacements and his knees are shot and you know yeah for sure do you have you ever read up on him i mean you you know about his sister and all that kind of horrible she was murdered yeah murdered by her neighbor yeah raped and murdered yeah stuff like that. And that was what drove him. Yeah, I think so. He was a demon. That guy was possessed.

You ever see those videos of him when he was younger? Oh, yeah. And he would talk about it? Yeah. And I'm like, he's fucking terrifying. That guy was terrifying. I wrestled at UC Davis, and we spent, you know, we had a couple different tournaments. We were in Iowa.

And we went into Iowa. He was retired from coaching and wasn't competing just old dan gable and we're in the room working out and he's in there in a full sweatsuit with the hood up and he's drilling double legs on this dummy against the wall just drilling bam bam he gets on the bike and he's like just pushing himself on the stationary bike and just going crazy. No one else is in the room. It's just him. The guy is just like he's on it.

Jesus Christ. He's never letting it go, ever. I think drilling double legs. How old was he, like 60? Yeah, at least. Jesus Christ. 60-year-old dudes shooting doubles, drilling them with sweatsuits on. Well, you've got to figure if you're in a repetition.

I'm the same way. If I'm not working out for a period of time, it just doesn't feel right. Right. You know what I mean? It feels weird. It's probably like some people with smoking cigarettes or whatever else the routine has become. You don't feel yourself unless you're putting your body through a little something. And I'm the same way, you don't feel yourself unless you're, like, putting your body through a little something.

And I'm the same way. I don't feel balanced. I don't trust myself if I don't work out hard. If I work out hard, I feel like my brain is able to react to things on an even field. Whereas if I'm stressed, like if I haven't worked out in a couple of days,

and it's all built up, I think you can overreact to things because your brain is looking for some fucking something to, I got to get rid of this pressure that's been building up. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird. It's weird the way, I mean, it's just routine, you know? It's like an OCD type of, I'm not by any means like an OCD type of person. I like, like I said, I'm not great at structure. I'm good at sticking to a game plan, but I could sleep in the car,

in this car seat, and I could sleep on the floor, and I don't need to go through a routine. But some people need to have the little things that they do that they don't feel right. And mine, I think, is just about a certain amount of energy that I have to exert through the day, or else I can sleep right you know it's like that's interesting do you think that that is a routine thing or do you think that your body just requires that because you're i mean your your your body's essentially a race car yeah i think my body requires i mean i think i have a

certain amount of energy that i need to get out if i get myself thinking about something too late in the in the in the night or you know like watch sparring or watch something on the guy I'm going to fight, I'm amped up and ready to go. Right, right. That's the problem, right? You have to time that shit out. Yeah, you got to time it out. And I've been blowing it, especially with my time in Vegas. It's like I just find myself not getting enough sleep.

It's like not wanting to go to bed, but having to get up in the morning. Do you ever sleep in the hyperbaric chamber? I know you've used it several times. It's one of the things that I really wanted to ask you about because I'm kind of fascinated by it. The results of the hyperbaric chamber are pretty spectacular. Yeah, they're crazy. And I've gone in there and slept a couple of times, but you only want to do it a certain amount of time, a certain amount of length of time. It's like an hour and a half for this certain kind of treatment. It's an hour for other types of treatment.

Is it dangerous? It's not dangerous, but I think it's something that can mess with you a little bit. When you're doing the hyperic chamber, nice face. I'm thinking about trying it. No, but when they do the change of whatever the pressure is in there, it feels like you're going up and down in a plane. You can feel your ears clicking and stuff like that, and you have to blow them out. And when they bring the pressure back down, you can feel them popping and stuff like that also. Wow.

So, I mean, you can feel something's happening. and popping and stuff like that also. So, I mean, you can feel something's happening. But the trippiest thing about the hyperbaric chamber was, you know, I started going in when I broke my hands against Brown. I broke my right hand, and then I dislocated my thumb on the left. That was a crazy fight and a really impressive fight on your behalf because you broke your hand in the first round. Yeah.

You know, and you went back, and you're like, I broke my fucking hand. And then you're like, all right, they're both shot. And then you're like, all right, well, it's elbows and kicks. Let's just do this. But for three fucking rounds hard, well, you broke both of them

in the first? I broke the first one in the first round. So four rounds of that. And then the third round, I dislocated my thumb. Wow. And a championship fight.

And, you know, and you're fighting, you know, the first guy to take your title in this big, crazy yeah and i was up a weight too because it you know didn't have 35 yeah now when 35 when you decided to drop down to 35 you this is like your home now you don't you don't feel like um like you know at 135 pounds this is like the perfect amount of weight you cut perfect you're physically big as big as anybody in the division yeah and that's that's the thing with 45s i mean people

don't understand it's like we've got a lot of new people in the sport they don't understand the history of it they don't understand that when i first started fighting i was fighting the indian casinos there was no sanctioning body i was wearing shoes you can knee people in the head i saw you fighting one of those i saw you fighting the king of the cage and a casino There was no sanctioning body. I was wearing shoes. You could knee people in the head. I saw you fighting one of those. I saw you fighting the king of the cage in a casino. Yeah, back in the day. One of those Indian casinos. Yeah, and then there was no opportunity for me to fight at 135 pounds.

I would have. I was only 148 when I first started fighting, and I was fighting 155. And then I made a stand and said I'm going to fight at 145. But that was like making a stand to do that and i became a world champion up there and you know after that it was like i was good enough to be right there for another title shot i was i was able to beat the next contenders and and be competitive enough to to get those title shots and i'm never gonna turn that down i could have gone to 35s a long time ago,

but I was like, I'm not missing opportunities. I want to fight Jose Aldo. I want to fight Mike Brown. I want to fight these guys, even though they're bigger than I am. How much bigger was Aldo than you? I talked to him. He said he tries to stay right under 170, and I'm about 154. Wow, that's a lot of fucking weight.

And Mike Brown weighed 166. In the ring? In the ring, and I weighed about 153, 154. Wow, Mike Brown's a big dude. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. He's smaller now, though, he said. Was it harder for him to make that cut?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, as you get older, it's harder and harder to dehydrate yourself, right? Yeah. What are you cutting to get to 35? I'm cutting about 21 pounds. Jesus Christ. And when you're talking about a 135-pound result, that's a large percentage. That's not like a 265-pounder cutting 20 pounds.

That's a lot. If Brock Lesnar cut 20 pounds to make 265, that's a lot. But look at the size of that motherfucker, and then look at the size of that motherfucker and then look at the size of you yeah you're cutting you're dehydrating that shit out of yourself yeah i mean well i've got it down to science because i work out so much my weight fluctuates like you know five to eight pounds in a day anyways like depending on what i've had to eat and what my workouts are like and stuff like that. So I swing like that drastically anyways. So it's just about tricking your body because it's like how much sodium you have in your body,

how many electrolytes and stuff like that, what's going on digestively in your stomach. So if you treat yourself like a race car when it comes to the training thing and once you're down to weight, you really like gear up just for a workout go on to empty and then uh either go back up from there or go back down from there and that's where the tricky part gets and that's where i've been doing it for a long time and i have an advantage because i know my body you know and it's i mean i put on 17 pounds after weighing 13 hours what what percentage of your body is that at 135 pounds? I'm an idiot. You've got to do the math.

I wouldn't even ask Brian to do it. He looked at me. I'm going to have my good Vietnamese-American buddy over here. Statistics, Tommy, please. Drumroll. It's like a massive amount of body weight. Yeah. It's a lot.

I mean. Do you ever put too much on? Have you ever done that? Over-modulated? The first time. Yeah. The first time i did i i put too much weight on and then i didn't eat much during the the the hours before the fight it's like woke up and i was like bloated and i was like all right i didn't eat but luckily like an hour before i went on i started to feel normal again that was against mizugaki wow how uh how much of a pain

in the ass is that that whole process of rehydrating yourself and trying to feel healthy again because i would imagine that when you cut 21 pounds like when you're on the scale that day you must feel fucking terrible yes that's uh correct i've seen guys where they look like they're ready to die there's a reason looter well i stop and I drink that coconut before I do anything else. I'm like, nothing else matters. I'm going to get these electrolytes and this stuff in my body now. You're barely hanging on, right? It's so crazy.

It's like an event in and of itself, the weight cut. I was there when Travis Luter misweighed against Anderson Silva. I have never seen a dude look closer to death Travis' lips were chapped All the water, the moisture Had sucked out of his lips His whole body was completely dehydrated And he wasn't even walking towards the scale

This is after he had missed the weight And he was coming back to try to make it And he's shuffling He couldn't even walk He was shuffling His face was sunken in, and then he quit. He said, I can't do it. I can't do it.

This is all I can lose. They're like, you have another hour. You have another hour. If you try to lose the weight, he's like, I can't do it. Yeah, we had one of our guys in Brazil do that. He, Eddie Hoke from Alaska, and he got down to like less than a half a pound over. And he got down to, like, less than a half a pound over. But that half pound, I was in the sauna in the workout room with him for, like, seven hours.

And, like, getting in and getting out. And I finally gave him a bit of pep talk about, like, he was, like, moping around, like, shadow boxing. I'm like, look, dude, you got to hit a mental switch. He was three pounds over doing this. I said, you got to hit a mental switch now and start moving. You can't be sitting in the sauna. You can't be moping around in here. Like, if you want to lose a sweat, you got to hit a mental switch now and start moving you can't be sitting in the sauna you can't be moping around it here like if you want to lose a sweat you got to do it and then so that was a push to get him to lose that last three pounds and he got down a little bit over a half and it was like nothing was coming off he had no spit coming out it was just crazy that is so

scary man it's so scary that you're basically bringing yourself on the door of death, and then you've got to have a cage fight 24 hours later. See, I feel like it's not that bad for me. I cut 21 pounds from when I'm heavy, like super heavy. But in your leanest prime when you're in shape. When I'm trying to watch my weight and keep my weight within like a striking range, I'm about 151, 152, 153 maybe. And then back down to like 48 to 53. So that's what?

So at 48, at the lowest, you're 13 off. Yeah, 13 off. And then from there, there's the cut. And I'm like real smart about sodium intake and things like that. I'll have – like I won't drink water. Like a lot of guys do this whole water flush thing. I don't do the water flush. Why is that?

I do because a pound of water weighs the same amount as a pound of Gatorade or coconut water or a kombucha or something like that, and you're getting stuff out of that. or a kombucha or something like that, and you're getting stuff out of that. So if I'm going to drink a pound of fluid, I'm going to have something positive come out of that, some energy and something that gives my body something to work with. That's very interesting. So you don't drink a lot of water. You drink water and all this other stuff as well? Yeah, I drink fluids with purpose,

and that helps me get the most out of it, have a little bit of energy. I feel good when I'm cutting weight all the way until the day of the actual weigh-in, and then it's like, okay, the last four pounds really sucks. But it's like it comes off, and then I feel fine right afterwards as soon as I get something back into me. But it's really knowing how to manipulate your body. Do you use the same principles? I mean, is there something going on with the where guys drink a massive amount of water up until you know is it

is is it the same principle that you use just with kombucha and coconut water and all that stuff you drink massive amount of fluids i wouldn't say that so so it's like this you can get dehydrated from either having too much sodium or not enough sodium right so if you have not enough sodium you get dehydrated as much fluid as you have your body's not going to retain any of that there's like the osmosis where you know water will filtrate and go to your body wherever the sodium and electrolytes and wherever it needs to fill in if you don't have any of that there's nothing drawing the water in your body it'll just go straight through you so i kind of go with that like i'll cut down on sodium quite a bit

but i'll have like sugars i'll have like uh like some sort of trail mix that. Like I'll cut down on sodium quite a bit, but I'll have like sugars. I'll have like, uh, like some sort of trail mix that I make myself with like black licorice, uh, ginger snaps. I'll have, uh, like a bunch of like whole nuts and stuff like that. Carob chips. So there's like sugar in there, but there's also like some protein and some fiber. And then I'll have coconut water and coconut meat from the inside of a baby coconuts. And then I'll have coconut water and coconut meat from the inside of baby coconuts. Then I'll have a little piece of fish or smoked salmon, something to get a little bit of sodium in you. Then whatever I drink fluid-wise, it's like kombucha is good for your digestive tract. It's good. It helps you break food down and keeps things going.

It's probiotic too. Yeah, probiotic. Same with yogurt. So I'll have that kind of stuff and then egg whites. And egg whites make sure your body doesn't break down muscle and you're getting all the rest of the stuff to run everything through you and it's kind of like your body is not taking up any of the fluids that you're putting in. It's just taking what it needs and then you're going to go lose it again

and then you can either go up or down from there. Is that your standard diet when you get down to a certain point in weight cutting? Yeah. This is all you eat? Yeah, pretty much, and I'll mix it up. My diet doesn't vary a ton from when I am and am not cutting weight. I just eat more or less and then consider the sodium thing quite a bit, which is like a trip.

That's got to be a weird fucking dance, isn't it? Yeah, it is. But when you know your body, I mean, I've done this since, I mean, I remember cutting weight in the eighth grade, didn't know what the heck I was doing, and then I didn't cut weight my freshman or sophomore year and then junior and senior year and then all through college. Is there a way to cut it out of the sport or is it just a part of sport forever?

You could have like a two-hour weigh-in. But dudes would still try, right? What would happen, and this is what happened in college with me, is you start out doing a real strict diet and cutting weight. And then you've got a season where it's it's like uh six months out of the year where you're cutting this weight and what happens is you just start losing muscle and you downsize your your body anyways so this is better because athletes are doing it two two three maybe four times a year and you can just train just specifically for that fight and then you get to maintain your muscle and your muscle mass and things like that

because you can bring it right back. But what happens in a long season, or if people need to downsize and compete within a two-hour period, they'll just downsize their muscle. So it would be like the same thing. So dudes would still lose weight anyway. They'd lose weight, but it would be over a more dramatic time. They're starting to do that with jiu-jitsu tournaments. Yeah, they are. They're trying to get people it'd be over a more dramatic time. And they're starting to do that

with jiu-jitsu tournaments. Yeah, they are. They're trying to get people to weigh in right before they compete. The Mundiales, I think, does that, right? Yeah. They weigh in right before. But that's not head trauma. The thing about striking that makes it dangerous is head trauma. Yeah, losing fluid in the brain. Yeah. None of the deaths

that have occurred in boxing have occurred in the heavyweight division. They've all occurred in lighter weight divisions. Really? Yeah, and the idea is that those guys are all cutting weight. And when the guys that are getting hurt, like Gerald McClellan, who's a famous weight cutter, he used to cut a lot of weight. Right.

You know, that plays a part. That's not the only factor, but that it plays a part. I actually went to a speech that a doctor in sacramento gave about that and he he had me as a guest to listen and everything and and it makes sense yeah i mean your body is held in place by a bunch of your brain is held in place by a bunch of fluid yeah and if you're losing a big percentage of your fluid from your body some of it's probably coming from your head do you uh replenish with ivs? I do. Yeah, you have to, right? I do about a bag and a half.

What's happened the first time, I made 35s. I did too much of the IV in like almost two bags. It was too much. Now I do like a bag and like a quarter. What a crazy process, man. It's fun. It's a totally different thing you have to concentrate on while you're concentrating on a professional cage fight against a trained killer.

Dude, it's nuts. But you know what? It's to stay competitive. And it's funny because when I got into fighting, I told the guys I was training with, I said, I want to fight 135s. And they're like, we don't have 135s. And I was like, well, what about 145s?

They're like, oh, we don't have 145s. But it really turned out to be something good for me you know i because i was competing when i was healthy i just felt like fighting i couldn't imagine going through a season like wrestling and wanting to get in a fight when i was 133 pounds you know you do not feel like fighting anybody you feel like like all right go ahead take my girlfriend and my money you know i'm gonna feel like fighting anybody you feel like like all right go ahead take my girlfriend and my money you know i'm gonna sit over here and think about food it's a horrible thing in during uh adolescence too that kids go through and yeah wrestling is

the fucking they're starving themselves while they're growing see i didn't start wrestling till the eighth grade and then after that i didn't even know that I was supposed to be cutting weight as a freshman and sophomore because our team sucked. And it was like I was the best guy on the team anyways. And so it was like just go wherever I wanted, you know. It's pretty funny. When did you decide that you were going to make a transition to MMA? I decided they actually did an interview with me after my senior year in college, and they asked me what was next for me.

And I've never been a guy that has planned much. I've just kind of like just gone with the flow, whatever I felt like doing, doing. But I remember saying I think I'm going to try out mixed martial arts, and there's actually an article in the newspaper, like the college newspaper, where I said I think I'm going to try this mixed martial arts and there's actually an article in the newspaper like the the college newspaper i said i think i'm gonna try this this mixed martial arts thing out you know and uh it it was illegal in california and i i started coaching at uc davis i was getting paid like seven thousand dollars a year as a full-time job wow bussing tables at a seven thousand dollars a year i thought it was a lot of money. I mean, I knew it wasn't a lot of money, but it was more money than I was used to.

And I didn't feel like I was working. And I started a little business called Top Line Coaching. And I went and got some, like a little elementary school group of kids that I started training. And then I had some camps that I put on through the college that i that my coach let me put them under my business name and so i actually was working like 16 17 hour days in addition to training i was doing my full-time gig at uc davis and i was coaching kids afterwards and then i would go home and i'd bus tables at this little bar called ink and my my rent was like 220 bucks a month living there wow and uh yeah it was crazy man and i and i started

fighting at that time i had my emergency teaching credential i was going to start teaching some you know be a substitute teacher a little bit but i took a fight made 450 bucks or 500 bucks 200 to show 200 to win uh 100 bucks for selling tickets and i was like make that in like a week you know that was like my monthly salary was was that so i that's that's when i hit the switch wow yeah it was crazy holy shit and what year was this 2003 you were how old i was 23 wow so you had like it was it. So it was more of a financial thing that sent you into it. Well, I could have got a job. I just graduated from a major university.

I could have actually got a job. It wasn't a financial thing. It was like not worrying about financial thing. I see. And it was like, dude, this was awesome. It was like my first fight minute and a half. I made, you know, almost 500 bucks. I didn't tell my mom about it. I didn't tell her about it. She found out, like I said, I told her like two weeks later, I had the little

tape and I go, mom, I got something to show you. And I, and I sat her down, I put the tape in and she's like, what the heck? And she's, I'm'm 23 at this point i've lived out of the house since i was 18 you know my own and she's like please tell me you're not going to do this again and i'm like you know kind of smirking and and she's like you're right i will pay you not to do this again and she's i said i said it's gonna be 500 bucks per minute and a half that's what you're going to need to pay me now did you have a lot of striking training in that at that point was it all just wrestling no but i thought i was badass which is important you gotta see if you look up my uh my second fight my first fight i tried to hold it together i like came like, came out southpaw, and I started firing straight punches, the guy came to take me down, and my, and it, and it ended so fast, I was, like, amped up for, like, an hour afterwards, like, I wish it would have lasted longer, I wish I'd done this, I wish I

would have done that, and, uh, so I said, next fight, I'm just gonna strike, and I had this guy, uh, who was, like, had been training quite a bit, knew what he was doing but was just not a tough guy. If you look at him and you look at me, not to judge books by the cover, you knew I was going to win. Right. So I just kept it standing for seven minutes. I beat the crap out of this guy. It's horrible.

It's like cat and mouse, like punching him, trying to help him up, like rearing back like this and running at them with a like a like a fist and throwing haymakers it was crazy and you you were going training how much striking training had you had by then like about my first fight about a month a month but not real training just like knowing i was going to throw punches and like working myself and then uh you just worked with yourself? I mean, I've been in fights before. Right.

I knew I could hit hard. I had a heavy right hand, and I've been a huge boxing fan my whole life, so I know what it looked like. Right. I'm a coordinated guy, you know? So I just thought no one would be able to beat me up. I'm like, there's no way anybody's going to beat me up. Wow, that's pretty fucking confident, man.

What was it like when you had your first loss? It didn't hurt, but it was a little disorienting. I went in and it was against Tyson Griffin. We were fighting in a parking lot of a casino up in Northern California. It was hot out. And, um, I went in there and the first round I do like a, a Superman punch and then I need him in the face and I hit an inside trip and I brought my head to the outside and the King of the gladiator challenge guys were having trouble with the cage and they were lazy.

And so they took the black covering, but they didn't put the padding over the steel on the bottom of the cage. So I did a head dive as I was taking Tyson Griffin down and just slammed into the cage. Oh, my God. And my head just started gushing blood. I ended up getting seven staples after the fight. It was eight seconds into the fight.

So eight seconds into the fight, I'm just blood's gushing down i ended up at seven staples after the fight it was eight seconds into the fight so eight seconds in the fight i'm just blood's gushing down my face i've got him in a guillotine and i'm shaking my head like this and i'm telling herb herbs uh ref and i'm like herb my i'm busted open or i'm bleeding or something like that so he breaks us in a in a guillotine position and i was out of shape i mean i was all discombobulated and Ted Williams comes in and I had sold like 300 tickets. This is how I was making money at this time was selling tickets. I'd sold like 300 tickets to get here. It was eight seconds into the fight and the doctor comes in who ended up being a vet and Ted Williams comes in and he, the doctor's looking at me and ted goes is he okay and uh and he said are you okay the doctor said i said i'm not sure you tell me you know and uh and then ted said he's fine he's

fine he's fine and they just started the fight again then i don't remember anything i was just going crazy it was like a wild it was like uh herb says one of the best fights that guys have never seen it was just like a knockdown, drag out, back and forth. And my jiu-jitsu instructor at the time, Casio, didn't make it to the fight. I just had my striking coach at that time, Dave Marinoble. And I didn't know what was going on. It was like a close fight the first and the second rounds. You know, it was probably one-on-one for rounds.

And my coach was like, you got to knock him out. I don rounds and my my coach is like you gotta knock him out i don't have any knockout like any serious knockouts at this point so i go in at the beginning of the third round and just do like a jumping right hand and he throws like a straight right right on the button and drops me and i didn't go out but uh i was like like getting pounded on and the ref called it you were probably so fucked up from the first shot. It's amazing you were able to fight three rounds. Dude, that's what Tyson had. You hit a bar of metal.

Yeah. Tyson and I had like a little beef after that for a while. It was just kind of like because he felt like I was making excuses. I'm like, I didn't make excuses because I was telling the story. Like, yeah, I got seven staples in my head after the fight and this and that. I was like fighting like a wild animal. He's like his guys from his hometown were saying I was making excuses. I'm like,

I understand I lost the fight. I'm just telling what really happened. I'm not saying I had a fever or anything. I really hit my head and he was huge. You know, he's got about 40 pounds on me. Jesus Christ. Yeah. It's the wild West man on me walking around. Jesus Christ.

It's the Wild West, man, of MMA. Yeah, those were the days, man. Those King of the Cage events were pretty fucking nuts, man. Indian casino parking lots, they would do it if it rained. Did you ever see Wet and Wild? Yes. What the fuck is that? Dude, that was them just not wanting to give money back to people and just let it go. Yeah, they had cage fights in a casino in the pouring rain.

I mean, and it was a plastic cover. So guys would go out and try to throw kicks and just fly through the air and land on their heads. Nuts. It was so crazy. A lot of people didn't fight. They said, fuck this, I'm going home. That would have been smart.

I wouldn't have gone home, but I would have wished I would have. Yeah. You do some stupid, stupid shit when you're hungry, like probably for anything, you know? Just hungry for success. You're willing to do anything for it. I mean, you see that on these levels, and it's just nuts. Yeah, that shit, that's fucked up.

I mean, that's one of the reasons why you need regulatory bodies. You need someone to come and go, no, asshole, you're not going to have a fucking outdoor fight in the rain. What are you going to do if lightning comes in? Is that part of the battle? Yeah, no kidding. At least if they're in the rain, they should be able to fight in mud. Yeah, serious.

Or something. It's too animalistic. We talked about elbows to the back of the head. Do you like the rules the way they are now? Like, do you think that everything's good, or do you think that we should have, like, knees to a downed opponent, or is there anything you would like to add? I think you should be able to do knees to a downed opponent

and even kick a guy while he's downed because, I mean, this is a fight. The thing that's so intriguing about our sport is that this is what would really happen if you mess with someone and they know what they're doing yeah this is what you're gonna have to deal with and it is still that right but um you know it's just it's like one of those things where you gotta you gotta look out for people's safety but you don't want people abusing the rules like putting their knee down all of a sudden and like putting their down. It's like if you're in a bad position, you should be able to have to react. The only argument I've heard that's against stomps and soccer kicks on the ground is the cage.

They're like if you're going to have stomps and soccer kicks on the ground, you should have ropes so you can slide on the ropes to avoid it. You shouldn't have a spot where they can shove your head up against it and soccer kick you in the head because it's not natural. You should be able to move around. You shouldn't be able to use the cage as an actual weapon, which there's an argument in that, that at least in pride, they could see the kick come and they could move.

They could move. If you're running into a wall, you can't move. You're just going to get soccer kicked in the head. You could say, well, you should never let yourself get into that position, but it seems almost like you're using the cage in a way that probably isn't that safe. Yeah, I can see that. But in reality, and I always go back to, and that's why I always get on Dominic, because this is really like the gladiator days where it's like a simulated fight to the death.

Dominic Cruz, for folks who don't know, it was your last time you guys fought. It was a very close decision. A lot of people thought you could have won. A lot of people thought he could have won. It was a very, very close fight. And you guys were set to fight in the rematch, but Dominic recently blew out his knee, so now you're going to be fighting Hennen Barau.

Right. Yeah, you criticized Dominic's style. That's like point fighting, right? I mean, you can't really criticize him too much other than the fact that it's not – I feel like he could have potential to finish some guys, but he doesn't go for that. And this is really a simulated fight. I mean, this is a fight to the death. And Diaz says the same thing.

It's like if we were in a fight to the death, you know, who would win? Right. And on that level, I'd like to see guys try to finish all the time. Right. Not play by the rules and this and that, like tag somebody and it looks like you're hurting them. And I feel like Dominic has potential to do some damage. He just doesn't know how or doesn't try to finish. It's a mentality thing now this this style of uh fighting where you just go by and get points but but still win i mean it it

can be effective for guys and yeah and it definitely is it all for i mean how do you how do you make a distinction like when do you decide whether it's about it's all about being as entertaining as possible or it's all about being as entertaining as possible or it's all about winning? It seems to me that there's like... I just don't feel like that's winning. Ah. So to you it's not honorable to try to just point your way through it?

I wouldn't say Dominic, for example, is not dishonorable. I mean, he's trying to do damage, and maybe he just doesn't have it in him. I don't but the he makes fun of the size of his hands you know it makes fun of we did an interview and he's say i got a bitch hands you know because he broke his hand that's that's something there's nothing you can do about that right i mean there's nothing you can do about that but i mean i'm not taking anything away but i would say I would say the purpose of this sport is to finish and do damage. Right. You can't really knock a guy who's really great at what he does.

And he is trying. I mean, I guess if you get a guy that crumbles, he'd probably finish him. But I like to go in with a mentality of let's do war. Burrell is going to try to finish me. I'm going to try to finish Burau. And it's going to be to the bitter end. It's not going to be like pitter-patting and stuff like that. That's going to be a sick fight.

Yeah. That's going to be a sick fight. Dude, I was looking at it, and it's crazy. It's like he has – I think he has more fights than I do. He's got 13 KO, TKOs. He's got six submissions and he's got like nine decisions. And I've got 14 submissions, seven TKO, KOs, and like four decisions. Do you prefer this fight?

I mean, if you had a choice between this fight and the fight with Dominic Cruz? I want the fight that fans want to see. And I think people afterwards are going to prefer this fight, but beforehand will prefer the Dominic Cruz fight. So I want to give people what they want to see. And, you know, Dominic and I have a history that we need to solve and stuff like that. I mean, I was really looking forward to fighting him. But as far as an exciting fight goes, this is going to be a crazy fight.

It's a funny thing, this Dominic thing, because I've never seen you be upset by an opponent. I've never seen you trash-talk an opponent. You know, you're usually a pretty easy-going guy. And when I've talked to you about your opponent, you're pretty analytical about their skill set. But there's something about Dominic Cruz that gets under your skin. Yeah. What is it dude i don't know if you know the history of us but i know you won the first fight we caught him

but when i when i when i first time i met him was after he was just being an immature little punk and just i mean i i'm like you know open to be cool with whoever i never met the guy i don't know him from adam and he like kind of chose me as an enemy. And in the real world, that guy's in my town. We're going to do some sort of battle. Or he's not going to do that. And we did. And it still didn't go away.

It's like the guy's got a chip on his shoulder. I really believe he's jealous of me for some shape or form. And I've sat there and talked to him before, and he's complained about stuff. And he's gotten a lot better because I think his situation's gotten a lot better. He's getting more notoriety and more money and things like that. But I think he's jealous. And it gets on my nerves. Dude, you've got plenty of great stuff going on in your life,

and he's got to choose me as the person he's going to be negative about? Is it that, or is it just that that's how he gets himself fired up to compete against someone in his division? You don't care? I mean, I don't care what his reason is to be a dickhead to me. Right. You don't be a dickhead to me. Period. How was he being a dickhead?

Like, what did he do? Well, okay, so the first time we fought, we signed those posters. You know that story where you sign, everybody takes home, you know, your certain amount of posters that you put up in your gym and stuff like that. They give some to charity, important people. And he was pissed his face wasn't on the poster. There was four title fights that night. And so they put all the champions on there.

And so he starts signing his name over my face, the posters that everybody takes home. And so, like, that started it. And then after the fight, I beat him. And then I've got friends in San Diego. I was, you know, helping promote a fight in San Diego. And all I hear is Dominic's running his mouth and, like, talking crap about me. I haven't even thought about the guy, you know. Just Dominic's running his mouth and talking crap about me.

I haven't even thought about the guy. He's got my poster up in his gym and he's defacing it and just talking trash. I'm like, what is this guy's problem? Obsessing like he's got a fucking hard-on for me or something. Dude, I could give two shits about this guy. But you fought him again. Then I fought him again. I felt like I did more damage in that fight and you know that the the events prior to that fight kind of let things set things to rest with us because we had to we're forced to spend time together in this whole

camp pendleton thing when we did this crucible and like they were like tugging at our heartstrings about the military and like they put us through this crazy workout. And like, you know, that's when I actually got to know him a little bit better and realized like, all right, the guy is coming from a place where he feels like he's been misrepresented. He feels like he's underpaid. He's mismanaged. He's this and that. And we actually had some good talks and kind of put the beef aside,

but I feel like there's still a little jealousy there you know what i mean you had some good talks and you still like to fuck them up oh yeah and vice versa you know that's really interesting that's a that must be a very strange thing to be spending so much time with a dude you're about to go to war with it was weird and you know what happened is like slipped through the cracks. It was like new PR people and the Marines setting up this thing that was going to be a partnership with the UFC and this and that.

And no one really understood the fact that he and I were fighting in a month and a half. And they're going to have us working as a team together like going through this crazy crucible. We did a third of the crucible, which is like the initiation ceremony where they put these guys through hell for 50 hours and no sleep and all this stuff. Phil Davis, Rich Franklin, Dominic, and myself had to go. They're like, okay, we're going to shoot these guns.

We're meeting these Marines, whatever. The next thing you know, they're like, we're going to do this obstacle course, which is a small little obstacle course. Go to meet the drill sergeants, and they're like, you know, they were not cracking a smile and this and that. They have us start doing this like short but intense whatever it's called, obstacle course. Then they throw backpacks on us, and we start our day marching where they're yelling at us and all this stuff. Then it goes to the next thing, next thing, next thing you know, it's like 10 o'clock at night.

We've been there for like nine hours just getting like punked by these Marines and like crawling through dirt carrying fucking ammunition stuff. Like Dominic hurt his – he ran and hurt his knee tripping over barbed wire. Jesus Christ. His feet were all jacked up. He had like – his shoes didn't fit so he had like huge blisters on his feet. And I ended up hurting myself a little bit. I had a broken hand at the time.

I didn't know I was going to be doing this stuff. I had a broken hand. It was like a week and a half old, just a little fracture. And I did – I climbed the top of the rope. I did the pull-ups. I did all this stuff because I didn't want to tell my opponent that I had a broken hand. Oh, my God. So it was like, man, it was crazy.

That's ridiculous. It was a terrible idea. Who the fuck put that together? It slipped through the cracks. All new workers at UFC. And I agreed to it. And by the time I got in the middle of it and everybody got in the middle of it, it was like the Marines there like preaching about America.

And I was like, dude. What were they saying? Just like Phil was laughing and the guy is like, Phil, you will stop laughing right now. You will blah, blah, blah. And so he's trying not to laugh. And the other guy says, the other drill sergeant says phil when he says stop laughing he means hide your teeth and then i start fucking laughing i'm like

busting up laughing and and then and then so they're like is that funny mr faber you think there's funny something funny about americans dying in war and i'm like all right this is like okay this is right at the beginning wow we're getting like introduced this whole thing that's a that's a moronic sentence dude we had to do uh yeah we had we had to do something uh where we like we're doing these problem solving things we had to like communicate like one guy was the leader and we had to like get these like big buckets past the ropes and follow these rules and like problem solve and like communicate as a team so like by the end of thing it was like we were cool and then you know we're like he was asking me advice about

stuff and and really yeah vice versa and then what kind of advice to give him you give him some shitty advice well he was he was just i was he was complaining about his mismanagement and all this kind of stuff and and i was like dude just i went through the same stuff he's like i've been fighting just as long as you i was there i met you when you fought charlie valencia for the title you remember meeting i didn't remember meeting him or whatever and it was like he's like i i had this and i that just feeling sorry for himself i'm like dude stop feeling sorry for yourself do this and he's like well am i on the right track and i'm like yeah you're on the right track dude just chill and uh that was it and then we went our separate ways and it's back to being

enemies what a strange thing that must have been preparing for a title fight with a guy going through this what this is like a bonding course it's like a bonding experience that you didn't want to have and some guy yelling at you do you think it's funny when americans are dying at war shut the fuck up I think you're funny right now this is funny we're not preparing soldiers stupid we're just trying to give you

the authentic experience it was intense bro it was intense did they crack a smile after it was over yeah we all went out and had a good dinner and stuff like that. And that was the last Dominic I hung out on good terms. Wow.

Been enemies ever since. So this is before the rematch. This is before the rematch. And how many times did you drop him in that fight? Times where I hit him on the chin and he dropped three times. Three times. That should be, you know,

it's, it should be factored in, right? He never dropped me with anything. I had, I had long hair. Next time I fight him, I'm not going to have my hair loose

because every time, you know, in sparring, I, there's all times where guys graze you, slip and you move and stuff like that. But your hair goes far.

And your hair shakes. Yeah. You know, and these judges, I mean, these judges, I don't even want to get started on that. Don't even get started because y'all go crazy too.

Go get started. Does it drive you nuts? Oh, my gosh. It's a disrespect, right? It's total disrespect. I'm not going to start on it because I see all these judges all the time, and I don't want them to be biased against me. But, like, you've got to see some of these judges that, you know,

have never wrestled, never done judo, never done jiu-jitsu, never done karate, never done boxing. And it's like, why was my life in your hands? And why? Because the Athletic Commission doesn't want to change what they feel like they've already set in place. Because they would have to admit they fucked up. Yeah. They would have to admit that these people are not.

Yeah, they won't do it. I mean, it's mind-boggling. It's just a 50-50 chance. They should have to review fights and have to explain. I mean, it's a big goddamn deal. You train for eight weeks plus for a fight. After every fight, they should not have to only judge but explain what was going on, explain why you thought that this was better than that.

I've been so tempted to grab one of these judges that I know doesn't know anything and ask them. On camera. Ask them a full interview of like what is an omoplata? What makes it work? What makes it not work? What is this? Is this a dangerous position? When does it become dangerous?

When is it not? And just like see where they're at. Dude i i don't want to say any names but one of the guys who's a judge has told me that a woman judge asked him what is what is this guy doing the guy was attempting a kimura she's like what is he doing like she had to ask what a guy's doing and on top of that she doesn't know what it felt like whether it's going to hurt the guy or whether it's just a... Well, yeah, like, you know, when someone has... They got an Americana, and it's all up here, and you're like, you think he's going to be okay.

He's just kind of twisting his arm. And then the guy pulls it to the body. You got to know that that's better. That once you get it to the body, that's like a near submission. There's so many guys out there that could really use those jobs that really know what they're doing. Oh, yeah, so many. Like a Charlie Val really use those jobs that really know what they're doing. Oh, yeah.

So many. Like Charlie Valencia, for example, my good buddy, who's an accomplished fighter, been fighting for years, knows the sport inside and out. He's a veteran. Yeah. If it was a lucrative job. Yeah. It should be, too. What a great judge he would be. Yeah, absolutely.

Knows everything. Knows what it feels like to get punched. Know whether you get hit on the top of the head or if you get hit on the chin. Well, Ricardo Almeida's doing that now that's great that's what they do absolutely i agree with you 100 it's just there's people that i mean they might be able to never have boxed and judge boxing you know but you have to study boxing and you have to talk to experts and stuff but i don't think it's possible for you to know what the fuck is happening in a cage fight unless you you have some martial arts experience.

Right. And a lot of mixed martial arts. A lot of grappling. Mixed martial arts. Mixed martial arts. A lot of grappling. What does that say? It's five.

I can't read that shit. Brian's holding up his sign. It looks like fucking hieroglyphs. Joe, do you ever watch the King of the Cage and Gladiator Challenge stuff now or is it just not even? I do sometimes. It's not what it used to be. Yeah.

Because back when I was in Gladiator Challenging King of the Caves, that was the only other show in town. It was the UFC and then them and then whatever's in Japan. I still watch small fights, though. HDNet has a lot of small organizations that come on. You get to see Rich Clemente. I just saw him fight. I just saw Dave Branch and Anthony Johnson.

There's a fucking dude who's got a weight cut in that show. I've never seen anybody. You go up a weight class and then keep missing weight. And you keep missing it. This guy, Anthony Rumble Johnson, this incredibly talented guy, weighs about 230-ish before he begins his cut down to 170. It's incredible. Crazy, man.

He's huge. I saw him walk through the hallway once in a um in a hotel we were all i think it was in denver he was so goddamn big he wasn't fighting you know yeah he was i couldn't believe how big he was was like that dude is like a heavyweight it's amazing that he can make 170 it's crazy well i the reason i asked is i remember because it's cool that you do watch those fights because i remember before i was in the wc or the ufc i remember you saying something and recognizing me and and and like being like hey i've seen your fight this and that which i thought was the coolest thing in the world because you know it was like man these guys are watching you know and it's funny because i I was at a UFC in Sacramento,

and I had a fake pass made from my buddy Vinny the Hook who had a fake pass the whole time. It was the best thing ever. It was in Sac, and I had gotten in with the pass, and then I just beelined straight through, acted like I owned the place, and now I'm in on the inner circle with Dana, right? With Dana and Lorenzo and all you guys, and Dana's like, hey, you having a good time, kid dana's like hey hi you having a good time kid i'm like yeah having a good time you know and just chilling on the inner inner little

circle with my fake past oh that's awesome it was awesome and then uh like because i was just at a point where i was making a name for myself in the lower the smaller shows that you know it made a little bit of sense that i was there you know what i mean right so people didn't really question it too much. You had watched a couple when I was on little pay-per-views and stuff. But, yeah, that was the first time I think. Yeah, I'd seen you in the King of the Cage. I think I saw you live once, and I saw you on TV.

That was back when my friend Bud owned a piece of the King of the Cage. So you guys had tapes laying around. So I saw most of them. Eddie was doing commentary back then too. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's funny though. Dana was like, yeah, no idea. I was just walking around in there like I own a joint.

Dana's like, you having a good time, kid? I'm like, yes. Yeah. Well, baby, you were right. You did belong there. Look, now here we are. That's right. Promoting a fucking huge fight.

I felt like I belonged there. Of course you did. Absolutely. Now, what is the date of your fight with Burrell? It's July 7th. July 7th. Ooh, that's the same card as Anderson Silva-Chel signed a rematch.

That's going to be a crazy card. Yeah, they've been moved to our card, which is awesome. It's going to make it one of the biggest cards in UFC history. That's going to be a huge card, man. Huge card. Those are two monster fights right there.

How did the John Jones-Rashad Evans fight do? Did it do pretty good on pay-per-view? I think it did really well. I think they were surprised at how well it did. I think it exceeded expectations. I think John Jones is obviously on his way to becoming a huge superstar. Right. That's a rare gem of a talent right there, isn't it?

Yeah. Incredible. You see a guy who's been training for four years in MMA and he's choking Lyoto Machida unconscious it's like god damn his wrestling pedigree was really good he was supposed to go on a scholarship to Iowa

because he started his family instead but he could have been a great collegiate wrestler at a high level also. No doubt, but what's impressing me is how goddamn good his striking is and how quick it got good.

He's an athlete, man. It was great when he fought Stefan Bonner and he fought Gusma. His striking looked good, but it's become insane. He outstrikes Shogun. He outstrikes Rampage and, you know, makes it look easy. And that height and reach is so hard to fuck with, man.

Yeah, it's crazy, man. Have you talked to him since his situation? I haven't. He's got a DUI, and for those who don't know, he crashed into a pole apparently. Yeah, he's been hard to get a hold of. Like, you know, he, like, changes his number all the time and stuff like that. I haven't really talked to him in a long time, not since I've seen him in person. But, yeah, it's suck.

I mean, he's a young guy. I did an interview, and they read me this thing that he said like a week before. Oh, he would never get a DUI. Yeah, which is crazy. And it makes me seem, it almost makes me feel like he did it on purpose just to like, like add to the story. It's like, why would you be like, dude, I won't, I'm so happy to do this because I will never get a DUI. And then like a week later, you get a DUI. I'm like, what?

I think it's pressure, man. I think, uh, especially if you're, you know, you're a young guy and he's incredibly talented and the success must be overwhelming. To a few years ago have gone from having to be a bouncer to take care of your girlfriend and your new baby, and you're really worried about your future, so you decide to start fighting. From that just a few years ago to driving a Bentley, top of the fucking world, everybody wants to shake your hand. The world is fucking world. Everybody wants to shake your hand.

The world is stepping forward to Jon Jones to shake his hand. You see him, he's got a glow around him, an aura. That's hard to manage, man. It's hard to manage. It makes me feel invincible. Is it hard for you? It's not hard for me because I surround myself with the same people. My dad lives right next door to me and all my buddies.

I mean, like my team of guys, we started together. You know, Joseph was mopping the mats at our gym and an amateur when he started. And Chad Mendez I recruited out of college and TJ I recruited out of college. Me and Danny Castillo were high school buddies. And I have the same people around me. And you guys all have you have like a couple of houses and you all live close to each other too yeah over over time it's starting to change now because guys are getting older and getting more money and getting married and getting

all sorts of stuff but we've had like a little commune that was uh that was really cool we call it the block and and uh it's a tight-knit group you know we have our we have a charity golf tournament we're having a charity golf tournament it's the second annual we have uh that's a tight-knit group. We have a charity golf tournament. We're having a charity golf tournament. It's the second annual. That's a week after my fight. We have an end-of-the-year banquet where we give out awards and give speeches to guys and give favorites. Everybody gets dressed up. We have a big dinner. It's a whole gym.

Everybody trains there. Is that what it is? It's the whole team. Then whoever wants to buy a dinner to come and be a part of it. We acknowledge everybody who does their little their little parts and and we have like houseboat trips i mean it's like a real tight-knit crew so i mean it's hard also when you got a guy like like tj dillashaw for example who just started training like two and a half years ago and i have a bad day and he's kicking the crap out of me you It's like hard to get on a high horse.

Right, right. How did you start this whole commune thing? How did you do the block? I saw it once in one of the countdown shows. I was like, that is fucking cool. What a smart thing. Surround yourself with a bunch of cool guys who you train with, you all live together.

Right. It was basically, so I talked about when I first graduated college, I started a little business, top of the line coaching for kids. And my coach at the time, Lenny Zaleski allowed me to run a summer of summer camps for the, uh, for the college through my business. And that gave me like $40,000 that went in and out. I got to keep like 3000 of it or something like that. But then that established some credit and a history, a work history, and I ended up buying my first house when I was making on paper $7,000 a year when anybody could buy a house.

Holy shit. But I was hustling. I mean I was always able to make money, and I filled it with all my buddies to help pay the rent. And then my buddy Tommy who's back there, he works for me full time. We knew each other in high school and college. He was just graduating and was out of a job where he wanted to buy a house. House opened up next door.

Him, my other buddy, bought that one. And then I started doing better. I bought the house next door to that. My other buddy, Sanchez, who started out as like my nemesis in college like we were enemies like two and two my senior year he's like put me out of my senior year in college like only got to make me cry in competition this is like the end of my college career he ends up coming and taking my spot at uc davis and living with me renting a room wow and then he starts managing my gym and then we bought another house right there together. I put the down payment. He makes the payments and he started a little business in

there. This is all my book. You're going to love my book, by the way. It's money. But so he's the name of it for everybody. The business, the book of the books, laws of the ring, your eyes, laws of the ring. Yeah. And it's all these, it's all these theories about community and personal credit and positive attitude. That's in the book? It's a motivational book. Really? Yeah.

Awesome. So it's not just this is how I became successful. No. There it is right there. And so Sanchez starts this company in one of our garages maintaining bank-owned property lawns. And next thing you know, he's the largest company in the U.S. right now for that. He's just caked out fat cat.

He just becomes like a crazy lawnmower guy. He's mowing lawns from Hawaii to Iowa to Indiana. They do like 3,000 or 35,000 some. Stupid number. Wow. That's all on the block. And we've had all sorts of stuff that's come off the block. Chad Mendez lives on the block.

TJ Dillashaw. We've had like 30 guys. Korean Zombie came and stayed out there. How many houses is it? It's four houses right next to each other. And then there's one house that's my college buddy that's about a block and a half away that's so badass to have so many people around you that you can count on all the time too you know it's crazy yeah you train with you know

them you can count on them yeah that's awesome it's cost me some money over the years like being the bank for these guys not you know guys not always to pay rent and stuff like that but i mean it built something today that's super solid i mean our team now is one of the top in the world and uh you know it was all part of that carpooling to the gym and you know if you need to go you have no food go to one of the houses and take somebody else's you know i mean it's that's great man as long as everybody's actually contributing right and everybody has a place and a function and a part of it yeah

now you you have a gym you have your own gym set up what is what is your gym called it's ultimate fitness ultimate fitness yeah

and regular people can go and train there as well it's like you have classes and shit yeah we have like we have you know quite a few

quite a few members like 400 somethingsomething members, and it's been around five years now. We've grown it. It's got a great reputation. It's pretty bad. Are you the one who's managing everything?

Do you make your own training schedule? Do you put everything together? Do you have an MMA coach who handles when you're going to do Muay Thai, when you're going to wrestle, when you're going to combine them? Do you have someone who analyzes you? We have like a, we have a team schedule and then I have my individual coaches. Like I have a jujitsu coach. I have a master Tong is my standup coach. And we have set times with our team where we have our team practices that are pretty structured. And then we have our individual stuff that we do outside of it. So I'll do the set practices, which are the pro practices,

three days a week in the morning, and then two days of sparring, and then we have two days of jiu-jitsu. And then everything else is kind of miss and match. We have a wrestling class for guys that need to do more wrestling. But you don't have a person who sets it all up for you. You do it all for yourself? Yeah, pretty much. You set your own strength and conditioning schedule,

or do you bring in a guy for that? I've got individual coaches for everything. I've got Russell Dunning is my strength and conditioning guy. He's my physical therapist. And how do you decide when you go to him, when you do Muay Thai? Do you do it by your body? Do you do it by what you know from your experience? I set a general schedule and then listen to my body outside of that.

So if I feel like I need to do more or less, I'll do more or less. But like I said, a general schedule that I know is always going to be there. And then if I need to take a day off, I'll just let someone know. Or if I need to do more, I'll just call someone up. And we all kind of do that same thing at the team. It's like We have all these different things available and you can hit them all. That's what

makes our team really unique is we're training all year round. If you don't have a fight and you're in town, you just go to practice. That's what you do. Everybody trains. Nobody takes time off and gets fat and stupid. You can't. You can't anymore, right? You can't. Everyone has to be improving too right yeah this is your biggest gains like that isn't it incredible for you to watch when you started fighting to today and see the how crazy

the sport has become i mean i remember when i used to watch you know when i saw your fights in king of the cage or that back in that day nobody knew what the fuck cage fighting was no it was crazy. I was like embarrassed. It wasn't like you could pick up chicks, at least the chicks I like, you couldn't pick up chicks by telling them you're a cage fighter. No, they would think you're a piece of shit, like a dog, you're a human dog. Keep that on the DL, you know.

Yeah. They get to know you better. Now it's like chic. Yeah. I saw this video with Charlize Theron and she was talking about how much she loves the UFC, and I was like, how fucking nutty is that, man? I just saw that on a tweet. Did you tweet that?

No, no, no. No, it's on the underground. It was, well, a lot of people tweeted, I think, because the video was her on the Conan O'Brien show. You know, she was talking about how much she loves watching fighting. And you could see Conan, like, he's a little bit uncomfortable with it, you know? Because, like, when chicks start talking about, like, fucking savage men beating the fuck. A guy like Conan, like, oh, yeah.

It's like he doesn't even want to know dudes like that exist. He certainly doesn't want them to be coming out of the mouth of one of the most beautiful women in the world while he's trying to impress her. Hey, that's Mother Nature, though. It's a bitch. It goes back to the old instincts the wounded the wounded antelope that's traced by the waterhole you can't live forever bitch it is what it is that's how did you come up with the name alpha male alpha male i well i was a human development major and i just was studying all this different stuff in school and i just liked what it represented. I took cultural anthropology and physical anthropology

and all these different development classes and stuff like that. My whole study was just about people and things and how things happen. I remember learning about these birds. There's this certain type of bird where these three birds land and the two sidekicks they all do this dance together and then the two sidekicks kick rocks and the middle one gets laid you know it's like it's choreographed and like these guys might have their opportunity at some time when it steps up and it's their turn and then they talk about like these packs of wolves that work together as a team and then there's like the the big macho gorilla that that like is spreading his seed

and there's like the little sneak dick monkeys like when the guy's not looking he runs in and gets his hump in and like all this different crazy stuff and like it was just interesting to me about how in humans there's just alpha males in every category. I mean, there's an alpha male ballerina. There's an alpha male freaking gay dude. There's an alpha male, you know, whatever. There's just like the top dog in every category. And it just kind of trips me out of how they are. But it takes like being smart, being good looking, being persuasive, being, you know, hardworking and being, you know, all these great things.

And I figured, dude, that's the shit. It is honest in its approach. I mean, that is what everybody is trying to do. Whereas, you know, you can name it a bunch of different things. But, yeah, it is trying to be the alpha male. Yeah. The connotation, the word has sort of changed lately. It's become a tad douchey, the word alpha.

Yeah. You know, it's like, dude, that's so alpha. You know, like people like rag on you from that. You never anybody say that no that's people say that on online a lot like to rag on you for something yeah dude that's so beta you're a beta you're being a beta you know alpha and beta is like uh it's a it's a very i don't know it's right brian it's kind of recent i mean i say that obviously because we have alpha brain. It opens itself up to criticism. That is what you're doing, man. You're alpha male and motherfucking shit out of dudes. Yeah, and I mean, basically, that's what it comes down to.

It takes all that. So it takes intelligence, athleticism, hard work, dedication, and the guys that rise to the top in anything are made up of that same stuff, whether it's the top writer, the top journalist, the top anything. They are, but I think that one of the most difficult paths in the world is the one that you've found success in. I think you are in one of the most difficult businesses on the planet Earth. It's rough.

If it's not physically, it's mentally taxing. It's financially taxing when you're getting going, and that's the crazy thing. Actually, I want to talk about that. I've got a new thing that Phil Davis and I are starting called MMA Draft, and we've been working on it for a long time. But it's basically going to create opportunities for these up-and-comers. It's like MMA Draft is going to take a guy like Phil Davis,

who's a national champion, and start following his career when he's a kid, give him an opportunity like shine as a kid and be like these are the top mma prospects start covering all these different amateur sides of jujitsu wrestling uh i think we should even cover some soccer stuff and there's so many soccer athletes coming in isn't it funny kicking yeah just the dexterity with the legs and stuff like that but they need to start we need to start finding the next Tiger Woods and LeBron James and Michael Jordans of our sport and watch them grow up as kids so that when a guy like Phil or a guy like Chad Mendes,

who's a national finalist, or Lance Palmer, who's a national finalist in wrestling, doesn't have to wash dishes and mow lawns for the first four or five fights before there's an opportunity there right yeah so we're developing this whole uh website where where we're we're having criteria and we're having like profiles and we're going to create some ourself and do our scouting and like cover events of kids from youth all the way through you know the international wrestling that's awesome jiu-jitsu and kickboxing and amateur leagues. Dude, it's going to be crazy.

We have a temporary sign-up right now. You can check it out. What is it? MMADraft.com. MMADraft.com. Yeah, but I've been working on it. It's going to be sweet. And one more time, your book is?

Laws of the Ring. Laws of the Ring, and they can get that on Amazon.com. Amazon. I'm actually doing a signing tonight at Barnes & Noble's in Huntington Beach. You're leaving right now to go to that. Yeah. Because you're going to have to get on the fucking terrible highway of 5 o'clock in Los Angeles. Yeah, it's rough, man.

So Barnes & Noble, Huntington Beach, 7 o'clock. Yep. Go meet Uriah Faber. Get your heart broken. Dude, it was awesome. Really fun interview. Thank you very much. Great fucking stories.

And best of luck in the Borough Fight. I can't wait to see it, man. It's going to be awesome. All right. One more little plug here to my guys. I'm working on this new brand of equipment and lifestyle stuff called Torque. We're going to come out with all sorts of new badass stuff. So keep your eye open for that. Torque1.net is in the makes right now. We're going to have mats. We're going to have gloves. It's going to be awesome.

And what is your main website? Torque1.net. And my partner is actually the guy that started bsn uh scott james and he's an incredible businessman he sold that company for a lot of cash and he wants he just loves mma and so uh that's who i'm gonna be rocking from here on out boom and make sure you follow uriah on twitter it's uriah faber. You could spell it, bitch. Google it if you can. I'm tired of explaining things to you people. Thank you to the Flesh Life for sponsoring our podcast. Go to JoeRogan.net. Click on the link.

Enter in the code name Rogan. Save yourself 15%. Thank you to Onnit.com. And again, click on the link on JoeRogan.net. Enter in the code name Rogan. Enter in the code name Rogan. Excuse me. Enter in the code name Rogan. Enter in the code name Rogan. Excuse me. Enter in the code name

Rogan. Save yourself 10% off. We will be back tomorrow with John Anthony West. That will be the last podcast of the week. But we also have the Ice House Chronicles.

We did one last night. It was fucking awesome. And we do them almost every time we have a show here at the Ice House. They're available if you subscribe

to Death Squad on iTunes. And they're also available usually on my Ustream, but sometimes on RedBand's as well. So follow RedBand. Get all that information. That's R-E-D-B-A-N on Twitter. And go to DeathSquad.tv and buy yourself

a fancy new DeathSquad t-shirt. You got one of those, Brian, I can show people right now? Yeah, right behind you on the Stormtrooper. Look at that. Folks, can you see that shit? It's pretty sporty. And we have Eliza Friday. Oh, Eliza Slesher's coming.

Who else is coming? We have Justin Martindale, Sam Tripoli, Randy's coming back, Tony Hinchcliffe. Oh, and Johnny Rotten's coming, too. He's going to come and sit in. And I'm trying to get Chris McGuire to come and hang with us as well and sit in on the podcast. The Ice House Chronicles, it's free. You can watch it again on this Ustream page. Mine wrote Joe Rogan.

Or you can download it on iTunes under Death Squad. It's only available on Death Squad. So subscribe. We'll see you dirty bitches tomorrow with one of my personal heroes, John Anthony West, the great Egyptologist. We're going to fucking get to the bottom of shit. And then we'll see you later on that night at the Ice House Chronicles. I talk too much.

Bye.