The Joe Rogan Experience - #316 - Enson Inoue, Chuck Liddell

Episode Date: January 22, 2013

Enson Inoue is a Japanese-American mixed martial artist. He currently runs multiple training gyms throughout the world, and more recently traveled to northeast Japan to directly help the earthquake and tsunami victims in areas such as Fukushima. Chuck Lidell is an American mixed martial artist, and former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion.

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Ladies and gentlemen, we seriously got two fucking legends in the house. This is a ridiculous late night podcast. It's 12.30 a.m. here. Ensign Inouye, where'd you fly in from? Portland. Portland, Oregon?

Just flew in from Portland, staying with Chuck Liddell, and the only way to do a podcast is to bang it out right now at 12.30 a.m. So here we are, man. Speaking in the microphone, tell everybody what's up. What's up? Hi. People have been asking for this podcast for a long fucking time, man. I wonder why. You're a very unique character. They want to hear you talk. What's up? What's up? Hi. People have been asking for this podcast for a long fucking time, man. Yeah, I wonder why.

You're a very unique character. They want to hear you talk. You know, it's like you're not just a pioneer of MMA, as is Chuck, but you're also a very unique human being. And there's a lot of stuff that you do both inside of martial arts and outside of martial arts. It's very, very admirable. You know, and one of the things that I really appreciate is I keep seeing all this stuff that you're doing for the victims of Fukushima.

And you've gone down there several times, haven't you? Yeah, 21 times now. Whoa. 21 times. And what are you doing when you go down there? It was actually a change of different things that I did. In the beginning, we just went up there just to save people, help people. It was like two weeks after the tsunami hit. And then it

moved to helping the people in the evacuation centers. And then now it's people that are placed in temporary housing that don't have any source of income. We're just trying to help them, supply them with their basic necessities like water stuff like water toilet paper tissue dog food cat food i mean yes a lot of people take things for granted man there's so much that these people need you know and people forgetting a lot because they're not on the news anymore were you in japan when the quake hit yeah i was in japan did you feel it yeah everybody felt it was the craziest earthquake I ever felt. The difference was it didn't, usually earthquakes last a few seconds. And you're like, oh, earthquake, finish.

But this one just kept going and it kept getting stronger. We're like, whoa. I was on the phone with a friend at the time in Hawaii. And I was like, oh, shit, this is huge. And then shit started falling in my house, in the cupboard, my pictures on my walls. And I'm like, holy shit, this is something I never felt before. It's kind of fucked up because the videos of the tsunami was, you know, we've all known about tsunamis for, you know, hundreds of years, if not thousands of years. People have been aware that that happens when the ocean goes out, that you got to get the fuck out of there because something's going on.

But we've never really seen it on video. We've never captured it the way it was captured in fukushima that's scary huh when you saw those cars rolling over the the ground just going with the ocean and taking out houses and houses floating that were on fire and it's like mother nature man even when they had it going over the rice fields and they had like these white greenhouses like on it you got to realize those greenhouses are like 12 feet tall. Jesus Christ. And they looked like little toys, and it was going right over everything.

It was unbelievable. It was amazing to watch. It was amazing to watch the physical devastation that Mother Nature can bring. And by the way, shit like that, which happens every several hundred years. We haven't documented it like this. We didn't have video cameras the last time it happened like this. What was amazing, though, to me,

was not just that something like this would happen, but how orderly everybody responded in Japan. Like, you saw the lines. Everybody was, when they were waiting for aid or when they were helping each other, it was really pretty amazing. Yeah, it's a little different than the rest of the world fuck yeah a lot different they're lining up for food when they don't have food you know

what what is the difference i mean how is it just the culture of japan it's just the culture and the mannerisms and the um the type of uh they have this uh you know that spirit you know that to suck it off you know you see it in the fighters too in Japan. Yeah. I mean, I hate to talk down Americans, but man, sometimes I go to my brother's gym and you got to tell guys to do a couple more rounds. But in the Japanese guys, you got to tell them, stop, or they'll keep going. You teach them a technique, they'll keep doing it.

I mean, I'll do a seminar in Japan, teach them a technique, I'll forget about it and start talking to someone and look back and they're still repeating the technique over and over. But when I go and do something in the States, it's like, I'll do it,

keep going, keep going. They do it once, okay, next move. Keep going, keep doing it. Yeah. The mentality's a little different. There's a lot of lazy bitches in this country.

We got it too good. We got it too good. Everyone's fucking soft over here it's hard to find like super disciplined people over here it is a fascinating thing when you see that an entire country has a different philosophy

you know and I've only been to Japan once but it was amazing it was really interesting and it was after the earthquake and it was after Fukushima and everything. It was when the UFC was there. Yeah. And it's a totally different world, man.

Yeah, it's pretty neat. It's very neat. I like it. I like it. How long have you been over there now? 22 years now. Wow. And you were born and raised in America.

In Hawaii. In Hawaii. Yeah. And what led you to go to Japan? For actually racquetball. Racquetball? To play racquetball tournament. Wow.

Yeah, I wasn't even fighting. I was just training because we had a lot of street fights in Hawaii. So I was just training just so I didn't get my ass kicked in Hawaii, pretty much, because we're Japanese. And back in the day, being big was being strong. So for me, being an Oriental, we were smaller, so we just had to

really fight for our stuff. We either had to give away our lunch money every day or fight for it. Hawaii's one of the last places where street fights go down on a fucking regular basis, too. Yeah, it happens a lot. It's kind of crazy, man. Hawaii is one of the rare places that are left on this earth where things are decided with knuckles, you know?

That's real. There's a lot of places where there's all sorts of gun violence and knife violence and I'm sure Hawaii has its share of that but there's a lot of fucking fights going on in Hawaii it's amazing when you think about an island in the middle of the Pacific and how many great fighters have come out of there

both you and your brother BJ Penn and just keep naming all the way down the line yeah there's a lot that came out Kendall Grove so many guys came out of Hawaii. There's a certain style of fighter that comes out of Hawaii, like scrappy, wild, chance-taking, in-your-face.

There's not, like, conservative fighters from Hawaii. Yeah. You know? Like, you don't see, like, a lot of stick and move, technical, like trying to get out of there and stay safe that's true remy bonjasky style you know there's not a lot of that man dudes are going after it in hawaii it's true it's interesting man you and your brother i was there for your usc debut i was there when you fought royce alger oh really yeah i was the backstage

interviewer i'm pretty sure i interviewed you because you got injured in the fight, and you couldn't continue. Yeah, well, was that you that interviewed me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Way back, I'm like, what is it, 97? Was that 98? 97. Something like that?

Yeah. I had no clue my eye was hurt. I remember it just felt a little weird, but I didn't think it was hurt. Yeah, what happened to you? I went backstage, and I felt that I got hit, so I just wanted to check if my nose was bleeding. And the basic rule, you know, don't blow your nose right for hours and I blew my nose and I felt the air come through and push almost like felt like it was gonna push my eye out I was like holy shit what

just happened for for folks who don't know when when a guy in a fight gets a broken nose they always tell you don't blow your nose because it creates there's some sort of pressure build up thin plate a bone plate across your face here that's like paper thin and if there's any hole in it it actually holds in the air into your face pretty freaky huh whoa and if you have a little crack there and you blow your nose it'll just push the air out through that so that's pretty much i think it's for fighting especially for um kickboxers or boxers, I think it's a real simple, basic rule. Don't blow your nose after your fight. It's so hard to do, though, right?

Because you can't breathe out of your nose, and blood's coming out of it, and you want to breathe out of it. I was actually trying to just check if my nose was bleeding, and I just blew, and it's like poof, and like, whoa. That was a fight where Royce Alger was, that was when Mark Coleman was on top, and wrestlers like the high-end wrestlers. Kevin Jackson was beating him. Yeah, Kevin Jackson and Randleman was in his prime.

And it was a lot of high-end wrestlers were just starting to enter into the game. Yeah, yeah. The wrestlers were the ones that were beating everybody. Yeah. But I remember you caught him with an arm bar and I think you broke his arm. Yeah, I did. It popped. But I remember your brother, they were yelling something at you guys

and as you were leaving, your brother was like, wrestlers ain't shit. You guys are like having, there was like some thing back and forth between the wrestlers and you guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember it, man. It was interesting because you, you know, in armbar and him, you know, it wasn't just an upset. It was an upset, but it was also like the world got to know you.

That was like your first big fight on the big stage. It was kind of good that they just blew up Royce. It kind of helped me out. Yeah, they made a big deal out of him because they thought, well, here's a very successful amateur wrestler. He's probably going to be the next big thing in MMA. But it turned out that you were. It was kind of shitty where we were going

everything was about Rice, Rice, Rice, Rice, Rice. And even the way they questioned me, it's almost like when I fought Randy, the same type of question. Like, are you going to be okay? That kind of thing. He's human, man. He gets a mistake and I grab that arm and break it like any other arm.

Did you fight Randy with pants on? Were you wearing gi pants on? No, I just fought in tights. In tights, yeah. You caught Randy with an armbar as well, right? Mm-hmm. Almost the exact same time, too. It was like right after, because Randy was there at that UFC.

He won the heavyweight tournament. Yeah, yeah. So I didn't expect that for him to make that mistake. Yeah, he fought Tony Hauma and then he fought that big big black kid who had a lot of promise but after that Randy fight we never really saw him again that kid was pretty good yeah but you uh you you you did one thing in that fight that we hadn't seen up until that point it was like in the Royce Alger fight it was like we were just starting to get accustomed to what techniques were really effective in mma and we'd

seen hoist gracie of course arm bar a few guys but we hadn't seen him you know take on like one of these big name wrestlers that was just starting to enter into the game so when you caught him with that arm bar that was that was a big deal that was like oh okay like you can't just be a wrestler you gotta you gotta know what the fuck is going on when a guy throws his legs up like that. Especially the way they hyped him up. Yeah. It still bothers you, huh? It's sweeter, man. Yeah.

Well, then after that fight, the next thing that you showed, though, was in the Randy fight, you were kicking the shit out of his legs from the butt scoop position, man. From the bottom, yeah. Yeah, you landed some fucking hard leg kicks from that position. You don't see that very often. You know? Well, I just have this style that just aggresses don't see that very often. You know? Well, I just have this style that just aggresses no matter where you're at. Yeah.

And they weren't really checking the leg tape. I literally put a whole roll of tape on my legs, and it was pretty much 80% in the front, and they let it go. And it was like a little cast. All over the shin. It hurt a little more than it looked. Sorry, Randy. That's part of the game though you know well back in those days you know uh like chuck i watched your

fights i've watched some of those uh valley tudor fights where it was no knuckles and the bottom of the the bottom of the ropes were a net the net and you get there i got i got the guys stuck underneath the net pinned under there under there, hitting them through the net. On the way. Hammering them through the net and blood dripping. Those IVC days, right, in Brazil. Some of those fucking fights were nuts. The thing is, that show I was on, they filmed a show at the same time.

They were doing a 155-pound tournament in there. And watching these guys the guy that the guy that won it actually had gone through he got he got cut in the first fight got cut in the second fight and then won a 30 minute fight in the third fight with two you know two big cuts on him i mean these guys are going they went at it in there it was a different world back then man it was a different world 30 then It was a different world 30 minute rounds 30 minutes straight And essentially no rules

Do you remember when Gary Goodridge reached into the Pedro's pants And grabbed his dick and balls He grabbed his dick and balls And squeezed his dick and balls Remember that? That was like a big deal Can he fucking do that? Yeah he can do that

No eye gouging, no biting. He couldn't grab the ropes and no oil, I think, was the rule. Everything else, groin struts were legal, headbutts, elbows. How many dudes were oiled up, though? A lot of dudes oiled up, right? Oh, God. Actually, Coleman went in the back and actually took the oil away from Vanderlei and what's his name, Pele, in the back. Coleman just grabbed it from him Pele in the back.

Coleman just grabbed it from him and was in the back. They were just oiling up. Yeah. They were in the back just oiling up for it. I mean, kickboxing. It's so funny how the world has changed. I remember I was there for your first fight in the UFC, too. You fought that Noe Hernandez.

And he was a boxer. And I remember Peretti didn't know that you were a wrestler up until that fight. He didn't know until the weigh-ins because I said, the big thing was we were going to weigh-in, right? And I'm thinking, I made it to the UFC. We're going in for a weigh-in. And the weigh-in is sitting on a bathroom scale. I'm like cutting weight.

I mean, not like a digital bathroom scale. One of them aluminum ones. One of them me they asked me and know it hey i know it was two pounds over is that all right i looked at him i went on that scale i'm like let me get him back on here i guess i'll show him how to make weight. Seven to front. He's lean. I'm like, are you kidding me? That's hilarious. But yeah, I said something about it, and he actually didn't know. He said, hey, you better keep this standing if you want to come back again.

He was in the back. I'm like, all right, whatever, man. Yeah, a lot of people don't know about that. That's some fucking bullshit. It's supposed to be MMA. Someone would say that to you, especially right before before a fight you better fight a certain way yeah I was I mean he was I don't know I don't know what his thing was well they were trying like my haircut either he told really oh yeah that's a day you can't wait I'll give her that haircut okay meanwhile 2013 I'm outdated. I mean, yeah, okay, whatever. Meanwhile, 2013, you're still rocking it.

Fuck him. Where is he? Outdated. That's hilarious. Outdated in 97. When was it okay? The fucking time of the pilgrims? That was the real Mohawks.

I mean, when was it okay if it's outdated? I don't know. I don't know what he was trying to say. Whatever. He didn't like my haircut. Yeah. Well, you know what? Nobody knew you then. Whatever. He didn't like my haircut. Yeah. Well, you know what? Nobody knew you then.

In time, he would have had to have accepted. I couldn't have seen when you were on your fucking title reign, him coming up to you. Listen, man, your fucking haircut's outdated. Enough already with this mohawk. Cover up that tattoo in your head, too. That shit's ridiculous. It's funny. The things that people choose to focus on you know you guys were

there those those early days you know we were talking we were just talking in the car on the way here about i remember like going down to those uh cobra challenge in temecula and having the muscle the guy to get my guys paid a hundred and a hundred you know i was like we didn't make any money on the show i'm looking at him like i I was like, we didn't make any money on the show. I'm looking at him like, I don't care. We don't have a cut of the gate, and the guy's getting $200. We're not business partners, man. We're private contractors. And it was sold out, not to mention your things.

I mean, the place is packed. If you didn't make any money, you're an idiot. Was that one of those fights where it was like a pancreation style where they had to use open palms? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. Was that one of those fights where it was like a pancreation style where they had to use open palms? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting.

We used to have, me and Scott Adams would come down with like, I think that one of them, we had eight guys on the card. So we had like, you know, most of the card. Yeah, Scott Adams was one of the first guys who was like a leg lock specialist. You know, like he became synonymous with like leg locks. Everybody knew. Yeah, he's tough. Yeah. Yeah, he had crazy, I mean, he was eight synonymous with like leg locks everybody knew off. Yeah, yeah Yeah, crazy. I mean they know they know they like locks as long as fight was in the UFC for it was three three minutes And three fourteen I think you know when you guys were competing back then when you came in and UFC 18 And what which which was 13? Yeah, I started working at 12, so you were 17

So when you guys were back there and when you look back at that now, like where the UFC is now, it's so fucking crazy. It's like, did you ever think that it could ever get this big? I was just telling him in the car, man. I still can't believe how big it is, man. Yeah, talking to the mic, it was the way people were like, Yeah, I was still telling Chuck in the car, man. I can't believe how huge MMA has gotten.

Oh, it's insane. I got pulled over on the way over here. Because I was like, Chuck in the car, man. I can't believe how huge MMA has gotten. Oh, it's insane. I got pulled over on the way over here. Because I was going a little fast. I was trying to get here quick. And the guy comes up. He recognized me. He goes, what are you doing? I go, I'm at my podcast studios over here.

I'm doing a podcast with Ensign Inouye. He goes, get the fuck out of here. Wow. I go, yeah, Chuck Liddell's with me. He goes, holy shit. I thought he was going to ask to come and sit in. I was like, I'm going to hide the weed when this guy gets in here. But where it is now, it's like you could say the word Anderson Silva to anybody.

Oh, I heard that guy. Yeah, I know who that guy is. It's so popular now. I never would have thought it would have gotten to this point. Oh, no, not me either. I always thought eventually. I just thought it would be a long time coming. I thought it was going to take a long time.

It was so quick. Once we got on free TV it was over. There's never been a sport in our lifetimes that was complete obscurity in the 90s and then huge today. This is the only sport like that that we've ever seen. And the difference in the athletes

and the difference in the level of competition from 1993 to your title reign to today. I mean, it's amazing when you see. The evolution of the sport is so fast. It's fucking crazy, right? You slow down for a second and you're past. You two guys are responsible for some of the most exciting moments in the history of this sport,

man. Your fight with Igor Vovchanchen might be one of the fucking wildest exchanges. Somebody wrote, somebody had a YouTube clip, they took a clip of just the first exchange where you guys were winging punches, man. Everybody thought in that fight,

well, Igor's a striker. Ensign's probably going to take him down and try to submit him. The fuck you were. You just ran at that dude swinging wild. I watched it live. I remember that was when you had to watch them. They were on like 4 o'clock in the morning in America.

You remember that? Yeah. Because it was airing live in Japan, and we would all stay up all stay up late to watch pride like late night on pay-per-view and i remember it was me and a couple guys from jujitsu in the house we were fucking screaming at the top of our lungs we were like holy shit because it was just like a movie scene like you came in throwing these fucking bombs it's like you just bit down on your mouthpiece and said, fuck it. Let's take him to, you know, take him where he lives. That was a crazy fight, man.

Do you ever look back on fights like that going, what the fuck was I thinking there? Well, basically, what people don't understand is my, when I went into my fights with a little deeper thing, I was thinking of growing as a person. And I didn't really worry that much about the win-losses because in my types of fights, I never, ever was pressured on winning and losing because my fights were always fun. It was always exciting. Is that a difference in the way the Japanese fans view fights as opposed to American fans who put so much emphasis on victory, on winning?

Well, see, what's hard now is, like, you know, I can say, yes, I'd rather have the fighters fight with more honor and more, you know, about the pride and the deep thing about the fight. But it's hard because back in the day when we were fighting, there were no big sponsors. You'd never made six figures. You know, there wasn't much pressure about winning and losing. Back in the day, it was you were fighting for peanuts basically if you're fighting in the ring and putting your life on the line

in the ring it's about pride and honor so the fights are different and you say to fighters is that disarmable for people to fight that way now? no it isn't because they have so much to gain from it they can set their life with it now. Win, it isn't because they have so much to gain from it now.

They can set their life with it now. Winning and losing is a whole different thing right now in this day. So for you, it wasn't about winning or losing. It was about finding what you were capable of. Well, it was basically for me, I wanted to learn something. MMA for me was a stepping stone in my life as a man to grow. I mean, when are you going to ever be put in a, willingly walk into an area that you possibly might die that day?

You know, I mean, the stress and the fears and the anxieties you've got to overcome in that moment is not something you're going to ever gain in a day-to-day, daily lifetime routine. I mean, we're lucky as fighters to grow spiritually and grow mentally in our heart as far as facing that fear every day. I mean, you can get hit with the wrong punch and this guy can hurt you real bad. People didn't just respect that, but they responded to that in a big way, that attitude. Yamato Damashi, is that how you say it?

Yeah, I was nicknamed that in Japan. And that means? It means the Japanese spirit, which was actually used back in the samurai days. So I translated it as the samurai spirit. And you became known for that attitude. And people knew that when Ensign Inoue stepped into the ring of the cage, there was no playing it safe. There was going to be some wild shit going down every single time.

And, you know, man, they loved you for that. The ovations that you got in Japan because of that, they were gigantic. Yeah, it was a real good nickname to have. Basically, when I got it, I didn't know how big the word was. And from being, okay, that's Kukanji, to, whoa, they named me that, to now I'm actually trying to live my life to be as close as I can to that way of life, you know, which is hard. So when they named you that, did you feel like a big obligation because of that? Yeah, at first I didn't know what it meant.

And then when I found out what it meant, I was really questioning myself, like, do I? You know, I mean, I show in the ring. I mean, it's not just about being in the ring. And I have my fears in the ring too. I mean, if you watch the Igor fight, the first, I show in the ring, I mean, it's not just about being in the ring. And I have my fears in the ring, too. I mean, if you watch the Igor fight, the first, I faked a tackle, I threw a right, and from there I was going to stand toe-to-toe with him, but all of a sudden I found myself clinching. So I got my fears, and everyone doesn't see that.

If you look back at the video, you'll see that. I had fear took over me for a moment, and I beat that battle. I released and I threw down. But, you know, I fight that fear too. You know, so as far as, you know, people say, Yamato Damashii, the undying spirit, you know, never taps and never gives up. But there's so many times in the fight, if you really look at it,

that I'm fighting that myself and I'm standing there thinking, am I justified to carry this, man? Because I felt fear. Did you think that in the middle of a fight? Yeah, I mean, for me, when I say Yamato Damashii, the summer spirit, to have an experience,

to grow your spirit to that level, every time you have an opportunity to do it, it's not exactly, I can't tell you that, okay, doing this is going to be a Yamato experience because it depends on the person. You know, like a F1 driver, if you tell him to get in the car and take a hairpin turn at 200 miles per hour,

it wouldn't be an experience for him to build his heart because he does it. But if I were to do that, shit, hell yeah, I'd be freaking sitting in my pants, you know? So for me, I mean, when I go into the ring, you know, it's like, it's the situation that happens. So it was perfect for me for Igor's fight because if I went and stood in and just threw down, and just threw down from the beginning, it'd be like, cool, I conquered that anxiety and that fear. But it wasn't really a Yarmulke Damesh experience because I wouldn't have been if I didn't clinch. So what happened, what made me happy was I actually had that fear take over me.

So for me, I did some growing in my heart because I clinched and I actually hesitated in thinking of trying to take him down instead of getting top position. Wow. Do you think that when you look at that attitude towards fighting and you look at how that attitude towards fighting was sort of uh a part of that era where there wasn't that much money to be made and there wasn't that much on the line to win do you think that those days are gone like you well it is it is because of the rules i mean they stop fights way faster now um i basically see a lot of fights where where the spirit will start

taking over someone the fights are stopped. But I understand it's a sport. You have sponsors. It has to be televised. It can't be too brutal. I mean, that's understandable. It's like a, you know, damn if you do, damn if you don't. When I see some of those fights, I cringe because I think, damn,

this is right here. This is where this guy's heart is going to have to kick in. And they stop the fight. And I get kind of bummed at that. You know what else was big? Was that 10-minute first round in Pride. Yeah, we had fought the 10-minute first round. That 10-minute first round was big. Yeah, that was great.

Because, you know, five minutes, shit just gets interesting. You're halfway through. You got five more minutes after five minutes of hell. Yeah. That first round was incredible it's not exactly the best thing for you know if you want to find sponsors and televise it and get people attracted to it that don't understand the sport you know it's yeah yeah it's it's a kind of a balancing act isn't yeah it's hard man it's hard i mean how do you soften up cage fighting though you know i mean how do you soften up cage fighting, though? You know what I mean? How do you soften up mixed martial arts?

Well, they did. They did. You know, they're stopping the fight sooner. You know, they're... Did you see the Bisping Belfort this weekend? Yeah, I saw that. Did you think that fight was stopped a little soon? Uh...

Wait. All right. Someone else asked me the same thing, thought it was stopped too soon. Yeah. All right. He's laying in the fetal position with the guy behind him throwing hammer fist.

Yes. You're not trying to defend yourself. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. him throwing hammer fist. You're not trying to defend yourself. You're at no point are you there trying to defend yourself. Right. I mean, he wasn't stopping him from rolling up to his belly. Right. He wasn't stopping him from trying to get up, and he wasn't trying to get up. Yeah.

So you're not defending yourself. I mean, the only question I had was, why did they touch him? Step back. And once you touch him, it's over. Well, it didn't last very long. I mean, he dropped him. And then, you know, you look at the replay, you're dealing with, like, you're only talking about a couple of seconds.

Shots to the body. He hit him, I think it was two times in the head. And then he went to a couple of levels to the body. But he didn't even try to roll back up. He wasn't trying to get out. He turned his back. It was over. He turned his back and fixed the other way.

What's going on with the volume, man? What are you doing here? It's varying. That was a big fucking head kick. That was clean. I mean, he wasn't trying to defend himself. He didn't look like he was trying to do it. I mean, nothing against him. I don't think he knew where he was at

at that point. Instincts kicked in. He was defending. And I'm all for I think at the top level, I'm all for letting it go a little longer. I complain a little bit about guys. I mean, I understand stopping real quick at the lower levels, but at the higher levels, I mean, these guys that's their career, their life, they've been there, you know, you gotta give them

a chance to pull their way out of it because we've seen like fights with Big Nog, you know, almost out, holding on

and coming back and winning the fight. Well, how about Frankie Edgar? Or Frankie Edgar, yeah. That motherfucker comes back.

Holy shit. He survived that crazy, you know. His second fight with Graeme Diener? There's been a lot of times like that where you've seen guys that, and then you see another fight where that gets stopped,

and you're like, hold on a second. Yeah. Yeah, we got a real problem with referees that have itchy trigger fingers and referees that get involved too much in, like, they're telling guys to fight, and, like, when they are fighting, they just make their presence known too much. There's too much intervention by them need to they need to learn how to step back and too many fights get called where you know you have to look at the instant replay like the

the controversy this weekend about hitting the back of the head yeah that one was bad oh it was terrible yeah he didn't get hit once in the back no mergulata called the fight a no contest and i don't know if his i don't know if the guy was complaining what happened, but he hit him once with an elbow to the ear, clean elbow, and then punched to the side of the head. And, you know, he's saying, watch the back of the head, watch the back of the head. And I don't know if the dude on the bottom was saying something,

but it was bad. It was a terrible, terrible call. That's happened in Brazil a couple of times. That happened with the Eric Silva fight when Eric Silva got the same thing. Mario Yamasaki called it a no contest from shots to the back of the head. And the guy played it up too, huh? He definitely played it up because he was holding the back of his head. And then you see the instant replay and the elbows hit him in the ear.

That looked real bad. Yeah. That was really bad. That is bad. I was kind of stoked when I heard that Dana tweeted something like, that guy will never fight in the UFC again. Really? I think he tweeted that.

Wow. I was kind of stoked. I was thinking the same thing. I think I should never fight again in the octagon ever again. That guy is a disgrace to the sport. Yeah, it's sad when you see guys do shit like that. Yeah. When you see someone looking for a way out and looking for an excuse,

like, listen, man, there's a fucking camera there, and there's a fucking camera there and there's a camera there and there's a camera there everyone can see where those shots land like i don't know what you can't just pretend that it hit you in the back of the head i don't know what happened there but uh refereeing bad refereeing sucks but bad judging is even more prevalent than bad refereeing we got a lot of that now. Well, okay, first off, judging, it's hard anyway. Yes, absolutely. But then you put that with a lot of guys that just don't understand the sport. They don't understand either the jiu-jitsu or they don't understand the striking or they don't, I mean.

And they're judging it on the highest level. And the highest level. And they don't really understand, you know, when a guy's working for something or like, I mean, you guys, oh, you gotta count that attempted submission. Well, hey, throwing your legs up into a triangle like this is not

attempted submission. It's gotta be closer than that if you wanna call it an attempted submission. It's gotta be like a guy fights out of it. You gotta fight out of it. I mean, you know, wrestling, you know, is it takedown? Which takedown is good? I mean, how much do you count the takedown

on getting up or getting back up? How much is the skateboard? When you were fighting, you were famous for your takedown defense, but you were also famous for being able to get up off the bottom. When you thought, like, if you got taken down, were you thinking, man, how much are the judges going to pay attention to this? Even if I get right back up real quick, how does that score well i never worried about that i mean my thing was i was always it's a lot easier to get back up if you start as soon as i hit the

ground right you know if i let you get get on top of me and get set right it's real hard to get off my back right right but if you get a takedown, it's not over. This isn't college. No one's throwing up two points. I'm still, as soon as we hit the ground, I'm fighting your takedown. And my thing was always, I was just always trying to fight a guy. I'm staying offensive, so he can't hit me when I'm down. He can't really score when I'm down there. And I don't really think of a guy just takes a guy down and holds him unless nothing else is really done in the round.

Right. It doesn't mean anything. Does that mean you should win i mean you got to take down and the guy you haven't been able to land a punch haven't let land done anything if he gets up and land some punches standing he should win the round so is it a case a lot of times of a guy trying to conserve energy or trying to figure out when to explode like when he gets taken down where he like he'll hang on for a second and then start moving, whereas you would, as soon as your back touches the ground, you're scooting, you're fighting for underhooks.

The problem I tell a lot of guys all the time is if you get down, you get that oh shit moment, oh shit. And get flattened out. As soon as you did that, you're fucked. Yeah. I mean, you're sorry. Now it's going to be a bitch to get off your back. Right. But, you know, my thing is as soon as you did that, you're fucked. Yeah. I mean, you're sorry. Now it's going to be a bitch to get off your back. Right.

But, you know, my thing is as soon as you hit the ground, there's a little space. Even when you hit a good hard slant, a good takedown, boom, there's bounce. Guess what that is? Space. Yeah. So that space, now I'm pushing already. I'm already working to get back up.

So, I mean, that helps you continue to get up. But what's interesting is you guys had to figure that shit out in the cage. Like, there wasn't, like, a whole series of fighters that came before you that had already figured that out. Like, essentially, you know, like, takedown defense and the ability to get up off the bottom in an MMA fight was kind of written by you. Well, I mean, I put together some stuff from, you know,

I taught, you know, taught you know john lewis taught me how to get out one this way and scott adams told me how to roll the knee bar this way and i kind of figured out how to do a push pull thing with the guys and and i i just changed something right at the end of each thing to get because i instead of going rolling that knee bar i get halfway there and just stand up and guess what if i get halfway there so i get people off balance and i could go i do a push pull and make it so I try to get you to push real hard to stop this one, I go the other way. And you stop that and I pop under the other way.

But it's kind of fascinating when you think about it because you had to kind of figure all that out. Like there wasn't, like you came along in 97. I mean, there wasn't a lot of dudes who had already done that before you where there was like you know like you look at a guy like rory mcdonald who's training at tri-star he's got george saint pierre in his camp for us a hobby they got fucking charts and graphs and dry erase boards or they're writing down every day's workout where they're trying to break it down to each individual technique and skill yeah we're all you had to figure it out yeah when we

came in you know you know everyone's trying to figure out most guys came in with one thing you know wrestling or striking or something or jiu-jitsu and they come in and they're trying to mix them all together and we're also trying to figure out how to train them together yeah like okay how do i train my wrestling and my jiu-jitsu and my and my striking and my jiu-jitsu together like how do i what's the right balance of working out here and there? What was strength training? How do I mix everything? It was an interesting time. Challenging.

Challenging. And now you've got guys, like you said, and you'll see guys get better and better because you've got guys that now they're learning mixed martial arts from the start. Yeah. And they start, and they have coaches that know how to train it, know how to teach it. And then they're still going to be innovative a little bit,

and the guys are still going to create their own little things that work better for you or for him or whatever body type you are. Now, I talked to you about this, and you don't know, but have you thought about opening up a gym? Are you thinking about training people, coaching people? I want to open a gym. I mean, I don't know if I'm going to get into all the coaching guys to fight, but I always like working with guys that are fighting, you know,

and always like working with different things and showing them things I like or I do different than what they're used to doing and seeing someone use it. You know, if you've got a guy at that level, I think one of my favorites, I remember teaching Forrest, had a fine point to something he'd done forever and he said I thought that was a bullshit move it never worked

and he's like ah that's what I was doing wrong because now it worked it was just a guard pass thing but he's like oh man damn that's what I was missing and that's fun for me well you enjoy teaching I was just saying we were talking about before the podcast ever started about Glover.

You've been training with Glover and getting him ready for his fight with Rampage this weekend. Yeah, I've been working with Glover over the last two fights after he got back in the U.S. I mean, he'd been away from, you know, he was training with us for a long time and then he went back to, got stuck in Brazil for a few years. And so, you know, I'm just working with him

with stuff that we used to do, some of the stuff that he's forgotten. Oh, yeah, that's why that's not working. Okay, a little of fine points. Because I know I had the same thing. I come back from having done that movement a while, and I'll be, why isn't this working? Oh, yeah.

You just forget one small technical aspect of it. One little tap that makes a whole difference. Yeah, it's fascinating how much when you look at athleticism and you look at just sheer strength and size, that's all well and good, but it's really fascinating how much actual technique is involved and just subtle variations and changes in that technique make all the difference in the world. And that's something that the lay person doesn't understand. And that's something that it's a shame when judges don't understand

that. Yeah. And that's the hard part. I mean, it's even just, I mean, some of them, I don't think they quite understand the basics. No, they're government workers. They might as well be working for the DMV. They got a gig and they went in and they learned how to, you know, this is a triangle, this is an R bar, this is a triangle, this is an R-bar, this is a kick, this is a punch. I mean, I don't know how many times I've watched a round and just gone, okay, I want to see the judge that gave that round to that guy

and have him explain it to me. I just want to watch. I just want to, for my own entertainment, I want to hear him explain it. Justify. It was one of the ultimate fighters I watched. It was one of the fighters i watched it was it was the live one i remember i went to overtime and in the overtime it was two to one for one guy and i'm like looking at it going it was all standing one guy threw two punches didn't land

one of them the other guy probably landed five or six punches the whole round but chased the guy the whole round and one of the judges actually gave it to the guy that threw two punches in the air and never landed a punch and was running the whole time. I'm like, what fight are you watching? I mean, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. I actually, I had on, I rewound it and went, okay, I couldn't, I must have watched the round wrong.

I wasn't paying attention. I must have missed it. Let me see what I missed. Okay, okay, no punches must have watched the round wrong I wasn't paying attention I must have missed Let me see what I missed Okay, no punches No landed How did they pick the referees? They were all guys A lot of them are from boxing

Especially Nevada Nevada has a lot of Like Adelaide Burge She's a woman I was always giving Dana A hard time about it It's like Guys, he doesn't pick the referees

It's not up to him You can't do anything about it Not only that As a promoter You, you don't get any say whatsoever. You can't. It's illegal. You can't have any say in who's judging or not judging. That has to be done by the athletic commission. No wonder he rips on the refereeing a lot.

Yeah. A lot of it's bad. I feel like the refereeing is a lot of it is just it's fucking hard it's hard to make the right call in the moment refereeing is a tough job it's not an easy job a lot of guys don't do well

the judging is a disgrace the judging in my opinion is a disgrace I think people make errors as referees and that's just a part of being a human being but I feel like the referees for the most part know what the fuck is going on. There's standouts like Big John or Herb Dean who, like, you know they're always going to, Josh Rosenthal,

you know they're always going to ref a good fight. And even if they make an error, it's rare and few and far between. But some of these fucking judges, man, like, you got to think they're just flipping a coin. Like, they don't know what's happening. There's no way they know what's happening. they're just flipping a coin. They don't know what's happening. There's no way they know what's happening. They're just taking a guess.

It's really a shame, man. It really is a shame. When you see guys that are competing in the highest level of the game and they've trained for six to eight weeks and they've given every fucking ounce of their soul and here they are and they edge it.

You think they won. You think they pulled it off. And then, you know, 30-27 for the other guy, and you're like, what the fuck? And it's a nonsensical score. So you threw away two months of this guy's life, two months of fucking, you know, eating the right food and getting up in the morning and drinking a gallon of water every six hours,

and you threw it all away because you're an incompetent judge. You know, it's not even those ones where it's close. Like, he pulled it out close. I mean, the ones that bother me are the ones where it's like, okay, I'll give you that round was a toss-up, but the rest of the other two rounds, how do you lose the other two rounds, how do you lose the other two rounds?

How do you lose them? And someone's got them, losing all three and you're like, I know there was a lot like that. Fucking crazy, man. You took a long time off. You took like six years off and then came back again in 2010 for one fight. Well, yeah, I came back for that only because I got put in jail. I got put in prison. It was funny because after I got out of prison,

it was on national TV. It was in all the newspaper magazines. Funny how I start fading out of the media. All of a sudden, I get arrested. I'm like a hot thing in the media again. It's like... That's a shocker. So that's why you fought the media, man.

But anyway, when I got out, when I would go to bars and stuff, people would say, oh, some people would say, oh, I see you on TV. And I'm like, fuck. And I'm thinking to myself, is that the one with me handcuffed walking the police? Or was it an old fight? Yeah, I'm like, oh, God, I hated that. So I figured the only way to make it up to my fans and let them know that I'm back. You know, we get drug tested in Japan.

Marijuana is a big thing now in Japan. We get tested for marijuana. If you have any marijuana in your blood in Japan, you're not going to be able to fight. What did you get arrested for? Marijuana. What happened? Well, I had 16 grams in my car. That's it?

I had like 20 joints. We were going to have a little party in Roppongi and was on the way down. And they do a lot of inspections just randomly. They walk around. And in Japan, it's kind of unconstitutional where they don't need a reason to search you. They'll come right up to your car and say, I want to check in your car. And it's like, I was stoned and I had a joint, I mean, a road trip on the dashboard. And, you know, when you're still and you think

you're getting sneaky with it it's like so bad it's like ah what what roach and I'm putting my pocket in there they're following me the whole time like it's in their pocket and I'm like so I put put my phone in the pocket pull it behind my phone I said nothing in my pocket this is behind your phone I'm like oh fuck so what how So what is it like? Is it like being caught with cocaine or heroin in America? Yeah, it's like a drug's a drug in Japan, yeah. Doesn't matter. We eat anything.

Yeah, it doesn't matter. So I was facing some bad time, you know, because I was a famous figure and they wanted to make an example of me. Wow. What was the worst case scenario? I think it was five years. Oh, fuck. Yeah. Wow What was the worst case scenario? I think it was five years Oh Fuck Yeah So

I was facing that It all depended on What came up in my house In my gym When they did the search The next day Wow And what came up?

Nothing Nothing came up So that saved you? Yeah Wow I was kind of baffled When nothing came up I was like

Shit Nothing came up Someone I was like, shit, nothing came up. Someone stole my fucking weed. Yeah, so, you know, nothing came up. So it was then the interrogation came to finding out where I got my stuff. Oh. Yeah, and, you know, so in Japan, if you throw everything to a foreign person, they'll drop. They won't want to go find someone in America.

I told them there was a student from Guam. Oh. They asked me for a name, and I said, Tony. I knew, like, three Tonys in Guam. So I said, keep it real, Tony. And we had, like, two days of questioning. I mean, you talk in interrogation for like eight hours straight, just interrogation.

And late, like the third day, they said, so what happened? Caught me off guard, man. And they asked me, what's Tony's last name? And that's freaking ridiculous. The first name that popped in my head was Montana. And right when I said Montana, so right when I said Montana,

I was like, oh, fuck, if these guys watch Scarface, man, I was like, I'm screwed, you know, I'm screwed. Because it'll start the integration all over if I get caught in a lie. Right, right, right. So I saw him write it down in Japanese, Montana, and then he just jotted it down, and I was like, fuck.

He did tell Scarface? Did Scarface get translated into Japanese? I don't know. It's not that popular? I don't think it's that popular there, yeah. That's fucking hilarious. So Tony Montana gave me my marijuana, you know? That story is worth the trip in How long was your

How long was the ordeal From getting arrested To getting cleared 28 days Oh man Which isn't a big deal If you know it's gonna be 28 days But you're sitting in there

And you don't know What's gonna happen to you And you don't know What's going on in the outside world Because you're shut off And you're wondering If you're gonna spend 5 years It's kinda

28 days is a long 20 days. Wow. So you went from there, and you said, fuck it, I'm going to take on another fight? Well, I went in there, and it was good for me, actually. I mean, I always think back and think, okay, I should have done this, I should have done this, if I didn't put the roast on that.

And I keep thinking that, and I catch myself and think, wait a minute, this is probably one of the best things that happened to you. Because the biggest thing that happened to me in that was I learned how important my freedom was. I mean, everyone takes it for granted every day, wake up, oh, what are you going to do today? And it's like, shit, I got nothing to do, it's freaking overcast, it's a shitty day, what am I going to do? It's like, oh, damn, it's a shitty day, you know, but man, just the fact that you can choose to stay at home,

you can choose to eat McDonald's, or you can choose to just hang out, or you can choose to be bored, you know. Freedom. That freedom is awesome. So it was something that really made me realize how important freedom was. Yeah, a lot of people take it for granted. You know, dealing with a situation like that,

especially over something like weed, where it's so nonsensical and crazy, they could take away your freedom for fucking years. Yeah, the thing about that is I served the time, went to the court. I got three years probation where I couldn't leave Japan for three years. I didn't even get to go to my grandmother's funeral. And I figured, okay, I got to be good these three years, and I'm going to start up again. And then next thing I know, I get a letter from the immigration telling me that I just lost my green card because of an infringement, and I got to leave Japan. Whoa.

And I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. I've been here for 20 years. My whole life is here. I bought a house there. I got gyms here. I can't leave Japan. So I called them up, and we had this real generic answer. Okay, if you're contesting it, you're going to start an investigation.

You have to come down to the immigration center and blah, blah, blah. I went down. It was an eight-month investigation. I mean, it was ridiculous. Eight months? I had to go down there numerous times and just like all day interrogations. And it would start from the beginning, the name of your mom and dad. What do they do?

I'm like, what the fuck does that have to do with anything? And I'm just going along with the roll, and it's like the next week I go in for another interrogation, they start all over again, a whole new investigator. I'm like, what the fuck's going on? I just told the other guy. And it got to a point, it was so bad that I got so frustrated in there, as much as I needed to be in Japan, I looked at the guy, I said, you know what? I love Japan.

I made this place my home. And if fucking Japan doesn't want me, I don't want to fucking be here. I told him straight up like that, and I said, oh shit, I just screwed myself, man. But I thought, you know, it's so frustrating, I said, you know, I served my time, man, and I'm trying to do, I'm doing good things for Japan, you know, you guys are going to try and kick me out. If you guys don't want me, you know what, I don't want to fucking be here if they don't want me here, you know? So, you know, the interrogation went on, and there was one guy that was a fan of mine when he was interrogating me.

And then he kind of did something illegal where he told me that between these two red markers, he said, look at those two papers. He said, and he flipped it open. He said, this is all petitions coming in for you not to get kicked out of Japan. And I saw the papers like this thick. I was like, oh, shit, that's a lot. He said, yeah, you gotitions coming in for you not to get kicked out of Japan. And I saw the papers like this thick. I was like, oh, shit, that's a lot. He said, yeah, you got like 4,000 in there already. And the petition in Japan isn't just names.

You got to leave your name, your phone number, your address, and everything. So it's not a bullshit where you can just get people to sign their names. Just write some fake email address. Yeah, so they're writing this 4,000. And every time we get an interrogation, I see that between those two red markers are getting thicker and thicker. And I come to find at the end it came out to be 9,000. In eight months, 9,000 people sent in that they don't want me kicked out of Japan. And immigration is there to protect Japan from dangerous, so-called dangerous foreigners.

So when there are people that they're supposed to be protecting, it's sending 9,000 letters saying they don't want this guy kicked out. So that was the overwhelming thing that kept you in there? I could have been deported, yeah. How much press are you getting over there because of all the stuff you're doing for Fukushima victims? Well, my movement in Fukushima isn't, like, there's a lot of celebrities that went up there just once and had a big media thing. And it was just for like hey look look what i'm doing but no people don't even know i'm going up on the 24th the day after i get back

from here i'm driving straight to fukushima what is the radiation like there uh the i went into the um into the zone twice or three times and the zone yeah we call it the zone. It's from where the plants blew up. It's like a 20-kilometer zone where the radiation is high. It's actually pretty high all the way through 30 kilometers out. Wow. But the town that I'm visiting now, where I'm visiting the temporary housing, is about 80 kilometers away. So the radiation is a little higher than usual,

but if I'm not living there, it's not a big deal. Chuck, if you want, I can take him. I'll take him home because I know you wanted to get out of here. Say goodbye to the people. I know you got your kids at home. Thanks for coming by, brother. Very good to see you. Thanks for having me.

Anytime. Come on back. Mrs. Chuck Liddell, take care. She's crashed out. Oh, she's out there on the couch. Yeah, grab some coconut waters. So when you're going there, are you bringing a Geiger counter? Like how do you know like what you're – yeah.

I have a Geiger counter and a dosimeter. Okay, Chuck, I'll see you later, man. Thanks, man. Yeah, I have both. A Geiger counter, what's the other thing? A dosimeter. What's a dosimeter? A Geiger counter counts exactly what you're getting at that moment.

And the dosimeter takes the accumulation of what your body is taking in. Wow. Yeah. Do you take iodine? Yeah, we take potassium tablets, yeah. Potassium iodine. And that supposedly protects your thyroid. Is that what it is?

Yeah, just the thyroid. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, for your blood chemistry to change, you have to take in 65,000 micro-severes. And it depends on the wind and depends on how long you're in the hot spots. The first time I went in, I took in 25,000, which is pretty bad because you're talking a yearly count. You only want 65,000. After 65,000 000 it changes your

blood chemistry which could cause cancer i mean oh yeah so then the second time i went in how's this i got 19 microsieverts as much as you get flying from a trip from hawaii to new york that's right yeah yeah i actually did that i brought the dosimeter in uh in the plane on the plane yeah they got 19 yeah that's a lot of things that people don't realize like you get way more radiation from the plane than you do from those radar detectors there are those metal detectors rather when you're going through the airport and everybody's terrified of those yeah just the plane itself we're probably sitting in radiation right now with all the electrical equipment i mean that's what people don't realize right now that there's radiation

all over i mean the sun gives off radiation when it hits the concrete and bounces back off it's giving off radiation you're getting radiation everything concrete and it bounces back off, it's giving off radiation. You're getting radiation in everything you do. I mean, you know, going into Fukushima that second time when I got only 19 microsieverts, it's like getting a chest x-ray. Now, why was it less? Because you spent less time? Were you not as close?

Radiation is actually particles of dust, yeah. And it depends on if it rained. When it rains, it drains. It accumulates in a certain area. It depends if you're in that area. I mean, I can stay right here and see zero on the Geiger counter and walk 10 feet and get 200. Yeah, it's like the craziest thing.

You don't feel it. You don't see it. You don't smell it. You don't feel nothing. I mean, it's ridiculously scary. And the closer to the ground the higher the reading right i watched a video where a guy took a geiger counter and was uh showing the air and then he went all the way down to the ground if it's stuck on the surfaces even could be on glass

glass yeah there's some some radiations that get on glass and you can't even wash it off you gotta burn the glass how do you look at nuclear power now? Do you look at it completely different after you've seen that? Well, it's a hard situation because without nuclear power, Japan wouldn't be able to run or we'd be paying out of our asses in electrical bills.

I mean, it literally can't run without looking at power. I mean, it's important. I don't know. It's a hard thing, man, because an incident like this, where the tsunamis come in, something like that hasn't happened in 100 years in Japan.

So, I mean, geez. It's amazing, but 100 years ain't shit. When you think about the geography, when you think about the surface of the Earth, 100 years is barely a blink of an eye. and think about this, the surface of the earth, 100 years is barely a blink of an eye. That's what we're so used to what we've seen so far in our lifetime and we take that as like, oh, well, this is our point of reference.

This is what we know. Don't worry about it. It's not going to happen. It hasn't happened in 100 years. That's nothing. That doesn't mean anything. A lot of shit can happen. I mean, Japan has active volcanoes, right?

There's a lot of shit that can go on. There's earthquakes that go about like eight or nine times a day man in japan we're constantly getting earthquakes but you love it anyway well i love the people and i love uh i love what i've established there i've been there for 22 years you know so how many gyms you have there i have a i have only one gym no i actually closed two of them um i have a lot of gyms in guam but i have a i have a following there that that i mean a big following that's like family i mean i got brothers out there that that i die for tomorrow you know so it's something that a lot of them can't leave japan so now when you when you first moved there what what, you moved there for racquetball in what year? It was in 1994.

Wow. Yeah. Wait, 22 years. Let's calculate that. Yeah, it was way back. I fought in 1995,

so it was four years before that. So 1991, actually 1990, I think I moved there. Wow. Yeah. So it was for a racquetball tournament. Did you speak Japanese fluently

before you moved? Wow. I had to learn it with flashcards. Holy shit. Yeah. And writing and everything? Oh, the writing, the kanji, I understand a little bit, but it's not necessary in my life, so I haven't learned it.

Yeah. I mean, I teach fighters. I taught English. Whenever I did anything, I thought, I don't read the newspaper. I can't. There's an English newspaper, so I read that. The most kanji I can write is my name, my address. I can read more than I can write.

It's a whole different thing to be able to read it and to be able to actually have to write it. So when you learned how to speak it, did you just learn by talking to people? I just learned flashcards. I learned vocabulary. Just slammed as much vocabulary as I thought I would use. And as far as the particles, I just let it flow. So I was speaking pretty much in

just vocabulary. When you communicate in Japan now, do they know? It's like, you know, you hear like Borat talk English and he has a Kazakhstan accent. Do they hear an American accent from your Japanese? Really? Yeah. So, I mean, if you hear me yeah really yeah so um i mean if you you

hear me speak japanese you probably think i'm fluent but considering i've been here for 20 years i suck really i'm i'm a fluent as far as i can communicate i have no problem communicating and i never misunderstand anything it's pretty understanding everything but it's not fluent how much of your communicating over there is English? Do you speak English? Almost zero. Almost zero. It's all Japanese. Wow. Yeah.

How many different fighters are you working with, Dunn? I know you were working with Kid Yamamoto for a while. Are you still working with him? No. No? No. We had a falling out with Dunn, yeah. His idea of loyalty is a whole different thing to me.

He was a super fucking talented guy yeah you know that you know that kid man he's he's a super athlete and all he needed was something behind him that he felt confident with where he would have his confidence when he has when when kid has his head on right man nobody can beat him but that guy that guy can be break broken man i've seen him break so many times and he needs that something behind him that gives him that little extra confidence that puts him past that barrier. But he doesn't have it now, man. That's too bad because when in his prime, he was just a stunning athlete. You're talking about a guy who entered into a kickboxing bout with Masato and dropped him.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. And he was a wrestler, essentially, you know? And he's fighting K-1 against one of the best Japanese kickboxers of all time. He was like that the whole time when he first came in from wrestling. I mean, he's defending jiu-jitsu moves, just being a wrestler, not even understanding jiu-jitsu, just on a natural instinct, which you don't see much in wrestling.

You know, wrestling has this bad habit of stretching their arms out, using their arms and getting locked up a lot. But he was just so up and was defending from the arm bars, took him to Thailand. He started picking up the standing right away. I mean, the guy was natural. It was a confidence thing in Kid. I mean, I still think he has it today, but he just doesn't have that confidence. Yeah, when he first fought in UFC against Kid Yamamoto and or against Demetrius Johnson

and then against Von Lee, I was telling everybody, I was like, man, wait until you see this guy. But then by the time he got into the UFC, he had already lost some of his momentum. He lost some of his fire. You know, the fire that he had when he knocked out Hoyler Gracie or the fire that he had when he was in his prime. Oh, man,

he was a bad motherfucker. When he was in his prime, it was like, he was a bad motherfucker. When he was in his prime, he was just a freak. He was just a real unusual athlete. And I feel I know what's missing in him. If I went and started training with him, I could get him right back. I believe I can get him right back to what he was, but I don't want to deal with

the father, and I don't want to deal with the loyalty issues that he runs. It's a shallow issue. What is the state of Japanese MMA now? It was gigantic for a while when Sakuraba was big, when you were huge, when Pride was filling 90,000 seat arenas. Yeah, it was huge. It was like nothing else.

Yeah. I experienced 60,000 at Rogers in Canada when George St. Pierre fought Jake Shields. I couldn't imagine 30 more thousand people there. But you were there for that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was awesome. I mean,

if that was a 10 and before MMA actually came out when they only had pancreas and that was a one, it's at like a four right now. What happened? It's Yakuza involvement. Ah.

I mean, the thing that people don't realize is in Japan, everything is Yakuza involvement. Every big company, thing that people don't realize is in Japan, everything is Yakuza involvement. Every big company, every big promotion. Shuto tries to say that they never get Yakuza involvement, but they're backed by Sumiyoshi, which is the second largest group in Japan. So everyone has Yakuza connections.

Any big Coca-Cola company, Johnson & Johnson, any company has Yakuza connections. Wow. But it's not public. and any company has Yakuza connections. Wow. But it's not public. So say if Coca-Cola goes over there and they open up a plant in Japan, they must go through the Yakuza?

They'll have back connections, yes, definitely. How do they negotiate that? Well, it's really easy. It's a turf thing. If you know somebody, it's a percentage you pay. It's a pretty given thing. It's almost like taxes Wow yeah pink I just accepted yes except it it's accepted that's why it's it's funny how when it became public everyone it got really bad because it's it's a weird thing it's accepted but it's frowned upon it's

something that they know they need to be a part of in society but they don't want to make it public because the Yakuza has does have a bad name that was the only place where I've ever been where they asked me to cover up my tattoos yeah yeah it was weird so I don't have I try to keep them out from my sleeve so it comes yeah but after that I stopped because I don't want to walk around and you know be kicked out of places you know I just got denied to go in a hotel like last week when I was in Japan. Really? Yeah, because of my tattoos.

With the neck? Is that what it is? Yeah, they saw the neck. Yeah, they saw the neck. So if I wear a hoodie, it covers it up. So it helps. Yeah, I got kicked out of a gym. They made me go put a long-sleeve shirt on.

Yeah, the gyms. Even big gyms like Goji Gym won the gym. That's crazy. Yeah. What does it represent to Japanese? It represents the underworld, gangsters. And you got to figure when you have a gang, there's two or three top men.

Those men are awesome people. And then you got the rest of the hundreds and thousands that are punks. And that's the ones that you see. So basically, a gangster, someone with tattoos, which equals Yakuza, would mean trouble. of the hundreds and thousands that are punks and that's the ones that you see so basically a gangster someone with tattoos which equals the yakuza would mean trouble and they would if you go into a sports gym and you're working out next to a guy and you know you're working on say you take his weights by accident because in the middle of a set and if you're doing it to someone that's

a normal person he'll just say hey i was using those weights oh sorry okay but it might be different for the yakuza and people would rather not work out in the area if there's a normal person he'll just say hey I was using those weights oh sorry okay well it might be different for the Yakuza and people would rather not work out in the area if there's a Yakuza guy working out there so it's a bad rap I mean it's just justifiable though I can understand that the UFC when they went in and bought pride it's kind of a crazy story but they paid 65 million dollars they bought pride and they thought you know hey we're gonna run pride as well as the UFC they're the same way they did with Strikeforce, they bought Pride, and they thought, hey, we're going to run Pride as well as the UFC. The same way they did with Strikeforce, when they bought Strikeforce. They kept Strikeforce going for years.

They thought they were going to do that. But meanwhile, it turned out all of their contracts were illegal. They really didn't have anybody on their contract. They spent $65 million, and all they really got was a video library. And then while they had offices in Japan and they were hiring these people and paying for them, they were starting up Dream. They were starting up their own organization.

Oh, really? Organizing everything. And then the UFC, it took years before they could come back and do a UFC there. It took a long time. I heard Dana was getting some under-the-road threats. Was he? Yeah, that's what I heard.

I sent Dana an email on that because, if anything, I have a lot of pull in that side. And I told him that if you have any problems with that, I can help you. What would he have to do? Come to you and then you go to them? I get really respected in that world. So if I don't know the person directly, I have guys that know him. So if he had any type of problem, it still stands still today. If Dana has any type of underworld problems there, if he calls me, I'll take care of it for him.

It's interesting that there's such an underworld presence in Japan because it seems so safe when you're there. Everything is so, people are so polite and you don't see violence. You don't see, like, you see drunk people walking through the street. No one hurts them. Everyone's fine. The girls walk down dark lanes and it's okay yeah it's a strange sort of you know contrast oh yeah it's it's almost like you just have bad areas like in shinjuku they have over 300 yakuza offices there rapongi only has three wow yeah so you got these districts that they're accumulated in they have offices they have offices yeah the mafia doesn't have office yeah see that's the thing like for me i guess i grew up in america so for me the mafia just scares me way more i mean

i i have this image that you screw with the mafia you better change your name you better move and you better hide who your family is and you better get the hell out of, just disappear. But when you get in trouble with the Yakuza, I've been in trouble with them before, and it's like you can kind of pretty much deal with them the way you want to deal with them. It depends on how much you're

willing to sacrifice. What was your issue with them? There was one with Kid. When I, this guy, this Yakuza guy wanted to open up a gym, and I agreed to open up a gym with him called Purebred Tokyo, Killer B. And I just told him that the only thing you have to do is you have to hire two of my fighters so they can make a living through fighting, and I wanted to help them out.

I want no money. You can use my name or my gym, but you have to hire my two fighters they hired kid and they hired ryan bull and those two fighters and everything was good and what happened was kid started um i guess from the influence of his father he started being the loyalty issue on him was getting was swavering where he wasn't telling me stuff he was hiding stuff he's lying to me and then i put that yakuza guy in charge of him that ran the gym so i told him i called him and say what's going on man you gotta take care of it he goes i'll take care of it i'll take care of it he's told me that and it got to a point he didn't take care of it so i called him and i was pissed already by now and i called him and said you know what call me he avoided my calls for three days so

three three three weeks. And I'm sitting there. This guy's running from me. I'm thinking, this is ridiculous. So I'm like, okay, this guy's running from me. I'm not going to look for him. He's going to pop up. These guys that try to run, they pop up all the time.

So I'm sitting there watching the Uno kid fight. And kid wins the fight. And this guy's in the ring jumping and hugging him. And I'm thinking to myself, motherfucker, this guy's hiding from me. He's on national TV hugging me saying, hey, Anson, I'm here. So I'm like, this guy's in the ring jumping and hugging him. And Tima said, motherfucker, this guy's hiding from me. He's on national TV hugging me, saying, hey, Ensign, I'm here. So I guess this is it. So I called my students. I took them to find out where the after party

is. Went down to the after party. And I was literally going to walk in there, grab that guy by the hair, and pull him out of the party. But my students felt it was going to be a problem. It was going to make too much commotion. Cops were going to be called. So they decided to get him in. They brought him up and brought him to the park and pretty much beat him for like 20 minutes which is something you shouldn't do in japan because in the yakuza world

they work by face they work by being tough being scary to collect money and stuff and if you got all they got a black guy and bruises on their faces kind of goes against the fact that they're tough people you know so i beat them up pretty bad. But see, the thing is I never did pick on anyone. I never did do anything without a reason. And I believed that I would die for my beliefs tomorrow. And I believed that I was right. And this guy really deserved that shit.

So if they didn't like it, if the top guys didn't like it, then they know where to find me. And so what happened was it was going on for 20 minutes. And when I went down, I let people and some people, my friends know, and they were all worried. So they made calls. And we had two other Yakuza guys come down to the scene to try and stop me, to kind of get in between. Not stop me physically, but to ask for forgiveness for this guy. And they were kind of like bowing in the middle of me and the guy,

and I'm getting around and just giving him whacks at a time. And if he were to fall from a hit, I'd grab him and stand him right back up. Oh, shit. Yeah, so it was kind of getting brutal. He was all bloody. And then these guys were kind of my friends too, so they weren't going to get involved, but they were trying to stop me from going too far.

And when we – there's this old lady. You know how you have the old ladies in the neighborhood that don't give a fuck who you are she this lady comes on starts screaming at us he's making too much noise and shit and one of the jockeys gets on the lady and i said no no hey man don't do that man let's go so we moved over to the next part and as we're moving with the next part like three freaking monkeys this guy's higher ups find out what's happening and come out and they're walking up like these you know like the movies like they're walking through it was funny because i call them monkeys because they're walking through bushes i saw them walking through the trees and they came out and said oh shit these are the guys these are like the hot head guys and they came up to me and they're screaming in japanese to me oh you we're gonna

hurt you now because you hurt our brother and then some of my guys came and held him back. And I was like, okay, wait a minute. If it's going to happen, it's got to happen now. So I told my guys, let him go. I said, let him go. I said, I just want to say one thing to you guys. And they came up and they're all, you know, they got this stance and they're all mad at me and looking at me.

And I'm looking and I say, I got one thing to do. I got one thing to say. If I say you don't like it, we can have it out it out i said i'm ready to die tonight and then this guy goes okay and so i tell him okay if someone fucked you over i said you wanted to punish him wouldn't that be fair he goes yes but look what you did to him look at him look at he's all blood he's standing around bloody you know and i said well you know what let's put it this way let's ask you one question if i want to kill him with my hands, how fast do you think I could do it? He said, probably five minutes.

Within five minutes. I said, oh, within two minutes, I killed that fucker. And he goes, yeah, but what does that mean? And I said, well, I've been hitting him for 20 minutes. I said, dude, this is like 10% of what I could do. And I said, don't you agree? If you had somebody fuck you over and you decide to just do 10% out of respect to the people

behind him wouldn't you think that's fair and that guy just changed straight up boom stopped and he said you're right man thank you wow that doesn't fly in America that's an interesting interesting code they don't go to

they believe in the underworld side is... There's two sides of the fence. There's the legal side and the illegal side. The illegitimate side. And you are never, ever... If you're on the illegitimate side or you have an illegitimate problem, you are never, ever allowed to go to the other side

to get help. If you're going to stay, you're going to get other guys to help you on this side and retaliate, that's fine. But if you ever go to authorities, then you lose face and you can never work in that world again. Wow. So you have to deal with things on your own. When it's a problem like that, yeah.

If you're someone from the outside and you're like a regular businessman and these guys come and bother you, the best thing to do is go to authorities. Because the police are just waiting to grab the yakuza so it's like a real it's like kryptonite to the yakuza if you go say you're going to the police they'll back off but if i i live my life in that side pretty much you know i mean a lot of my friends are part of those groups and a lot of my beliefs run really deep with their beliefs. I mean, see, the thing is when you hear about the Yakuza, they get a bad rap because you talk about child pornography, drugs, extortion. What is that?

When they steal money from people. But the thing that they don't see, that's all the things in the media, but the things that they don't see that's all the things in the media but the things that they don't see which i feel is a is really unfortunate is the the honor and the loyalty they have for each other and that's where me and them click really well you know i mean they will die for anyone in their group tomorrow they'll go to jail for 10 years for their boss tomorrow if they have to i mean you don't see that type of loyalty around all these you know non-american and i love you know that i i dig that loyalty you know and they and that's i think that's why they respect me so much is i i will die for my values i'll die for my people that

are close to me it's just such a unbelievably fascinating culture how different japan is in so many ways it's like a big there's big gaps in it. It's crazy. It's really, really, really fascinating stuff. It's just that all these different cultures evolve independently. The Japanese culture evolved independently from the American culture, independently from the European culture, and it's so different. Yeah, it is. I think all the places are different. It's hard to really move into a different country

and run yourself in the way that you learned in another country because it's you know so when when in rome what do you think about the state of japanese mma right now because it's kind of in a transitionary period if one at one point in time it was gigantic and you say yakuza involvement is why people corporate sponsors backed out and they lost a lot of viewership. But man, it was not that long ago that they were selling out these gigantic places. What's going on right now?

Well, right now, like I said, it's at the number four right now. There's people that are real hesitant. There's not many sponsors that want to put money into it. On the flip side, the big thing that's happening is gangster events where they allow gangsters to fight in the ring and yeah it's crazy dude it's like i attend all those i'm like a guest in most of them they pay me to just to be there and to judge sometimes to make a speech in the ring maybe in the beginning because i'm so respected in that world that to have me there a lot of these gangsters tone down you know when they want to riot they don't riot you know i mean you go to the event and it's not unusual to see a

picture of two stick figures fighting and have a big x on it so don't fight don't fight it's like isn't that given you've never seen any signs of the ufc saying please don't fight in the audience it's like it's already given it's not something you should do right but yeah so it that's a big thing right now but it's good because the gangster events actually they they they have headbutts they have elbow striking that you can foot stomp you can knee to groin you can do whatever pretty much no holds barred they have two on one they have two on two really it's crazy dude how often do they have these fights? they have them about once a month man holy shit yeah and it's like

these guys it's become it's a good trend because it's become where these guys just came off the street thinking they're tough gassing on in one minute

from these guys actually spending time in the gym now and being off the street so it's actually a good movement there's about three or four gangsters

already now that's actually made their pro debut in deep. So these guys are actually going to run gangs and start selling drugs and doing illegal activity. They're now training and having a future in fighting, which is awesome. As far as the legitimate side of MMA, I see it. I can see it picking up again. And it's all due to the UFC.

So the UFC's done a couple of events there now yeah the last one they did when I went to that it was it's huge man that's so big I mean as much as the Japanese fans are kind of losing hope in Japanese MMA because a lot of productions were folding when when we went to when I went to the UFC I felt that that energy again when I fighting in Pride, that energy that they had in the audience and especially when Rampage came out with the Pride music, it gave me goosebumps because when he came out

to that, I looked around the arena and I was like, damn, this is just like a Pride. This is a Pride. And it's the first time since that big incident with the Yakuza movement in Pride that I've actually seen that again. It was surreal to me, actually. And I damn this is gonna this is gonna be the the ticket

back is the ufc coming to japan if the ufc did an ultimate fighter in japan and a japanese version of it would you be interested in coaching oh yeah oh definitely yeah i would love to that would be perfect you would be you would really be perfect for something like that. Yeah, I would love that, you know. I hope they do it because, you know, they're starting to do that in other countries now. You saw they did it in Australia. Yeah, in Brazil too. The Smash is the Brazilian show.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's natural for it eventually to go to Japan, right? Yeah, it's probably inevitable, yeah, someday. Wow. So, as far as, like, Japanese, like, standouts, you know, obviously Aoki's probably one of the bigger guys right now, right? And who are the other guys that are coming up that you see? I like Ricky Fukuda.

Ricky Fukuda's very good. I'm a little biased on that because I used to train with him, so I'm a little biased on that. Very good wrestling. Yeah, and that guy's still young. He's real hungry. I think he just needs someone in the I'm a little biased on that. Very good wrestling. Yeah, and that guy's still young. He's real hungry. I think he just needs someone in the corner to keep that killer instinct going because he's such a nice guy.

And he's an AKA now? Yeah, and he's such a nice guy. I mean, you've got to convince this guy that this guy's going to try and hurt you. You've got to hurt him first, you know. So he has that little teddy bear sense in him that it's got to be ignited. You've got to get that on and get the grizzly on, you know. So, yeah, he's got to be ignited they got to get get that out and get the grizzly on you know so yeah he's gonna be a good fighter what about uh uh hatsu hatsu hioki oh yeah he's all he's already good very good yeah he's awesome i thought omigawa was gonna do better too

man yeah omigawa has had uh some tough breaks you know yeah he had some bad calls but he he actually the last one he actually did really lose and i was yeah i thought oh my god was gonna do something well it's also oh my god was at a tail end of a long career that's yeah that's true how many years do you think a guy can compete like at a fade or level four i mean is there's only a certain amount of years where your body can kind of redline at those high rpms and keep it going when you're like a you know top form it all depend on the fighter i believe like some like a fighter like me i think maybe five six years a fire that a fighter that goes in there training with everything he has and and willing to die in the ring i mean not being not accepting the fact that

i might die but fighting with the will to die. It's a whole different thing. But then you got another fighter like Sakuraba. Right. Which goes in there and takes a fight in two days and is just having fun and does this weird ass entrance coming in with this riding a scooter and, you know, and actually literally having fun in the fight.

You know, those fighters can go on forever, you know. Yeah, Sakuraba, man. That guy has had some incredible fights. I think that guy's got to retire, though. Yeah. He's been taking too much hits. The Melvin Manhoof fight was fucking scary. Yeah, yeah.

When Melvin Manhoof was beating on him, you're like, man, he doesn't need that at this stage of his life. Yeah, and he's done so much for the sport. I mean, I think he should, you know, don't want to do another Muhammad Ali, you know. Yeah, there's been so many. There's been so many beatdowns that he's had like in the later stages of his career you gotta really look at a guy like that like man

but his ability to absorb punishment is fucking shocking it's unbelievable man the one that freaked me out was the Nino yeah when he got dropped by that it was weird I think he's been taking too much hits yeah well there's no question the Nino Elvis Nino Shambri yeah out of nowhere it was weird that's not the same

Sakuraba I think he's been taking too much hits yeah well there's no question yeah I mean you were honest about yourself

you're like 5-6 years your style is so fucking aggressive and wild it's like well I write letters to everyone that's close to me

before every fight really yeah and every time I come back alive from the fight i burn them all wow and so literally i'm i'm training the the three months that i'm training for a fight i'm literally training not to die and if you knew there was a possibility you were going to die in this certain area most people would avoid it. But I have to walk there on my own will. And the stress level for me, I mean,

I wish I could just take it lighter and say it's a sport. I mean, I have to play. You ever heard the Tenacious D song, Fuck Me Gently? No. The girl fight, if you look at the girl ring entrance, after the ring entrance, I put on headphones. That's the song that I was playing. Because it's like a joke song.

It lightens my... You're not going to die today. There's going to be a tomorrow. I go into fights, if it's the fights on the 19th, and someone asks me on the 21st, I got a party, can you come? I'm literally feeling inside, man. If I am at that party,

I'm super happy because that means I'm still alive. You know, I'm really, really preparing for death that day, you know. And for me, it's so stressful, man. I mean, I actually didn't feel I could do it anymore. I mean, every time I fought, after I fought win or lose, I always felt like, shit, it's over. I'm alive. Because I was willing to die in the fight, you know. So it's a little bit too intense for me you know i mean what was the closest you think you came to

do probably yeah igor that was a crazy and it's actually the fight where i i thought that i should retire because not because of the beating but because i didn't think there was anything else in mma that would ever teach me to be a stronger man. I didn't once feel that I wanted to give up. I never contemplated giving up at all, not once. I mean, I had a broken finger and a broken jaw. I had a swollen brain perforated eardrum. And apparently my liver count was like 2,000 times the normal person. You had a swollen brain.

Swollen brain, yeah. my liver count was like 2,000 times the normal person. You had a swollen brain. Swollen brain, yeah. So they hospitalized me for the first four days because they wanted to CAT scan my brain every day because when the swelling's impacting the veins, if there's bleeding, you can't tell. And when the brain goes back to its size and it's not compacted anymore, if there's bleeding, that's when you can tell the bleeding.

So they were worried that my brain might be bleeding there might be bleeding in the brain yeah whoa so what while this is all going on how are you feeling i felt fine really well well i okay the thing is is when if you watch the video the fight when it was done i remember laying down thinking oh shit shit, got over, got through the first, you know, the big 10 minute round, you know,

so I said, okay, God, I said wrong, second round, I know I cut him, so I'm thinking, we're going to stand, start standing again,

I'm going to stand toe to toe and I'm going to open that cut up and I remember Egan leaning over to me and looking at me and saying,

I'm going to stop the fight and I was like, whoa, no, no, no, you're not stopping me to fight

and we have a rule that you don't throw a towel. You know the towel that we have? Yeah. In the ring entrance, I always throw it into the fans. They give us that towel, I throw it off. And when Egan told me that, I said, shit, I wanted to lay down at least another maybe 10 seconds

to kind of recollect and everything. And he said that, I said, oh, shit, I got to get up because Egan's going to stop the fight. So I started getting up, and I remember getting up and walking to the corner, but my legs weren't under me. And it was the weirdest feeling because I felt like below my waist was a whole different machine. I mean, I was dragging on me, and I was saying, oh, shit, my legs.

And then when I sat down in the corner, when you see the video, I mean, everyone says, you know, that I'm screaming, no, no, no, because this guy's trying to stop the fight. But we got two minutes between rounds. And he comes in 10 seconds after I sit down and is looking at me, saying, I'm going to stop the fight. And I didn't realize how bad I looked, you know. So I was saying, no, no.

I'm saying no, no, meaning that there's two more minutes. Give me two more minutes. Check me after two minutes, and then we give your assessment then. And I'm screaming, no I'm saying no no meaning that there's two more minutes give me two more minutes check me after two minutes and then we give your assessment then and I'm screaming no no no no and they called the fight you know and it happened what so happened was that you know I had a preferred urethra and I lost my balance so basically I couldn't if unless I had like two days or three days between the round I probably couldn't have done the second round anyway. So I didn't know that. But the thing that made me really happy about that is when I saw the video on the fight,

my heart and my spirit didn't die. As much as punishment I was taking, it was never an issue, which really made me realize that if I take any more than beating that, I'll probably die. And I think to myself that MMA, as far as a test in my heart which really made me realize that if I take any more than beating that, I'll probably die. And I think to myself that MMA, as far as a test in my heart and test how strong I am as a man, it's probably not going to go any further than that. So you were thinking that you should retire because you proved to yourself that you were willing to die, literally. Yeah, and I already knew that I wasn't going to be the best in the world.

I wasn't interested in grabbing a pride belt. And I basically was fighting, if you look at all my fights, when I took fights, it was always when they were at the top of their game. I took Heath Hearing when he just beat Erickson. I took Noguera when he was the top of the world. I took Mark Kerr when he was still considered a specimen. So all these fights that I took was when people were at the top of their game. And I took those fights not because I thought I could win. I thought that there was the fights that there's no way I could win.

That's the reason why I took those fights, because I thought I was going to put myself in somewhere that was going to test my heart. You went to sleep in the Noguera fight. Yes. You got caught in a triangle and you just didn't tap. Yeah. You see, the thing is, this is the thing that people always ask me you know they think that not tapping is about being tough and being like macho and being someone who can't feel pain you know but the the truth of the matter is i have i have this saying that i always refer to

is a strong man feels no pain but a man with the samurai spirit yamato damashi feels pain but can continue through the pain. You know, so when you read the first part, the strong man feels no pain. Oh, that's cool. That's what I want to be. And then you read the second part, it's like, that's not really real. I mean, but the real man is the one who feels the pain but works through the pain. You know, the strong man fears no opponent.

But the man of Yamato Damashii fears opponent and sees it as a challenge and takes it on head-on. So that's my belief in my fighting. So when I fought, that's what it was all about, facing those fears. You still fought after the Igor fight, though. You fought Heath Herring, then you fought Noguera, then you fought Nishida, and then you fought Tom Sawyer. Yeah, it was all so funny

because it was all a thing of my way of saying goodbye to fighting, you know, because when I fought Igor, I thought, okay, I could retire today. But I thought, you know, after all MMA has done for me, I want to give one more fight. And so I said the hearing. And Pride knew I was going to retire after the fight, but they didn't want to give me the mic.

And no one knew. No one knew that I was going to retire. And fight but they didn't want to give me the mic and no one knew no one knew that i was gonna retire and i just grabbed the mic at the end and i said this is this is the last of yarmouth lamashi and everyone freaked out on that and the reason why i fought nagara was because um when 9-11 happened i had a friend die in the second tower and i felt i really felt that i was being hypocritical because I would look in the, see the special stuff in the TV of the building collapsing and really literally feeling like shit, you know, and pretty much really downing my day. And I can actually switch off the TV and walk to the game center and laugh without a problem with my friends. And I felt like a real prick, you know, like, oh, there's no honor. I mean, if you really feel shitty about what's happening, something about it you know so i thought to myself what i'm gonna do and i felt really shitty every time i had that wave of change and i was thinking i gotta be

freaking real to myself man i'm gonna lose my honor if i don't take care of this shit so i thought i'm gonna enlist in the army so i decided i'm gonna enlist and i tried to enlist i was 34 i was 36 account the cutoff age is 34 And the biggest thing I couldn't get around was the tattoos out of uniform. The head and the palm tattoos. So I couldn't enlist and my thing was okay. If I'm going to enlist, I didn't know I couldn't enlist.

So I thought, I'm going to enlist. I want to fight. One more fight. Because I don't know if I'm going to die there. I don't know if I'm going to come back mentally deranged where I'll never be able to fight again. And I figured I wanted to say a farewell fight. And I asked for Vanderlei. And they gave me Vanderlei. It was $200,000 to fight Vanderlei.

And I was like, you guys just fucked up. I would have fought Vanderlei for free. Because that's one guy I triggered at the end of my career. I would have banged. We'd stand toe-to-toe. Dust clear, someone's going to be standing. If it's me, fine. If it's Vanderlei, fine. I'm good with it. As long as I threw toe-to-toe. Dust clear, someone's going to be standing. If it's me, fine. If it's Vanderlei, fine.

I'm good with it. As long as I threw toe-to-toe to the very end. So it was cool because I was thinking, this is awesome. This is picture perfect. I'm going to fight Vanderlei and go to war. I die there, I'm fine. And all of a sudden, two weeks into the fight,

they call me and tell me that they want me to fight Noguera. And I'm like, you know, I got my ass kicked by a lot of heavyweights. I kind of want to fight at my weight now. And I'm not interested in Noguera. He'm like, you know, I got my ass kicked by a lot of heavyweights. You know, I kind of want to fight at my weight now and I'm not interested in Noguera. He was a pride champion at the time.

I thought it was more real for me to fight Vanderlei. I mean, for the weight. Why did they change that? Apparently, what I found later was they got Tomura.

So, Tomura wouldn't be able to fight Noguera with the size difference. Oh, so Tomura fought Vanderlei. Yeah, so they figured

it was a big draw for Tomura. I mean, Tomura's a huge name in Japan. Pro-wrestling? Yeah, from some of the UW and UWF, the pro-wrestling. So, you know, as much as fireworks as the world would have loved Ensign Vanderlei, the Japanese crowd would have loved probably Tomura, Vanderlei bigger. God damn, that would have been a crazy fight. You and Vanderlei?

You and Vanderlei would have been a crazy fight you and Vandele you and Vandele would have been a fucking supernova yeah my whole thing about fighting Vandele was to push him backwards because every time he gets caught

in every one of his fights and I always notice that he has such fast recovery that as he's going down he recovers and shoots for a single or a double

and he'll recover then but I figured if I do like Vitor did if you move Vandele backwards he hit him going backwards and he falls recover then but i figured if i do even move like vitor did if you move van der leij backwards he hit him going backwards and he falls backwards and you can end the fight now knowing your your your beliefs in this your philosophy of yamato damashi how did you feel about the the fights that were there was some obvious works over there. There was some definite fights

where people were paid to lose and paid to win, and there was a lot of fuckery going on. Yeah. Did that drive you crazy? Well, it pissed me off. It pissed me off to where I went public on it. Did you? I mean, I went public about Takata Kerr.

I'm Takata Komen. Takata Komen was one of the most obvious ones. Yeah, and I went public on that, and I try to be nice about it. I mean, for a fighter who's willing to die in the ring, that's total disrespect. To go into our ring, that we're dripping our real blood and sweat in, and willing to die in, and these guys are pulling works in there, that's totally disrespect. And when he did that, it was such a big thing that the the MMA magazines in Japan actually interviewed me about that really and I didn't I didn't I didn't be

blatant be a dick about and say you know he fought a fake fight he's a dick you know he's a faggot you know I just said that the rules that Takada fought and the rules that I fight are two different rules and I believe the rules that he fought should be in a different ring so pretty much painting it out that it was a bullshit fight. Yeah. So I just stated it that way. And Takada got pissed off at it. And he banned all interviews with me and Sakuraba together

because Sakuraba was fighting under Takada. And, yeah, he was kind of pissed off about it. But, you know, he can go suck my eggs because, you know what, I'm telling the truth. That's all. Yeah. It was pretty obvious. The Coleman fight was like pro wrestling.

It was so obvious. He was like almost going to tap. And then like adding drama to it. It was so silly. But he had a few real fights. You know, Takata had a real fight against Hickson. That was a real fight. You could tell Hickson was.

And plus, there was no way Hickson was going to throw a fight. Yeah, no way, no way. Yeah. Did you ever get to roll with hickson yeah but that was when i was a white belt yeah and of course he probably would have toyed me when i was a black belt but he toyed me when i was a white belt and just kind of went through the whole school you know he lines over and spars with everybody yeah he did that so yeah i've got a video of that of one of his seminars back when he had a the samurai ponytail thing going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he just lines everybody up and just taps them over and over. I mean, nobody knew what the fuck they were doing.

Everybody was essentially a white belt. Maybe there was like a blue belt in the mix. But still, it's so fascinating watching him just gently toy with everybody. Yeah. You know, just choosing how he's going to catch you. Yeah, that guy was one and only, Heidi. He's the one that, for me, I go, God damn, I wish he had more fights. He's one of the ones where I would have loved to see him fight.

I mean, I had dinner with him many years back when Fedor was on top, and he wanted to fight Fedor. Oh, man. Yeah. That would have been interesting. Yeah. Yeah, very, very. You know, the real question was,

could he fade that ground and pound? Fade or his ground and pound, like the Noguera fight. It was fucking incredible, man. Especially that first fight where he got him stuffed in the corner by the turnbuckle and was just blasting with shots. And that was when Noguera was at his most durable. Very few other human beings would be able to take those shots the way no gara was taking him but i would have really loved to see

hickson against top level guys just to see if because he had this effect on people when he got a hold of them on the ground like you're fucking done like he was no one was getting up no one was getting out of mount no one was hip escaping and No one was getting out of mount. No one was hip escaping and, you know, getting back to their feet. There was none of that in Hickson's fights. It was Hickson mounts you, and then he punches you until you give up your back, and then he chokes the shit out of you. That was every fight. Becomes textbook finisher.

I wanted to see him against higher guys. To this day, he's the one guy that, man, just really drives me nuts that he's in his 50s now, and we missed it. We really missed his opportunity. Yeah, that's the guy that's unreal. Too bad. Everybody does in jiu-jitsu. The Japan Valley Tudo days, when you saw him right after Hoist had made his mark in America,

Hickson had made his mark in Japan. Really amazing. That documentary, Choke, if you've never seen it folks if you're an mma fan oh it's a classic yeah it is really shows you what what hickson's all about and you know very similar philosophy to you was where you know he was he was willing to die in there as well and you know he was fighting with honor yeah he would have never thrown a fight like so what you saw takata setting up a fight with Hickson you're like well he's gonna have to fight yeah for real yeah that's gotta be weird where some

of his fights were fake and some of his fights were real yeah that's that's disrespectful that guy has no business being in the MMA ring he won by one a body kick who the fuck did he fight he kicked somebody and it was like you were watching going, what is that? Like, just didn't look legit at all. Yeah, that guy, yeah, that guy got no good words for Takato. But he was a big-time pro wrestler, right? Yeah, he was a big-time pro wrestler. Was he like the rock, like the Japanese version of the rock? Yeah, sort of like that, yeah.

But, you know, pro wrestling is pro wrestling. But it's big over there, right? Yeah, it still went on pretty big here in Japan, yeah. A lot of people don't realize that American MMA fighters, sometimes they go over there and take fights, too. Like, I know

Tim Sylvia's had MMA. Yeah. He's had pro wrestling. Josh Barnett's huge over there. Yeah. He does a lot of that shit, right? Josh is one of those few guys that can do both.

Yeah. And do it, does it well. Also, I could have also. Yeah. Oh, Bob Sapp is pretty good, too. Well, he doesn't do fighting that well, though. Not anymore. As far as, yeah,ralba also. Oh, Bob Sapp is pretty good too. Well, he doesn't do fighting that well.

Not anymore. As far as, yeah, Josh is unreal. That guy's so funny. He enjoys it. Josh really likes the pro wrestling. I think he's more of a pro wrestler than an MMA fighter. You think so? He's an MMA fighter.

I mean, he's a pro wrestler that just is really good at MMA. Yeah, I'm fascinated by Josh's longevity. I mean, you look at him he's a guy that was the ufc heavyweight champion in 2001 i think it was and he's still in the mix yeah 2013 still top five heavyweight in the world amazing hasn't lost a step should i believe that guy can be the best in the world yeah i just still just still, even at the Strikeforce tournament. Was it a Strikeforce tournament? Yeah. He lost to Cormier, but he broke his hand in the first round.

Yeah. I thought Josh hands down. Yeah. Even with Fedor in it, I thought Josh hands down. Really? Yeah. I picked Josh in the beginning. That was another fucking loss to the MMA world when he pissed hot and he couldn't fight Fedor

and they closed Affliction down. Yeah. That was huge. That was a big, that would have been a crazy fight, man. Josh against Fedor would have been very, very interesting. And that was Fedor in his prime, too, after the Tim Sylvia knockout. It was like everybody was terrified of Fedor. He just looked like a fucking destroyer.

Yeah, he was. Well, he was a destroyer. But again, somebody wrote this thing about fighters, where you look at fighters from the time they entered into high-level MMA competition to the time they started to fade. And with almost all of them, it's like seven to nine years. Like between seven and nine years, you see the transition where it drops off. Not Josh Barnett, man.

Yeah, that guy's like every day 15 plus years Still at the top of his game. I met that guy in 97 when he was when I was training for him Or actually 90 no more actually Maybe was 2000 something when I went to a Maurice's gym to train Well, he was fighting in Japan in Hawaii when you were living there right when the Super Bowl He was like a little fat kid, though. Yeah, he was fat as fuck. Had a big crazy belly, but he was gangster, man. Yeah, he was.

He was fucking wild. That dude is wild. You know, his trainer, that's another interesting story, Matt Hume. You know, Matt Hume is one of those guys that was a pioneer, was there in the early days days and is still viable and on top of the game today still on top of the curve trains you know Demetrius Johnson the flyweight fighter world champion you know it's training Matt Brown a lot a lot of like a top-level guys like rich Franklin spend a lot of

time down there training him everybody respects him yeah being very well rounded and and a great Knows his thing. He's one of the few guys that made it all the way through. Yeah. In the early days, he fought in Shudo. He fought in that contenders thing. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Yeah. Still on top of it. Still training guys at the highest level today. Yeah. I think that's fascinating that some guys figure it all out along the line line and some guys like whether it's the lions dan or whether it's you know the militant fighting systems they sort of like disband and move away and and step away from the feet yeah whereas amc pancreation still on top of shit yeah he's still like that's a smart guy man very smart very smart yeah i i love listening to him

uh give advice in the corner because you'll hear like sometimes in the corner like the like a fighter will have his friends in the corner it's like you'll hear stupid advice like go kick his ass come on kick his ass but you know you'll hear mad hume like you got to check that leg kick move to the left you got to do this when he, when he's shooting, that's when you're punching. When he's, you know, he'll give you like real technical shit. You know, you'll see like what the guy, applicable to what's going on inside the cage. Like real point for point instruction to deal with his very specific situation

that he's facing. That's so rare. When I fought Joe Estes in Japan, Matt was in his corner. And every time I was trying to set something up Matt would tell him and it was the first time

in my fight in my career that I ever felt like shit the corner man really screwing up my game but every time I thought of something

watch your arm watch your arm and he'd suck it in and I'm like oh shit I couldn't set anything up because Matt was singing ahead

and he knew when my hip shifted, watch the LFR. When I did this, watch the turnover, watch the hip throw. He was giving them the heads up one step ahead of time. So huge to have a guy like that in your corner. Yeah, and it's rare. And so huge to have him in your corner in Japan where you could actually hear him. Yeah, yeah. That's what a lot of people don't realize.

It's quiet. It's crazy quiet. During these pride fights, there would be 90,000 people in an arena, and you could hear everyone's corner. Yeah. It was nuts. Yeah, you could hear. It's crazy.

It's so strange. It's so strange. And they're super attentive, too. It's not like they're not paying attention either. And clapping when someone passed the guard. You would hear a big group of people clapping, and then everyone settled down and be quiet again. Do you miss that respectful approach to the sport?

Well, I think it's good and bad, too. I mean, the American public, where they're screaming like idiots. They're screaming at every punch thrown. When they stop brawling, they start booing. Animal Afrinshire is also pretty good for the event. There's a give and take to both. The booing drives me nuts. Yeah, sometimes they're making awesome transition on the ground.

Booing is like, get a clue. The real problem is people that go there just to see blood or just to see an event, and they don't know what they're seeing. And so everybody knows what's going on. If two dudes are – if you and Igor are thrown down in the middle of the cage, everybody knows what's happening, or the middle of the ring, as it were. Everybody knows. You could see that.

You go, this is crazy. Someone's going to get knocked the fuck out. But when you're watching, like, some high-level transitions on the ground, if you don't know what they're doing, you're lost. And so people would start booing. That's so disheartening to me. It just drives me nuts. I love the fact that the UFC can fill up these big arenas,

but I hate the fact they're filling them up with a certain percentage of douchebags. Yeah, I guess the money's still green. Yeah, but it's like, I wish that the martial arts aspect was respected and appreciated. And I feel like the only way that's ever going to really happen is for a much larger percent of the audience to be martial artists themselves,

to be training and not just to be... Isn't this trend actually happening? I think it's increasing. There's not much drunk idiots just screaming for blood? There's definitely less, and it depends on where you are. There's some places where they're super polite and some places where they just go fucking crazy. Where would be the worst?

Brazil is the most vocal, but they're getting a lot better too whereas brazil it used to be that foreigners just got booed no matter what like mike pile for instance mike pile um he he won in brazil and uh he knocked out um i forget who he fought he he knocked it is a guy from ludlow massachusetts he trades out a team link he He trains with Gabriel Gonzaga. But Paya was super respectful, didn't do anything wrong, just won. And after he won, he was in the ring, in the cage. I was interviewing him, and the whole crowd is chanting something.

So I asked the translator, I'm like, what are they saying? And they're saying, he's a faggot. That's what they were chanting. The whole saying, he's a faggot. That's what they were chanting. The whole crowd was calling him a faggot. I'm like, wow. That is crazy. And he didn't do anything wrong. Ricardo Funch, that's who he fought.

All he did was won. He stopped him and knocked him out. All he did was win. He called him a faggot. Yeah. And Mike Pyle was super. It was thank you very much. He was bowing to everybody, waving, and everybody was like, fuck you. There were kids, like 16-year-old little kids, like, fuck you,

like yelling, screaming, giving him the finger when he stepped out of the cage. And he's like, hey, what can I do? And they're like, get him to the back. Get him to the back. The whole place was chanting, you're a faggot. Wow. Brazil's the most vocal but they they lightened up about that the the the nationalism because i think the first time i was there was only the second event that the ufc had done in rio in many many many years so it was a

big thing to have the ufc there and they were like super super nationalistic and charged up but then after we did two more events in brazil they kind of relaxed a little bit on that and would even applaud fighters that showed sportsmanship and won who were foreigners you know even if they beat a brazilian you know they you know they they showed they they they clapped for people like rich franklin perfect example when he he beat Vandele. They actually clapped for Rich Franklin, and he tried to address them in Portuguese. He had something that he had prepared and learned. So it was kind of cool. It was cool to see that even though Rich had won and beaten Vandele.

William calling him a faggot. Yeah, they liked him. They were happy. But I guess he had also shown a massive respect of Anderson when Anderson had beaten him. I think a lot of people had a lot of respect for Rich there. But as far as the sound they make, though, no one's louder than Brazil. Yeah, that's what I hear, man.

I've been in fights where I had to take my ear pieces off and just turn around and listen, because I couldn't believe how loud it was i'm like this can't be real so i took the headphones off because the headphones mute most of the shit you hear but i'm hearing this crazy noise through the microphone and then i take these off and you hear the volume like whoa so i like tap goldberg i'm like take your shit off take your shit up and like as they were introducing uh anderson you take your your headphones off you look around like the sound was a roar wow it was just like a jet was going off behind your ears it was crazy really and they're they're all pounding on the ground anderson the

spider silva they were going fucking crazy. I've never experienced that before. Yeah, that's what Dana was saying. Louder than anywhere. They are passionate motherfuckers in Brazil, man. That is a passionate country. They get excited for their own. But they relaxed on the foreign hate, which was kind of cool.

They're the most loud. But as far as the most polite england's pretty fucking polite they're they're pretty polite in england yeah i thought you know they're they're pretty nationalistic themselves you know they're like you know rooting for bisping and rooting for you know uh brad pickett and anybody's fighting it's an english guy but they're they're they're pretty polite in england you know um i just went to new zealand uh last year the end of last year and it tripped me out because new zealand is like 20 years ago america i couldn't believe it man these guys don't know what mma is and when i finally um explained to one of the immigration officers what it is, he goes, oh, so you beat people for a living.

I'm like, oh, that's that animosity you had back in the day when they were saying it was human dogfighting. Yeah. And then you go to, and they're running through the same problems. The Boxing Commission is the one that's interfering. It has so much power. It's stopping it because they're afraid that MMA is going to take over boxing. And it's like the whole same thing all over again.

And the craziest thing about New Zealand is you got these crazy fighters there. I mean, guys that can, that's jaws of stone. And they can hit, they can, I mean, a lot of kickboxers. A country full of Mark Hunts. Oh, my God. There's a lot of them. They're big boys, and they're all aggro to fight, you know? And I'm wondering, man, how the hell is this country 20 years behind?

I mean, I couldn't understand that. Corruption? Is that what it is? I mean, how is New York State still illegal? That drives me nuts. That drives me nuts. And that's all corruption. We know the root of that.

It's the culinary union. The culinary union, they want station casinos to go union so they're bribing politicians and politicians are trying their best in new zealand too because damn i i couldn't understand it i couldn't understand how this country would be so way behind you know it's stupid too because it's not going to hurt boxing it's not going to hurt kickboxing you know i i really feel like there's plenty of room for all the combat sports i think that there's something to watching like a floyd bayweather or watching a guy who's a fantastic boxer and it's always it's always going to be something that people want to watch and yeah i'm a big fan of high level kickboxing too i love like k1 and glory is doing a lot of big shows now too

i love watching that as well yeah i think there's room for all that shit. I really do. Yeah, oh, there is. They can work together. They can promote each other. And they should start promoting MMA. Don't be stupid. Don't try to fight it off.

They're fighting it. I mean, you can go into New Zealand and half the people will hate martial artists. Can you believe that? I mean, back in the day, you remember back in the day when UFC, MMA was considered ridiculous, barbaric. I mean, back in the day, you remember back in the day when UFC, MMA was considered ridiculous, barbaric? I mean, like way back.

Yeah. When I first started doing post-fight interviews, it was like 97, and I was on a TV show, News Radio, and I would tell people I was going to fly to Dothan, Alabama, to go work at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event. They're like, why are you doing this to yourself? Like, what are you doing to your career, your reputation? It was like I was going to go do some porn.

Like, yeah, I'm going to go fucking film some porno films. They're like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, why are you getting involved in cage fighting? And I was like, well, I think someday it's going to be bigger than football. They're like, you're out of your fucking mind. I'm like, like, all right. The day's here, man. It's crazy.

Nobody would have ever thought it. Nobody would have ever thought it back then that it would happen so fast. I know, yeah. It's got to be a trip for you to have been there in the dawn and to see it now. I mean, it makes me happy, man. I bet. Because Mixed Martial Art has made me who I am today everything that I have

the reputation I have the people I know is all due to that and just to see how big it's become I mean I don't even

have this envious thing where I wish I was fighting this time where there's more money I'm really happy with what I did and where I was and the opportunities I had

and I just you know as much as some people like to rip on Dana man I got nothing but good words to say because it's what he's done for the just you know as much as some people like to rip on dana man i got nothing but good words to say because it's what he's done for the sport you know i mean yeah the people that rip on him either don't know him or they've got some business issues with him must be yeah i i love

that dude he's straight up too i like the way you you and him are straight up and if you don't like the guy you don't like the guy you know yeah bullshit in that you know that's the only way to be yeah and especially in this business this is the realest you don't like the guy. No bullshit in that. That's the only way to be. Yeah, it is. It's real. Especially in this business. This is the realest business ever. This is the realest sport of all time. It's sport broken down to, I mean, more so even than boxing, broken down to its rawest element acceptable by society.

What is real sport? It's man dominating another man with discipline, focus, technique, will, intelligence, and heart. That is all sports. That's the root in what people admire in all sports. But MMA embodies that. It's the purest form of sport. If you say you love sports but you don't like MMA, you don't really love sports. You don't know what sports really are.

Because every man in a fucking football uniform running into other men wants to beat those guys' asses. Every time a guy slam dunks a ball on a guy's face, he really wants to beat that dude's ass. You want to win. You want to win when it's most important. That's the most important thing. The incredible thing I like about MMA is that fighter has to do everything. You've got a quarterback. You've got a center.

You've got linebackersers, you got wide receivers. You got everyone that has a certain job in the whole sport. But, I mean, I don't have, okay, I'll do the ground. And I'll get Rampage to do my standing. And I'll get maybe Chuck to do my wrestling. You know what I mean? You can't do that. You can't tag off and say, hey, oh, okay, offensive time.

Come in, get the strikers in. I mean, you're in there, and you've got to learn how to be the quarterback. You've got to learn how to be the center. You've got to learn how to make blocks. You've got to learn how to catch the ball. I always thought it was weird when you heard trainers say we. We want to win this first round. We want to go out there and do this.

What we worked on in the gym is this. There's not really a lot of we going on here. Yeah, really. It's fucking that guy. It's him. We really shouldn't be saying we. We trained him to do this. We showed him that.

He's been working hard in the gym. We've been pushing him. But when it's in the cage, we want to win this first round. No, no, no. He's going to win that first round. You really don't have anything to do with it it's no other he helps to prepare but he's gonna fight the fight yeah if you don't have the mind for it and that that is really where where it all boils down the the mindset and the the ability to overcome, so much of it is mental. So much of deciding the right things to do. And when you were talking about seeing guys break and knowing that guys are breaking,

how many times have you seen guys give up a choke when you know that they didn't? You know they know how to get out of that, but they tap. You know that they're just looking for a way out of the pressure of the moment. Well, you know, when you really think about it is, have you ever questioned why people tap? Yeah. It's not because of the pain. It's because of the anticipation of what they think is going to happen to them.

That's what it is. Rarely do you have a guy like Noguera or Henzo or Misha Tate who gets their arm broke and then taps, you know? Yeah. These people, I see a lot of guys tapping out to arm bars and waving to their friends, shaking their hands

after with the same arm. I see people tap out to chokes and go out drinking that night. It's anticipation. It's basically what it is. Tapping out is basically a mind focus.

If you're focusing on getting out, you're focusing on hurting the guy before he hurts you, and you're not focusing on, oh, shit, my arm's going to get broken. It's going to be all fucked up tomorrow. Oh, I hear a ligament pop. Oh, shit, I'm going to be fucked up tomorrow. I better tap.

It's anticipation. And when you really put it black and white, man, it's kind of funny because that's what it is. The faster the person taps, the earlier he was broke and once you break it you're looking at you know the you're anticipating what you think is going to happen to you that's what it is yeah i had uh jimmy smith on the podcast earlier today we were talking about he's the guy who does the commentary for bellator and we were talking about when jacare fought hadra gracie and uh got his arm broken and then tucked it into his belt and defended for

the last minute with a fucking broken arm so that he could win on points I mean like that's awesome this dude like let him break his arm he knew he was getting out he's like but I'm not tapping you know and Hodger broke his arm and he just tucked that shit right in his belt and just started fighting with the other arm and did he win that fight yeah he won that fight oh really yeah he won that fight with a broken arm, which is, you know, Tim Sylvia, when Frank Mir broke his arm, you know, Tim Sylvia was trying to,

he was making sure that he didn't stop the fight. He was telling Herb Dean, do not stop this fight. Let me keep fighting. His forearm just got snapped. Yeah, this bone broke up. It snapped, and he was like, you know, whatever. I'm fucking, I'm going to hit him with the other hand. Let me back in there.

That's all about focus, I think. That's about focusing what you want to do. What are you focused on when you're in there? Yeah, are you focused on losing? Are you focused on getting out of there without being injured? Or are you focused on finding a way to win no matter what? Yeah, that's a thing. That's a big thing.

One of the most impressive fights that I ever saw where a guy lost the fight, but I'm like, damn, this motherfucker is trying to win this fight, was when Uriah Faber broke both his hands on Mike Brown. He had no hands. Oh, really? And by the second round, he broke both his hands. He broke his thumb on one hand. He broke his knuckles on the other hand.

So he couldn't punch with either hand. So he's throwing elbows and he's throwing kicks. And he did it for five fucking rounds. Oh, really? Yeah. He couldn't do anything. He couldn't grab a hold of him. Couldn't hold on to him.

Couldn't grapple. All he could do was try to throw elbows and try to take him out with kicks. But he still never complained and went in there and tried to win every minute of every round just with whatever he had left you know i'm i'm a big fan of that and every now and then a guy will pull that shit off like rich franklin when he when he knocked out chuck chuck broke his arm and rich had a broken arm and he punched chuck with a broken arm you know really yeah yeah there's there's moments like that where guys even in in the face of that punch Chuck with a broken arm. Really? Yeah. There's moments like that where guys, even

in the face of that kind of an injury, figure out a way to pull it off. Those are special moments, man. Yeah. That's what MMA is about, man. That is what MMA is about. Listen, man, it is late at night here. I know you probably want to get some sleep.

It's 2.17 in the morning. I want to thank you very much for doing this, man. And thank you for all the fucking great fights that I've watched you compete in over the years, from being there live and seeing you on board, to watching the Randy Couture fight, to all those crazy fights on Pride, man. It was a pleasure having you on this podcast. Thank you for enjoying them, man. It makes me Pride, man. It was a pleasure having you on this podcast. It was a blast, man. Thank you for enjoying them, man. It makes me stoked, man.

And thanks for all the people that asked for this and helped pull this podcast off, man, because it was a big one for me, too. I really appreciate you doing it. Oh, thank you. And follow Ensign on Twitter, Ensign Inouye on Twitter, and that's I-N-O-U-E on Twitter. Do you have a website?

I have these braces on the website, but it's destinyforever.com. But basically, if you want to follow me, Facebook. Facebook. Enter any way on Facebook. Yeah, I have a fan page on Facebook. Beautiful. All right. Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it, man. And I'm going to go drive you to Chuck's house. Okay, sure. Thanks to Onnit.com for sponsoring the podcast as well. Thanks to Onnit.com for sponsoring the podcast as well. Go to O-N-N-I-T, use the code name Rogan, and save 10% off any and all supplements. We will be back tomorrow with David Cho, who is the dude who was the artist for Facebook, who decided to take stock options instead of getting paid.

And now he's wearing like $100 million or something fucking crazy. So he's going to be on tomorrow with our pal Yoshi. So that should be a good time. And thank you, brother. We appreciate it. All right, you fucks. Go to sleep. It's 2.30 in the morning.

It's over. Oh, it's 2.30? Yeah, it is. Holy shit.