The Joe Rogan Experience - #335 - Bas Rutten

Episode Date: March 11, 2013

Bas Rutten is a retired MMA fighter and former UFC Heavyweight Champion. He currently is the co-host of Inside MMA, and also runs Elite MMA gym in Thousand Oaks, CA.

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Powerful, boss, roots in. Welcome to the podcast, sir. It's always a pleasure. Same here, you know. I'm amazed with the commercials, you fox shit, motherfuckers, you know. That's great way to, you know, get it out there.

Well, you know what it is, man? You got to just be yourself. You got to always be know. That's great way to, you know, get it out there. Well, you know what it is, man? You got to just be yourself. You got to always be yourself. That's true. And anybody who doesn't want to hear that kind of stuff, I don't want them listening. No. So it's a way of filtering out tight asses.

I don't think that anybody hit the delete button right now. You never know, man. Dudes will get pissed off at anything. They'll decide that your commercial is the reason why their life sucks. This motherfucker is on it. Fuck you and fuck on it. And they'll shoot their fucking computers. There's someone out there. You're catching them. They're at nine before you even

meet them. Just... And then they just decide. It's that fucking boss rooting O2 trainer that sent me over the top. How cool was that? My wife gave it to me just before I walked out. She said, you're going to be on camera, right? Yeah, powerful. That O2 trainer, it's like for improving the strength of your lungs.

Is that what it is? That's it. Yeah. We talked about it. For folks who don't know, Bas Rutten, former UFC heavyweight champion. If you're not into the world of martial arts, I should always introduce my guests. I never do. I just start conversations.

Boss is a good friend. He's been a good friend for years. And one of the greatest mixed martial arts fighters in history. Legit. You're a legend. Like, you know, when you fought Tiosha Kosaka, you know, that was like one of the highest level MMA fights that we had ever seen up to that date. You know, like when you came into the scene, when you won the heavyweight title,

you elevated the entire sport. Like, you were the fucking man. Wow. You know that. No, no, I didn't know that. I do know. I recently found out that I was actually the first heavyweight champion. I didn't know that.

Well, you were actually, yeah, there was no title yet. There were super fights. Yeah, there were super fights. Well, not only that, you were only about 210, 220 pounds at your heaviest, right? Yeah, I was at the Randleman fight. I was under 200, and I was 200 and over. I literally had to drink water at the weigh-in to make 203 because otherwise, they said, it's not going to be a title fight.

Yeah, you had to be above the light heavyweight limit was 203 at one point. Or 200. 200 pounds. 203 in Japan, right? Pride. Yeah, I believe so. They called it middleweight, though. What is that?

That is 93 kilos, I believe. It's 203. Yeah. Yeah, or 91. Something weird. So you were a small heavyweight, man. You know, at that time, that A&H, you could get away with it. Nowadays, you know, I would fight a 205 because I'm already walking around almost a 205.

But at that time, I liked the word heavyweight title much better right and the world is guys when you beat up the lid you know the big big guy you only had to survive them for like four minutes right if they brought an onslaught and and then you know what smooth sailing from there you know you could wear them down yeah to a lot of mixed martial arts fans when you look at the the errors of fighting you certainly brought in and the era of the technical striker into the heavyweight combat sports. Because you and Maurice Smith were really the first guys, and of course Maurice came after you, but they were the first guys to really

have real technical striking. Not just powerful guys who can knock anybody out, because there's always going to be a lot of those. Did you see the Bernard Hopkins fight this weekend? No, I did not. Great fight. He won again.

Won again. 48 years old. This guy's unbelievable. And what you can learn, anybody who's interested in any sort of martial art, watching that Bernard Hopkins fight. Angles. He's really good with that. Technique.

His technique is perfect. His defense, the way he rolls away from shots. And even then, he occasionally got hit, but he knows how to cover up, he knows how to protect himself. And the technical fighters are always going to have an edge. It's not easy to be technical. The instincts are just to go,

ah, just go crazy and attack. But there's got to be a method to your madness. And that's what separates the men, the great men from the other fighters. Well, you were talking about Maurice Smith, and I have to tell this really funny story real fast, because I fought him twice, actually, in Pancras. And it was this one time, I kicked him in the head,

and I go, oh, this is easy. I made a switch kick, but I slipped and I fell on the ground, and he wanted to jump on top of me. And I go, wait. And he stopped, and on top of me and i go what wait and he stopped and i get up and i go thank you he stopped he just said stop yeah you told me this before that was it's unbelievably ridiculous you hypnotized him yeah that's it you use jedi mind tricks time out time out wait one second you were having um some back pains as far back as the Kosaka fight, right? Yeah, it all started there Six weeks before the Kosaka fight, I had Del Golar, the wrestler

Had him in a triangle choke And he thought it was smart to lift me up and slam me down And he slammed me with my head against the wall in the corner And that really did some damage to me I had a baby at the time, just couldn't even lay on my chest. I couldn't breathe, couldn't cough. And I brought that whole thing with me

to the Randleman fight as well. But once they put me on the posters and they introduced me like world's greatest martial artist, I go, I can't say no now. I got to do this thing. So I remember I was in the dressing room. I had this big syringe with lidocaine,

and I was injecting myself in between my ribs, and then the camera crew came in, and they see me, and it was at the time, I believe, with Universal Soldiers, and they see me injecting, and they turned around. They ran out. They thought I was doing something illegal. I said, dude, I'm just putting lidocaine in here because it was so painful. So this is when you were about to fight I said dude I'm just putting lidocaine in here because it was so painful so this is when you're about

to fight you were pumping yourself filled with lidocaine yeah in between the ribs yeah you um did you ever get an MRI for that find out what that was no that just it just went away after years took a long time to sleep just I took a lot of sleep medication at the time because it would hurt during sleep yeah you probably had a bulging disc or something or herniated disc I have a lot of sleep medication at the time because it would hurt during sleep. Yeah, you probably had a bulging disc or something or a herniated disc. I have a lot of bulging discs. You know, I just had neck surgery two years ago, and then I now had it again early this year,

and now they fuse three discs together. Now it's finally like yesterday, the day before it started, and I feel slightly, slowly, like my arm, see, there's a whole dent in here. Right. See in here, it's all gone. It's really weird, all those muscles have to start refiring, so to say. So it's because the nerves were cut off.

They were pinched by the herniation. Yeah, lost complete power, man. It's a scary thing when you can't grab the milk out of the fridge anymore. Yeah. And especially if you're used to doing one-arm pull-ups. So, yeah, that kind of scared me. But now we're back on track and hopefully it comes back so you got three discs fused so upper and lower to one so it's three in a row

three in a row five six and seven and um is that an issue and putting pressure on the discs above it and below it there will it will happen especially the one below it you know that's what they already warned me for but like my my mobility is the same i was amazed when i came out because they told me you discs is a big deal, but I don't feel any different than I was before. That's interesting. Yeah. So you probably were hindered in your mobility anyway because of your disc issue.

That's probably the case, yeah. I'm going through a little bit of a bulging disc right now too, but I don't have any numbness or anything, but I've been getting it treated. I've been getting rolfing done, and I'm getting spinal decompression. They put you in a machine and stretch you out. Rolfing, last week I had that done by this old lady that comes in and just kills me, terrorizes my body. It's amazing. It's very painful, right?

It is. And, you know, a really fascinating conversation I had with this woman yesterday who was a chiropractor who told me you would be surprised. woman yesterday who was a chiropractor who told me you would be surprised like people take anti-inflammatories but how much of um how much you can do with food just by eating uh resveratrol cutting out all your wheat cutting out pasta and gluten and all that crap she's like you would you would decrease your inflammation so much from all that stuff like we don't understand that we have very powerful immune systems for the most part. And we're constantly fighting things off. But your body is fighting off inflammation all the time. And it's better at doing it when it's not being poisoned.

And when your body doesn't have wheat to deal with. We don't think about it, but pasta and bread, all that delicious stuff, it's fucking terrible for you. It's basically sugar. It's just this sloppy, gooey fucking nonsense that your body's not really supposed to be eating. She was going on and on about glutathione and resveratrol and all these different antioxidants and eating a clean, much more like paleo diet.

I'm trying. I'm trying actually gluten-free more now, more often. Not completely because, you know, I like carbs as well. But, you know, I say breakfast, shitty breakfast. All the time I had this brown rice, cracked brown rice with hot water and honey. And I've been eating that for the last years because it's the only food. Otherwise, I don't eat until like 4 o'clock. I'm not hungry during the day.

I force myself to drink this thing, and then when it expands in my stomach, I get hungry. And now, actually, I just ate a burrito just before I came here, which is amazing for me because normally I never eat. So you really have been...

Is this because of your injury? No, no, no. I had my whole life. I had that. I will wake up same and everything with me if it works i never change it like i have the strange same stretching routine i was talking about it last time but also the same food but i think my whole career i ate six slices of bread in the morning with like a marmalade jelly on it because i believe that the peel the orange peel

you know that it stops lactate acid from getting into your muscles. And I always had that feeling with it. And sometimes I added peanut butter, and that was my breakfast. And when I say that, that means my entire career. I would eat the same thing. I would wake up very early, two hours before my workout, eat, go back to sleep. And then when I would wake up, it would be digested, and I would start training. Wow. But that's not like what any nutritionist would ever tell you to do.

No, no, no no the best thing you know ryan parsons you know he was uh with me with my last fight when i was training together with kevin kevin kevin james he was there all the time for real because they said oh it's a publicity stunt him in the corner hi he was pretty much every day helping me training shouting uh screaming and ryan parsons when the last fight when you see me i look the best i've ever looked like oh my god you God, you know, this is. But it was just because that was the first time in my life I had a diet. I ate like six, seven times a day, small portions, fish, chicken, rice, all that stuff that I never did.

I ate pizza and steaks and beer. You know, when I was competing, that just worked for me. So, again, why would I break a winning combination? You drank beer while you were in training camp? Yeah. You know, actually, in Japan, you have to understand, when you go from Holland to Japan, there's a time difference, which is daytime is nighttime for you.

Right. So that means you're awake all night, and around 7 o'clock in the morning, that becomes 11 o'clock at night where you come from, you're going to start falling asleep. So I go, after the first two fights, I don't want to take sleeping pills because I'm going to compete. I always figured medication slows me down. I always stayed away from that.

But then I say, you know, let's go out. We've got great Roppongi here. I would drink a couple of beers, and it worked. I would come home and fall asleep and uh that became my you know how you say my my schedule became you know before the fight i would just go out to get a couple of beers and then like how many beers three five yeah yeah five beers before a fight you know you're in holland so with you you're kind of used to that you know in the evening you drink you drink just. In Germany,

in the army, they drink during the day. There's people there. In the army? Yeah, the lieutenants, the sergeants. That explains Hitler. That explains where Hitler came from. They were hammered. It seemed like it made sense. That's hilarious. So would they just drink a beer with lunch or something?

I guess. Yeah, they do. I was training the elite special forces. They do the same thing during the day. They drink beer. Wow. That's crazy. I never would have thought that that would ever happen in the army. I know some places it's common they drink wine with lunch, like in France.

Yeah. In Greece, I had Larry Papadopoulos with me. Every morning he had his port with him, and he would drink a glass of port every morning really yeah like a half a glass you know he said we'll fight all the what the immune system is good for that and so he just likes beer the motherfucker yeah he likes to get a kick in the morning yeah that's crazy so um that's you you were afraid of sleeping pills but you weren't afraid of the repercussions of alcohol no no, no, because it doesn't do anything. I believe it's natural, right?

I wouldn't get tanked. But I have moments that when I would, with the stare down, which I never did. You know, only when they tried to intimidate me, then I would put it on them. But otherwise, I would just look down. But I knew they would smell like the booze coming from your mouth this guy is crazy I always thought actually

because at the end I didn't do it anymore because I was fighting here in America and I didn't need it because I'm falling asleep but I always thought just before you go to the center of the cage flush with whiskey in your mouth spit out the go to him and then let him think that you're hammered you know just to get inside their heads yeah there's some

guys that show up in jiu-jitsu class drunk there's this one dude used to be drunk all the time he'd roll with him you'd always smell the whiskey well there's a lot of guys stoned right during jiu-jitsu different though in that stone doesn't fuck with your reflexes. Not to me, at least. It doesn't fuck with my reaction time. I actually feel like I'm probably better at jiu-jitsu when I'm high. A lot of guys feel like that. That's why so many of them roll stoned. You're more creative, Walter.

I guess you come up with more stuff. Yeah, more creative, more relaxed, more completely focused on what you're doing. They say that it's easier to get into it. Wouldn't work for me. I'm a plant. I'm one of those guys, if I do it, I'm sitting and I'm eating, and there's no, you ask me two questions, hey, boss, what's your Christian name,

what are your Christian names, and where you were born? I go, oh, it's Sebastian. What was the other question? Literally, my friends would laugh. I had five-second memory. It's amazing. Well, everybody's different. So when you were competing, so no weed, even though you lived in Holland.

No, never, never. A lot of people in Holland don't really smoke weed. Isn't that funny? No, but it is because it's not. It's not taboo? It's not taboo. It's like a drinking age you don't have in Holland. I think you now have.

It's maybe 14 or something. But you never had a drinking age. But all these kids, they're not going to say, hey, I want to drink because it's cool. Because it is not cool. A 12-year-old, 13-year-old kid can do it. Right. Yeah, it's no big deal. It's just a part of life.

Yeah, a 12-year-old, 13-year-old kid. Holy shit, that's hilarious. I was in America half a year, and then I went back to Holland to visit the family. And I was looking at a, they call it a puppet, whatever, theater. And there's these two little curtains open up. And there are people from Holland, everywhere, from the country. And they can say whatever is on their mind. And there were two little kids sitting there with a bottle of Heineken. And they said, yeah, we like to drink beer.

And they were drinking. And I look at my wife and I go, can you imagine this happens in America? What are people going to say? It's insane. I mean, they were six or eight years old and they were drinking a beer. Yeah, my parents, oh, no, they're not really against it. I go, whoa, dude. And then the curtain closed again.

It was the wildest thing. Can you imagine the strip clubs? The girls are wearing bibs. Well, they don't have strip clubs. They have whorehouses. Right. Yeah, I mean, Holland is a totally different thing. They have a whole area where it's all whorehouses, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The red light district. You have that in pretty much every town. You have a red light district. Not only in Amsterdam. Yeah, I mean, think about that for a second. Not a whorehouse. No, a whore neighborhood.

They got a whole whore neighborhood. Yeah, window shopping. Lowest incidences of HIV in all of Europe and lowest incidence of heroin addiction, which is really crazy. They all get tested. They all need to be legal there. There's a lot of testing there going on. You'll be amazed. You walk there, like in the red light district in Amsterdam, and you see girls that you go,

you know, there could be a girl next door. It's amazing the amount of different, the plethora, as Elvapa would say, of girls that they have. And it's not, they wouldn't even think about it the same way we think about it. Like, the way life is there from the get-go is so much different than the way life is here

that, in my opinion, like, to change our laws and to make it so that prostitution's legal, make it so marijuana's just openly tolerated everywhere, and kids can drink at 12, man, you would almost have to start from scratch. Yeah, you have to.

I couldn't do it. If you go to the red light district, sometimes you see like eight guys in a row waiting in front of one window. Because she's hot and then yeah okay imagine the guy comes out he's like an ugly dude coming out then you gotta go in you know it's not for me it's like don't get sushi on sundays don't go to a korean spa at nine o'clock at night it's a broth yeah it seems like holland is all in all just more laid back, more fun, wilder people, right? Like a big kickboxing scene, huge kickboxing scene. You know, I was just watching today on Facebook.

Somebody posted the Majiro Gym on my Facebook from 83. That was when Andre Brilliman was still alive. You know, the guy who got killed and tortured. It was a big story in Holland. the guy who got killed and tortured. There's a big story in Holland. He was a phenomenal kickboxer. You saw Rob Kamen, Miller, Will Gobley. I mean, Fred Royers.

The eight guys from that gym were all world champions. I mean, they went to Thailand and beat the Thais. It was insane. I went to a show in the Yop Eta Hall in Holland where there were four world title fights and they broadcasted it live to Thailand. And the best Thai boxers came there, and there was like Al Gobley and Rob Kame and all these guys, and we won four out of four.

They knocked these guys out. It was the craziest thing. It never happened after that again. Well, the Dutch style incorporated a lot more striking with the hands, right? A lot more boxing technique. That's it. Tying it together. That's, I think, the biggest thing.

And they have great hands. Everybody has great hands there. And the Dutch style of striking is really, like, to the layperson, it looks like you're just kicking and punching. But the technical aspects of it, like, I've taken some classes with Rob Kamin before. The way he breaks things down into, like, patterns and how to follow these patterns. He's got, like, these automatic patterns that he does. When your foot is here, he's doing this.

When his arm is here, he's doing that. He hits with the left hook, and then it's the right leg kick. He's got this really technical system that when you see him sparring, it's really fascinating to watch it in action. Yeah, because he just taught himself to do it all the time. When I hold focus mitts for my guys, I have shin pads on myself. And out of the blue, I kick.

And I'll do the mitt combination, whatever they don't expect. And they got to, whatever, left kick, he counters with a cross hook low kick. Right. And the other kind of hook cross low kick. You know, and then we change the combination. Right body, left hook low kick.

You know, or left hook, right body, you know, and liver shot, right hook. I mean, I start. The idea is to program them into the head so that in combat it all comes out automatically. Oh, automatically. Here, attack comes, bam, bam, there's your counter. And whether it's going to be started with a body shot and then a head or a head body or a head, head, body, body, whatever it is. That's what people really truly don't understand about what's required in order to pull something off under extreme stress.

We had Sam Sheridan. He wrote that book, A Fighter's Mind. Yeah, somebody recently talked to me about it. Very good book, actually. And he's got a great new one out called The Disaster Diaries. And it's all about pressure and dealing with natural disasters, horrible situations where people's character gets exposed and how to stay calm. And one of the things he's talking about in the book is about how your body moves in a competition.

And the only things that are going to come out are the things that you've drilled into your brain to the point where they're in your subconscious. So the left hook whizzes by your head, the counter's right there. It's just automatic. It has to be automatic because you're not going to have time to think, and you're going to be flooded with adrenaline. I had a guy who came to me. He actually won the amateur title last weekend, Jens Grau. He was 38 years old when he came to me.

He was 245 pounds. He was a power lifter, and he wanted to train. He had a torn bicep. He had this big bar staking out of his arm. He said, when do you want to train? He said, tomorrow.

So I grabbed him by the bar and I pulled him to the side. I said, not really working, right? And he goes, I don't know, but maybe we can start with kicks. I said,

first of all, you're going to lose that weight. I mean, this is going to stop you. You can't even scratch your back. And he started training, training, training. And every time he would ask me,

boss, when you're on the ground and you're sightminding, you teach us the knees to the thighs, right? Yeah. That's allowed, training, training. And every time he would ask me, boss, when you're on the ground and you're sight-minding, you teach us the knees to the thighs, right? Yeah. That's allowed, right? Yeah. Why is not anybody doing it? I said, because they're stupid. They don't do that. I said, well, wait till you're fighting. And then another guy, he's in a clinch. You know, you can hit the thighs too or elbow them

and yeah, why is nobody doing it? I went, wait till you're fighting, you'll find out when you're fighting. And every week he came back with another question. I said, just wait. Now, I had a few combinations i i have combinations i i give you like three combinations stand up attack combinations three up against the wall and then on the ground some so there's only six you get but when they come back at you almost a guarantee they're going to knock you out you know they're just really solid combinations and one one of them was a big hook to the spleen, but you keep your whole demeanor low,

and then you're hitting high. But everything stays low, so he thinks it's another body shot. Now, the fight started. It was amateur, so it was. It was all over the place and nothing. Oh, my God. And his hands were not good. Craziness.

But that one thing came back. It was the right hook to the body, right hook to it. And that's how we knocked him out. You see, and there you see, like even in all that chaos, because I always tell the people, when I knocked out my first Thai boxer, if they would, at the moment of knockout, they would have blindfolded me, they would have called in

five other guys, and then they would put my blindfold off, say, okay, who did you fight? I had no clue who I fought. It's like, it's a person, but you can't, he doesn't have a face, it's like, you know, there's too who I fought. It's like it's a person, but he doesn't have a face. It's like there's too much going on. It's like the first time driving a car. But once you can channel all that,

you start listening to their corner and doing that stuff, then it comes together. But in this whole panic, one combination came back and I happened to knock him out. How did the Dutch figure that out? How did the Dutch figure out to add the hand combinations and the boxing combinations? Because the Thais were already using their hands, but much less so than they were using their legs. I have no clue.

Was it just the size of their bodies? Yeah, I think just it automatically came with them. I truly believe it really started at Majira Gym. The Witherbob came in, so all those guys there. I truly believe it really started at Majira Gym. You know, with Rob Kamen. So all those guys there. And then Shakeriki, all those gyms. Meng Ho, you know, Core Hammers. And everybody started coming.

I recently saw a video from Roman Dekkers when he was 19 years old. And that was the first time when I saw him destroying somebody. My buddy told me, he says, watch this, man. You're going to freak out. And I thought, he's going to get killed, this kid. But he just drilled. He gave him a low kick and the guy flies horizontal in the air, and he falls. And I was like, what? I mean, you've got to see pictures of him.

I mean, he was skinny. Yeah, Ramon Deckers, unfortunately, just passed away, I think, two weeks ago, right? Yeah, at 27. Yeah, he apparently had a heart attack while he was riding his bike. He was an amazing, amazing guy to watch. You could watch the older fights, and then the newer fights as he got older, he got thicker, more muscular. But you're right, in the early days when he first started fighting,

he was very, very thin. He was the, every interview for 25 years I've been saying it, the best striker. MMA Bloodlines, that t-shirt company that wanted to do something with me and with MMA, but also with kickboxing. And I said, you know, from Holland, you know, that you got to go to a Ramon Dekkers, Peter Ernst, Ernst, that's not me. You know, I'm doing MMA because these guys are just really good, you know, and my whole

style was pretty much what Decker did. And I took that, and I took Mike Tyson, because he's the most powerful striker, and I adapted my whole style like that. Square up, stand up square. Oh, you've got to be a smaller target, all these people. I can do some abs, dude. I mean, that will stop you from body shots.

Did Tyson ever go down to his body? No, he did not. And he fought against the best people in the world. But he knocks people out with a jab because it's not a jab anymore. It's a straight punch at the moment when you square up. And that's why I believe that. But Decker was included in that. Decker squared up with guys too?

Also, but not as much. He didn't have to worry about sprawls. He didn't have to sprawl. That was a big difference. This shifting, and then Tyson did it also. Yeah, also. He didn't have to sprawl. That was a big difference, right? This shifting, like watching Bernard Hopkins this weekend. I mean, he stands totally sideways when he boxes. Unbelievable, huh? Yeah, and you can't do that in MMA.

It's just too easy to take you down. Yep. And leg kicks, too. Yeah, but also, I cannot imagine. You know, Dwayne Ludwig, when he knocked out Jens Pelver, we knew what Jens was going to do. He stands all the way in one line. He's a southpaw.

If he wants to throw a left over right hook, he has to load up. So we thought, right straight. That's it, right? And you can watch the fight at the moment he does it once, and Dwayne didn't see it. You see Dwayne looking at me like, damn, I missed one. But right away, he does it again, and Dwayne nails him right away with a straight punch.

Dwayne still does. He has this. But right away, he does it again. And Dwayne nails him right away with a straight punch. Dwayne had a, well, still does. Has this vicious technical right hand, too. You know, the way he throws it. It's like, it's so crisp. And that's how he got the fastest knockout ever in UFC history. Dwayne is one of those guys that I have no clue. I was just talking to my buddy about it. It's like, this guy is the nicest guy.

Does everything right. Doesn't do drugs. Doesn't drink. Doesn't cheat. He knows the cleanest guy out there. And for some reason, he always has these crazy injuries. guy is the nicest guy, does everything right, doesn't do drugs, doesn't drink, doesn't cheat. He's the cleanest guy out there. And for some reason, he always has these crazy injuries, like you misstep and he breaks his ankle, or then he tool-outs his knee. And I always go, why is that? He's such a good guy. He deserves so much better.

It's physical. It's life. You only got so many miles you could put on that car. That's true. After a while, ball joints start breaking. It's a crazy thing. When you think about Dwayne had so many fights before he even got to the UFC. He had so many King of the Cage fights. He had kickboxing bouts. He won a world title in Muay Thai, correct?

Yes, he did. That's a lot of wear and tear. A lot of wear and tear on your body. I saw Dwayne first time when I did the boss with the Invitational. I see a lot of fighters nowadays who became bigger fighters come from that tournament that we had. And it was so badass at one moment. You had to fight four times in one night. And there was no weight classes.

Didn't they do that recently? Glory? It was a long time. Yeah, Glory does it also, but it's striking. But that's where I found Dwayne for the first time. He was there and we needed an opponent for somebody and he just said, oh, I'll do it. And this little kid jumps up and he fights this guy,

30 pound heavier, knocks him out with a head kick. And I go, oh, I got to know who this kid is. And we became friends instantly then. Yeah, Dwayne's been around. Very, very nice guy. And now he's the head trainer at Alpha Male. Yeah. That's great.

How cool is that? He was teaching a seminar there. I love watching guys like you move into commentating careers too. Yep. You host MMA Live now, right? Inside MMA. Inside MMA. What is MMA Live?

Does that even exist anymore? I don't know. There's all these different fucking names. The important thing is it's on AXS TV. It's you and Kenny Rice and guests always. And you've been doing it a long time now. Six years, man. It's getting crazy.

Wow. That's a good gig. Every week. It's a great gig. This is the gig that pulled me out of all the stress. You know, I was, people have no clue what I had to do to stay here, to survive for my family. You know, the first nine years, I missed every Christmas, every New Year, because I was in Japan doing those big shows. You know, I missed the holidays, birthdays.

I missed the birth of my youngest daughter. I mean, all because I had to go. Otherwise, there was no more money. Because people think when you're on TV, with a pay-per-view, you're rich. It doesn't work like that. And I had to come back, and right away I had to do a seminar here,

and a seminar there, and constant traveling, constantly. And then when Inside MMA came along, they gave me that basic income. And that was the first time in my life. And now I actually have the power to say no. And it actually financially is also much better, now they're gonna if you say no they say oh i'll double it no no they really don't want to oh what about if we triple it you see

but i didn't have that power all the way back and now for me if it really doesn't interest me i rather stay with the family you know i missed enough i'm trying to catch up now right let's see if i can do that yeah that's a's a tough thing. You were the commentator, the head commentator in Pride, and you were constantly going back and forth for that. How many fights did you go over there to cover?

12 a year, because they had Bushido at one time also. 12 a year. When I became citizen here, I had to count how many times I left the country. And I had a passport,

and I go, oh my God, this is an insane number. So I went to my old passport and I started counting. 152 times I've been to Japan. But that's Holland and America. Is that crazy?

I mean, we're talking about that's a three-year solid straight. Because every time was at least average a week. Because sometimes it was four days. But many times a week. Or I stayed sometimes even for three weeks to train there. Because I had no training partners in Holland. You were still thinking about fighting back then too. Whatever kept you from fighting in Pride?

Because you fought Ruben, Warpath. I was going to come back. I was going to come back when, you know, I had many injuries. I stopped really because all the injuries and the tendonitis I had, I think it comes from all the cortisones I took when I was a kid. And that started really to flaring up. And once that starts, man, it's training till the fight is going to be a nightmare. You have about 45 minutes to train without it.

And then it will hit you. You might as well stop training because everything will go downhill from there. And then you're in pain for an hour and a half, intense. It's like really intense pain. And, you know, it sucks the life out of me you're not happy anymore and i didn't want to train and i couldn't eat because of the pain wow this tendonitis is you believe it's from cortisone shots yeah i took way too many cortisones when i was a kid because i was so sick you know at uh but anyway then when i started recently training a little

bit and just striking you know i tried to stay away from grappling because if I have to power out or something, then it would hit again. And then when Ken Shamrock came, I said, listen, I want to be his first fight. I come out of retirement for him. I want to fight him. But he declined. He said, no, we already did it.

We don't need to do it again. But I was going to fight for that fight. And then it almost happened with Vanderlei at the Dynamite show because there was a mix between K-1 and mixed martial arts at Pride. And I said, they're looking for an opponent for Vanderlei. I said, I'll fight him. I said, but what do we do another rule? Listen, I haven't been ground fighting for three years.

What about this? People want to see this anyway. We put on the Pride gloves and we do K-1 rules. I think that's what people would love to see, right? And that also didn't happen at last time. And it was not because of – but that would have been great, I think, because at that time I was pretty in shape. I started kicking Amir's thigh pads and his whole arms Were bruised up The next day

He goes I think you're ready So I felt good That would have been An amazing fight to see Holy shit I still till this day I always say

Why isn't there a company That comes out With that idea That I just said They did Cage Combat Cage Combat yeah Yeah in

What is his name In John Wayne Parr From Australia Do you know who he is I heard about him yeah Badass kickboxer Very very good kickboxer What is his name? John Wayne Parr from Australia. Do you know who he is? I heard about him, yeah. Badass kickboxer. Very, very good kickboxer.

That's fun. Yeah, and he's calling it, I think it's called Gage Muay Thai or something like that. Let me find out. How many minute rounds? Like five minute rounds as well? I think they do it like three minute rounds. Okay, same as K1 then. Yeah, I think that's how they're doing it. like three minute rounds okay sam is k1 then yeah i think that's how they're doing it um let me find this because i know they're uh he's a he's a good dude too i want to get people you see that that's

exciting yeah yeah yeah oh what's that yeah um it's it is interesting isn't it that uh the other strikers striking striking sports, never switched to the little gloves, they never tried the little gloves. It's amazing. It's amazing because now we realize it doesn't really, you know, it's not really any difference, I guess, with the impact. I think only body shots maybe because it's a smaller surface, it penetrates through easier, I think.

But I don't think that the head, you know, even with a bare knuckle hitting a head or with a glove, I have to say, I do think that with a glove has more impact. Yeah. People don't understand that. Than with a bare knuckle. Bare knuckle, you could really hurt yourself. Also. Especially punching some hard-headed dude in the forehead.

Oh, that's what I used to do when I was a bouncer also. I would look at my fellow bouncers and say, check this out. If somebody was angry, I let him throw a punch and I just leaned forward and hit them at the top of my head. And that's a fun way to pull a trick on somebody because they hit you once. Yeah. Once. So John Wayne Parr's company is called Caged Muay Thai. And it is essentially that.

It's Muay Thai in a cage. MMA gloves. I believe it's MMA gloves. I love it. It looks like MMA gloves. There's a difference in the way you can defend yourself too with those boxing gloves. A big difference.

You cover so much more area. MMA glove goes right behind it and right through the middle. It's interesting, isn't it? And special body shots also. Yeah, right. You really can dig in with a body shot. It's not a blunt object. It's sharp. That's right. Finally, we see guys

doing it. I always talk about this. I never get it. I always tell my students, I say, fighting is really easy. You hit somebody really hard in the head, defense will go up, and there's the body for you. Or you do it the other way around, like Foreman did, hit the body real hard until they have to defend it, and then you go on top. Now, when you rock somebody, step back. What is he going to defend when you hit somebody on the chin? Well, he's going to defend his head. Why on earth would you start hitting the head now? This is your moment

to go to the body. But hit it hard. Cross hook, cross to the body. You know, combinations like that. Hit as hard as you can. That defense has to come down, and then you go back to the hat. And they plant themselves, and you attack the legs. But, I mean, there's a few fighters out there. The last one I saw using it was Rory McDonald against BJ Penn,

who dropped him with the body shot. Not dropping, but he was hurt. And right away he went back to the head. And get him in the comfort zone again to bring the hands up and then go for the body again. And that I say, oh, you see? Now he's thinking while he's fighting. Rory McDonald is one of those new breed of guys

that is getting great at everything. He doesn't just have one specialty like a wrestler who learns from ground and pound. No, he's essentially mixed martial artist from the jump. And so he's very technical in all aspects of his attack. But you're right in the striking. We're just sort of starting to see people who have a more nuanced understanding of different kicks.

You know, like how about front kicks? All of a sudden people are landing front kicks to the face. Yep. That never happened. Think about all the fights we've seen and how few guys got knocked out with a front kick to the face. I did knock him out, but I kicked him under his nose and a Frank Shamrock, it's a front kick in the nose.

And you had a shoe on, too. Yeah. You smell that. Yeah, pancreas was a weird thing if anybody has never seen it before. They wore shoes and then shin guards over the shoes, and you couldn't punch to the face. You had to slap open hand. But Boss was the only one to figure out that instead of slapping,

use punch combinations, but just pull the hand way back, and you're essentially blasting them with the palm. And in a way, it's even better because you can't break your hand. You know, until this day, I still don't get it that people don't use it because I always say it's very simple. If I'm standing here, this is the target, a left hook, right straight. If I connect with the left hook, I'm too close for my right straight. It doesn't have power. It needs space to get power, to pick up speed, so to say.

Right. But if I do a palm strike, and what I do, yeah, you see it already, but I pull all the way back. I hit with this bony part here. Yeah. And I hit on the ear, just underneath the ear. But now the straight punch is way better lined up than a left hook, right straight combination.

So I don't get it. I get a cross hook because with the cross, you bring the head backwards and then the hook will catch it. But a left hook, right straight, I say use a palm strike. And still to this day, they don't do it. It's essentially a bitch slap, right hand combination. That's it. That's what it is. Yeah, maybe they don't do it because of that.

But how cool is that? Bitch slap to knock out. Today, you have to keep your hands closed. You can't, you're not supposed to strike with your hands open. I mean, I guess you could probably get away with a karate chop or something like that, but the issue is going forward and poking eyes.

We have a real problem with eye pokes. Wow. You're a guy who's been around a long time. Yep. And you fought, you know, the bare knuckle days. Was there as many eye pokes back then as there are now? No. What really messed me up was the pro wrestling I started doing

after my career was over. I felt that I could do something again, and Inoki asked me to do pro wrestling. My first fight, I break a disc in my back, and then the second one, I rupture my eyeball with a finger in my eye, because you don't block the punches, you let him hit you. And the third one was, oh yeah, an eardrum that's been broke for six

years straight, because you fly, you can't fix it, because you cannot fly for six weeks when you do it. Actually, this is a funny story. My first pro wrestling match was with Don Fry was in my corner. I was fighting this guy, Nishima or something. It was at the Tokyo Dome, right?

So 60,000 people. And you go through, you know, and this is what you do in the beginning. Then you ad-lib a little bit. And in the middle, you do this. And then you ad-lib some more. And in the end, you know, you get the wrap-up. So this is orchestrated pro wrestling. Yeah, real pro wrestling.

And he was going to, at the start, he was going to pick me up, throw me in the corner, and give me like three elbows in the face. And then he would go to the audience like, and he would drop me with an elbow. I would take an eight count, you know, and then the fight would start. But I never pro wrestled in my life before. So he attacks me, and the first elbow he gives me is perfectly timed. But the second one is a little harder, and the third one, he attacks me and the first elbow he gives me is perfectly timed but the second one is a little harder and the third one he hits me full and my automatic reflex kicks in and i go

bunk and i hit him in the face and he goes and he's out so i look at don and he goes what yeah they go i don't know and the referee he's walking around the guy, and he goes, one, and he walks around, two, and he started dragging the time, you know. Right, because he's supposed to win. Yeah, he started twitching, and he started waking up. You know, dumb for a moment, he goes like, dude, that was crazy. I said, he hit me hard. So then the next time.

So did the guy get up and finish the match? Yeah, yeah, he finished the match. He was unconscious, completely unconscious. Oh, he was with his eyes open. There was no movement. When you wake him up, what do you tell him? No, nothing. Afterwards, everybody got scared.

So they came to me the second one. He goes, please, but no real fight. I said, you don't hit me. I don't hit you. It was very simple, you know. He hit me hard, you know. That's why. Right.

He took advantage of you. I guess. I don't know. Maybe it was on purpose. Maybe not. But there wasn't as many eye pokes back there in MMA. No, not in MMA. Why do you think that's happening so much these days?

I never hit like this with open hands. And I would all the way pull back. You know, I think it's also a lot of guys who have no good control. I mean, to eye poke somebody, I cannot even imagine that. It would never happen with me. Well, they're pushing off. That's what everybody's doing. Yeah, well, they got to stop that.

It's amazing that you say that because, you know, you had, you know, you were fighting with your hands open and you weren't poking guys' eyes. That's what I mean. You know, I never, in bankruptcy, I never noticed. It's a big, big issue now to the point where... It's almost, it looks like it's on purpose sometimes. You know, you got to really do it. I would hate to speculate,

but it's a very unfortunate aspect of having the ability to have open fingers. And I was wondering if you think there could be a way where you could cover over the tips with maybe a soft leather so it was all one smooth piece over the top, but it was soft enough so that you could still grapple. Because most people don't understand you don't really grapple like that anyway.

No. You use your whole hand, and the only time the thumb even is involved is with wrist control. I mean, most of the time when I'm grabbing things, I'm grabbing things like this, because I'm pulling with my thumb. I give myself the added muscle down with my thumb, whereas you don't have that if you do this. But only this situation, for instance, when somebody's a mount on me, and I never get this anyway,

people at their mount, they let themselves just buck up. I always say it's so simple. I mean, just freaking buck up. Bring your feet close to your butt. Stop bucking up. He needs to look for balance. He can't keep hitting you. Now, at the moment he looks for balance,

you catch one hand. And then it's what I always say to my students. These two fingers are the strongest. So what I do, I grab two and two. Right. Because it's a stronger grip around the wrist than when I do this. See? See this?

The carpal tunnel. Sometimes that comes with the neck. It's the weirdest thing. So these three fingers on each hand. On one wrist. Yeah. I go around on the wrist, and then I pull it to one side, I lock up the foot, and I throw him to the other side.

It's a simple reversal. So you feel like grabbing like this is stronger than grabbing with both your hands? Yeah, because, look, this hand is here, and the other hand is here. Look how open your grip becomes because of the forearm. But if you have around two fingers here and the other two fingers there, you've got a really strong grip on one hand. Oh, I see what you're saying. And even when you're on the bottom and he hits you with the other hand, you can still

break the hand. Okay, I see what you're saying for folks that don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Yeah. But what he's saying is that at the base of the wrist, it's the thinnest, so the more strength, you have more strength in your hands when your fingers are completely wrapped around something and the index finger and the thumb are touching together. And the more your fingers are spread out, the less power you have to grab a hold of something. So in the case of the human body, you're better off grabbing the wrist with three fingers and three fingers.

That's very wise. Yeah. Yeah, that's very, very smart. And so that's what you would do and then fight to try to get out of the mount from that position. Yeah, because it's pretty easy. First of all, mount never allowed him to sit on your chest. That's a bad mount because then you can buck

up whatever you want. There's no leverage, you know, so he doesn't move. So the first thing I always say keep your elbows here, always. Plus if he's already a high chest, I post my elbows here and I wiggle myself upwards. You don't have to push him down, but you can push yourself upwards because the end result is the same. Now, once he's on your belly, the other great thing that comes with it is that his feet are underneath your legs. So now with your other foot, you can catch

one of those feet. People listening to this right now are going, what the fuck is he talking about? You can catch, I can catch one of his feet here. Right. And then if I grab his right arm and I pull this to the side, and at the moment I have it here, I lock it, and I'll pull him to that side. I take this base away.

Does that work on really good guys? Yeah, it works well on really good guys. Who's the best guy you ever pulled that off on? In training? That's the whole thing. I don't know. When someone tells me some revolutionary new technique,

I'm like, hmm. Yeah, but that's not a revolutionary technique. I just take your post and your post away. It's a very basic thing. I think I had maybe Carlos Newton with it,

Gekisudo at the time. I've been using that a lot. If you're mounting and you put an arm around my neck, you're on your back. I guarantee you that. I'll go real fast. I wait for those moments.

I go lay like this. Please attack my neck, man. When you first started, you weren't a submission guy at all. You were mostly just a stand-up guy, right, when you first started competing in Pancrase? And then what was it like? Which fight was it that really made you realize, like, hey, Ken Shamrock? Ken Shamrock, last one, put me in a knee bar, I trained four weeks to not

get caught in a knee bar, Funaki taught me one way to stop it he said if he's in half guard he's going to slip over your hip and you see me in the fight waiting for him to slip over my hip to catch the foot and he threw the leg over my head and I go mother, you know

they set me up but that moment on I said okay this won't ever happen again. Now I'm going to listen to people, but I'm also going to find out if it's really that right way. And then I started just breaking down everything. I found one sparring partner, Leon Van Dyke, and we went nuts. We went three times a day. We were rolling, rolling, rolling, watching on fights, see a move, go. Okay, how do you get out?

Well, I can't do this. Okay, how do you get out? Well, I can do this. Okay, how can I stop that? And so break it down, break it down, break it down. So you essentially taught yourself a little bit of instruction from other people and a lot of it from tape and trial and error. Yeah, just like that. I had my big DVDs of combat, right? I had a phone call a long time ago.

This was before I knew BJ Penn personally. And he said, hey, boss, it's BJ. BJ Penn? Yeah, hey, how you doing? I'm getting ready for a run. I once met you as he was fighting at the time. I said, why are you calling? He says, I'm watching your instructionals.

And I say, so? He says, the best instructions I've ever seen in my life. I go, you're kidding me. And he says, yeah, I got to go. I go, wait, wait, wait. Can I use that quote? Because that's a great quote. But he was also immersed with, well, I do a lot. I go, wait, wait, wait. Can I use that quote? Because that's a great quote. But he was also immersed with, well, I do a lot of hand control.

My arm bars are different. My way of breaking your grip, if I break your grip, you'll never escape. I guarantee you that. If you break my grip, I'll already set myself up. If my hands are locked, my elbow is right away here. And at the moment they start pulling, I throw my other legs in the same line as you, and I have to make a really tiny roll. The folks listening to this on iTunes, this is all very baffling, but it's very exciting, too, because there's a bunch of different branches of grappling in MMA.

There's the catch wrestling sort of branch where a lot of Gene LaBelle taught guys and a lot of Josh Barnett as well. Very catch wrestling oriented. And of course, there's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu oriented. But there's also the Japanese style, which is sort of a combination of the both. Like Sakuraba, who had a lot of Carl Gotch influence, who was one of the early catch wrestling guys to go over to Japan and teach these guys

all these different techniques. But he also had the Japanese martial arts and the judo submissions and everything as well. Really fascinating when you stop and think about when you started. I mean, the first UFC fight was in 93. When was your first Pancrase fight? 93. Yeah. So two months before or a month before.

September. You were there in the beginning of the blossom. Yep. You know? It must be really interesting to see all these new techniques and all these, well, really a lot of them ancient techniques, but become like mainstream and new. What I love about, and this is something I figured out also like in the early days because like I always say an example is the simple figure four.

Everybody knows a figure four, right? I said, but if you can create a way. Are you saying like an Americana? Yeah, an Americana. I call that figure four, reverse figure four. So if Hammerlock, I mean, there's so many names. That's why I do it. Also, they always forget to push the arm down.

Now suddenly, but I mean, you know as well here, you can do it. You push it down. Come on, dude, you have to know. This is your. Now, suddenly, but I mean, you know as well here, you can do it. You push it down. Come on, dude, you have to know. This is your... Yeah, what he's saying for folks listening, there's a technique. It's like, you know when a guy's like showing you his muscle,

like, look at my bicep, boom. Well, that, if you take that arm and just drop it down to the rib and then pull the arm backwards, there's a surprisingly small amount of room that you can move where you're in excruciating pain but if you keep it up there where you show like the muscle you can move way back people roll out they escape the submission it hurts but you can get out of it but what i always say is everybody knows it's probably the first submission they've been taught

but if you can create different ways to go that submit to set that submission so it's undetected it's like a right straight to the face you know it's going to come but if i find a way to bring to deliver it undetected and that counts the same for for submissions and that's why i always found two or three or sometimes four sorry four different ways to go to one combination and when i start mixing those up also, I go from one to four, then I go from two to four. Then, you know, eventually you get somebody. A guy who's really good with that also is Noguera in the early days.

You know, he's got triangle, armbar, ompalada, and he constantly, pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-caught. Sure. And that's what I like. Find different ways. And that's the coolest what I see nowadays. You see guys get so creative. Suddenly there's a submission and I go, whoop, I rewind.

They go, how the hell did you say that? And then, you know, and that's something I really enjoy watching. You know, when I can't see it coming, then I go like, okay, that is, that's really cool. Now, when, what do you miss about pride? Do you miss anything about the rules? Because there's like a lot of debate about like whether or not the pride rules were the best rules. A lot of people think that they favored the more skillful fighter, and they were more chaotic because they had stomps, soccer kicks, but yet no elbows.

I always said elbows, and now we see guys start knocking people out with elbows. we see guys start knocking people out with elbows. But normally, if a fight gets stopped by elbows, 95% is because of a cut. It's not because of a knockout. And then I say, that is not a real win. If you think about it, on the street, if you get cut, you won't stop either.

You keep on fighting. The cut's not going to do anything to you. Knock him out. And that's why I say, sometimes I like it even better to knee to the face on the ground and take the elbows out for my care. And I think the ring makes it also a little bit more technical because you can't walk up. It's a whole different strategy suddenly.

You can lock some people standing. You can lock them up in the corner. You can do that in a cage. You see, it's a whole different strategy. Yeah, you can't use the cage to push your back against it to get away. You can't reverse people as easily. The wall, I mean, the cage is almost like a weapon in there. It's almost like a tool.

And now especially, now we see Pat, as you know, coming up with the crazy stuff. Yeah. Pushing off with the straight punch. That one I did, but that kick, that was really crazy. Actually, that pushing off and then with the knee, I saw the trainer from Gilbert, I fell all the way back. Lucien? Lucien Carbine. He used to do that on the bottom rope in Thai boxing.

In the clinch, he would stomp on the bottom rope and then boom, a knee to the face. Did you see Anthony Pettis started throwing knees that way? How cool was that? And how did he slip a roundhouse knee in between that defense? It was crazy. Yeah, he's got great timing. He's a bad motherfucker. Yeah, he is. I mean, because Donald Cowboy Cerrone's a bad motherfucker, too.

He stopped him with a body shot. And you could see Cowboy didn't want to acknowledge it. He blasted him once with a kick to the body and all you saw was Cowboy's abs just... Oh, and thanks for the plug, by the way. Whenever it's a liver shot, like, Boss the way. Boss Ruth, the liver kick! Whenever it's a liver shot, like, Boss Ruth knows the power of the liver shot, and he's,

you know, from Boss's commentary, you've always been so adamant about, you know, attacking the liver. Folks who don't know, on your, where a person would hit you with a left hook, there's an area where your liver is, where if you take a sizable impact on that liver, your body just shuts down and it's it's

a weird thing to watch it's a weird thing to feel you know everybody's felt it everybody who's ever trained has felt it my first Thai boxing class I got dropped with a liver shot that's where my love comes from the liver shot I was on the ground breathing and asking him what is it he says I left it to the body that's where your liver is located. I go, oh, man. And that's when I started focusing. Because I knew right away. Well, I thought I was a badass. Because in karate, I was beating people up in training and in taekwondo.

But when I went to Thai boxing, because we were not used to really punching the head. Yeah. You know, when they started attacking my head, my hands flew up way too high, of course. And overexposing my body. And that's when the body shot came. I have the exact same story. I started out in Taekwondo and realized it was like right around the time I wanted to

try to make the U.S. national team. I won the Massachusetts State Championship like four years in a row. And I won the U.S. Cup. I won some good tournaments, or the U.S. Open. and I won the U.S. Cup. I won some good tournaments, or the U.S. Open, but I got to the Nationals in 1988. By the time I was doing that, though, I'd already started boxing,

and I realized I was full of shit. Everybody that takes karate, at least back in the day, before the UFC came around, everybody that took judo, everybody that took whatever you took, you thought what you had was the shit. That was it,'t need anything else i got super lucky there was a guy named joe lake who's a great guy who was a boxing coach at this uh gym that i was working out at and i was teaching a taekwondo class there and so he started teaching me how to box so i could teach him some kicks so i was teaching this guy some kicks and then we started doing some sparring with uh he

bringing some boxers that I could spar with. And I just got the fuck beat out of me, and I was like, oh, Jesus Christ. Like trying to kickbox with these guys, my hands were so terrible. I was so unaware of how easy it was to punch me in the face. And I went through that same sort of a transition where you realize, like, wow, I got a lot to learn. Like I developed a style that's based on no punching to the face, so it's an unrealistic style. But those guys that come from that unrealistic style,

because there's so many kicks, they have a dexterity and a kicking dexterity that very few other guys ever develop. Yeah, yeah. There's a few guys that kick really freaking hard, come from Taekwondo, who break arms. Anthony Pettis. Yeah, Pettis, you know, he's a really guys that kick really freaking hard. Come from Taekwondo who break arms. Anthony Pettis. Yeah, Pettis, he's a really good one. Anderson Silva.

The thing that I had, though, when they beat me up the first class, I went back home and I'd always tell my students, I always say, if I can do it, you can do it. Because people, they say, yeah, but it comes easy to me. Sure, maybe it can, but I work really hard as well. Don't forget that. I stood four hours in front of the mirror with my hands. Four hours. And I was not going to drop my hands.

And my wife at the time said, you're crazy. I said, no, no, no. This will not happen again. And the next day I went back and I just almost cleaned. They cleaned up everybody. They almost thought they thought that I was pulling a trick on them. That I already knew how to box or to tie box. And then I just came in. I said,

I spent four hours in front of the mirror yesterday. My hands are not going to drop anymore. The guy though with the liver shot, he still had the best of me. He was really good. Well, that's just the only way to get great is to be obsessive, right? That's it. You got to be crazy. I, you know, I tell this story and I, you probably heard it before.

I would wake up my wife in the middle of the night because I would dream a submission. And then I would put her in that submission. I would say, hey, it's your shoulder, right? Yes, my shoulder. I would write it down and then I would go to sleep and the next day I would go. This happened at least six times.

This doesn't happen one time. You just wake up and use her as a grappling dummy? That's it. I would wake her up and I say, man, I got another one. My whole house was full of little post-its. Yeah, I was nuts, man. I took it to the next level.

Mario Sperry told me once that when I first learned jujitsu, I was nuts, man. I took it to the next level. Mario Sperry told me once that when I first learned Jiu-Jitsu, I practiced a triangle. I had my girlfriend sitting in my guard, and I go, bam. I didn't say bam. And he just would practice triangle over and over again. And she's like, stop. I don't want to do it.

I'm like, fuck you. He kept doing it. He just used his girlfriend as a grappling dummy, just slapping triangles on her. I'm like, she should be honored. That's the Mario. That's it. Mario Sperry.

But she's not with him anymore. Probably not. Maybe he married her. I don't know. Maybe it's a payback. You got to see, in commentating in Pride, you got to see some of the most historic fights in MMA history. I mean, those days, in my opinion, and this is my opinion,

I work for the UFC. Obviously, I'm biased. I think, those days, in my opinion, and this is my opinion, I work for the UFC. Obviously, I'm biased. I think the greatest fighters live today. I think today the level of fighters is at the highest level it's ever been in the UFC, whether it's Anderson Silva, George St. Pierre, John Jones. That's the highest level it's ever existed. But as far as the greatest events,

you were there for those 90,000 seat events. I was just joking. 91 and a half. They came in, parachutes came in. It was the wildest thing ever. Oh, Inoki, right? He landed with a parachute. Yeah.

And Takata on top of the roof was opening the show. I mean, it was insane. It was the craziest thing. Jesus Christ. A small show would be 45,000 people. That was considered the normal show. How did he land? How did he glide himself?

I remember when it started, the wind was going really hard. And I go, this is going to go wrong. I mean, somebody's going to be like a fly squatted up, splatted up against whatever is there. But, I mean, they came in. They did it. It was phenomenal. It was the craziest thing. The Japanese sense of pageantry. Do you want a water or something no no no that makes

it worse with me I'll let I like it the Diet Coke for some reason seems to have we have anything I don't think we have a doctor we have that ginger ale maybe yeah coconut water we have coconut water I like that we have coconut water cocoa cafe it's coconut water with espresso in it. It's delicious. You want to try that? Yeah, I'll try that. Get me one of them too, Jamie. Please. But the sense of pageantry that the Japanese... I still, on this TV right here, I have Best of Prides. And a lot of times before the podcast,

I'll watch a bunch of pride fights in a row. And sometimes I forgot how insane they were. You know, I remember the time when Dana White was there with Chuck Liddell, you know, and they were sitting there in the first row waiting and it started. And I looked at Dana and he was like, what? I mean, and I looked at him, am I right? He goes, it was the craziest ever. 90, this is that Coco Cafe stuff.

We don't, these aren't our sponsors, but they're cool people. They send us cool shit. It's called Cocoa Cafe. And the other stuff that's over there, which is unbelievably delicious, that's C2O coconut water. Last time I was here and you had that, I buy it by the pellet now, too. It's the best. You know what

the good is? This with a cigar. Oh, yeah. It's the best combination. It is a good combination. It's delicious, sweet coconut juice because it's from Thailand. C2O, they said that those coconut trees are small. They're only like five feet tall. They're not like a regular crazy coconut tree, but it's a Thai coconut that you want.

Amy and Brian's has the Thai coconut and C2O. But sometimes they have the little bubbles in also, this one. Oh, you can get the green one has little chunks of coconut in it as well. That's what I put in my morning shake. I make a hemp horse with a hemp protein. I make a shake with a... Hemp? Yeah.

Not even psychoactive. It's good for everything. No, well, it is good for everything. Clothing, everything, yeah. That's what's crazy about it. Well, they just came up with a hempcrete. Have you heard of this? They got this hemp concrete, and it's actually flexible.

For real? Yeah, it's incredible. It's called hempcrete. The same as they have in the Olympic Stadium? Well, they're harder than, this is what's crazy, they're harder than regular concrete. Wow. And lighter.

And because it moves, it's way better for buildings because it can break, you know? It sways. Nice. And lighter. And because it moves, it's way better for buildings because it can't break. It sways. Nice. Hemp is a crazy plant. It doesn't even seem real. And what a lot of people don't know is that it's not – when you're talking about – you say hemp, people think – you're thinking about pot. You're thinking about getting high.

It has nothing to do with getting high. It has just to do with – Those trees don't make it. Yeah. What I just mean, as a product, as a commodity, it's an amazing plant. What it can do is you can get the stalk, like the base of it. It's hard as a rock, but yet it's light like styrofoam.

That's crazy. It's alien. It's like an alien plant. There's no plant on the planet like hemp. And it's illegal, these fuckheads. Jesus, boss fruitin'. And it's illegal, these fuckheads. Jesus, boss rooting. And it's really illegal in Japan, right? I mean, if you get caught in Japan, you're in fucking trouble, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to do that. Was that weird, spending so much time in that culture? Because Brian and I went last year, and that was both of our first time. And we were like, holy shit, this place is nuts. Yeah, you brought a lot of the pills, the THC pills. Did you bring those a lot? Because they're legal, right?

You can get them on your prescription. What's the name again of those? Oh, Marinol. Yeah, those will fuck you up. Yeah, but I mean, if you go to Japan, you better bring that. Yeah, if you want to get high, you mean. I got offered weed. You get offered weed in Japan?

Oh, no, it's very easy to get there. If you go to Roppongi, it's all... Craziness. All those African dudes. Those African dudes that are wandering the streets trying to offer you massages. Is that where we went? Kapongi?

Yeah, Roppongi. Roppongi. That's the one. That's the place I went to, like I said, before a fight. That's where you were going. Yeah, that was in Roppongi.

That was it. Was it weird, though, being over in that culture on a regular basis? It is. You know, it is. I have a buddy with me who's from Sweden. Was it weird, though, being over in that culture on a regular basis? You know, it is. I have a buddy with me from Sweden. He's young, and I know him for four years. He's been bullied when he was a kid until he also stood up and knocked the bully out.

And he wants to start fighting, and he's coming now here also. And he's here for the first week, and he wants to stay for three months to train. And he also said, you know, yeah, it's hard. You know, your family, and especially, you know, because he's used to his family all the time around. And I said, you know, I know exactly what you're going through because I had that too. Sometimes I went five weeks over there.

I was in a hotel room, and that was it, you know. You go in the morning, you go train, you go back, you eat, you go train, you go back, and then, you know, that's it. And then your video games. I was very good at Virtua Fighter, you know, like playing these big video games there. But there is nobody to communicate. There's no going out district. video games. I was very good at Virtua Fighter. You know, like playing these big video games there. But that's...

There is nobody to communicate. There's no going out district. The only thing they have is a Roppongi. But for the rest it's not like you can walk in a bar somewhere. Plus, you don't want to do that because you're in training. You know, so it's... Yeah, it's hard. It's hard at that moment to be there. It's very weird.

People are completely different. You know, it's quiet. Everything is... Yeah, it's a... It's very weird. People are completely different. You know, it's quiet. Everything is... Yeah, it's a weird feeling. To me, though, I truly believe that I completely changed my fighting style.

I was a super aggressive fighter. That's why I put those big R's on my hand in the beginning. But in Holland, I would come out very technical, you know, pong, jab, low kick, ka-pa-pa-pa-pa,

boom, I would get hit. You know, and I was like, disconnect, ka-pa-pa-pa-pa-poom, I would get hit. You know, and it was like disconnect, and then I would just tear him up. That's why I got like 13 first round knockouts. You know, just blasted people over the, would hit them out of the ring almost. Just totally lost control. You would try to start out technical,

but then you just get crazy when you got hit. Oh, I got hit, and I got so angry, and then when I went to Japan, I realized, these guys are known to take a hit you know and I figured if I when I found out

that was the funniest part no weight classes so my guy was 245 I go and that's not a problem here no I said okay good good good so I'm bluffing now right

I said so how many rounds we got five they said no one round I said one great how many minutes 30 I said oh yeah great great great

but in my mind I went Jesus 30 fucking minutes so that's why I put the R's on my hand How many minutes? 30. I said, oh, yeah, great, great, great, great, great. But in my mind, I went, Jesus. 30 fucking minutes. You know what? So that's why I put the R's on my head. For relax, right? Yeah.

If I unload myself the first two minutes, I got 28 minutes to go. Yeah. You know, I don't want to take that risk. Do you like that? Better. Do you prefer when you see the Pride 10-minute round, the opening round? There's a lot of debate about that as well, whether or not the 10-minute opening round is better

or the three-five, you know. Well, I can tell you one thing. The 10-minute opening round makes for a better strategical fighter. That's for sure. Because you got... People have no clue how tired you can get in one minute or in two minutes. I have these one-minute drills that I do on the back

that pros come in and they go, holy man, you know, I mean, but I go berserk, you know, give you combinations. Everything is 100%. I got to ask this while you're saying this before I forget. Someone's been asking on the underground,

do you still sell those Boss Rutan workout tapes? Yeah, still. Everybody's using it. Where can you get them? Are you finally using them now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. BossRutan.com. BossRutan.com, you sell it. Okay. Because there was a bunch of people that using them now yeah yeah yeah bossruten.com bossruten.com

you sell it okay yep because there was a bunch of people that were asking on mixedmartialarts.com the bossruten MMA workout you will have

that workout is going to be your best friend when I train myself it's always part of my workout for real yeah once you did it ever with the numbers

yes it's great it's great because you can do it anywhere you can do it in the hotel room I was in the hotel room I put the bed to the side with the sprawls and everything it was crazy it's fun it's great. It's great because you can do it anywhere. You can do it in the hotel room. I was in the hotel room. I put the bat to the side with the sprawls and everything. It was crazy.

It's fun. It's a fun workout. Yeah, I love that. But the 10-minute opening round, if you overshoot yourself in the beginning of the round, you're going to have eight minutes left. And eight minutes is a very long time to come back from that. So I truly believe you play always that danger as a fighter. That's why I always said to all my guys, the 38-year-old guy who I said was starting fighting, I said, stamina is going to be your number one goal. Technically, we put that

number two. I want stamina at one. You know, because if you run out of gas, you can have 100 black belts. It's not going to save you. You're going to get knocked out. And he really did that. He can go, and especially with amateurs, you get short rounds. He can blast them all the way along. And that's how we, you know, he had a hard first round, and then the guy started getting more tired, and then the third round, yeah, he just destroyed the guy, knocked him out.

And that's with fighting. You play a little bit of a risk factor. That's why I always train so hard. I didn't want to have that risk factor in there. I never run out of gas in my life. Yeah, you were never a guy that had a short gas tank, even in the Kosaka fight where you couldn't train grappling. And he took you down and he was basically trying to out-grapple you in that fight.

He didn't want to stand with you. You still managed to have the conditioning to take him out on the feet. Yeah, yeah. And the Kosaka fight was also, I always show my backdoor escapes. And I always said, I said, watch that fight. He takes me down, see how long he's got me I think what 20 seconds I'm out you know it's just backdoor escapes but I would go over and over and over again you know I would when I do something Joe you know I do I do it it's black and white with me I'll

go all the way and and and more well your style is always very interesting to me it's it's always it's fascinating how many different people have a different approach, like Nick Diaz's approach, where he throws like he'll hit you with like 50% punches. He'll just come at you like this. Have you seen the video of him shadowboxing, by the way, or hitting the speed bag? Brian, pull this up. Nick Diaz hits the fucking speed bag for 23 minutes in a row. Wow.

It's insane. 23 minutes in a row. Wow. It's insane. 23 minutes in a row. I did this five-minute round. It was 23 minutes in a row? And by the way, he had ridden his bike 15 fucking miles to the gym. I'm not bullshitting. He rode his bike 15 miles to the gym, sparred five five-minute rounds,

hit the pads, and then does this. For 23 fucking minutes. The only thing with me is, though, I'll do one, one, one. I don't do a bound. Dig it, dig it, dig it. I don't do that. I go dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it. I go really fast. But that is crazy.

That is really. There's no elected assets. It's amazing. I mean, he's got incredible conditioning. And he's a couple of days away from the fight. That's this weekend. This Saturday night, George St. Pierre and him are going down. That's going to be crazy.

Woo! In Montreal. This is 23 minutes of this he does this boss. And at the end of it all, he's not even that tired. I mean, it's fucking crazy. This guy's not doing this at a slow pace. Look at this. This guy's not doing this at a slow pace.

Look at this. Nick Diaz has, in my opinion, he's got the best cardio in all of MMA. But you see, he's doing what I said. Just do it more than other people. Look at this, man. That's insane. If he does this for 23 minutes, guess why he doesn't get burned out in his shoulders? Because he's always doing it. That's the reason.

He does it so often. And, by the way, when he's not doing it, he's fucking doing triathlons. The guy swam from Alcatraz twice. You know how crazy you have to be to jump in the water up there? It's filled with sharks. That's like great white mating habitat.

That was a big myth also, right, at that time, that they planted it in people's heads so they wouldn't start swimming back. But the stream is the worst yeah the stream that that takes people out there yeah yeah that's the most dangerous yeah the tide yeah there's there's a lot of shit that's dangerous first of all the water is really fucking cold up there yeah yeah yeah but you know what and that's what i say again what he does you can do too yeah you just have to do it you just

have to do it you know and that's what the people when they run out of gas, go run a freaking hill, man. I mean, that's what I used to do. Well, you used to, one of the things that you said, you said, you said, I would do one round. I would start out one minute.

Yep. And I would go full clip and then next time, I'd do one minute and a half and then eventually you build up. That's it. But you gotta, that was your style of doing it though.

And you know what I do? I have those one minute drills on the back. I have also. That would be focus mitts and Thai pads, what you just talked about. But I would take it even easier. What I would do is one minute on the back, one minute rest. And I would do 15 rounds. That's 30 minutes.

Then I would go to next week, one minute and five seconds on the back, 55 seconds rest. Next week, one minute, 10 seconds, 50 seconds. Every time, five seconds more and five seconds away from your rest time. At the end, you're at one and a half minute going crazy on the back. Every punch is through somebody's head. Like there's not one half punch. And what are you down, like 30 seconds rest? And then 30 seconds rest.

One and a half minutes full. You see guys in a fight who suddenly unload themselves for 20, 30 seconds, and they gassed out. Right. How many times do you see that happen? Many times. Well, that's the drill for you, this. Yeah.

You're going to be bizarre strong. And every time, it's just five seconds more. Right. Every week. So it's fine. Slowly. And that you do together with the other drills that I said, going to the

six-minute rounds. What I was getting at with the Nick Diaz thing was that it's so interesting to see the different styles, like the way Nick approaches it, where he just has a lot of volume, and he doesn't blast you full blast with every shot, whereas you had a different style. You would, even when

you would kick their arms, you would try to crush them. You would try to break their arms. Make him afraid of it. Like I say, if somebody puts his defense up, kick as hard as you can on the defense, put in his head that, I better block this because if I don't block it, you know, now you're inside his head. You see, you're already created.

But Nick Diaz has a different muscle than I have. I have the fast twitch fibers. A lot of guys out there have that. They burn a lot, but he doesn't have. He has the slow twitch fibers. And that doesn't mean it's slow, but I mean it fast twitch fibers. A lot of guys out there have that. They burn a lot, but he doesn't have. He has the slow twitch fibers. And that doesn't mean it's slow, but I mean it has a difference. He is the endurance guy, so a lot of them have that. But all the explosive guys, they really have to watch out how they fight.

Burst, relax. Burst, relax. You have to fight and train like that because otherwise you run out of gas. That's why you see all those super explosive guys, they run out of gas, and that's the reason because they don't train like that because otherwise you run out of gas. That's why you see all those super explosive guys, they run out of gas, and that's the reason because they don't train like that. One of the things that Chael Sonnen said, he said that if you try to knock a guy out, if you feel like you have an opportunity, you try to knock the guy out. If you don't knock him out, you're probably not going to win a decision.

Like you have to realize you're gambling it all. If a guy survives it, you might be out of gas. Yeah, but it's has the same thing. He has also no knockout power. You know, he just throws volume, volume, volume, volume. Like Nick Diaz, he's got knockout power if he wants. He can drop on. But you see, again, with Steele, he's got incredible stamina.

You see, and that's those muscles. It's a grappling stamina, too, more. Yeah, it's just such a fascinating thing to see guys start to put it all together. And also to see the whole style changing where these guys like these Rory McDonald guys that can do everything are starting to sort of move ahead. And who is explosive also. Yes, explosive also and does a lot of explosive drills. You ever see his workouts? He's doing a lot of, like, jumping over of jumping over those horses, those sawhorses.

Oh, beautiful. I love that. Jumping over those barriers. What are they called? Hurdles? A lot of hurdle jumping, a lot of power lifting, a lot of all that strength and conditioning shit that you see with pro football players, pro hockey players. That's what you're seeing now.

You're seeing real athletes. Yep. And also guys that have multifaceted attacks. For the longest time, like I've always said, guys should throw more leg kicks. And people would get pissed at me. They're like, why do you keep saying that? He's doing well on his own. I'm like, because it's not what he's doing.

He can do better. He can do better, yeah. And who am I to say it? Well, yeah, who am I? But I'm also a guy seeing a thousand fights. And I know what some people can do. I know there are guys, when you see a guy like Anderson Silva, who basically can do everything, and when you see that guy,

you know that those guys are possible. So when you see a guy who doesn't, or when you see a guy like George St. Pierre, who makes it so unpredictable what he's going to do, whether he's going to punch you or try to take you down, and that's part of why he's so effective, is because he's moving, he moves really well, he covers distance really well, and you don't know if he's shooting a double or if he's throwing a punch at you.

You don't know. He makes you worry about it. He's like the La Jolla used to do. The La Jolla would go to a fight, and every time he would bring a new thing to a fight, and that would be his focus on. And GSP has the same thing. Like, for instance, when he fought Koshek,

it was the jab, the long jab, and it was that spinning back kick. He comes with two or three things, and he will throw that the most, and in between he ad-libs, and he does all the rest that he knows. The spinning back kicks was from him working with me. Oh, yeah? Yeah, the whole video of me teaching him how to do it. Oh, nice.

We were at Legends in Hollywood, and it was the most ridiculous conversation. I was talking to John Donahuer, and he was looking for someone to teach George St. Pierre how to throw a spinning back kick. He was asking me, do you know any good Taekwondo guys? I go, this is going to sound crazy. You're not going to believe me. I go, but I got a fucking nasty turning side kick. It was like my number one technique. I could show him. And so I worked with George on it. We went over a lot of it. He already had a decent one. He just was... He had a couple of weird things.

Rotates over, over-rotating. Over-rotating, and a lot of it was the low knee kicking up as opposed to the higher knee kicking straight. Like that Taekwondo style. You started in that way, too. Yeah, Kyokushin is from the knee backwards. And with that, it's higher. Yeah, the back kick is higher with us. I'll lift it up higher

now as well. Lifting it up higher is where you get the real power because you involve the hip in a full rotation. The only example, Peter Smith. You know, remember Peter Smith, the Kyokushin guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first time I saw him, he was doing a Kyokushin tournament, and I think he won his six fights in one day all by spinning back kick. And that was that kick.

And he did it from the knee. Oh, he had a nasty one. But it was so ridiculous hard. It was like, poof! And the guy would cripple. You know, it was the craziest thing ever. What a guy, too, man. He's up there now with Roman, for sure. Because those guys, they knew each other

as well. Peter Smit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a great person also, man. Yeah, he fought a lot of guys too. I mean, he fought a lot of Thai guys too, right? Yeah. He's hilarious. Yeah, guys that will mix up, like I

always loved it when the guy would mix up karate techniques and Taekwondo techniques with the Muay Thai, like Andy Hoog. I mean, he'd throw that wheel kick to the thigh. To the leg. You know, that's how we won the whole thing with Bernardo, remember? Bernardo got his legs messed up already with Peter Ertz and everybody.

And then he was smart. There was a smart guy, Andy Hoog. Who did that? Nobody ever did that. And he did. And he knocked him out like that. To the legs. Yeah, it's amazing.

It's an amazing technique. That wheel kick to the leg. There's so much power to it, you know? Oh, man, it's like. It's an amazing technique. A wheel kick to the leg. There's so much power to it. Oh, man, it's like those Capoeira guys. Today I had a question on Facebook. If a pure Capoeira guy against a pure Thai boxer was going to win. And then I go, but okay, well, I'll take the pure Thai boxer. I say Holland.

I don't mean like then Thailand. But I say the Thai boxer, of course, because they will probably close the distance really fast. They've been in hand range, and Capoeira the distance really fast. It would be in hand range. And Capoeira doesn't have that. They have only kicks and spinning. But once a kick hits, I mean, they have so much power when they propel that weight, the way they throw that kick. But landing it, that's the thing. There's a lot of movement.

A lot of movement is easy detectable. It's like when Lyoto Machida landed that front kick on Randy, that jumping front kick. Jumping, yeah. Even more crazy. But the reason he could do it is because he's got good wrestling. He's got a black belt in jiu-jitsu. He's got good hands.

He's got all the other things as well. And so then you can add those karate techniques, and then they become incredibly deadly. Yeah. And talking about Machida, that's maybe good to mention because one time I said, yeah, he doesn't have a lot of weapons. I didn't mean it like that. What I mean is that he doesn't use a lot of weapons. He's got the very southpaw stance, a one-line karate stance, which shuts him down for the right.

Like he has a side kick, but a roundhouse kick you don't need to be worried, because he can't use his hip power in there. And I'm not saying people go like, oh, so he can't knock you out? I'm not saying that. We saw Kimbo getting knocked out with the weirdest little tiny punch. Everyone can get knocked out when you hit him at the wrong time at the wrong spot for him. You're at the right time, right spot. But he says his attacks are most of the time

it's a left straight, or it's a left kick, left straight, or a left kick, left straight, right hook. And when he moves backwards I said he always moves to that side and if you bull rush him because of his stance He has to start walking backwards because otherwise he can't move backwards fast enough and that's what I meant You know, but he always liked like that with the front kick. He brings something, you know, he has those same attacks But he knows them very well. He's got really precision accuracy.

And then on top of that, his counters are bizarre. But his attack is pretty much those attacks. Machida gets a lot of heat, and he got a lot of heat in the Dan Henderson fight. You know, when I was interviewing him after the fight, the whole audience was booing him. Wow. And I thought that was kind of fucked up, because I thought, first of all, Dan Henderson is incredibly dangerous. Very, very, very dangerous guy.

Super powerful puncher. Ruthless. Very aggressive. And a lot of experience knocking people out. Oh, yeah. Dan Henderson knocked out Fedor, knocked out Vanderlei. I mean, he knows how to put knuckles to chin. He's a spooky guy.

And there's only one way to fight him and not get knocked out. Don't get hit by him. And so Machida's number one goal, don't get hit by that fucking nuclear weapon this guy's packing. And I thought that was an exciting fight. It was an exciting fight. But I can understand the people because he's a counter fighter. He waits for Henderson.

Henderson, though, I thought right from the get-go, he throws one punch and he stays there. And I go, he's going to get knocked out now. Because Machida is very good at countering. I thought if I would fight, if I was Henderson with this wrestling, I would just run on him. Run, put him up against. You know he's going to go that way because he doesn't fight 95%.

You watched the day before. Take him down and go for ground and pound. But whatever you do, don't throw single punches or two-punch combinations because he's so good at the counter. Yeah, I think when I see a lot of older wrestlers like Dan, I mean, I know Dan recently had a knee injury. Oh, yeah. And his knee was really wrapped up for that fight.

I always assume that they're going in there banged up. Yep. Always assume. Like Shakur Haba. Yeah, and I think with Dan, especially because he's got so much knockout power, probably avoid the grappling. I mean, I bet he's got back issues.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sure he does. These guys, I mean, it's a fucking brutal way to make a living. And to be 42 now? You think he's 42? He's the man's man, though. I really like Dan. Dan is the, you know, The way when he fought Fedor,

that Fedor came out banging, and then you see him making up his mind like, oh, is it going to be like that? Okay, I can do that too. And then he freaking came. And that's what I love about that man. I saw him in pride after the first round, crawling on his

knees back to the corner, and then he would come out second round like nothing happened and just fight again. He's a tough motherfucker. Very. He took that first Vanderlei fight. He was not in good shape. Nope. You could tell.

He just wasn't in condition enough for that fight. And that was a scary fight for him at one point in time when Vanderlei was mounting him and pounding on him. Beating everybody at Vanderlei at that time. Yeah. Yeah. Vanderlei was a spooky, spooky dude back then. And also, this is in Pride, where there's no drug testing. So you could be on EPO, testosterone, you name it.

I mean, it was just, everybody knows it. It's the dirty little thing that nobody wants to talk about. But those motherfuckers are juiced to the gills. You know, I always say, just look at the bodies, and then look at the bodies, how they change. And most of the time, there you have the answer. And on top of that, they didn't get tired. Vanderlei didn't get tired.

It was the craziest thing ever. Vanderlei in his prime back then, man. He was so fucking scary. How cool was it to see back in Japan that fight? It was amazing. Wow. Have him beat Brian Stanton, classic Vanderlei. You know what I liked about that fight too?

He didn't cut down to 185. Yeah. I think that's not good for him. I think it hurts him. I tell everybody, you know, this is the thing with fighters, a bunch of fighters. When they lose in a certain weight class, they blame it on the other person cutting more weight than them. And that's why they were strong. I said, dude, make up a technique. Get more

stamina and more technique and work harder. That's what I would do. I always fought heavyweight. I could easily fight under 200 pounds. I was under 200 pounds, but I didn't want to do it because I saw all these guys, all my friends, getting sick. I mean, they were all shrunk up before the fight and they're stressed

out. I say, keep the body happy, man. You know, you're beating it up every day already, two times a day. The only thing I can do for it is give him what he wants. You know, give him all the fluids, nutrients. Give it to him. And don't pull that out. It's the worst thing you can do. People don't understand what we're talking about if you're not into MMA.

But there's a real issue in mixed martial arts with weight cutting. And what that means is, well, guys will weigh, say if you had to get down to 170 pounds, there's guys that weigh, like Anthony Rumble Johnson, well over 200 pounds. Yeah, that's crazy. Well over 200 pounds. He's enormous.

He's fighting heavyweight now. Anthony Rumble Johnson, I think on March 23rd, he's fighting Orlovsky at heavyweight. Yeah, that's wild. It's fucking crazy. He used to cut down to 170. What that means is you essentially starve yourself and then dehydrate

yourself. And dehydrate yourself the day before the fight to the point where guys would black out. Guys would lose their they couldn't move their legs. Literally their legs would stop working. They would have to fight in a cage fight the next day. We had to pull Hordeski out of the sauna. You know, he would pass out.

He lost 27 pounds. In a day? In a day. He's a young kid, too. The Atlantic Commissioner said that it was the biggest difference he ever saw. That's almost two weight classes up. That he was 27 or 28 even pounds heavier the next day. But didn't Hordeski was like 18 at the time, too? Yeah, I was very young. up that he was 27 or 28 even pounds heavier the next day.

But didn't Hordeski was like 18 at the time too? Yeah, I was very young. Yeah, I think, yeah, 18, 19 was when he started fighting at the IFL. And I remember the first time because he fought the guy from Hanzo. And I go, oh, my God, because it's a baby. You know, you look at him, he's a little baby boy. And Sean goes, don't you worry about it. You watch. And then he started, man.

He went to town. And he became a fan favorite right away. Yeah, he looked like he had a little bit of body fat on him, though. Yeah, at that time, yeah. He could have, like, lost the weight correctly. Mm-hmm. Yeah, true. Longer out.

Weight cutting, man. It's just so. Don't do it. But then again, some guys know how to do it well. Like, look at Benson Henderson. Yeah. You know, he does it great. He doesn't look sucked in.

He is obviously very, very lean, but he's disciplined about it. And because of that, when he fights, he's got all the stamina in the world. He can do five five-minute rounds, no problem. And, you know, he's huge. He's huge for 155. Some guys, though, they drink two gallons of water a day, you know, and that's a lot of pounds right there. And if you only have to cut that out, then it's easy.

But I think once you start cutting before and you start eating away muscle, you know, you're doing it wrong. And once the reserves are going to be asked for in the body and they're going to say, okay, I truly believe, like the brain fluids, God knows you take them away there also, you know. And that is the reason the brain is bouncing upside down. And that's why people get brain damage. And people don't know this, but in boxing, I believe all of the deaths ever recorded were below the heavyweight division.

Because the heavyweights, I mean, there might be some rare occurrences. Boxing is a tough game. Some people might have died as a heavyweight, but most of the incidences were in the lighter weight classes when guys cut a lot of weight, and that was when they used to have the weigh-in the day of the fight. And that was also when they weren't using IVs. What a lot of folks don't know is when you see these guys,

they dehydrate themselves. One of the things that's sick about it is they go and they get fucking IV bags stuck in their arm. They get a needle in their arm and they replenish their fluids that way. Yeah, I would walk in a room and the whole room, everybody would sit there and there's bags hanging everywhere, you know, and they get re-tanked. How about fucking blood? I know a guy who went into a room where one of the fighters was way back in the day. And the guy had fucking pints of blood

out that they were putting back into him. But you see, if that's blood coming out of the fridge, that's like EPO. Yeah, exactly. And he was also doing it to make weight. They were taking blood out of him to make weight and then they were adding extra blood in.

Idiots, man. It's like that EPO shit, what they're doing right now. Also, you know there's like your blood gets really thick your heart rate gets really low you have to some of these guys have to wake up in the middle of the night

jump 10 minutes on a bike or you know in the home they have it in the bedroom because otherwise the heart might stop beating and I go

do you really want to get a title like that plus when you get your title and you cheated what if you use steroids or anything and you get a title? I always tell these people, if I brush my teeth, I can look at myself in the mirror. I did everything without cheating, nothing ever in my body other than just good food.

Brushing your teeth? Yeah, when you brush your teeth and you look at yourself in the mirror, you're going to go like, I was a cheater. I was like, how competitive are you at teeth brushing? Are you taking steroids to brush your teeth? Oh, hey. You know what? You're going to laugh. My wife laughs her ass off every time. Because my little daughter is the

same as me, like movement-wise. She bounces all day long. Ding, ding, ding. You know I'm dancing 11 o'clock at night. And when you hear her brushing her teeth, it goes... She's the same as me. Puts a lot of power. I have the same thing. She's going to wear off her enamel. It's hilarious.

And the other one, it's so cool when you see one room for my daughter, it's a garbage field. And the other one is like everything is perfect, like the pen is perfectly on the paper. It's funny how their personalities are different. Oh, it's the best. I have one, my two-year-old, that I think might be a lesbian. I don't have any problem with that, but my wife does. When I say she's a dyke, she goes and grabs Batman and Spider-Man. She always wants to play with the Hulk.

She wants to play with boys' toys. She likes it. Maybe she likes boys very much. She sees me work out, so she comes over. She tries punching and kicking the bag. She's very aggressive. Oh, it's the best. But the other one's girly and princessy.

She's built different, too. She has thick ankles and shit. Probably a dyke. I have no problem with it. I love lesbians, man. My wife's like, don't say that. And I'm like, how can you? Who cares?

Yeah, not only that. My wife has gay friends. She loves gay friends. She loves gay people. Joe, she's two. So what, man? I think the people with the less brain capacity, they have all problems with that. I truly believe. You know, the transgender who's fighting, and they asked me last week, I said, who even

cares? I care about that. What's the guy fight? They need to fight transgenders. If a transgender's going to fight, They need to fight other transgenders You think so yeah? Fuck yeah Why? You think he's going to get horny while he's

No No no no no Physical They have an advantage The mechanical advantage of the male body Just tendons So he fights girls Yes

No I didn't know that No no no I thought he fought guys No Oh no no no That's BS, right? Fucked up, right?

Yeah, of course. He's got testosterone. Come on. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee, if you've been a transgender, if you've cut off within two years, I think after two years, they allow you to compete against women in Taekwondo. No. Yes, in Taekwondo.

See, I didn't know that. Yeah, I think it's ridiculous. No, I thought just fighting with guys. Come on. I don't care. Well, with guys, they would get killed. Without the testosterone, they'd get killed. You get your balls cut off and then fight against guys, you're going to get killed.

There's a famous Muay Thai fighter who was a ladyboy who fought really well. They call her ladyboy also. And then she got the operation and then she started getting knocked out because once she got the operation and became a woman, she didn't have testosterone anymore. So then she started really getting fucked up. But you might not be able to beat men after you get your dick cut off, but you still can beat women. The tendons, the ligaments, the bone density, especially because she's not just walking around. She's training for MMA.

So she has a male body that she's training for MMA. And I looked at her, and she's so just walking around. She's training for MMA. So she has a male body that she's training for MMA. And I looked at her, and she's so bulky, man. I'm like, man, I can't believe that this chick is not taking something. She has no balls anymore. How is she keeping this much muscle mass? I mean, she looks like a muscular man. It's gross. It's fucking craziness.

That's not cool. Fight other guys. Then I'm okay with it. How did you feel about that whole cyborg thing when Cyborg tested positive for steroids? Well, you don't know who that is, folks. Cyborg is one of the scariest women fighters. She's a real woman, but she's very masculine and very muscular. And she tested positive.

Well, she says she didn't do it. I get it when people say that, but nobody was in shock, right? But the way she looks, she looks indeed like she's doing it. I mean, the way after the fight when she was throwing up her husband at the time, they're divorced now, you know, it was like, whoa, she's abnormal strong. She looks like a man on steroids. Yeah, so it was not a big surprise. But I always say, you know, if they say no and they say no, you have to believe them.

I think it will be very sad. But that's me. I could not lie like that. I could not live in a lie like that. If I have to lie about that, then my whole life is a lie now suddenly. Here's the reality. The reality is she came from a Brazilian camp known for aggressive fighters that may or may not have taken substances as well. So there's that issue, right?

That's legit and inescapable. And then two, she tested positive. And once you test positive, I mean, it's essentially, why would we believe you any other? You look like you're on steroids, and you test positive for steroids. That is just as much of an issue to me as a transgender woman or a man who used to be a woman. Well, when you said it with the transgender,

you heard now with the ovary. I read that last week with the injury. I heard something on the day of Inside MMA. They said, oh, it was an injury. I truly believe the reason because his testosterone was 180. Oh, you're talking about Alistair Overeem. Alistair Overeem's testosterone level was so low. 179.

So I thought that was the reason he was not going to fight in Nevada because Keith Kaiser had said prior usage. That's the reason. That's why he cannot fight. I've got to explain everything to people. Yeah, this is hard, Jeff. What we're talking about is testosterone use exemption, a TUE for testosterone replacement therapy.

It's a very controversial issue now with MMA fighters where they're taking testosterone because the body doesn't produce it as much anymore. And there's two reasons for that. There's three, actually. One is just the natural aging process. During the natural aging process, once you get over 30, your body starts producing less and less testosterone. I would say 45 maybe. It's slowly. You don't need it.

The true issue though is when guys have taken steroids in the past, they take them for prolonged periods of time and then it kills their balls. Then they test really low and that's most likely what's going on with alistair and then keith kaiser said if they find out that your prior usage because alistair was caught before this is for listeners at home you know

by using testosterone then they says okay you cannot get it and since the fight was in vegas i thought oh that is the reason but then on the day of the show, they said, oh, no, he just released. It was his hamstring. So when I said this story, I said, well, I thought it was that Tesla-Sterone deal he was with. People right away, because I said something about Alistair like over a year and a half ago or something, they go like, oh, it's only because he left Golden Glory and all that stuff.

I go, dude, you grow over it. I don't have a problem with that. I'm just saying what I read this week, you know, and I thought was the reason he couldn't compete in Nevada because Keith Kaiser's there. For folks who don't know what the fuck we're talking about, testosterone

is a huge controversial issue now. Vitor Belfort is another example of it because Keith Kaiser has said that because of the fact that he tested positive for steroids in 2006, I believe it was. I think it was when

Pride was in Vegas, right? He fought against Dan Henderson. When you test positive for steroids, they won't, if you have any history of doing that, they assume that the reason why your test is low is because you ruined your body.

And if that's the case, you're on your own because you cheated. Yep. If you have a real medical condition for why your testosterone is low, then they'll grant exemptions. And they've granted them for Forrest Griffin and a bunch of other guys. Dan Henderson, famously. But he's 42 years old or something. Now we're talking age here.

But a guy who's under 35, he should not have low testosterone. He should not. Unless he's got a medical condition. Yeah. You know, I had guys that were looking at me and they said, no, and I really need it. And I go, dude, I remember you when you were 25, your back full of zits. You were freaking huge.

Now you're fighting at 155. And now you want an exemption because, oh, no, I have something with my colon. Or whatever they say. I say, you know what the reason is. Don't be here lying to me now, you know. But nobody ever wants to admit my balls don't work because I took roids. Too much. Yeah.

But so, like, Vitor, who's active in the UFC and is doing really well, just knocked out Michael Bisping. And now he's going to fight again. He's going to fight in Brazil. He's got to – he can never fight in Vegas now. No, that's what I said also in our show. I gave the example of Alistair. And I said – because he said the same thing with Vitor Belfort. And, of course, they attacked me with, oh, you're against Alistair because he left Golden Glory.

No, no. Everybody's the same. You know, when I said he had a glass jaw, I didn't say that. Look, if he was as close as a friend, I wouldn't mention it. You know, many people need to know. But then, you know, otherwise I say it. I said about Cain Velasquez, I love Cain Velasquez. I think he's a great fighter.

But, you know, he's not a super strong Chen. You know, but he's an unbelievable fighter. You can see what he can do. You know, I mean, he took it to Junior DeSantis. That was an amazing fight. Is this fight going to happen now? Because I don't know anymore. Junior versus Hunt, is that on? Oh my god. That's going to be a

hard fight for Junior, man. Oh man. I love when guys like you hear about that fight and go, oh, fucking Junior. You don't know, man. Because Hunt, you can't knock, man. No, he has. Because Hunt, you can't knock him out, the dude.

He is a motherfucker. Yeah. Well, you can knock him out. I mean, Melvin knocked him out. No, no, no. Melvin Manhoof. Did you see that fight? Yeah. Okay, watch the fight in slow motion.

I bet you, because we're still cops in Holland, right? Right. He knocks him down. Yes, he falls forward, but Hunt falls on his cup. Watch. You see him, boom, hitting the cup, and then he flies down. I go, I guarantee you the extra. Yeah, the steel cup sealed the deal.

The steel dick cage. But I remember Mirko Krokop kicking him with his freaking shin in the face, and he just took a knee. No, the first time he didn't flinch at all, and the second time he took a knee and he got up like freaking Terminator, and he kept going. Super Samoan. Scary guy, man.

And he can bang. He can bang. Did you see that break? It was right on the spot there. Right on the spot where he hit that hook with that overhand. He's a way, way more experienced striker than anybody else in the UFC. Except the only thing guys on his level as far as experience is Alistair because he's the only other guy that won the Grand Prix.

Yep. And Alistair won the Grand Prix clean, whereas Hunt won it because that crazy fight he had with Ray Cepho. And then Ray Cepho couldn't continue, so he went and he took Ray Cepho's place and won it, right? No, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, he did. But I got to say, Saki normally, because when they spar, you know, I know who's having a problem. Yeah, but over him. And Saki went into that fight in the know I know who's yeah but over him

and Saki went in that fight in the finals with a broken hand and a broken arm right you know so we so that would be

a great fight between the two of those when both are healthy yeah I love the fact that K1 well it's not really K1 as much as it is

Glory now and you know there's just been more high levellevel kickboxing on television these days. It's really coming back. It's a great show. It really is a great show, you know. And such high-level strikes. I was here at the airport there, the casino they have there somewhere, you know, on Century.

I was there about four weeks ago. There was a Glory show. And I was amazed with the talent they had here. Like I was truly amazed. The kickboxing talent coming from America. Yeah. And that was not in the past like this. And these guys looked really good.

Well, I think MMA has fed it to the point where everybody realized how important Muay Thai skills are to win in MMA. And then more people started gravitating towards Muay Thai. Yep. more people started gravitating towards Muay Thai. Yep. And then, you know, I think we're seeing, when you see the highest level, like you see like a Giorgio Petrosian or someone like that, like a real high-level technical guy, like you realize like, wow, the level of striking, which is probably the most entertaining and exciting part of MMA, the level of striking is way higher in like high-level kickboxing

than it is in MMA right now. Oh, yeah, yeah. Way higher. Oh, for sure. Like Anderson, I think, could compete in high-level kickboxing than it is in MMA right now. Oh, yeah, yeah. Way higher. No, for sure. Like Anderson, I think, could compete in high-level kickboxing. Oh, he got a, you know, still some of the high kicks. His knees and he's crazy. Like front kicks and timing in his hands are specifically really good.

I don't know if he's got a really good roundhouse kick to the head. I never really see him make that. Yushin Okami. He blasted Yushin in the first round of the fight. Oh, that wasn't a UFC. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. Okay, good, good, good, good.

Brownhouse kicked him in the face, stunned him, then the bell rang, and then he finished him off in the next round. Yeah. Against Chill, he threw it

from a weird angle, I thought. And I go like, whoa. But I think it was just he was too excited to fight Chill, and he really wanted

to knock him out. That's when you start making those little mistakes. That fight with thehen bonner fight was the most brutal version of anderson silva that was incredible that was i was literally if i there was a moment in my life that my mouth was open that was the moment when he just moved back move move and he goes boom pressed against the cage yeah i go holy crap stopped him with that knee oh no no no, no.

With Stefan Bonner, of course, in Brazil. You're talking about Forrest Griffin. Forrest Griffin, yeah. Forrest Griffin was, that was, in my mind, that was like just unbelievable. It was the most amazing thing ever.

He manhandled him. So moving, letting miss, letting miss and then go bonk and right on that button, you know, so beautiful. He's so accurate. Do you think he's the best ever? You know, yeah.

Yeah, he's up there with Fedor. I still put up there also. I cannot. All these great fights we saw at Pride, he's got to be up there, man. But, yeah, he right now, I mean, who can stop him? Fedor in his prime, like the Noguera days, when he beat Noguera, he was unbelievable.

When he beat Cro Cop, you know, he was so good back then. Just beating everybody. Yeah. And the way he did it, so good back then. Just beating everybody. And the way he did it, so calm. I would have loved to see a prime Fedor versus a prime Cain Velasquez. If we could go back in time with Cain, take the Cain of today and bring him back and fight Fedor. That would have been an amazing fight.

Good stuff. We're so lucky now to see this evolution of shit. And Kane is another one of those guys that just, you know, he's got a full skill set, throws leg kicks, head kicks, punches, you know. And the stamina, I love that. Although in the Junior Dos Santos fight, he started running out of gas also, you know, not with his pace, but the strength got away. You know, the ground and pound was not effective anymore,

not to knock him out. We threw a hundred million punches. Nobody's insane. What heavyweight? And everybody goes... One guy told me one time, I said, yeah, but I'm heavyweight. He said, well, look, he gave Velasquez. And he goes, yeah, but he trains really hard. And I go, really, dude? That's the answer. You just gave it to yourself.

Just train really hard. He's a relatively small heavyweight. He's a little heavier than you at about 240. But realistically, Kane, when you look at him, he carries more body fat as well. You know, it's interesting how it seems like that's about as big as you need to get. Like those big 265-pound guys that cut weight and get – you almost sacrifice something. You do, always, always. And I think that Kane has that burning inside from his family,

you know, what they showed on TV when they did those specials on him. And he wants to provide for his family. He's got that all, you know, his old father working hard. And he's got that mentality. And I think a guy like that, you know, that is a hard guy to beat. Yeah. And he will always be ready. That punch with Junior Dos Santos the first time, I thought Kane was going to beat him exactly the way as he did

the second time. Because I thought, oh, he's going to outwork him. Junior never had anybody pressing as hard as Kane can do. And he's going to outwork him in a championship round. He might seal the deal there. But then he got hit with that crazy overhead. You can't take anything away from Junior.

Junior's a vicious knockout striker. He knocked Kroko out. He knocked Verdum out. Everybody, you know. Yeah, he's an animal. Yeah, he really is. That Verdum knockout was brutal. But the difference being that Cain Velasquez was injured in that fight.

I mean, he had a pretty serious knee injury. Oh, yeah, I heard that also. Pretty serious knee injury. Like, he couldn't move. And then your focus will be on that injury. Of course. It's always like that. Yeah, so he wasn't able to really attack and have the

mobility that he likes. I mean, the second fight was all about him moving forward. That's it. Taking away the striking. It puts that pace on you. Nobody can stop that. You know Matt Horwitz, right? I mean, he has almost no striking skills, but he is tough and he's got stamina. You know? When he fought

Mike Pyle, I'll never forget this. He beat Mike Pyle with a combination on the ground and he sucked him into a submission, which blew me away. But he outworked him. He just got him tired. And then later I overheard him talking. And then Horvitz said, he's like freaking, what is it, the rain man. He said, yeah, yeah, I know. I know

that you did it. Four years ago, I was rolling with you, and you did that to me, so I knew what the counter was going to be. And I go, what? He knew. He remembered from four years ago. He's a strange cat, Matt Horowitz. He's a great guy, too. A beautiful human being. He loves to... Cutting weight is

fasting for him. He says, oh, I love to fast, love the trees, the flowers. Well, I love the universe and all of its potential possibilities in the multiverse. Like if you hear him talk. Yeah, I love this guy. But he's a sweetheart of a guy and a very tough guy too. I mean – and knocked out Benji Radek with a head kick. Unbelievable.

How crazy was that fight? But again, outworking. And I always tell – these examples, he makes the best, most technical fighters in the world, makes him look like crap. Because why? He can take a punch and he just comes forward. And you can be a great striker, you cannot strike moving backwards. If you really push it, you shut down the whole striking.

And that's how you fight a great striker. And Matt Horwich is an interesting guy because he's not burdened down with ego. Nope. I think a lot of guys with all their macho bullshit, like you talk a lot of shit before a fight, you carry that around with you. That becomes like a weight that you carry when you get inside that cage.

When you say, I'm going to rip his head off, shit in his neck, you know those kind of things? Yeah. You have to understand that at the moment you have to go to the fight they play that clip on the big screen and you see yourself saying that and now you're gonna go i better do it yeah and that's boom right away weight

on your shoulders you should never do that's why i never did stare downs i don't like to get angry i don't want it to make i like to say little things in interviews that piss them off so hopefully they get really angry at me like the whole thing with Kimo Leopoldo I never asked for him you know

but they they said that I went to the to the photo shoot for my last fight was at the WFA and he was there and I said

hey Kimo how you doing and he shook my hand and he looked right away and I go wow I go to Jeremy Lab and I say

wow he's taking this fight serious, right? And he says, yeah, we told him that you specifically asked for him. I say, why would you say that? Well, that gets him a little angry. It's better for the fight. And I go, okay. So I figured I'm not going to say anything because then at

least he will train very hard. We're going to get a good fight. But I always thought that I specifically asked for him. I didn't. They say, who do you want to fight? I say, Hickson. They say, why? I say, well, they always say he's the best, so I would like to test my skill. He says, no, we don't have the money for that. How much money would it have cost for you to fight Hickson Gracie?

Now? How much would it back then? For the same thing I would have fought. No, no, no, for Hickson. They said they couldn't afford him. They said they couldn't afford Hickson. Oh, for him. Okay, for me it was $250 at the time. How much would they pay Hickson to fight Hickson for the same thing they said they couldn't afford him they said they couldn't afford Hickson oh for him okay for me

it was 250 at the time how much would they pay Hickson how much did Hickson I think 6 million or something something high

something I don't know I don't know but I heard really great you know whatever you read on the internet we know better

don't believe it but no a really high number but I just thought you know I would love to because I have nothing

you know Hickson and I we met in China everything's cool you know there's would love to, because I have nothing, you know, Aikson and I, we met in China, everything's cool, you know, there's nothing going on. Because he is, he's a really nice guy. For folks who don't know who he's talking about, Hoist Gracie won the very first UFC and Hoist Gracie, who's a

brilliant Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, who really kind of exposed Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to America and showed it to us, showcased it. His brother was the champion of the family. His brother, apparently, by all accounts, is the greatest Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu artist ever. And everybody who rolls with him pretty much universally says this, that Hickson is just

on this other level. So you wanted to fight him, huh? Just for that. And even I would go on the ground. I would like, because at that time I thought, I just – well, I just want to see. You in Japan in Pancrase, when you won the King of Pancrase, he had also won Japan Valley Tudor like within a year of that, right? He was sitting there when I was in the Budokan, knocked the guy out. And that was at a time when they were on the cover of Black Belt magazine saying that Pancrase this.

So I – needless to say, I said, okay, then I want to test the skills. And that's where I actually challenged him. I said, hey, I would like to fight you. And I don't mind the rules. We'll bend the rules. We'll make any rule any time. And what happened with that? It never happened.

Were you trying to do it for pride? Is that what you were trying to do? Well, Pankrus was that. But I said, I don't mind any organization anywhere. Let this fight happen. For me, once I put the fans to the side to care about for fighting if you really as a fighter go in

fighting for yourself it doesn't really matter I always tell my guys like this they put me with Randy Couture in this room they lock the room and we fight it doesn't really matter who wins if he's better at the game he wins if I'm better I win

but what is hard for a fighter is to come out and all these people know it doesn't really matter who wins. You know, if he's better at the game, he wins. If I'm better, I win. You know, it doesn't... But what is hard for a fighter is to come out and all these people know, and then Chris Lieben said it very funny one time at our show. He says, yeah, the guy at Blockbuster told me what I should have done when I fought Anderson Silva, you know?

And then I say, yeah. You see, but a lot of fighters care about that. I always say, the fighters always say, yeah, I fight for my family. Wrong. Right away. Fight for yourself, man. If you fight for yourself man for your fight and fight if you fight for yourself you fight the best if you really don't give a damn about anybody

what they think you fight really the best because it is not bad to lose you know everybody can have that day and that that's the mindset I had with Hicks and you know although I thought I was gonna beat him but I would say you know it doesn't really matter this is testing the skill against somebody who everybody thinks is the best guy in the world. I would love to test that. That was the only thing. That was one of the things that Randy always said that I found very admirable. He would say that to his fighters

when they were going out to fight. He would say, even if you lose, the worst thing in the world is you lose, and you'll be fine. You still have your friends. You still have your loved ones. Get that out of your head. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about losing. Because sometimes if you concentrate on not losing, you can't see what you're doing. You can't relax.

I say it different. I say as long as you fight, you cannot lose. You go to Japan. I had like Vernon Tiger White lost a whole bunch of fights in a row. And there was a row of people waiting for him to get autographs. And these people, but he fought. Right. You know, now, if you're on the ground. That's just the Japanese fan mentality is very different as well, right?

But if you lay on the ground, and somebody lifts his arm from the ground apart, and you tap, you'll never be back in Japan. They'll boo you. Then they get vicious, you know? And that's what I tell my students. As long as you fight, you know, if you leave everything out there,

you know, it doesn't matter if you win or lose. You know, to me, you can never lose. But the rule is out. You're always involved in improving yourself. You're a work in progress. And until you find those great fighters who are better than you, you don't realize what you need to work on. You show me a guy who – I forget who made this quote, but I put it on Twitter the other day. I retweeted it yesterday.

Show me someone who hasn't made mistakes, and I'll show you someone who hasn't done anything. And it's true. It's like you have to get beat in order to really understand, first of all, how much it sucks to lose. And that will motivate you more. The guys that are always problematic are the guys that are super talented, that win easy, that don't have to train hard. And then someday someone catches up to them. And they lose. If they lose, it's always stamina.

You watch. Yeah, true. Because they beat everybody in the gym, dominate everybody, and once you fight on your own pace, you never get tired. You can fight for two hours. But if you have that guy that pushes and interrupts your breathing pattern, that's what I always say. You know, that's the moment.

You know, if somebody hits a bag, I'm standing behind him, I'll kick him out of the blue to the body. Not to knock him out. You know why I do that? I do that so he has to flex at that particular moment and it interrupts his breathing pattern. That's why you're getting tired. I'm not kicking hard. I'm just making him...

He does this. He interrupted it. That's how you get tired. That's also the issue with Nick Diaz, right? With all his pat, pat, pat punches. You never can breathe. You never get a chance to take a break and relax. Yeah, he's this guy who just flies through everything. Now, what do you think about that fight that's coming up this weekend?

Nick Diaz is fighting George St. Pierre. Johnny Hendricks is fighting Carlos Condit. And Jake Ellenberger is fighting Nate Marquardt. I mean, it's great fucking fights, man. That's going to be a really good show. It's a hard one. You think if GSP plays his game, what he normally does, he's a really good wrestler. We know he can take him down.

But Nick, he has to be on the ground. He has to outwork him. He needs to fight. If he gets gets taken down to get back up. And if he keeps fighting, keeps fighting, George is going to need to spend a lot of energy. It's going to be hometown for George. A lot of pressure on his shoulders, a lot of people. He doesn't want to lose.

So that pressure maybe already took care of a little bit of his stamina. It took 20% away. The more the pressure, the more stamina gets taken away from you. He needs to be super, super relaxed. If he doesn't let him be super relaxed and constantly escapes and fights the takedown and fights back to get up, then that might be a trouble for George.

But the way George was fighting last time against Condit, man, I love that George. That's the guy I want to see again. The guy who he was working and he was working hard. That's the guy I want to see again. The guy who, he was working. And he was working hard. And that's what he needs to do with Diaz. But he needs to stay out of the guard preferably.

I would say, oh, half guard, you know. And if you're going to guard squat, don't let him close the guard. That's going to be a problem for you. Constantly from half guard, squatted, ground and pound. Playing the jiu-jitsu game on the ground. I don't know if it's a smart thing to do with Nick. Yeah, Nick has a hell of a guard. I mean, we saw that in the cyborg fight,

tap cyborg off his back. Gomi, I mean, with the freaking... Gogo Plata. Yeah, the Gomi fight. Yeah, he's very underrated, I think. I think he's got a lot of Brazilian jiu-jitsu skills that we rarely see, because over the past couple of years,

he's been beating guys up on the feet. That's it. And now George has to overcome that reach, that long hand, constantly peppering, peppering, peppering. But I think he will shoot straight through it. You think so? Yeah. I think that Nate, maybe, if he would work really hard on a knee to the face

on a takedown, because I think the takedown will be there anyway because he's such a good wrestler you know it's going to be hard to stop him but can he still stop him

in the championship rounds if it goes in there you know well and the question is going to be well is he going to try to stop him or is he going to

try to pull guard is he going to try to roll with it and just lock up a good position right away like he did with Gomi or you know

like he did with Cyborg he has a very nasty guard. I mean, Nick Diaz is a high-level black belt. Yep. And that fucking stamina, man. That's a big deal, too. That's the thing. You know, if you fight a guy like that, you know, well, what do they say?

Fatigue makes cowards out of men. And it really is. We've all been there. You know that you're really tired. I had it in the fight. I go, oh, my God. I hope. And thankfully, I knocked him out with a knee to the liver.

But I was really about to stop almost, you know. Everything sinks away. Yeah. You know, I was sick also. But, I mean, it starts with stamina and fatigue. And then when you see him still going strong, that's a mental crusher, man. And that's the thing that GSP now has. He knows that whatever happens, he's not going to run out of gas, Nick.

Yeah, Nick's not going to run out of gas. But you know what? George has always been very well conditioned as well. You know, it's interesting how many fighters get sick before fights. It's a huge issue. I always had it with the Taekwondo days. I'd get sick from nerves. Yeah, but I think also a lot is the cutting weight.

Yes, there's that. But it's also just hard training and not watching their diet. You see, I never had that. I brought my own food. I brought my own loaf of bread and all that stuff. I was not going to get food poisoning. Forget about it. I brought my own water.

You heard all these stories in Japan that they put something in your water. I didn't want to take a risk. Whether it's true or myth or not, I don't care. I bring my own water. Nobody's going to touch it. At least I could have – the dumbest thing, those are guys who go the day before, go to a McDonald's sushi place somewhere, and they're going to eat bad sushi. They go, yeah, it's food poisoning.

You're an idiot. That's part of your training. You should not have done that. Why take that risk? It's the dumbest thing you can do. That's part of your training. You should not have done that. Well, I take that risk, yeah. It's the dumbest thing you can do. It's like the guys with the bad mouthpiece. You know, when I saw Carl Parisi fight with the mouthpiece that fell out the whole time, you know, that drives me nuts.

That should be a penalty for that. You know, constantly fall out. It's like, who does that? You're a professional fighter. You need a good mouthpiece, right? Yeah. Yeah. Do you, are you still training fighters on a regular basis?

You know, it's hard now because I had that neck surgery. And last week, I did two sets of push-ups, 18 push-ups. Imagine, I did 120 for fun back in the day. And so I was like, oh, my God, I'm so weak. And then after two days, I lost all power. So I know there is something that when it swells up or the flares up, it stops my nerves from getting in. And tomorrow I'm going to find out, tomorrow at 10.45 in the morning, I'm going to find out in the nerve conducting test where that blockage is. And I think once they can open that up, then everything is going to be just fine.

Wow, so you're going to have to have another operation. I don't know. Maybe they say, oh, it's rest or this or maybe they do an epidural there right on the spot that will loosen it up. Something like that. But my nerve in my neck jumped from below 30%. He said, when we opened your neck, it jumped back the same level as your other one.

You've been dealing with this for years now. Years now. It's a nightmare. But you know, I used to be a crazy guy training. It's kind of my own stuff. I was talking to people, world champions, and they would teach, what did they say? They go hard on Fridays, 70%. And I go, and what do you do for the rest?

Well, we train. I said, you spar one day a week. Yeah, and I started laughing. I said, I spar two times a day. And we go hard. I'll try to knock you out to your legs or your body. You do it to me. And on the hat, of course, I'm not going to knock him out.

But I got the control for that. But we go. We go. That's why I never had a ring rust. When I came back in 2006, I didn't fight for six years. But I had no problem because two times a day, we have a fight. That's what we're doing. So I felt great.

What about the wear and tear, though, from doing that? That's the thing. What I advise to every fighter now is to always get the right equipment, make sure you're packed in, make sure your ankles are taped, things like that because with the shin protection, now they've got really good shin protection that has also, with the instep, they have protection there now, you know. So that cannot be hurt like when you kick an elbow. Right.

And those are bad injuries the whole time, you know. Watch out. Just pack yourself in. Make a good mouthpiece. Get a professional mouthpiece done. Right. It's insane. Put grease on your weight out.

Watch for cuts. Play everything safe. Now, when you have guys training, though, do you have them spar that same way twice a day, going all out to the body and to the head? We have people coming in with us, and they want to spar on Sundays, and they turn around when they see them spar.

But that started since Carlo, Roman Dekkers' brother, came to teach at my gym. He says, now we're going to spar like we do in Holland, and that's the way we used to do it. So that's what he's used to do it. And they go hard. So that's what he's got going on down there? Yeah, but all the guys, our guys, are already used to it. Wow.

They just don't care. They just go. But they have the right equipment. As long as you have the right equipment, that you don't get beat. Now, where is your gyms in Thousand Oaks, right? Yeah, it's on Hampshire Road, 880 Hampshire Road. What is the website, if people want to get some information about that?

EliteMMAGym.com. And so you have Ramon Decker's brother is teaching down there now? He's teaching there, yeah. He's like a long time in the business, been there for his whole career, teaches all those, holds a focus piece of antipaths for all the top guys, Overy, Peter, Musashi. I mean, all these guys have been there, you know. So he's a

really great coach. What is his name? Carlo. Carlo Dekkers. Carlo Dekkers, wow. And when is he there? What days are we? Well, he's there every day.

Now he's, of course, he's still in Holland because the funeral was a couple of days ago and I didn't even ask him. I told him, you know, take whatever time you need to wrap things up there because he was very close to Ramon. They were like, yeah, two peas in a pie, man. That was very hard for him. It's crazy

that he had a heart attack riding a bike. I mean, think about all the fights that guy had. And also, you know, yeah,

we're talking about 240 fights or something, you know, and this guy fighting with a broken hand and a broken foot at the same time and he would keep fighting,

you know, the guy was just indestructible and also living a clean, healthy lifestyle now for the last six years. Also, you know, being in shape. Everything planned out. He has this children's foundation that he set up

in Thailand for these kids who had no future and he would give them money. And all that stuff is now still going to happen. There's now a t-shirt coming. MMA Bloodlines is going to make a t-shirt. 100% goes to the family or to the charity. So they're working on a lot of things to keep his name out there, of course. Wow.

It's fucked up. A guy can just be that great a fighter and an athlete and just have a heart attack at 43 and just drop dead. It's the wildest thing ever, you know. Since he passed away, I drank one and a half glasses of wine. Normally I drink two glasses at night or two. You drop it back? Right away, I go, oh, my God, this is really scary.

He was healthy. He was good. There was nothing in his family, no bad hearts, nothing. Just out of the blue. So that really freaked me out. Yeah, well, it's got to be freaking you out with all this nerve shit going on with your body. Yeah, once this comes back. You know, I've been always blessed with all that kind of stuff.

It heals fast, and I think it comes because of my eczema that I had, really bad eczema. So I was recouping fast. If I had wounds in training, like a wound that would be literally two days, you couldn't tell it was there. It would go so fast because that was what my skin was doing 24-7. So now I'm blessed with having that. But my neck, yeah, that's annoying. That doesn't really – those blockages, it's here. I can feel it.

It's lumps. And what is a blockage? Is it scar tissue? It's a muscle spasm is what they say, what stops the nerve from getting in my arm. And that's why, look, it's all thin. It doesn't fill up yet. Yet it will start happening. And they said because of what you've done by fusing the neck,

it's alleviated some of the pressure? Is that what they did? It jumped back right away to 100%. That's what they said. So disturbing to me how many people have back issues. I mean, it's so disturbing. There's so many guys who have fucked up backs. It's really crazy, man.

My shit's fucked up right now, but it's just because I got three massages in one day, which never do that ever. Well, that's just sore. You're talking about muscles. The issue that these fighters are having is a lot different than you, pal. Yeah. The wear and tear on the body is just fucking unbelievable. It's brutal. It is. There's no time to recoup also. Yeah. The wear and tear on the body is just fucking unbelievable. It's brutal. It is.

There's no time to recoup also. Yeah. You know, I had, when I was preparing for that last fight, I had two times a week off. I had only 10 weeks for that fight. I didn't train for three years. So I had 10 weeks to get in shape, and two weeks from that I didn't. You didn't train at all for three years?

No, not at all since my last fight I think I worked out maybe 25 times that's in 2006 Wow. Yeah, that will be at the end because I started, finally I started training again and my god I feel really good like in four weeks I was actually, people

always think that I just say something and that it's not true, I say the boss, the body action system, I use that myself. The O2 trainer, I use it myself. The workout user, myself. And they go, yeah, you're just saying that. I go, wait a minute. I can go back on my security camera and you can actually see me training in the backyard. So I went back on the security camera and I got it for a month back and I was training only for five weeks. And at the beginning, you see me, I'm struggling, man, at that two-minute round. It's really bad.

But amazing if you see like seven workouts further. It's a whole difference. Suddenly, the screen for the O2 trainer went from three to seven, which is a heavy setting already. I had 10-pound ankle weights, heavy gloves. I put weights in there also hitting. You put weights in your gloves? Yeah, yeah.

But I watch out with hyperextending when I do that. Or I hit that boss thing so I don't hyperextend. But it's good for the burn and for everything to get tired. And then I threw one time in the air something, I think. Maybe I hyperextended and it was just from one day to the other my hand dropped. And I go, oh, God, it's back. And that was it.

And that was in October. And then they did the surgery in January. So you were getting yourself back in shape. And it was going really well. I started feeling great already. I mean, you watch it online. It's on the O2TrainerBlog.com. You can find a video there.

And your neck, when the first operation, they didn't fuse the discs. What did they do? They made the holes around the nerves a little bigger, but it was still a video there. And your neck, when the first operation, they didn't fuse the discs. What did they do? They made the holes around the nerves a little bigger, but it was still a little squeezing, so it was only 30% working. And I knew that because I could. It was herniated discs? Yeah.

But they only were like 30% or a little bit less. And I knew that because I could like with 10 pounds, I did like 25 reps. Still very weak because I used to do way more with that. But that makes sense with the 25, the 30%. I go, okay. But then what happened in the training, I think something – that's when the jam happened here. Now, knowing what you know and all this experience that you have,

especially all this experience with your body breaking down, what do you tell fighters to do now? What do you advise them? How do you – to not do what you did that was wrong? Stretch. Stretch, man. Stretch a lot. I would stretch.

I will make that one of my primary things, you know, watching TV. Just stretch while you're watching TV. Get to stretch bands. Yoga. Yeah, while you're watching TV. You're busy with it. It doesn't really matter. And good food.

Don't dehydrate yourself. And once you start dehydrating yourself, stretch even more, man, because that's where your tendons get dehydrated, everything, they rip faster. I see a lot of that also happening close to a fight. They start dehydrating and they make you kick and they pull a hamstring, you know? And that's exactly because of that reason.

You're dehydrating yourself. Those tendons need to stay moist, you know? You need to keep it good and watch out. And as far as as the kind of therapy that you're doing right now for your back, do you do any inversion therapy or anything where they're trying to do any sort of traction? No. What I do, I have these two hooks, so to say, in my hand. And I have on the stairs to go to the second floor with us,

I hang, and I just hang and I stretch my arms out. And that seems to help. Like last week, I could do three with five pounds, three reps, five pounds. Wow. And then I started stretching, and I started mentally focusing. Somebody told me just force it to be gone and visualize how you could get rid of it. I started doing that, and then yesterday evening at 10. So that was just in four days, but I've been also hanging.

How many of the guys you run into that have these issues? Lots. A lot of guys have that. Benji Radek, Tito Ortiz. Benji Radek has a back issue as well? Yeah. Neck also lost everything. He lost his pecs.

I believe that's a C7 or 8 or something, I think. I don't know how that exact works. With me, it's biceps. Biceps and shoulder. My shoulder starts coming back now because that nerve goes over here, over the top. That's good. I see the muscle start getting there.

So that's good. But for the biceps, I get this carpal tunnel that I already had but never was a problem with me. Now because the nerve, it is a problem. So now I can, if I grab things, my whole hand spasms. It's really weird. Before demonstrations, I always say, guys, you see that? It's not like I'm not crazy. It's just my hand shoots suddenly like that.

When I grab something, it's really weird. My wife started noticing because I was sitting like this the whole time. She says, what is wrong with your hands? Twisting. You can't open it up. Yeah. Wow. That's got to be like, for a dude who's this bad motherfucker,

former UFC champion, that's got to be really disturbing. It is. It is really disturbing. I don't like to see myself as weak. I started biking now because that I can do with my knees now. I'm actually going to get a nicer bike now. You had knee issues as well? Oh, yeah.

I have no cartilage on my kneecaps. Oh, Jesus. There's nothing they can do for that. Now I know everybody's going to email, oh, I know this doctor. No. If you go to a real surgeon, they will tell you there's nothing they can do for that. I know everybody's going to email, oh, I know this doctor. No. If you go to a real surgeon, they will tell you there's nothing they can do when you have no cartilage in your kneecaps. The only thing they cannot fix. Actually,

Alatrash at the Curlin Job told me that's the reason why the mafiosos break your kneecaps. It's infixable. You can't. The bolt. Now, if it patches out, they can regrow my own cartilage that you can older than the stem cells and they can and that grows itself like it they they explain like a mat of grass when pieces are out you put pieces of grass in there and that goes with the other

grass and it's strong again that's how cartilage works he says but if you have none there's no way they can attach it to your kneecap now Now, there is something they can do. They have to drill a hole and attach it on a Teflon plate, which will work. But then your kneecap is 35% weaker, more chance of breaking. And once it breaks, you're really done. So he said, it will come. They will find something in a couple of years. But right now, walking stairs, getting up, sitting down, up or down walking, everything hurts.

Everything hurts. My friend Steve has his knees. He was on the U.S. ski team. He's had, like, I don't know, some insane amount of knee surgeries, more than 20 knee surgeries. Whoa. Yeah, and he had no cartilage in his knees as well. And he's got these steel plates that are over the tops of his joint. Like, where the cartilage used to be, they resurfaced it.

Yeah, but they do it. They go with lasers in and then it bleeds out, right? They can do that too. But with me, it's the kneecap. Like with you, they're standing on each other. That's it. The kneecap, when I stretch my leg and I bend it, it already moved again. So whenever they attach it, it's in constant motion.

You can't do anything. Like between the knees, between your upper leg and your bend it, it already moved again. So whatever they attach it, it's in constant motion. You can't do anything. Like between the knees, between your upper leg and your lower leg, yeah, there's stuff that they can put in between and resurface. And they do that, what is it? They let you bleed. They let you bleed your own blood. You know, the nobody lets me bleed my own blood. What movie was it again? Dodgeball or something, right? Yeah. But they drill these holes in the knees and it starts bleeding and it serves. Oh, like that. Wow, yeah. That's my friend's knee.

That's where you see the top of his knee. But I can see where the kneecap goes through. I can tell that and where the other one go on top. But the kneecap, it's, you know, maybe on that other stuff I can put something like that on the other bones, not on the kneecap. Well, that is his kneecap. Yeah, one piece, but not all three. Yeah, well, that's the bottom piece and then the top piece and where the cartilage used to be. Look at this, Brian. Have you seen that?

That is crazy. Where did he do this? Well, Steve's at the cutting edge because he's a doctor himself. So he's well aware of what the... Let me... I need his number. See, that's... He just popped the thing out. That's for the folks at home who can see it.

He's happy with it. Also, you can see lower as I scroll down a bit. You see that white thing? That white thing is artificial meniscus. So he's got a double whammy. He's got a resurfaced knee. So the top of his bone is covered with this steel plate. And then he also has this white stuff here, which is an artificial meniscus pad.

He still trains. I need his information. For real. I would love. I need his information. For real. I would love to do that, man. Sometimes when they shoot me up with cortisones, then for like two and a half weeks, it is paradise for me. Like I can walk stairs.

I can jump. I can jump up from happiness. Woo! I don't feel a thing. It's amazing, the difference. How bad? What did you do to fuck up all your knee cartilage? I'm just very explosive.

And I think that just scratched everything off. Blah, blah, kicking, kicking, drilling. A thousand kicks. Do it, right? And ignoring the pain. Just go through it, you know? And if it's pain, go harder. That's the mentality, right?

I got to go through it. Now that you've done that all, though, and you've seen what that damage can do to your body. I would never. No, I regret everything. I go, why did I do it so crazy? But now again, when I see fighters go full time, sometimes I go, wow, it's weird that I did all that.

You look crazier back at life. You go like, wow. After you're out of it. Yeah. Step away. I never had, though of it. Yeah. Step away. I never had though, it comes over, people go like,

oh, look at him. But it's really not. I never was nervous like that. I was really good at talking to myself. Everything in my life when I went through,

I realized it was all meditation. I never taught, everybody taught me anything. But I'm just really talking to myself. What's the worst thing that can happen? Well,

you know, the worst thing that can happen, you knock out, you're not going to feel it. Okay, you're going to get submitted, you tap and it's over. Okay. Okay, it's the people talking. That's the worst thing, really, if you think about it. People talking shit. Yeah. So, and since I don't care about that, I would have no nerves, for real. And I would always in that zone, I would, I would, I was addicted to that feeling going there and go, and then I would hear. I would tell people's conversations at the first row afterwards. I would go back. I'd say, I heard you talking about the movie yesterday evening.

All right, but Maru Schmidt, I was going to give Kousaka a high kick. I'm always listening to it at the other corner. And he goes, watch out for the high kick. And right away, so I switched it for a straight punch. And that knocked him. But that was also Japan, right, where they were really quiet in the audience. No, no, no. That was here in America against Kosaka.

That was the UFC, my first UFC fight. Oh, Kosaka. Kosaka, yeah. And that's... Omori Smith was saying, watch out for the high kick. Yeah, because he saw me setting it up. And then so I changed his rider. I switched it to a straight punch because I heard him

and I told him I say you should be quiet he says boss you're probably the only guy who listens to the other corner you know but I used to always do that like in Frank Shamrock's blood uh blood book it's so funny to read he says yeah boss was always talking you know I think he kind of did it you know to to self-meditation but then I say, okay, why do you think I have a Dutch corner? Why do you think I was talking English, speaking English? I did it for a reason. If I do it in Dutch, they're not going to understand what I'm saying. But if I'm in the middle of a fight, look at my corner,

I say, dude, you want to go to Roppongi tonight? Where do you want to go? Motown tonight? Yeah, okay, that's good. What are you going to drink? You know, I would just do crazy stuff, and then I would continue fighting, and those fighters would go like, what the hell is that? It was a distraction.

It's just a distraction. Right. And I would do it in English because otherwise Dajik couldn't understand, so that's why I spoke English. When you put together this gym out in Thousand Oaks, you've got a really nice place out there. It's very nice. Were you thinking about starting a team and training fighters and

moving on to next phase? No, no, no. For me, it's just a good place that I can go and train. I can still teach. I'm pretty much almost all the time there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I teach at six o'clock myself for the general audience, but also pros been coming in because I go back to the basics. And basics is everywhere. All the magic happens, man. Trust me. And a lot of pros forget it or their teachers don't want to say it anymore because now he's on that really high level. And I don't care where you are. I'm just going to tell you this is what you do wrong. You can hit harder if you do it like this.

Try it out. And most of the time they try it out and they go, oh, my God, I hit much harder. You see, they just forget certain things. And I like to put them back on the basics. And I like to have a gym at my name. It's very close to my house. And I can actually be there. Sunday mornings, you know, I'm going to start doing now more.

I got to do the fight classes with the guys. Just enjoy that. I have a really good partner, you know, who thankfully he helped me out a lot because without him we could have not been open because we lost a lot of money to make the gym. But now we are at the place, like for the last half year, we started finally to make money. And that's of two years being here and six years at the other place. So in eight years, we never made any money.

We broke even at the other place. And this is an 8,500 square foot place. You've got saunas. I mean, it's a really nice place. And people love it, you know. The thing that we have, we have 30 people sign up, say, a month, and five stay. And those 25, they're all. The thing that we have, we have 30 people sign up, say, a month, and five stay. And those 25, they're all these tough guys that come in,

and their bodies say, hey, man, you can do that shit. You know, you got to do that. Look at that. They make a lot of money. So then they come in, and they get beat up by blue belts, you know, little kids. And that's it. You have a jiu-jitsu program there as well?

Yeah, I got Rodrigo Carvalho. He was world champion last year at the Gracie. He's got six weeks. He told me this morning he's going to go with another guy in Long Beach. He's unbelievable. He came in, was five days in the country, and he told me, Hey, boss, the Naga Championships are in Vegas. Do you think I should go?

I said, You think you can do it? He said, Yeah. I said, But you didn't train. He said, No, I want to do it. I said, Yeah, sure. We'll drive you over there. So he brought him, and he won gold right away. And then he won the one at the Gracie.

He won gold again. Yeah, he's a very, very high level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt. Gi or no Gi? Does he teach? Yeah, both. Both? And he is, I've never had one complaint from him. You know, hey, sorry, you've got to do five classes more

because we're not pulling it now right now. No problem. Boom, right away. You know, he's sorry, you got to do five classes more because we're not pulling it now right now. No problem. Boom, right away. You know, he's like the best, best. And we have everybody, all the parents for kids and everybody's telling me, my God, he's such a great guy. So you teach kids classes out there as well? Teach classes also, yeah. When are the kid classes?

At 4 o'clock most of the time. Yeah. At 4 o'clock on Saturdays there, I believe at noon. That's great. And Thousand Oaks where you're at is an awesome spot. It's beautiful out there. It's really nice. So quiet.

You'll be, yeah. No, it's, when we arrived there, we made the turn on Westlake Boulevard. I saw the promenade there with, you know, there was a band playing on Friday night. I go, wow, we want to live here, you know. No parking meters, no nothing, you know. It's a nice place. Best school system, blue ribbon schools all around.

It's cool for the kids. Safe. Second safest city in the country. You know what the other one is? Irvine. Irvine? Irvine's like the safest. It's the safest city in the country. Irvine is very, very safe. It's all white people. You see now, if I was a criminal, those would be my targets, right?

Of course, yeah. Because all the garage doors. My friend, he had a $6,000 bike and leaves the garage door. We always said, you know, you got to close the garage. Sure enough, they stole his bike. In Thousand Oaks? In Thousand Oaks. I say, that's the smarter criminal goes to those places because everybody,

oh, you don't have to lock your doors because it's so safe. That's why I got robbed in Burbank. That's it. Well, Burbank's sketchy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what he adds there. Burbank's sketchy. Burbank's very close to a lot of funky areas.

Thousand Oaks is the middle of fucking nowhere. Yeah, nobody wants to go there. But once you're there, they call it pilot town because the pilots would see from the top that there was no pollution there that's how it got started with all pilots living there and then it became thousand oaks uh yeah oh that's interesting yep and then it became because they say oh it's the valley i said dude we're 50 miles out of the valley we're like far away from it but that's it's like four degrees lower temperature the temperature wise than the valley has.

Yeah, you get that breeze from the ocean, too. I feel like the further you can get away from L.A., the better you're at. There's too many fucking people here. The other day, Saturday in the afternoon, I drove down to meet a friend of mine in Bellflower. So I drove down. It took me two hours to get there and two and a half hours to get back. On Saturday, bumper-to-bumper traffic stopped dead on the 134, stopped dead on the 405. I switched to the 210, stopped dead.

It was fucking nuts. The 101 stopped dead. The 5 stopped dead everywhere on Saturday. I'm like, what happens if this shit hits the fan? That's why I always save all my telephone calls. I save that for one day. If I, for instance, have to go to San Diego, that's where all my phone calls start happening

because I save them up for that time, the two and a half hours on the road or whatever it is, maybe three hours if there's traffic, and then I make all the phone calls. Oh, you drive and make phone calls? Yeah, do it at the same time. You know what I do, Boss Rutten? You tell me that.

I listen to audible.com. Audible.com? Yeah. Yeah? Is this Fox again? Is that what the commercial is now? It's one of our commercials. I do, though.

It's amazing. It's great. Audible books. Audio books are amazing. Oh, you know, I love on HLN, they have these crime cases. I love that, you know. And then the man walked in, but he forgot one thing. One thing that led to another thing.

Was this like on the radio they had these? Oh, yeah, Mysterious. It was on HLN. I don't know. HLN? HLN, Headline News from CNN, I guess it is or something. Oh, so satellite radio. Yeah, satellite radio.

I have always satellite radio. And then you got those great things, murder things. You're not watching the Jodi Arias case. You know that? Oh, my God. And if she gets the Jodi Arias case. You know, oh my God. And if she gets out, that's like the weirdest thing, the total psycho. What a psycho.

I mean, she goes head to head with the prosecutor, and then when she thinks she has the best of him, she like chuckles. You know, I got you. I go, dude. Yeah, people are watching you. The jury are watching you, you know. You'll see, they see it.

Yeah, if you don't know that story, she stabbed the guy, cut his head off. 27 times. Shot him. And then shot him. She did a bunch of fucked up shit. But then she goes to the problem because she said she shot him first.

But now all the blood was there and the shell casing was on top of the blood. So she shot him. She killed him first, stabbed him in the back. That's just so crazy. Yeah, and had rented a special car. They wanted to give her a red car.

She says, no, I want a white one because she didn't want to attract attention. Three cans of gasoline so she didn't have to stop anywhere so she could be traced back. I mean, it was the wildest thing. Then a.22 gun, which happened to be the murder weapon, the day before she left very mysteriously disappeared from her grandparents, where she, by the way, lives. It was a break-in. you're locked into this story. Oh, this is amazing. Isn't it fucked up when you see someone whose life just went completely off the rails?

When you see someone crazy like that just one day whacks out and just stabs the shit out of somebody and shoots them. This one, you know, she was like three months away from him and she was still following him. He did things on stage, whatever, as public speaking or something. She would make pictures, and she would tell people, isn't he beautiful? While they already separated, I go, that's a real one to have around. Yeah. Well, that guy fucked the shit out of that bitch.

Oh, my God. That's part of what happened there. That guy broke her. He did some dirty shit to her. Oh, everything. He did everything. But now she tries even to say he's a pedophile, you know,

and it's like, what? I mean, drags us through the mud. Poor guy, you know? He's already dead. Yeah. Yeah, but his parents.

She's already done the worst, I know. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, the, my friend Tony Zara, remember Tony, Rancid Turtle from Columbus,

he has a great saying that I say all the time. It said, psychotic and erotic are very close to each other. Oh, yeah. They're very close to each other. And those really crazy girls are oftentimes the best in bed. They're so nutty, and the shit they'll do is so crazy.

And so this fucking guy, I mean, you listen to some of the text messages that he was sending her. You know, you're my dirty little whore. Oh, my God. I go to people. I thought it was only in porn movies like people write like that i oh just fucking check his text messages he'll send you some he'll forward you yeah yeah don't think he's so polite i don't really yeah there's a lot of nutty people out there man there's a lot of fucking nutty

people very crazy people but some of my wife um the karate i i forgot we got to do the karate guy story the street karate guy what happened oh this is a funny story okay we're at um at um kimbo has to fight and um before the fight we go to a tap out party and those people are there and then these guys these, these tough guys that they're one of us, I think selling jewelry or something. And he was with a bunch of guys and, and from the guys, I think he was the toughest guy. So, um, we're talking and of course, you know, he didn't know who I was. So that was the best thing. And then the people were talking about fighting and suddenly he comes to forward and he goes, yeah, I used to do a karate. He says, but not normal karate.

I used to do street karate. I go, wow, street karate. So what is that? He said, well, I can tell you one thing, that my routine has saved me like six, seven times. And I go, your routine? Yeah. I go, okay, you got to show me that routine, you know, because I would love to learn. So the guy comes to me, and I actually put this in the movie,

Here Comes the Boom, you know. That was a true story. Well, that's a long story. So the guy comes to me, he says, first of all, I would stand there, and then out of the blue, I will go, No, no, no. He goes first with his elbow, he goes to me. He does it to me.

This close, right? no. He goes first with his elbow. He goes to me. He does it to me. This close, right? Vroom. And then, vroom. And then he goes, vroom. And he was shaking in front of my face. He's serious. He's serious. He's this close to my face, right?

Shaking. Like this close. And my friends, everybody is already like almost dying laughing. Right. And then he says, and then in a moment, he's perplexed. But I go, vroom. I go to the neck. And then they always do this.

He says, ah. He says, and I grab him. And now he kept eye contact with me right and he grabs he says i go and he kept so he threw knees to the body he kept eye contact with me and he stops you know so I look at him and I go nah you never did that total bullshit I said you practiced this in the mirror and it looks really cool but you never did this you know his friends were like

they were waiting for my reaction because they were in awe you know this guy was awe it was his glory and then when at the moment I said, total bullshit. I started talking and another guy came and said, you know who he is? He's actually a professional fighter. So the whole group left. But the fact

the face, the facial expression from all those guys they're all dressed the same. Like these khakis with shirts over the top. All jewelry everywhere. Those guys. The street karate guy, his routine saved his

life seven times. And they tell you, they expect that you believe that crap. It was the most insane thing I've ever seen. And I did it in Here Comes the Boom, you remember? Head, butt, knee to the face, throw away, stomp. Victory dance, you know? I that I told

that the backstage camera for here comes the boom I said this is a true story somebody told me this technique there's a lot of those knuckleheads right those street defense guys they're like fake karate guys and you know the worst part is they say yeah we cannot use it in the ring because it's way too dangerous yeah I said well if you can kill somebody like this you can also not kill him yeah right I mean what yeah right I mean that kind well, if you can kill somebody like this, you can also not kill him. Right? What? Yeah.

Right. You have that kind of control. If you have that kind of control, you just... Their techniques are too lethal, boss. You don't understand. It's like dropping a nuclear explosion on you. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, the one in sponge, all that. Yeah, I love those videos, like kung fu videos,

where guys are demonstrating techniques and how they're going to work. And have you seen the one where the old man who's got this class where he throws like people and then the karate guy no pancreas guy comes in and beats the shit out of him and when you see him bleed he's he see himself he cannot believe it it doesn't work and he's trying yeah that one guy he does the guy goes like this yeah then he goes, and he makes a somersault, and he falls on the ground. It's almost like he believed his own bullshit, right? But what are these guys doing? They're all faking it.

They know. They are, but they're probably, it's like mass hypnosis or mass hysteria. You know, like cult behavior. They get locked into believing. I remember when I was in, my Taekwondo school was not like cultish in the sense like then nobody had to do anything crazy they didn't try to get your money or get you to leave your family or anything like that but the devotion that some people had towards the instructor was pretty crazy it's amazing and they didn't exploit it but if someone did exploit it

you could see how they could get some weak people that would really fall into it. It's sort of a disturbing aspect of martial arts. One of the things that I really loved about Brazilian jiu-jitsu was that you didn't kind of see that. You didn't see all the bowing. It was more friendly. Yeah. When I trained with the Machado, I was like, hey, my friend, how are you?

Come on. And it was much more, yeah, once they show you the techniques. But they're very friendly and more like, they don't try to place themselves above anyone. There's no master this. No, because they don't need to because they're going to let you know that it is really effective right there. And the respect that you get from them,

they'll earn it just by being amazing. Yeah, but it's because they're good. All the other guys who preach and talk about it like that, they're not good. They suck. Like every guy who tells me about it like that, they're not good. They suck. Like every guy who tells me that he is unbelievable but he never fought is full of shit. Well, you know how many times guys have told me? Guaranteed.

It's not possible. He will not know if he can do it under pressure. He will not. It's amazing. Do you know how many guys have told me, though, that they could never lose? I could never lose, man. You don't know about my mentality. My mentality is I'm like an animal bro i'm like i might go blank

and then yeah that's the best one drop it yeah i go blank that means you don't think right that's the easiest i had ninjas coming into my class one time i i i'm not kidding there's a guy walking in with a stash glasses and a big belly and blue kimonos and they came in my in Holland and they walked in and there were six girls following him it was like a cult it was the weirdest thing ever later on we found out

he couldn't even like eight pushups it was like bizarre and every time when I would show something they would say something. Like one time, you know, I had an arm bar and this girl says, oh, we would bite in the leg, you know. So I start slowly but surely. I figure I'm not going to say anything. But then, you know, it kept going, kept going.

I have somebody in a rear naked choke. And I said, and explaining. And she goes to somebody else. She said, we will poke the eyes out now. And I go, oh, excuse me. What was that? And she said, we will poke the eyes out now, and I go, oh, excuse me, what was that, and she said, we will poke your eyes out right now, I said, wow, let's find out, I mean, I'm going to try this with you, is that cool, yeah, and she goes, I said, sit down, I said, put my arm around her neck, I said, okay, in three seconds, I'm going

to go, if you touch my eye, I'm going to break your neck, okay? Let's go. And she goes, well, what did you say? I said, in three seconds you're going to go. We'll count down. You come near to my fucking eye, I'm going to break your neck, okay? I said, no, no, no, what do you mean? I said, okay, you know what? Normally when somebody touches my eye, you think I'm going to go, oh, no. I'm going to go, my eye go, fuck, and I'm going to go, motherfucker.

Then my eye hurts. That face was awesome. Never, never fuck with somebody who has a dominant position over you. If I have you in an armbar and you bite my calf, guess what's going to break at that moment? It's the most idiot thing that people actually believe that if you put a finger in my eye, live in that situation, I'm going to let go of the choke. Yeah, really. I'm going to snap'm alive in that situation, I'm going to let go of the choke.

Yeah, really. I'm going to snap the neck first, and then I'm going to let go of the choke. Not only that, people don't understand how quick you go unconscious. If someone has a rear naked choke on you, especially if you don't really know defense, you haven't been choked a lot before, you don't know how to relax, you don't know how to touch the chin. Oh, and do you know how hard it is to poke an eye?

Yeah, it's fucking hard. If you do this, I do this, you're out. It's very hard. It's very hard. I squeeze my eye. I put my eye against the back of your neck, back of your head. See, what you're used to doing, Boss Rutan, is fighting in a sport-type situation where you got rules. See, out on the street, there are no rules.

And I cannot fight without rules, too, right? Yeah, that's funny. It's like, I cannot fight without rules too right it's funny it's like I can stab eyes too only I can do it better more accurate as well I used to do this well I do this radio show

I won't name the guy but there was a guy that they had as their bodyguard and he's a fucking total bullshit artist and he was a ninja and he would fucking do

videos doing nunchucks and shit it was so stupid why didn't you want to say his name Master Poe so Opie and Anthony show and we were on the show once and this I mean I'm fine videos doing nunchucks and shit. It was so stupid. Why didn't you want to say his name? Master Poe. So, Opie and Anthony show.

And we were on the show once, and there's, I mean, I'm fine, you know, you do whatever you want, but as soon as you're on the air, you're representing,

you know, I gotta tell the truth. You're on the fucking radio now, and people are gonna listen to you, and if I let you get away with some nonsense, then that could've, Yeah, you look stupid.

Not me, man. Some young kid could be listening to that, and they want to start a martial art, and they get sucked into doing those stupid fucking street karate classes. Yeah. And I go, listen, it's real simple. The shit that works on trained killers is the best shit. Yeah. You don't see Anderson Silva, you know, practicing eye pokes and fucking,

although eye pokes are pretty fucking successful in the UFC. They're good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They work. But you don't see him doing, you know, death touch and fucking, you know, pressure point attacks. That shit doesn't work. It doesn't work. I said on camera, we had an email from somebody.

It said that his master could, with point pressure, they could knock you out. I got a great story about this also with Amir. Anyway, I looked in the camera. I said, okay, anybody in America you're watching right now, if you have a person who says that he can knock me out with a punch, like just pressing somewhere,

we invite him. We pay him. We pay his trip. He can come on the show. He can do it on camera, on me. He can knock me out. I said, it's a no-lose situation for me because if it works, I'm signing up. I'm going to do that stuff. But I tell you, it's not going to work. We had this guy with, you know Amir Perez.

You know him also, right, my buddy? We see these guys on stage and the touch guys, right? Yeah. So one guy goes this, and this is what the person does. They just fall back. And then the guy said, did you see his eyes roll back in his skull? That means he was out for real.

So I go to him here, I go, this is going to be fun, watch this. So these guys, they come walking down after the set. I said, okay, do it to me. I want you to do it to me. You want me to knock out. He said, are you sure about that? I said, do it to me. I want you to do it to me. You want me to knock out. He said, are you sure about that? I said, do it to me.

I want to know how it feels. And he goes, you know what? I got something better. So he already steered away from it, right? So he says, let me show you this. And he walks over to his buddy. They start talking to each other. And then he walks away.

And in the corner, he stands like this like i mean crazy and he runs towards his friend and he goes like this in in midair he stops and he flies on the ground so he threw like kung fu kung fu hands doesn't touch him doesn't touch him i Doesn't touch him. Doesn't touch him. I go, dude, I'm sold. Do that to me. Right. I'm going to attack you right now. So I'm going to the corner and he goes, yeah, but you have to be really angry. I said, excuse me?

Yeah, really angry. Otherwise it won't work. I said, your friend just did it, right? I said, I think I can better act than your friend. Don't worry. I'll be in the zone. You know, but really. He says, no, no, because if you're not real angry,

it doesn't work. It needs to be that balance. So I knew it was his way out. So I walked over to him and I'm standing like this. I say, kick me in the pills. And he says, what? I say, kick me in the balls.

I say, I'm going to be really fucking pissed. You know? And he didn't want to do it, needless to say. I mean, but they're idiots that truly believe that is true. Well, it's so easy to take someone who doesn't know anything,

like who's a student, and trick them like that and be a con man like that. And you know what the worst thing is? There's teachers out there. They give you a false sense of security, and then they teach you how to defend a knife, you know, grabbing the wrist. I mean, it's so dangerous.

A knife is dangerous than a gun, on a short distance at least. They teach them the wrong way, and then something happens on the street. Somebody pulls a knife, and he goes to his buddy. Dude, step back. I got it. You know? And they get killed. Eddie Bravo has a crazy story about that.

And it's that guy's fault. It's the coach's fault. Eddie Bravo, when he was first learning martial arts, actually almost got into an altercation before he knew jiu-jitsu. He was first learning martial arts. He really thought he was going to be able to attack this guy and put him away with some fake karate shit. actually almost got into an altercation before he knew jiu-jitsu. He was first learning martial arts. He really thought he was going to be able to attack this guy and put him away with some fake karate shit. Yeah, there you go. See?

He had a bad... Eddie's first instructor was a fake guy. It didn't work. The guy said that he was going to China to train with the monks. Oh, God. Like, I'll be back in a week. I'm going to China to train with the monks. So Eddie was at the supermarket, and he saw the guy's car.

He's like, what the fuck? And he ran into the guy at the supermarket, who was supposed to be in China to train with the monks. So Eddie was at the supermarket, and he saw the guy's car. He's like, what the fuck? And he ran into the guy at the supermarket, who was supposed to be in China, training with the monks. What is that guy who killed the, you know, the... Rafael Torre. Yeah, he would say that he would go in the forest, and he would fight a whole tournament, and he would come back, and he had, like, these bloody knuckles, and suddenly a trophy. Well, this is the story of Rafael Torre. His name was not really Rafael Torael tori oh no no that

was a fake name that he created he was a fake brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and he had his friend oh drop him off in the woods that i'm about to fight in a kumite karate to the to the death tournament and so he's carrying this bag and in the bag he had this fucking trophy already he's like drop me off in the woods they're gonna meet me here and then i'm gonna fight for a couple days and i'll see you in a couple of days. So then his friend comes back two days later, pick him up. Yeah, I won everything. Here's my trophy. Motherfucker, you think I'm retarded? You brought that bag. You brought that trophy in a bag. But he came from that era where you could get away with faking shit like that. People believe that. I have a

lot of guys who believe stuff. And they put a cover of magazines and they're this and they're that and they're nobodies. Absolutely nobodies. But people believe it and directors believe that. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, this guy, man, is dangerous. What do you think of Seagal's claims? Did you see the interview he did with Michael Chiavello on your network? Oh, can I laugh in your face?

The thing is this. Here I go back. Here I go back. Here I go back to, did you ever compete? No. No, but I trained with other guys. We would fight in a dojo. We all know that fighting in a dojo and fighting under pressure in a cage or in a ring, whatever, you cannot even compare to each other.

I always explained to my buddy, Amir Perez, always would say it. If you take a two-by-four, like a long 20-foot long, and you have to walk over it, it's an easy thing to do. You just walk over, it's 20 feet long. Now you put that same bar up two buildings, 20 stories up, and now you have to walk over there. Now it's a whole different ballgame, and it's not so easy anymore. Now that's the same as in fighting. And sparring, nothing compared.

How many dojo fighters you know that tear up everybody, including the professionals, but when they fight themselves, they can't fight. They panic. And that's what I always say. Until you compete it, you can never tell. You can have a hundred blames, but I don't care. I got to see it. I got to see you fight.

I don't believe people saying that you're good. I want to see you fight. Not in training, under pressure. With people around. So important. Wise words by Boss Rutan, ladies and gentlemen. Learn. Knowledge. Respect. Follow Boss Rutan on Twitter. It's

BossRutan. B-A-S-R-U-T-T E-N-M-M-A The website also. What is your website? TheO2Trainer.com? O2Trainer.com, O2TrainerBlog.com if you want to check out that one video, and then BossRootin.com. And BossRootin.com for your website and EliteMMA.com.

EliteMMAGym.com. EliteMMAGym.com for your gym, which is in Thousand Oaks. Fantastic gym. You can't go wrong training there. When is Ramon's brother back from Holland? I think he'll be back next week. And I'll be there every Tuesday and Thursday at 6 o'clock. If you want to come in, people say, oh, can I train with you?

I'm there. I love to teach. So be there. Bas Rutten is on Facebook. It's just slash Bas Rutten. All right, my brother. An honor, as always. And always a good time hanging out with you. Same right, my brother. An honor, as always.

And always a good time hanging out with you. Same here. Follow BossRootin, ladies and gentlemen. Again, that's BossRootinMMA on Twitter. Thank you very much for tuning in to the podcast, my friends. Thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring the podcast. If you go to squarespace.com forward slash Joe. And if you use the code name Joe number three, will save yourself 10% off your first purchase on new accounts. It includes monthly and annual plans.

Thanks also to Ting for sponsoring our podcast. If you go to rogan.ting.com, you will save $25 off of either cell phone or service. And they have a full line of the best Android mobile phones available. So thank you to Squarespace. Thank you to Ting. Thank you to Onnit. Go to O-N-N-I-T. Use the code name ROGAN and save yourself 10% off this Thursday night

at the American Comedy Company in San Diego. Brian Redband will be there along with Yoshi, Billy Bonnell, Jason Tebow, Tony Hinchcliffe. It's going to be a heck of a show, and it's at one of the coolest clubs in Southern California. This Wednesday night in Pasadena, I am at the Ice House Comedy Club with Ari Shafir and Ian Edwards. Should be a lot of fun. It's a 10 o'clock show. It's only 15 bucks.

And Montreal this weekend is sold the fuck out. So suck it. Tough shit. We love you, but we got to sell tickets. All right. We'll see you guys very shortly. We have a podcast tomorrow with Scott Sigler, who is an author, writes cool horror and fiction and science fiction shit.

And then on Wednesday, Shane Smith returns to the podcast. So thank you everybody for tuning in and go fuck yourselves. All right, we'll see you soon. Love ya! Love ya like I love myself. We'll see you next time. Thank you.