The Joe Rogan Experience - #423 - Gene LeBell

Episode Date: December 2, 2013

Gene LeBell is an American martial artist, instructor, stunt performer, and professional wrestler. He has also worked on over 1,000 films and TV shows and has authored a number of books.

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day! Today, ladies and gentlemen, today is December 2nd, 2013. And 50 years ago today, the first mixed martial arts fight was fought in America. 60, right? 60 years ago today? What is the date of it? December 2nd, 1963, yeah. So it was 50 years ago.

Yeah, I was three at the time. And the man in front of me, Judo Gene LaBelle, who I've known and I've been very fortunate to be your friend for a number of years, and it's been a real honor.

You're a guy that, amongst mixed martial arts fighters like especially even early in the day you were like really keenly involved in i don't know if keenly is the right word to use there but very involved in the uh education of martial artists about grappling uh joe what i always liked to do when I was a kid to get the point over, you shouldn't just do grappling, which I know you're a great, you're an expert at grappling. And I admire you because you've been there and done that. But along with grappling, you should learn boxing, tempo, show to contact, Kwan Da Kung Fu, Greco-Roman wrestling, freestyle wrestling, motorcycle riding. Oh, a little bit of everything.

And, of course, myself, when I was young, I got kicked out of the judo gyms because guys beating me up. I'd hit him with a left hook. Then I'd go to the boxing gym. A guy beat me up there, and I'd body slam him. And I got kicked out. I got the Guinness Book of Records again, kicked out of gyms. You taught Bruce Lee some judo, didn't you? Yes, I did.

What was that like? Well, he's a great guy, one of the best athletes you'd ever want to see. Nice guy. I worked a lot of TV shows with him. And, of course, he was famous for doing Enter the Dragon. He wanted me to go on that show. And he says, you'll make $200 a week. Now then, you know, 30 years ago, that was big money.

But I was making $1,000 a week doing Westerns. And so I says, I think I'll stay. But it became a cult of the most famous martial art movie ever was Enter the Dragon. But it was done in Hong Kong, not Union, and you know the difference between Union and non-Union. Right, so you don't really get a piece of that. You don't get any residuals.

Look at these pictures of you, you handsome young bastard. You're a beautiful man. Oh, yeah. Now you can see how actually small this guy, Bruce Lee, was. Wow, he was a very small man. Short, good athlete. And I ran the stunts on this where he picks me up and throws me. Well, it's really fascinating that there is so much learning going on at that time. And that's one of the reasons why I think people are so compelled to learn about Bruce Lee.

Because he was really the first guy that said, let's just try everything and mix it all together. And was really public and out front about it. And his martial arts that he created called Jeet Kune Do. The whole philosophy of that was use what is useful. And he credits you with a lot of the development of his grappling, understanding grappling. I think a lot of fighters back in that day, they didn't really understand that you needed to know all aspects of martial arts. And if you didn't know how to grapple, you're fairly helpless when a grappler gets a hold of you. Yeah, and they did a lot of forms there.

But with all due respect, Bruce taught me a lot of techniques that I use in the movies, jumping spinning kicks. Of course, I lost that about 20 years ago. I still look all over the kitchen floor for my spinning kick, but it's gone. He was a great athlete. And any time you meet a guy or a woman, you learn from what they have to teach. Then you say, well, now that I know it, I'll just tell everybody I invented it. And when you're training with him, was there this sense of who he was at that time? Did anybody have any idea how that was all going to go down and how he was going to essentially for a lot of people represent martial arts?

When you talk about martial arts today, still to this day in 2013, people bring up Bruce Lee. He is a god now, you know? Yeah. And he was just a little guy that put too much starch in my shirts once a week. He didn't have a sense of humor until he stayed with me for a while and found out it was just a tease. stayed with me for a while and found out it was just a tease. He would have been a champion in the martial arts, the MMA,

and you'd be interviewing him instead of me if he was still alive. So you knew at the time while you were working with him that he was a unique guy? Very unique, very well-coordinated. He was creator. And a lot of people that did his style sort of didn't like him because he wasn't traditional. He learned to do boxing. He learned to do grappling from me, judo. And as you can see earlier, some of those judo moves that we did 104 years ago. Yeah, but it was still in color. Maybe they colored it.

But he loved that. He loved that because he was a good athlete. He was a good tumbler and a great human being. He was a good tumbler and a great human being. I've been blessed, Joe, in meeting people and they become family, like you're family to me. Oh, thank you. You're family to me. Yeah.

What do I call you? Uncle? Uncle Gene? Uncle Gene. Rhonda does, has forever. Everybody has. Yeah. All the stunt guys on Fear Factor used to call you Uncle Gene. That's it.

But with you, you know, you have to, I want to raise him my allowance. You know? So when you're, are you training with any fighters today? Like, I know you've done some work with Rhonda in the past. Oh, um, I train, uh, with guys, but mostly beginners. The thing is what I try to do. So many people helped me when I was beginning in the martial art world and in the stunt work world.

Now it's payback time. And I try to help people out. I do judge here in California. And I did used to referee. And that was hard. I had to learn to count to 10. I was lucky to referee Muhammad Ali in Enoki, which was a big thing, mixed martial art event in Tokyo, Japan.

You know, and so I've been there. I've done that. So anytime I can help somebody out, hey, I get a pleasure out of it. Yeah, I'm sure you do. You really enjoy teaching. You always have taught. Silvio Pimenta, who I trained with. Silver it. Yeah, I'm sure you do. You really enjoy teaching. You always have taught. Silvio Pimenta, who I trained with. Silverado.

Yeah, Silverado over at Jean Jacques. He was one of your black belts, right? That's true. Great guy. Very, very intelligent guy. Very technical guy. I learned a lot from that guy. I learned a lot of what you taught him as well.

A lot of leg locks, which the Brazilians a long time ago didn't do leg locks. And now they're into it. And they're into a lot of things that were not sanctioned by their methods. Yeah, there was a time, a lot of folks don't realize this, that jiu-jitsu, they had a bias against attacking the legs. Like if you went for a leg lock or a heel hook, the crowd would boo and hiss. And it became like a weird thing because it didn't make any sense

because like the Sambo guys were using leg locks, the catch guys were using leg locks, and they would go in against jiu-jitsu guys. And a lot of jiu-jitsu guys were not prepared for it because they didn't really think that it was a valid technique. For whatever reason, it didn't make any sense. But now you got guys like Paul Hares,

who's a Brazilian guy, who's probably one of the best in the world at it. Fantastic. He's great. One of my coach was Carl Gotch, is his name, passed away a few years ago. He used to take Olympic champions and have them for lunch. And the Brazilian guys that did the guard, he loved it. They'd roll on their back, put their feet up, and he'd break a leg. I never saw him miss breaking a leg. Wow. And, you know, it was a sexual thing for him, you know.

He was an animal. Well, breaking a leg means good luck. He was an animal. Well, breaking a leg means good luck. And before it was the guard, in wrestling they called it foot and leg control. But it's all the same thing. You control the lower body theoretically with your legs. And just attack the joint from an angle. And then you go into, you can switch and go into a triangle, a neck choke, or an arm bar.

Or if you're good at spinning to the side, you can also get a knee lock. So there's basically a lot of the techniques that you see today, jiu-jitsu techniques like the guard. They were really kind of always around in catch. They just had different names, and they just were maybe more observed today or more analyzed today. And improved on. The MMA and Dana White is, I mean, he's the best promoter that ever lived.

And I like the gentleman. He's got all these guys together and they have to be improvement every year somebody comes up with a new technique which is an old technique with a different name

it's kind of important now years ago you know how they got the name that you use all the time, the Kimura? Yeah, from the guy who fought Elio Gracie. Yes, but he was a judo champion. And in judo, they kicked him out of Japan because he wanted to go pro as a wrestler, which he did.

So he'd go down and he'd beat everybody with a double wrist lock, a downward arm crank. And so they couldn't pronounce double wrist lock or downward arm crank. So they said the Kimura, you know. So it's just based on the move that beat Elio. Yeah, but he beat a lot of guys. And the pro wrestlers, Carl Gotch, he beat everybody with that hold. But he did it a little bit different. He'd break the wrist, the elbow, and the shoulder,

where most people, they just break the elbow and the shoulder. You know, when I talk to Josh Barnett about the difference between catch wrestling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I think Josh is about as big an expert as any you could ask for in this country, like active fighters that really understand catch. He calls catch the violent art. He's like, jiu-jitsu is a gentle art. Catch is the violent art.

It's a much more violent approach. It's all just grappling. It's still just grappling, but a much more violent approach to attaining the positions, wrestling-based attacks to attain the positions, whereas jiu-jitsu guys try to move around things. A wrestler will go through it. Josh Burnett has been a friend of mine for 104 years. He's a young man.

He looks beautiful for 104 years old. Is he a vampire perhaps? Well, he takes that Botox or whatever it is. That shit's bad for you. Somebody tell him to stop. Look, he passes for stillox or whatever it is. Oh, that shit's bad for you. Someone tell him to stop. Look, he passes for still in his late 30s. But he did work a little with Carl Gotch and a few good pros. He's got a great trainer now.

And I can hardly wait to December 28th and watch him. He's on that card. Yeah, against Travis Brown. It should be very, very interesting. Well, Travis Brown is no slouch. Oh, he's as tough as they come. He doesn't get any tougher than that guy. Oh, well, how about you?

Impossible. I'm too dumb for that. The Travis Brown-Allister Overeem fight highlighted that. I mean, he took just tremendous shots to the body that a lot of people would have folded up shop on. I've never seen anybody take that kind of a beating in the beginning of a round and come back to knock a guy out with a head kick afterwards. It was incredible.

That's like heart and will, you know, that you can't measure that. But Barnett's got that too. Barnett's an animal. You know, if you don't beat Barnett and he comes back, I mean, he's always in that fight. He doesn't fold up shop ever. He's a solid, solid veteran too. Barnett's an animal. If you don't beat Barnett, he's always in that fight. He doesn't fold up shop, ever. He's a solid, solid veteran, too. He's a sneaky dude.

He knows his way around shit. He's been there and done that. Very, very smart guy. We had him on the podcast, and people were blown away. I get so many text messages and tweets from people going, how is it this guy gets punched in the head for a living and he's 10 times smarter than me? Like five different people said that to me.

It's crafty. Josh Burnett, I'll go up to him. I'll say, hey, Josh, show me the Camur and he'll grab me. There's no such hold as a Camur. It's a double wrist lock or a downward arm crank and then he'll put it on me. I love the man. Yeah, he's all catch. He keeps the torch lit, right?

Yeah. As far as, like, top-level fighters, he certainly does. Well, he's been around a long time, and he's got a lot to teach, a lot to talk about, and a lot to show. He's a very, very smart guy, too. What do you think, like, as far as, like, Carl Gotch, one of the things that he's known for is not just teaching a lot of guys catch wrestling submissions, but also his conditioning regime. His conditioning regimen is supposed to be one of the most grueling ever.

They said that he would make guys do 500 bodyweight squats before they could even practice. He did. He had me working for a few years with these weights with a handle on them. Yeah, mace balls. We sell those at Onnit.com. Those are amazing. Whatever. He used 90 kettle balls, he called them.

90 pounds, yeah, kettle balls. And I still have 45s. But when I worked with him I was 180 pounds And he was like 260 Jesus Christ He was a giant man too It was a big like

European boned 260 Yeah, but You didn't see any fat out of him No, none at all And the thing I liked about him, he was a sadistic bastard. I've heard that about you. Silverado must have told you that.

And just a little trivia. Everybody wants to know why they call you Uncle Gene. Well, I've been in 13 Hall of Fames. I've won tournaments all over the world. My proudest thing is when people call me Uncle Gene, because with the old wrestlers, the real, what they called shooters, you finally got to a stage which nobody got to. And if you could get a bunch of guys and make them yell uncle like I did then afterwards they awarded me now your uncle gene how did it become uncle well you cry uncle but but how did that that's that figure

of speech is so strange like why would you cry uncle to get someone to stop well doesn't make any sense. I don't know, but at that time, that's what they say. Instead of I give up, they say uncle. I remember that. I don't know if kids today even understand that, cry uncle. Do they? I grew up with it. Yeah, but you're

a 40. I'm talking about like 20-year-olds. He forgets. He's not a kid anymore. The kid's in a perpetual state of kidness. I only think kids today use that expression. Well, expressions

change since in the last 20 years. You gotta have a cell phone. You gotta do all those things on the internet. Do you take selfies? Do you do selfies for Instagram ever? No? No, I'm from the old school where you have to dial the phone.

You have to draw pictures of people. There's no cameras. You got to. You got to. I think you taught it to me when you used to change my diapers. What is it like going through all these different generations? Like, I grew up in the 70s, and, you know, I was around before the Internet was around.

You know, I went to high school in the 80s, and I graduated from high school in 1985, so I've been around a long time, too. The change has been pretty interesting, but for you, like, being from the era of, like, those those Bruce Lee movies and like you were you were a national judo champion in 1954. That's incredible. That's a long time ago. I mean, how much how much different is the world today than it was then?

Everything changes. And you got to change with it. Fifty four and fifty five. Two two years and then I turned pro. Things change and you got to be up on it. I'm not. I've got computers all over the place and all I look at, you got mail and see who the hell hates me today and a few other little things. But the kids nowadays, the teachings, they have to learn how to do a computer, cell phones.

There's more to everything. So that you think is the biggest difference between when you were a kid and today is just the Internet? The Internet. Computers, technology? The cars, the gadgets. Look at the electrical stuff they have, the flat-screen TV. I had to be on steroids to pick up a TV 20 years ago. Yeah, there used to be big, giant cabinets.

Remember those things? Yeah. They were like furniture and a little tiny screen in it. The screen was only about 12 inches wide. And the TV thing was huge. All that equipment and everything back there. Now everything's flat screen and had a record player on the top. Remember that?

Oh yeah, always. You are old. And they had cabinet doors. Remember they had cabinet doors? My grandparents had them. They swung open. The thing slides so you could hide the TV. It was weird. Yeah, the old days. For me, it's fascinating.

But for you, I'm watching these videos of you when you were a young man. You're doing these fight scenes with Bruce Lee. And I think, wow, this guy, you've seen everything. I mean, you've seen so much. You've seen the changing of the perceptions of martial arts for the first time with those Bruce Lee movies. That was the first changing the perceptions of martial arts for the first time with those Bruce Lee movies. That was the first changing of perception of martial arts. The first real introduction to the Western world in a mainstream way was Bruce Lee movies.

Because before that, none of those other martial arts things ever really got traction like he did. But he was all of a sudden, it was like, whoa, I want to learn how to do that. That guy's amazing. The showmanship and his dynamic presence and his speed and his techniques. Nobody had ever seen anything like that before. So we saw this Bruce Lee guy, and all of a sudden everybody's talking about martial arts. But you've had a chance to see that. You've had a chance to see, like I said, you were involved in the first ever mixed martial arts fight. And now seeing the UFC grow to become what it is today.

You've been there through the introduction to the latest evolution. It's a changing experience. My event 50 years ago today was the first sanctioned, televised mixed martial art event. And now the rules have changed. That's why I say when I choked the guy out and he was a great, great, great fighter, Milo Savage. And the referee who was also a doctor couldn't revive him

if somebody like Big John McCarthy was there. He'd have been able to revive the guy. You mean not dead. You mean he was there. He'd have been able to revive the guy. You mean not dead. You mean he was unconscious. Oh, yeah.

Give him katsu, which is an art of reviving. What's it called? Katsu? Katsu. And that was just, was that rubbing the neck or something like that? Well, it's getting the heart going where it pumps blood to the head. When you choke a man out, you're not choking him. pumps blood to the head. When you choke a man out, you're not choking him. You're slowing down the blood supply to his head till he passes unconscious. Now, I broke guys' legs and arms and stuff like that, and they got a permanent injury. You choke a guy out, 10 seconds later,

you revive him, he's okay. It's much better than getting knocked out, too. A lot of people think it's the same thing. People that don't understand martial arts. It's a big, big, big difference. Getting choked out, like, there's really no ill effects. The ill effects come from striking, really. Oh, I agree with you. That's how you get brain concussions. Then you're having trouble when you're talking.

You're a little bit punchy. Nothing wrong with me there, John. How dare you. Guys, you're making fun of guys with brain damage. That's weird. I always make fun of myself. I never thought I'd disagree with Under Gene. We've all known guys that have gotten punchy.

That's the dirty aspect of this game, of mixed martial arts itself. There's guys that do the wrong thing, and they stay when they shouldn't have stayed, and they take shots they shouldn't have taken, and then we get to see that damage. And it's very disturbing. It's something that people don't ever want to think is going to happen to them. And that's why I always give this encouragement that if anybody's thinking of retiring, retire. If you're thinking of it at all, retire. You know something?

You're right on the numbers. Right on the numbers. You never, you always have the feeling. Now in my 80s, I still have the feeling of getting on the mat. And I say, Jesus, this guy's making a mistake. But I got to concentrate on teaching the guy and not trying to prove myself well you just competitive fires never really totally burn out no the rest of my body's burned out though it's important that's why I say to Rhonda I'm

sure glad she got into the movies and And so when time comes, like Joe Louis or Cassius Clay, they have another place to go. Randy Couture is a good friend of mine. Now, he's not competing anymore, but he does movies. He's translated the best. He's done the very best job of transferring from MMA stardom to movie stardom and acting stardom. He works a lot now.

More power to him. He's good, too. He was good in The Expendables. He's very calm, very relaxed. What made him a great fighter will make him a great actor, I think. That's good. Amanda doesn't think of the future, doesn't have one.

Yeah. Well, he's a terrible example to use, though, because the guy fought until he was 48. I mean, he was just incredible. He's a terrible example to use to get out when you think you should get out, get out. Because he came back. He was going to retire after the second Chuck Liddell fight. Then he came back, won the heavyweight title. I mean, Randy Couture has gone through a whole whirlwind.

Maybe I really should just shut the fuck up. Tell the people when to retire and whatnot. Randy's also fine. You talk to him. He's totally lucid. Speaks clearly. He did a good job of protecting himself with a lot of his grappling because he was a very good grappler. Always very

solid and intelligent. Really good at executing game plans. But everybody takes shots. They've got to know when to not take any more. It's hard to figure out, too. It's tough. Who wants to retire when they're on top? Yep.

And who wants to retire when they still feel like they can beat a lot of dudes' asses? And you know a lot of guys that just fought one or two times too long. Yep, yep. Or more, you know, unfortunately. The money's there. It's hard to pass up. Yeah, but when you're putting the only initial investment you have in life is your body,

you've got to take care of it the best way you can. There's weird things that happen, too, like Bob Sapp is an example, one of the weird things that happened in MMA, where the guy becomes sort of a traveling roadshow and just goes and fights guys and taps quick and moves on to the next town and sort of is like selling the name that he made when he was in Pride, when he was one of the scariest guys on Earth.

And it seems like he's just not really there competitively anymore, but he does a lot of fights, has a lot of fights, and that's how he's making a living, I guess. Well, let's help, pray to God, he doesn't get permanent... Damage. Injury. Yeah, like, unfortunately,

one of the great old-school legends, Gary Goodrich, he's been real public about his issues and how much pugilistic dementia, which is the medical term for... Punchy. Being punch-drunk, yeah. And he's talking pretty openly about it to alert young fighters to the risks

and talk about what it was. He basically says it was K-1 that did him in. He basically says that fighting in MMA was one thing, but the amount of blows that he would take in K-1 was just substantially greater. Those guys were so high level too. That's why it is so important to have a great referee. And there's a lot of good ones here in Nevada, all over the world. And there's a lot of ones that aren't that sharp.

They don't know when to stop a fight. And a guy will take just one or two blows where he can't protect himself, and then it's gin rummy. Yeah, and those blows after a guy's out are very dangerous. Those are really bad ones. And oftentimes it's not the fighter's fault. The fighter is hitting them because they're in a zone, and they don't even know what they're doing.

They're trying to finish this guy. They're not even thinking. They're barely even aware. They might think he's almost out, but what if he wakes up? What if he wakes up and does this to me? And they're trying to end that fight. It's the referee's job to be objective and to see it and to get in there before those unnecessary blows take place.

But that's a tough gig. I mean, you've done it before, and you've been there for 100 MMA fights or at least 100 events. I mean, I've seen you at so many of them when there's moments where a guy just isn't in the right position. Maybe a strange technique lands that no one expects, a head kick that no one saw coming and the guy goes down. And by the time the referee gets to him, he's already getting hit two and three times while he's already unconscious. It's really common. Yeah, that's a fact. I've seen so many guys that are injured. And I was judging one of the tournaments, and one of the competitors had a hematoma,

which is a blood pressure clear around his head,st I've ever seen. I've seen a lot of them from boxing. And the doctor was playing with the ring girls and they didn't stop the fight. And I said, Jesus, they should have stopped the fight. And, you know, he went the full three rounds. But, I mean, he looked like a hamburger. There's some people get busted up. There's a weird moment. Like, when do you stop a fight? Do you stop a fight when a guy's head is swollen, misshapen?

Like, did you see Mark Hominick versus Jose Aldo? Yeah. He had that crazy giant lump on his head that looked like someone had inserted a small football underneath his forehead. Remember that? But he fought well. Even though he had that, he fought well. So that's like one of those things where it gets that weird blurry line, like how do you stop this fight?

He won the last round. I mean, Hominick took Aldo down. He was in his guard. He was ground and pounding him. Pretty clearly won the last round. So even with this big giant lump on his head, you head, he's still doing well in the fight. Yeah, he's doing well. Wait 10 years when he starts having headaches. So you think that when you see an outside thing swelling outside the skin where all

that blood, they should just stop a fight? Well, let me put it this way. And I have debates. And it's my opinion. Right. I've had debates with doctors. When a guy gets hit from football, he gets knocked out, or a glove, what happens? If you get hit in the arm, it swells up.

Same thing with the brain. It swells up. And a lot of people, they don't do anything right away. Because I'm from the boxing world, we put ice on right away. Now here's what happens. I was told by Dr. Bernard Schwartz 50 or 60 years ago that when the brain swells, there's bones around your head and it pushes, the brain pushes against the bones of your head and it gives you a brain injury. It kills part of your brain. So, you know, make sure that I put ice. Always carry ice.

If a guy gets knocked out from a blow, you put ice on his head right away. To keep the swelling down. To keep the swelling down. Just like you would do for a knee, just like you would do for an elbow, you do it for the head as well. Absolutely.

How come people don't know that? Well, people do. I've talked to neurosurgeons, doctors, and they puff, puff. They say, hey, that isn't what I do. I give them this medicine or that medicine. And I said, by that time, he's already screwed up, you know. And I've been there. I've done that.

I've been around boxing and wrestling for 75 years. Wow. And that's just not once every month. That's every day. That's my life. And I see injuries, and I've seen doing stunts. I see people that have crashed cars, and they want to put them on

a gurney, put ice on their head. And I've seen stuntmen come out punchy. From impacts. Oh, absolutely. People don't realize how many stuntmen get injured every year. I mean, people die as well.

I've heard of many stuntmen dying while filming crazy action scenes in movies, especially car accidents, motorcycle accidents. It's very common. It's a very, very, very rough business. I had a friend of mine, Mike Tillman was his name, and he had a freak

accident in the car. It split his helmet, and they didn't put ice on him. And I wondered why. And he finally came out of it a long time later. He only lived a year. And I knew him real well. We used to go motorcycle riding, racing every weekend. And he didn't even know me. and racing every weekend, and he didn't even know me. And I says, wow.

So the most dangerous thing to me is a brain injury. Yeah, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. There should be a lot more research on it. Is that you and Rodney Dangerfield? Did you double as Rodney? I did double him a few times. What movie was this?

Oh, God, a couple of TV shows. There's a picture of you guys up there. What's that from? Oh, my God. Can movie was this? Oh, God, a couple of TV shows. There's a picture of you guys up there. What's that from? Oh, my God. Can you see it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was doing sword fighting then. Sword fighting? Oh, yeah, doubling him.

And he was quite a character, quite a character. He'd always leave his pants unzipped. And so I had one of the actors come up and say, hey, his pants is unzipped. So I had one of the actors come up and say, hey, his pants is unzipped. He'd go up and he says, I'm getting air conditioning. Don't bother me. And he just did it as a swerve, a joke.

He always did that, right? With the robes and stuff? He used to always have his balls in there? Well, I've talked about this before, but I worked at Great Woods Concert Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts when I was a kid. I was amongst the security personnel there, and so I was backstage, and I got to see Rodney as he was preparing for his show. He would just have a robe on and nothing else. He was wearing slippers, and he had a robe on, and he was walking around back there.

This was before I'd ever done stand-up comedy, but I was like, that guy is the shit. Like, look at him He's just he's literally as comfortable as you can get he's wearing a bathrobe on purpose And it's because he could you know he was like cuz I can whatever. I'm just gonna wear a bathrobe. It's comfortable I like the way I love the way you're worried. He does it because he can yeah because he keeps fucking Ronnie Did he knew he was Rodney Dangerfield? can. Yeah, because he keeps fucking Rodney Dangerfield. He knew he was Rodney Dangerfield. And nobody said anything and he

played it straight. And apparently a super nice guy. Everybody I know that did business with him or had any interactions with him always came away from it saying Rodney's a great guy. My friend Jeff, my manager Jeff, he was with one of his

clients was one of Rodney's original comics on the HBO comedy series that he did. with one of his clients was one of Rodney's original comics on the HBO comedy series that he did. And he said that Rodney was just the best, just the coolest, nicest guy. Yeah. And what a sense of humor. What a sense of humor.

He was a real original, too. He was a hell of a stand-up comedian, and of course he's not as good as you. You're my hero. Get out of here. But he was also a great actor too. Did you ever see Back to School? The movie with him and Kennison was in that movie. He was fucking

hilarious in that movie. Those were classics when I was a kid. Those were like, those are some of the in my opinion, some of the most enjoyable comedy moves that I ever saw was the Rodney Dangerfield one. So it was just a feeling that you had through the whole thing like you would just see the guy and you would want to laugh you know you don't see a lot of the like the old comedians uh anymore very seldom what do you mean like which guys well anything like a Bob Hope like that kind of car Rodney Dangerfield Jack Benny

people that were stand-up comedians there's no show that I know that really showboats them I know what you're saying like it used to be The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. That was, like, the big thing. That was, like, the big showboat or showcase. If you got on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Johnny Carson pulled you next to him on the couch, whew, wow.

You're a maid. You're a maid man. You've made it. You've gone through the hallowed halls. The guy, the man gave you the seat on the couch. That was a big deal. There's not really a thing like that anymore. But now there's the Internet, and the Internet has kind of changed the whole rules for how media gets out there to people.

And there's a lot of people that the odds of you being at home at 11 o'clock on a Wednesday night, those are not that good. You probably have things to do. You're probably up and you're out. The number of actual people that are going to see that is very limited. But if you went on some TV show somewhere and then they put the clip online, then the clip online you could watch anytime you want. So then it spreads like wildfire. So now all you have to do is have something online,

and all it is is Judo Gene LaBelle says this is hilarious, and he sends it to Brian Redband. Brian Redband sends it to me. I send it to Brian Callen, and it goes across the country. That's what happens today. And you get these unheralded kids that do stand-up on a YouTube channel. They're essentially doing it to a camera, and they get hundreds of thousands of views. We're very strange times.

You can get famous real easy now. I get a kick out of it. I shouldn't say that. That doesn't make sense. Well, when You can get famous real easy now. I get a kick out of it. I shouldn't say that. That doesn't make sense. Well, when I say get famous, like when I'm judging around California, people come up, they want to take a picture. I'm in my 80s, and they want an autograph, something like that. And I says to my wife, Jesus, at that age, before I was, when I was good,

these people weren't even born. And it makes you feel good. She calls me C of A, center of attraction. But you're the center of attraction, Joe. And I want to thank you again for that tape you did on me. We won't get into it, but it was... Oh, the documentary on you? Yeah, that was

hilarious. I've got it on my computer and if somebody wants to see who my hero is I say, here's Joe Rogan. How dare you. How dare you, Gene LaBelle. There's a documentary on you

that Roots of Fight did, right? The t-shirt company? Oh, yeah. Is that out now? I don't know the first thing about it. My business partner doesn't tell me anything. She just says, sign here. Who's your business partner, your wife?

No, God knows she's a Canadian. No, her name is Kelly, and I love her madly. But she says this is the way it's going to be done. I've been in business with so many different people that I got the short end of the stick, so she doesn't let me know too much. But I did see the tape of different people talking about me that I was impressed. You know, it's kind of funny.

BJ Penn. And I didn't think a lot of these people would remember me. Of course, Ronda does. Ronda's mother, Anna Maria, who was a world champion. Hey, Brian, I'm sending you a link right now on your Gmail to that documentary. It's an email. I forwarded you the email. But inside the email, there's a link to the film that the Roots of Fight guys have done.

They've done quite a few of these documentaries on a bunch of different martial artists. So this one that they're doing on you, they're real excited about, especially considering today is the big 50th anniversary of that Milo Savage fight. That's a lot of years. In fact, John McCarthy was wearing one of those t-shirts and I said, this is great. How do I buy one? He says, well, I'll fix it up. And I must have sounded stupid to him because I didn't even know they were making them at the time. Here it is.

This is the video itself. Gene overcame an enormous amount of racism throughout his career. He was a real groundbreaker in so many ways. Judo Gene is overlooked. The guy can do it all. He can do submissions, he can do judo, he can do MMA. He's the real deal. I'm very lucky to have somebody like Uncle Gene in my life

to really be a guide and a mentor. Back in the 40s and 50s, before the terms cross training and mixed martial arts existed, Gene LaBelle was already doing them. This is a guy who at the age of seven started training with Ed Strangler Lewis, who's arguably the greatest catch-as-catch-can wrestler of his generation.

Then he moved on at the age of 11 to train in the Main Street boxing gym, where some of the greatest boxers of all time trained. And he even ended up sparring with Sugar Ray Robinson. I was a young kid at Main Street gym and Sugar Ray Robinson came in with his hair greased down and he looked beautiful. He had his initials on his convertible Cadillac and he got on the ring and his sparring partner didn't show up. So, uh, Howie Steiner says, anybody want to work out with a sugar man? I says, yeah, if he isn't afraid of me. In other words, when your head is this big, no good boxers gonna miss it.

In the first round he hit me 300 times. He taught me a couple things. Gene's decision to take up judo in addition to boxing and catch wrestling was a tougher one to make than a lot of people realized. Here comes in this big white guy, red hair, obviously not Japanese, and wants to learn their thing. And a lot of people just said, go away. Gene went to train at a predominantly Japanese dojo.

Some of the people who trained there had even been held in American internment camps. Even the ones that let him work out just tried to beat the crap out of them. But Gene willingly went in there. He took a student's role. He got his butt kicked day after day after day, and yes, endured discrimination in order to pick up the skills that he needed to call himself a judoka and essentially a judo champion. Not only did he win the national championship, but then they also had a grand championship, which was the winner of all the weight divisions. And he won that too. This guy went against the grain at every single opportunity. He never took the easy road.

That attitude translates directly into why he picked up the Milo Savage challenge. There was a magazine called Rogue Magazine and it said judo bums. This guy Jim Beck offered a thousand dollars to any martial artist he couldn't beat. Ted Parker came to me with this magazine and he says, we want you to fight. I said, why me? He says, Gene, everybody knows you're the most sadistic bastard in the world. So we ended up in 1963 in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a time when boxers were considered to be the 100% best all round fighters in the world.

But Gene didn't care. He was willing to take his style and put it into the competitive arena with the whole world watching so when I'm going to fight instead of Jim Beck they threw in a ringer Milo Savage and Milo Savage was a rated fighter number five in the world at the time a guy who had a pedigree of putting people to sleep with 10 ounce gloves on and he's only wearing fours. My coach said, you're not gonna fight this guy.

If he ever hits you in the face, it'll come out the other side. This is a 100% pro boxing crowd. People were talking a lot of shit, saying that, like, you know, judo fighters are bums. When I got there, they said no kicking. It was strictly judo. Gene wasn't supposed to punch Milo,

and Milo had to wear the gi, you know, top and stuff. So Gene was at a real serious disadvantage because he had to close a space without being able to throw his hands. So when we get in the ring, he has a karate gi filled with grease. And I know Milo had put Vaseline on his gi, and it wasn't a judo gi.

It was a karate gi. It was just like very thin material. But it was Salt Lake City. You could do what you want. You don't wing it. You have to have a plan. I didn't get close to him. And when I got close, I dropped my left arm

so he'd throw a right. So when he threw a right, it went underneath and hooked him and clinched him. Gene threw him around a couple times. I happened to get lucky and throw him in a judo throw and land on him. And then I got behind him to choke him, and he grabbed my thumb and started to bite it. I said, Milo, you bite my finger, I'm going to take your eye out. He opened his mouth. When Gene finally came to grips on that getop and got a hold of Savage's throat, it was all over. And I reached around and I choked him out. He was a boxing

referee, so he didn't know what a choke was. And so Gene choked him out for a while. He did not get up one minute, two minutes, five minutes after he was choked out. Poor Milo was sitting down there and when I walked I accidentally stepped on him. There was such a strong good guy, bad guy dynamic in that fight that the crowd just became completely unhinged. People started throwing chairs and pillows. And in Salt Lake City, that's the way of saying, oh, you put on a great show, we love you. They didn't want to acknowledge the result. They didn't want to acknowledge that an Asian martial art

had overcome what is essentially an American martial art in boxing. And you take nothing away from Milo Savage. He knocked out quite a few martial artists before he met me. But the other martial artists that he beat didn't grow up in boxing, and I did. You can't really understate the importance of the Savage versus LaBelle fight. That was the first time that somebody stepped up and said, look, grappling styles

can overcome boxing. I know that UFC 1 was a watershed moment, but Gene LaBelle did that 30 years previously. This guy really is a founding father of modern day mixed martial arts. That's the guy that stepped in and did MMA before there was ever MMA. He really stood up for us and showed everybody that if you're a judoka, you really are someone to be reckoned with. I can't thank him enough for that because his actions have really affected me so many years later and always will. You're a part of history, sir.

That was amazing. You're a part of history. That's fascinating. I can't believe it. You know? What makes you so sadistic? You've always had that reputation for being, you enjoy like neck cranks. It's the teachers I've had being sadistic.

And like, it doesn't matter how the game is played. It's the final score. And I think they say that with the they should say I'm nice. I'm good looking. I'm a technician. Not a

sadistic bastard. That's terrible. But you say it yourself. Well, you know, because, you know, you have to go to confession if you go to church. And yes, dear God, I'm a sadistic bastard. Cure me, cure me. And, you know, I'm sure the Lord will do it, but it takes time. And I don't know how much time I have left. When you were going to Japan and you were learning judo from the Japanese and you were experiencing all that anti-American hate,

when you were learning judo, what was that like? It's a challenge. But to me, it's like a small dog, a big dog, a cock, a spaniel, a Great Dane. They're all dogs. As people, if we're black, white, Chinese, Hispanic, we're all people. We're all equal. So, but when I worked with them, it was like at the end of World War II, a lot of my teachers were in Manzanar, a camp, for a few years, and they had hostilities. But don't take it out on me, you know, and I never paid attention to it. Did they get over it after a while?

Like, did they accept you after a while? Yeah, sure, when I got good enough to beat the hell out of them. But meanwhile, I was a cannon fodder. They had me for lunch for a year or two, and then I worked out seven days a week. I was the only one that worked out six or eight hours a day and go to different gyms. Was this before and after you had met Carl Gotch?

During. During, so the same time. But Carl and Lou Therr's different coaches, it's a whole new world. In judo, they didn't allow leg locks. And Carl was great at leg locks. Luthez was great at arm locks and neck locks and back locks. And Luthez was like a boxer. Carl Gotch was like a slugger. And you learn. I can't learn everything.

I take the things that work for me. I eliminate the forms. And I don't think people should eliminate the forms because a lot of people can't compete because their body or they're not coordinated enough. So they do the forms and they exercise. To me, you're wasting your time if you don't spar. You know, that's why I say if somebody's got a judge or referee, they should have the background of being in the ring or on the mat and learn it all.

They have to have something. Oh, yeah. You see so many times, like there was a recent fight. I don't want to mention the referee's name, but there was a situation where a guy was setting up an arm triangle. He had the head and arm choke. He had it locked in. He was pinning it down, and he was moving to try to get out of half guard,

and they were stood up. And I started going crazy. I'm like, what are you doing? Like, the guy got, like, three-quarters of the way there to the arm triangle. He got to the toughest spot, which is isolating that arm with your head, trapping the arm and head together, and he's getting out of the half guard, and you're standing him up. That means you don't know shit.

Like, you shouldn't be refereeing a fight if that's your move. I could not agree with you more. And a lot of times I feel like jumping in the ring. And when this guy had the hematoma, I went to the head commissioner. I said, they should stop the fight before there's a permanent injury. And, you know, I have learned, though, keep your mouth shut. You know, I have learned, though, keep your mouth shut or people want to sue you. They want to fire you, you know.

But you still say, like you just said, the guy, he's doing a triangle. He could have choked him, armbarred him. Yeah, I get upset at stand-ups, too get upset when they uh they make people stand up i think that's silly i think i know that people want it to be exciting but my opinion in this i think this is very valid there's parts of mma that are not going to be as exciting as people want them to be people love a slug outout, Chuck Liddell-style fight. They love a Stephen Bonner, Forrest Griffin-style fight. But there's real validity to a guy being able to take you down and hold you in position.

It should be up to you to get out from under there. And if you can't get out from under there, I don't agree that a referee should be able to come over and stand you guys up and artificially create this situation where you're striking now. Just because the guy can get up, he gets up. If he can't get up, the guys on top wins. I mean, it's really simple.

If a guy can hold you down and punch you in the face, even if it's boring, he's still holding you down and punching you in the face. That's realistic. It's reality. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, the thing I admire about you is very few things. But you've been there, you've done that, and you know if a guy's screwing up, a judge or a referee.

And like you said, you made him stand. A lot of times the referee is compelled by the audience. His fighter or the people they're cheering for, they're on the ground, they can't get up, and they'll be all, get up, stand up. And the referee, I've seen it a million times, will stand the guy up, stand them both up, and no reason for it.

And it's the rules. I mean, it's in the rules that a referee can do that, and they do get encouraged to do that by promoters and commissions and the like. People want to see a stand. They don't want to see a fight that gets really boring, and you can make a fight more exciting with a good referee. But my point is, mixed martial arts is supposed to be realistic. Outside of eye gouges and groin kicks, what can we

do to make it more realistic? Well, one thing we could do is don't have artificial stand-ups. If a guy like Ben Askren, like Ben Askren is a guy who gets tossed around a lot lately, and I think there's rumors that he's going to sign somewhere else, but Bellator let him go and the UFC didn't pick him up. He's one of the best grapplers in the

world. He takes talented strikers, takes them down at will, and hammer fists them in the face as long as he wants to. And even though he hasn't been stopping a lot of guys, just the fact he's able to do that over and over and over and over and over, he's winning against high-level competition too, dangerous strikers. Rag dolls them, takes them down, gets on top of them, leg rides them, hammer fists them in the face.

Maybe he's not knocking anybody out, but I don't see anybody stopping that either. That's a realistic technique. Well, you know, I think the fans should learn a little bit more about Brazilian jiu-jitsu, how to get an arm bar or a neck lock. Well, even wrestling control, the way Askren is able to control guys on the ground,

that's impressive technique. A lot of them do. They'll get a crotching Nelson, and they'll crank the guy like pinning his shoulders. But I personally like, I want to see somebody hurt or be in a position where they have to give up and yell, uncle,

where you get a guy in a back lock or an abdominal stretch or a heel hook or a knee bar. I want to see that because that's action to me, along with the standing. You see guys throw punches. But you see a lot of standing guys, they run away so they don't get hurt. They come in, throw a few punches and kicks, then back off again. What was it like for you to see the UFC erupt in 1993 when it first came around

and it was like real primitive, like much closer to what you engaged in in 1963? I loved it. You know, I'm a fan. A lot of people say, ah, it's just a fad, it's just a fad. It's too late. Can't say that anymore. It outdraws professional boxing and wrestling together, MMA does. And I owe that all to Dana White.

No doubt. Him and the Fatitas. Well, the Fatitas. The big thing about those guys is they're really fans. And to have people who are really fans of mixed martial arts being in charge of the biggest mixed martial arts organization, that's so important. So key. Those guys love fights. They love them.

I mean, I've called Dana up. I'll call him up at 1 o'clock in the morning. We'll talk about fights for three hours. I love it. We just go on and on. What about this? Oh, man, this guy. I'm telling you, man.

We'll just have these crazy fights about, and you've got to remember, he's coming off of this loss. You know, those conversations you don't have with someone who doesn't really love the sport. And that's one of the reasons why they're so good at promoting it. They fucking love it. Well, if they love it, it makes me happy. You're just not all in for the money. How happy are you that women's MMA is being dominated by a judo woman? It isn't a judo woman.

It's not just a. It's a person that I've loved forever since she was a baby. Wow. She couldn't speak until she was six, you know. Yeah, I heard about that. She had umbilical cords around her neck. Now she doesn't stop. And I think it's classic.

I love her as an individual, love her as mother as an individual, an individual, love his mother as an individual, and to me, she's the best woman that I've ever seen in mixed martial arts. What about Cyborg? Cyborg is very, very, very good, and probably the second best fighter in the world today next to Ronda. She's fucking dangerous. I'll tell you that. Cyborg's dangerous.

Oh yeah, she is. She is. But she has weaknesses. Oh, they all do. She's fucking dangerous. I'll tell you that. Oh, yeah. Cyborg's dangerous. But she has weaknesses. Oh, they all do. Everybody's human. Everybody has weaknesses. But the thing about Cyborg is, in my opinion, if you go back to the Gina Carano fight, Gina Carano had moments where she was controlling her on the ground. And people say, oh, well, Gina Carano controlled her on the ground. But Cyborg's jiu-jitsu game is a lot better than that now.

Cyborg has won, like, some serious tournaments, has a brown belt. And I've seen videos of her grappling, throwing men around. She's scary. Yeah, she is. She's dangerous. She's very, very good. Very good striker, too. I don't take anything.

But she's a lot heavier than Ronda. Yeah. And Ronda doesn't need to go into the heavier. 145. No, she doesn't. Well, she can make 135, and this chick doesn't need to go into the heavyweight. 145. No, she doesn't. Well, she can make 135, and this chick can't. I mean, and, you know, the thought is the smart money would be

that they're probably going to have to fight one day. After they're both over the hill? Well, why over the hill? I mean, I think once women's MMA starts getting the respect that it deserves, and I think this first episode, or first season, rather, of The Ultimate Fighter with Women kind of proved that because I think five fights on the main card, or three out of five fights, were women.

You know, they're having more fights with women now. It's becoming a point where some UFCs have two women fights out of 10 or 11. You know, it's pretty interesting. And I think that as women's MMA grows, there's going to be a lot, you know, we're going to need some new blood and new challenges and new, really scary individuals, new like clubber Langs for women. And she's the clubber Lang for women, you know, cyborg is, she's the Mr. T in the background, you know, pitiful, you know, she's the, the angry, hungry fighter waiting to get in. She's a dangerous striker. hungry fighter waiting to get in.

She's a dangerous striker. She's dangerous, and a lot of the people that she went against, she outclassed. She was in a different class. She went against a lot of the people that weren't that good. Well, they're not that athletic. She's so strong for a woman. She's so strong. I've seen her lift up certain people, men, that had a short-arm scissors on them.

Yeah. And she physically, she's strong. Ridiculously strong. And she cuts weight to get to 145, so she's walking around 160, whatever, and big as a house. And has hammers. She's a very dangerous striker. Well, the whole thing is, it's nice to be a dangerous striker, but the bottom line is, is she going to make any money? Right.

My point was that if these guys were going to really keep building the way they're building, I feel like it's one of those inevitable fights. Like Marlos Kunin, you know who she is? Oh, yeah. Fought her in Evicta. And Cyborg smashed her in the last fight. It was really shocking. I was like, wow, she's getting better.

She's really physically strong, and she's getting better. I think one day they're going to have to see that. But there's a lot of talk, too, because Cyborg tested positive for some male hormones or what have you, some sort of steroids. There's a lot of talk that when you do something like that, when you take some performance-enhancing drugs, there's been recent studies on it that show that some of the effects are actually permanent, some of the enhancing effects, that they don't go away.

Well, I don't know that for sure. If you say so. I don't know either. I'm not a doctor. I'm just talking shit, Uncle Gene. I'm going to be honest with you. You always do. You always do.

To me, I know Lyle Lozada used to play football. He died of steroids. Well, I don't know. He's got a brain something. Yeah, well, the steroids evidently went to the brain. I talked to him. I worked a movie with him. And he said, how am I going to compete when this guy across the line is on juice?

You know? To compete, they have to do it. But gosh darn, you're putting your body on the line. Yeah, he was only 43 when he died too. There was a lot of people back then apparently also that were taking human

growth hormone that was coming out of cadavers. And they were catching diseases from that, allegedly. Did I just read that online or did someone tell me? And they could have been totally full of shit. Disregard that until you Google search it, ladies and gentlemen. But he died fairly young, 43 years old. It was a very young time to die from brain cancer. Yeah.

He was enormous at one point in time, too. That guy was huge. Yeah, and very talented. My point was, you can't bring up Cyborg because she's so physically strong. You can't not mention the fact that she tested positive for something. You know, you can't.

Because there's always the allegation. When you look at her, you ever seen pictures of her? Pull up a picture of her. Is this her grappling with Tito Ortiz? Yeah. How ridiculous is that? I think this is the show where she picks him up.

Let it run. Yeah, they're working in the gym, and he had her down, and she physically picked him up. She's strong as shit, man. For a woman, that's ridiculous. I mean, obviously they're training. I mean, Tito's helping her here. Yeah, but Tito's 200 plus.

200 plus and a wicked grappler. Yeah. Good guy. But pull up a picture of her, like cyborg muscular. You can see how ridiculously strong she was like back when she was beating Gina Carano But I don't know you know I don't I don't know what how much is natural and how much of it is enhanced chemically how much was but

Whatever it is the package that's left is pretty damn impressive. She's scary for a woman I think she's one of the most dangerous women on the planet. Oh, you know, if she ever went against Ronda in catchweights or whatever, it'd be the biggest show in the world. Especially if Ronda continues to keep winning the way she's winning. She's got a tough fight coming up against Misha Tate. That's going to be interesting.

Misha Tate is a very, very good fighter. Very talented. In fact, I don't know, you probably got a Christmas card, and part of it was a design that don't let the enemy get behind you. You have all these crazy patches. Every year I make a— I got like 20 of these at my house. Oh, yeah.

Don't let the enemy get behind you. No bull. You got this one here. What is this one? Rhonda. The American Beauty. Wow. Brian's going to tape that to his underwear from now on.

I want to see it. Oh, can I watch his underwear? Can you watch it or watch it? I think this is your favorite tape patch there. If you could get a picture of it. When in doubt, choke them out. Yeah, that's my favorite. And that's good.

But I tell you, do you have one of these solid gold cauliflower ears? Solid gold cauliflower ears? Well, I call it solid gold. It's made of brass. It's not magnetic, but it's a cauliflower ear. Is this a replica of your ear? Yeah, it is.

Before I had them operated on. It almost can work as an earring. Huh? It would be pretty ironic if you wore a cauliflower ear as an earring. On? Would be pretty ironic. If you wear a cauliflower ear as an earring. Each side. You had yours operated on? Well, what I did, not for beauty,

because I'm just a natural, good-looking guy. I had allergies. And the doctor says, well, I'll take the cartilage out of your ear and put it in your nose so you can breathe. And that was about 20 years ago, and I haven't been able to breathe since. Is it a deviated septum operation? Is that what it was?

Well, he said it was the turbinates. Yeah. And evidently, it wasn't. It wasn't? In other words, the operation didn't work. That's a common thing with those nose operations. If you don't go to the right doctor or if it doesn't work out well.

I made a mistake. I went to, always for all your fans, I'd say get a second and third opinion. And the operation is the last thing you consider. Yeah, well, there's a lot of people that have gone to the wrong doctors

or it didn't work with them for whatever reason. But for me, it was a life changer, boy, getting my nose opened up. I think most boys, by the time you reach a certain amount of age, 25 years old, you've been hitting the nose a gang of times. And a lot of times you've been hitting the nose, there's probably been some bleeding inside there. And you get sort of the nose a gang of times. And a lot of times when you've been hitting the nose, there's probably been some bleeding inside there. And you get sort of the same effect that you get in your ears with cauliflower

ears. You can get that in your nose. Swollen tissue and cranked up. And that's why a lot of fighters, they talk with a very nasally, like Mayhem Miller, I was always telling him to get his nose fixed. Because he had like this, you know, he would talk to you and you could hear the fact that his nose was clogged up. A lot of fighters have it.

Vanderlei had to get his nose operated on. They took a piece of his rib, his cartilage, and they used that to construct a new nose. And he got a big one this time, like nice and full, so he could really breathe out of it. Oh, that's good if he can. I've had a few nose operations with top doctors supposedly and there's nothing we can do about it. This one doctor messed it up. People don't

understand with the cauliflower ear it bleeds inside and if you don't drain it within a day or two, it hardens up and turns into cartilage. Is it cartilage? Is that what it is? Yeah, now you can feel certain parts of my ear. It's that what it is? Yeah, that's it. Now you can feel certain parts of my ear. It's as hard

as a rock. Yeah, it's a white weird shit that grows inside your ears. Well, it's in... If you feel right here, the inside of my ear, it's hard. I mean, you squeeze it, it's just

hard. Yeah, Randy Couture used to stick down on people's heads. Like when he would take them down. His, it looks like he has a mouse living in his ear. And he would take guys down and get that ear on their face and grind them down with it. If it didn't hurt him. It didn't hurt him.

It was like a rock on his head. Like he had a rock growing out of his head. Well, he had some big ears. Yeah. But in the old pro wrestlers, they never drained their ears. That was an honor to have a cauliflower ear. Badge of courage. I always wore headgear like a pussy.

See, you're smart. I like hearing things. I like my ears working the way they're supposed to work. And I've talked to a lot of guys that have serious cauliflower ear, and they've been pretty adamant about it. Like, you're hearing things. I like my ears working the way they're supposed to work. And I've talked to a lot of guys that have, like, serious cauliflower ear, and they've been pretty adamant about it. Like, you're hearing changes. Like, you don't hear it. Like, Waleed Ismail.

You've seen his. They're, like, literally cauliflower. Like, he's got cauliflower growing out of his head. Oh, man. His ear hole is so tiny now, too, you know? Actually, when I had on one side, the ear was a little too swollen. And when I laid down on the bed in a hard service without the pillow, I could feel it. It sort of was very uncomfortable.

Oh. But now I don't know the difference. One of the weird side effects of grappling, the cauliflower ear. Yeah, but at least what we were talking about earlier about damage, at least grappling damage is pretty obvious. Like your knees start going or your back is bothering you, you got issues. You kind of know what it is. The real issue with MMA that is the hidden issue is the impact, the strikes,

taking shots, and how dangerous it is. And I'm really glad that you're adamant about that. I'm really glad that you make a big deal about that because if you've been around there, you've been around the fight game for a long time, you know what's important, and you speak out about it. I think that's really important. The only initial investment, Joe, you have in life is your body. If you don't take care of it, nobody else will. I mean,

if something's wrong with you, I can't say, hey, something's wrong with you. I know if something's wrong with me, I'll go to a doctor. He's a witch doctor, but I'm not prejudiced, you understand. You go to a doctor and he takes care of you. Then you know, don't let it linger.

If you have a bad knee, stay off it. Rest is the best cure. Or get it fixed. Especially guys who try to fight without ACLs and they just don't want to go through the rehab. Like, get it fixed, man. You got to get it fixed because you'll chew the inside of your knee up while you're, you know, trying to rehab it and thinking you're eventually going to get surgery. You're going to do irreversible damage to the inside of your knee if it's unstable. Well, you got to get healed.

Yeah. And a lot of people just don't want to get it healed. My wife used to kick me in the butt for years, and now she's got a bad knee. I says, go get a cortisone shot. May God be my judge. I can't talk her into it. She will not get a cortisone shot.

I says, well, you got to have the whole knee cut off. I'm not going to do it. So in other words a cortisone shot. I says, well, you got to have the whole knee cut off. I'm not going to do it. So, in other words, I'm teasing naturally. Whoa. Scared me. Well, she does have bad wheels. You know. But it didn't

really come from kicking you in the ass. Well, she missed a couple of times because I used to go down the stairs pretty fast. You know. But you got to take care of it. The only initial invention you have in life, I repeat this over and over, is your body.

Take care of it. I love the fact that you say, get it fixed. Yeah, get it fixed. They can do it now. They can fix a lot of things. There's a lot of surgeries they can do. If you can afford it, get it fixed. If you can't afford it, don't fight. Get it fixed before you fight. I know a bunch of guys who fought without ACLs, and I'm like, you're crazy. They just try to tape their knee up and go out there.

I'm like, you're going to be unstable, and it's a scary enough proposition to fight anyway. To fight that compromised where you can't move, you can't move that leg well, it's going to give out and buckle on you. That's one of your most important assets. It's got to get worse. Yeah, and the ability to decide where you're going to be in a fight, the ability to decide whether you're going to be moving in or moving out side to side, that's very important.

If you can't do that, you can't defend yourself properly. And guys, they get real short-sighted when it comes to, oh, I need the money. You also need all your chips. You're going to give away a lot of chips if you get knocked out because you got a bad wheel. That's true. Get it fixed. Yeah.

Get everything fixed. What do you think about, you know, this is the thing that we have to deal with today that didn't exist back in your day, but testosterone replacement therapy for athletes. but testosterone replacement therapy for athletes. You know, you're seeing a lot of that where they're talking about testosterone replacement for men who are in their 30s, 20s even. I mean, guys in their 20s have applied for it before. And it's a very strange thing. You're seeing all these young men that have testosterone issues

and they're getting this artificial testosterone injected into their body, which a lot of people feel like is an unfair advantage. It depends what you use it for. For competition or just to walk around better? I have no problem with it. In fact, I use it myself. I use testosterone myself to walk around better, but I'm not competing against anybody.

I go to a doctor, I get my test levels measured, and I keep them on the low side of like a healthy male, but I'm not competing. And I think when, when you're fighting, I think either no one should be able to do it or everyone should be able to do it. I think it gets real squirrely when you start like giving young men the ability to add testosterone to their system, allegedly because they had some sort of a medical condition. If you really did have a medical condition, okay, I feel for you. And I understand your desire to compete. And it would certainly help you if you had artificial testosterone or, you know, whatever, exogenous put into your system. But if your guy is abusing the system,

it seems easy to do. All you would have to do is take a bunch of testosterone and then get off it. Your levels are crash. Then you go in and get tested. They test your levels being low and then you say well I need some testosterone and then you get on it and now you have a ridiculous amount of recovery ability because you you have the hyper natural levels of testosterone in your system and you're regulating it yourself with injections as opposed to nature regulating it by making sure that you're healthy with nutrients and what have you. When you say injection, injecting it yourself under doctor's supervision or you just... No, they inject it themselves.

Where you put cream on, cream is the most common. You take a testosterone cream and you rub it on yourself. That's the most common. Or there's a gel, there's cream, there's actually, they make a spray now, you can, liposomal, you can put drops under your tongue and it gives you testosterone. And the problem with those is they get abused

because guys do them and then they cycle. It only lasts, like, with the oral ones, it only stays in your system for about 24 hours. So your levels will spike, but then if you get tested 26, 27 hours later, it's not even in your system anymore. Your body's already gotten rid of it and you're back down to a normal level. Whereas that whole 24 hour period before that, your body's recovering

at a very rapid pace and it gets out of your system in and out very quickly. You're supposed to take it every 24 hours, but if you don't take it for a day or two, you'll test like you're a normal, healthy person. Then you get out of there and then you take a bunch more. So it gets real weird because guys can, if they know when they're going to get tested, then they can kind of plan it. Well, if you have 24 hours to get rid of it, you know, and I don't care that much. If it helps you out, go for it. Gokar, one of the schools I teach at, he went down to Mexico to get these shots in his leg. And everybody laughed about it.

But it was really bad, and it cured it. What did he have wrong with his leg? The knee. Like he had an injury? Yeah. So what were the shots that he got? Do you know? Was it like stem cells or something like that?

One of those things? I've heard people doing that before in other countries. But? Bas Rutten actually just got back from something like that. On his neck. Yeah. Yeah, he's had some serious issues. I sent him to the guy who's doing Regenokine, that blood-spinning stuff they're doing in Germany.

There's a guy who's doing that in Santa Monica that I actually had done on my neck, and it was amazing. I sent Boss down there to see if that could help him as well. Well, how long ago did you send him? Well, I don't know if he's gone there yet, but I know he's just gotten back from whatever he had done in another country. And he was saying it did miracles. He's saying he's training again. He feels great. Like, his body's starting to rebuild itself.

Like, whatever it did, like you said, pretty quick after the procedure, he started feeling fantastic. I love Boss. He is... Amazing guy. Yeah, he's a little sick, but he's my kind of people, you know?

Don't you kind of have to be just, like, a little bit sick to be really good? Different is a better word. It's more dignified. Yes, there we go. You name a champion in any sport, and you get to know them, and they're a little different. They're driven in a different, special way.

Yeah. Yeah, in anything. Basketball, track and field, whatever it is. If there's somebody at the top of the heap, that guy's got to quirk. That guy's got to be a little bit weird. He's going to be a little bit different. According to your standards, like there's a basketball player I met one time, he eats nothing but jelly beans.

He eats nothing but jelly beans? Well, that's part of his diet, but jelly beans. He eats nothing but jelly beans? Well, that's part of his diet of jelly beans. And he seemed to live with it. Well, you know that strongman guy that's been fighting in MMA now? Oh, God. Pudzianowski? Do you know who he is? Yeah.

He was a winner of a strongman competition. He was a huge, enormous guy. Well, he started fighting MMA. He fought Tim Sylvia. He got beat up. But he's beat some guys, too. He's a big, enormous guy. Well, he started fighting MMA. He fought Tim Sylvia. He got beat up. But he's beat some guys, too. He's a big, strong guy. Very dangerous. Eats a lot of candy. Eats candy all day.

Gets that sugar content. Well, I think what he's saying is that he does so much lifting, and his lifting was so intense that he needs sugar all the time. And he was getting his sugar in the form of candy bars. And a lot of people are like, wow, that's crazy like that sounds so stupid but look the bottom line is the guy's a world strong man champion obviously he knows what he's doing.

Yeah but how long is he going to live? I worked a show with Arnold Schwarzenegger and there's a guy in there, Jeeb Swenson, he'd shoot up every half hour. Why do I know that name, Jeep Swenson? He played in one of the Arnold shows. He pulls me through a wall. Oh. And he's a strong man, nicest, sweetest guy,

but he had 26-inch arms. Nobody has 26-inch arms, and they were ripped. And he had so many things in the future, and it went to his heart, and it killed him as a young man. You said he was taking it every half an hour? Every half hour, he said, excuse me. But not, you know, just go in and give myself a shot. So he was just completely off the rails.

Yeah, but who knows what is practical and what is over the... Is that him? Yeah. That's his wrestling character. Wow. Could be. That's a large man. Well, you can't tell me he's not on steroids.

Jesus Christ. The size of that guy. How old was he when he passed? How old was he when he died? Does it say? I don't know. Jesus Christ, look at the size of that dude. Now, a guy like that is very strong, but, you know, it's short-lived.

It can only work for about 30 seconds and then he's got too much muscle to feed they're trying to teach a guy that was the world's strongest man named Anderson he died many years ago and he they wanted to make him a pro wrestler after 30 seconds he's out of gas and he trained for a different quick boom boom yeah they're just training to get big and strong but

I train for the wind cardio if a car's out of gas it don't run not like a Christopher Cross song yeah that's important that's a Carl Gotch thing as well out of gas, you don't run. Not like a Christopher Cross song. I like the wind. Yeah, that's important.

That's a Carl Gotch thing as well. He was a big stickler on conditioning before he would train. 500 bodyweight squats. Is that true? Did you have to do that? Before every training session. That was the warm-up. 500 bodyweight squats.

For folks who don't know how crazy that is, that's so goddamn hard to do. You're talking about an hour or two just warming up. A lot of stretching exercises, too. I mean, a lot of stretching exercises. Well, he was very aware of what benefited the body. He was a very well-schooled guy when it came to like techniques of training and one of the reasons why he endorsed things like the mace ball you know he understood that doing difficult movements like kettlebells he's a big proponent

of kettlebells and along those lines that those full body movements are the ones that translate directly to grappling. And other sports, too. Yeah. I know when I was doing all those kettlebell stuff, unbelievable how strong I was at picking up things. If I grabbed a guy's wrist, I had him. Yeah. You know? And they don't seem to do that anymore.

Well, those are making a comeback. Those things are actually becoming really pretty popular lately. I had him. Yeah. You know? And they don't seem to do that anymore. Well, those are making a comeback. Those things are actually becoming really pretty popular lately. Kettlebells have made a big comeback over the last, like, 10, 15 years. You know, a lot of people are training with them. There was always these photos of Fedor in Russia. There's a bunch of kettlebells around him. But although that I heard towards the end of Fedor's career that he really didn't do much strength and conditioning. He just did only fight training.

I'll put it this way. He was getting... He was one of the best of all time. Can't take it away. No doubt. But he fought too long. You think so? Of course he did.

The last few fights. Of course. What did he do? Bigfoot fight, Dan Henderson. Yeah. Yeah, Dan Henderson, yeah. Yeah, I mean, in his last two or three fights, what happened to him? Well, Verdum beat him. I mean, he fought a few times in Russia on his own and did well.

You know, he fought, knocked out Pedro Rizzo, fought, what else did he fight? Did he fight Jeff Monson over there as well? I believe he did. He fought quite a few times. But yeah, I think he was certainly, he was out the door. You can only keep up that level. The level that he had in pride,

like when he was beating Minotauro and when he beat Zulu and all those guys. He was incredible. I mean, he was so good. He was good on the ground. He's good everywhere. Sambo, he hit from left field. He swung from left field. I says, God, a good boxer should be able to bob and weave and get out of that way.

He's so dangerous. Oh, yeah. Unbelievable. How about the Crow Cop fight? I mean, he basically out-kickboxed Crow Cop. He definitely took him down and beat him up on the ground a bit. But the majority of that fight was spent on the feet with him walking down Crow Cobb. That's it.

But when you're just over the hill, and correct me if I'm wrong, you still have enough ability to beat the average guy. Yeah. And you get your confidence back by beating a jaboni. Then you go to the top guy and you're going to get hurt. Yeah, yeah. No, you're absolutely correct. And, you know, as you said, there's a time to get out, you know, and I'm glad he decided to stay retired.

I'm glad, you know, he had a few fights. But, man, I would have loved to have seen him in the UFC. When he was at his prime and they were making an offer to have him versus Brock Lesnar, whew, that would have loved to have seen him in the UFC. When he was at his prime and they were making an offer to have him versus Brock Lesnar, whew, that would have been crazy. That would have been maybe one of the greatest fights of all time, or the biggest fight, rather, of all time. Brock Lesnar is a great grappler.

He had the best tackles, takedowns, that's all he had, that meant anything. He could take anybody down, and he'd be a great football player, a lineman, a defensive lineman. But with Brock, he had a lot of publicity. If he stuck around a little bit more and he had sicknesses and finishing holes, he'd be a bit of champion for a long time i believe i think so too i think well first of all the stomach issue was a big one i mean they removed 12 inches of his colon and then you know he fought i think it was like a year

later it wasn't very much longer than a year if it was and And that's just a long time to be off the game and not a long time when you have an injury like that to heal up, when you're getting kicked and kneed in the body by a guy like Alistair Overeem. I mean, that just seems like a terrible idea. And I think that if you were going to do a guy like that correctly, like if you were the engineer of a Brock Lesnar, you go, okay, here I have a thoroughbred.

I mean, this is a stud. You have a giant athlete who can walk on his hands. He's an NCAA Division One heavyweight champion wrestler. What we need to do here is do this the right way. And they should have brought him along slow. They should have brought him to smaller organizations, worked on his kickboxing, had him in there with guys that he could beat and build the hype up. But he was, he jumped into the deepest end of the deep pool quicker than anybody ever. Second MMA fight ever, he's fighting Frank fucking Mir in Vegas. Wasn't it Vegas? I think it was in Vegas.

And gets leg locked. I mean, that's a big leap to go one MMA fight in, next MMA fight you're fighting Frank Mir. That's craziness. Yeah. Well, didn't he beat him? He beat him the second time. The second time he smashed him.

The second time was frightening. When you saw a massive improvement. But he got him in a leg lock right away. Yes, he got him in a leg lock pretty quickly in the fight. But a lot of the reason why he got him in the leg lock is because the referee told him he was hitting in the back. I think it was hitting in the back of the head. They did something where they stopped the exchange, and then they restarted the exchange,

where he was hammering on Frank Mir, and then they broke it up, and then they reengaged it, and Mir just too crafty. He was too crafty on the ground back then, and then caught him. I'm not sure if I'm absolutely correct about that. I think I am, but I could be incorrect. But I know that the referee stopped it way too late. He got caught in that knee bar and he tapped and tapped again and he tapped

again and the referee finally got in there. And it's that kind of shit that we were talking about. Like the referee has to be there to protect the guy. And when you see a guy getting tapped out with a leg lock, the moment he does this, the next one it might be too late. Like you got to be right there when that first one happens. Snap those ligaments. Spit it out.

Yeah. I mean, you've seen it how many times? A thousand? A million? How many guys have you seen get their knees exploded? More than you'd expect. For years and years, needlessly, you know. Right.

Needlessly. And guys come back into the gym too soon. Right. And, you know, you got to take care of your body. That's everything. People pass it off, you know. So with a guy like Carl Gotch, I never saw him get hurt. Guys that hit him or something, it's like hitting the table.

But he paid the price, too, when he got older. I mean, didn't he have hip replacements? I believe he did. That's from, you know, over a period of years and not relaxing and resting. If you're injured you can't tough it up. Later on in his life I talked to him and his wife passed away and that I think that made him go downhill. And the only thing he had in his life, he said, was a good cigar. And a cat from the neighborhood used to come over every day at night at 5 o'clock. He'd feed the cat, and then he'd take off.

And he said the cat never learned to say thank you, you know. That was his main source of company towards the end? Yeah, and he got a lot of invites to be with the wrestlers, and he didn't want to be. He says, look at my body now. I'm not there anymore, you know. So he didn't want to even be around it? No, he didn't want to be around it,

and it would make me cry to think there is a God and, you know, he should be put on a pedestal, a man like that, because he taught a lot of guys. He went to Japan. Taught Sakuraba, right? Yeah, a lot of those guys became good shooters. Yeah, a lot of guys learned a lot of techniques that the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guys weren't aware of

as well. Did a lot of sneaky shit that guys didn't see coming and a lot of it was Carl Gotch. A lot of it. A lot of it was Carl Gotch.

Yeah, I love the fact that there's different schools of attack when it comes to martial arts submissions especially. And striking as well. But I love that there's the judo attacks and then there's the jiu-jitsu attacks, the catch wrestling attacks.

And as far as like, you know, stand-up. Like I love the fact that you get a guy like Lyoto Machida who has a totally different attack. He's using a karate style attack. Whereas so many fighters are opting for a more Muay Thai centered. You know? or opting for a more Muay Thai-centered. Well, when I think of Muay Thai, I think of elbows and knees and a little bit different stance.

Learn it all. Learn it all. And learn what is effective for you. I learn knees and elbows because the old wrestlers, they used to grab around the head, jerk it down right into the knee. There goes your opponent's teeth or his nose or very much into the solar plexus. Once you hit it in the solar plexus, the guy's down and out.

So they would do it and make it seem like they're just grappling, but they're really slamming you into their knee. Oh, yeah. They bust the sternum. You know, I think it's a great move. It might not be as spectacular, but any time you hear bones crash and the guy's wheeling on the ground in pain it's sort of a it's nice it's a sexual thing for me i know were you a fan of the schultz brothers those guys had that very

aggressive wrestling style as well yeah but one of them's dead now yeah unfortunately i think i believe they're making a movie about that. Are they? Yeah, I believe they are. The DuPont guy was some freak who used to like to wrestle with guys. With the, what do you call it, the war machine, try to run everybody over with his tank. Yeah, he was apparently completely crazy, but he liked to wrestle. And he had money.

Yeah. A lot of history with different people. Like I say, everybody, or you say, I say, everybody has their own quirks or personality. Yeah, Brian, pull up Mark Schultz's disqualification, and you can watch him use a double wrist lock. He actually used a Kimura to take this guy down, and it was in the 1984 Olympics,

and he hit the Kimura and just yanked the guy's arm apart, just smashed him. You shouldn't have said that. I just wet my pants. Oh, God. It's a beautiful move. And Schultz at the time, Schultz did a little bit of competing in MMA as well in the early days of the UFC. But I think what happened was they threatened him to, they were going to remove him as a wrestling coach if he continued.

This was during the dark ages of the UFC. He fought Gary Goodrich, and Gary Goodrich was still wearing a gi. So that tells you, like you how long ago this was. And Schultz just dominated him just with pure wrestling. He was an animal. Yeah. He's not wearing any pants either, is he? That's Mark warming up.

He's getting ready. If you go to, you can see the hold at 115. Go to 115. They show how he was disqualified. He gets a hold of this dude in the double wrist lock position. And this is like a classic in MMA now. Look, he hits this and he's got the leg in between and he just smashes his arm apart. I mean, that is absolute perfect technique in MMA, but in wrestling, they weren't having it. Look at the technique here.

I mean, he drops down perfectly and just mangles that dude's arm. I mean, it was a beautiful way to take a guy down. It's a beautiful technique, but illegal in that sport. Yeah, well, pro, the good shooters, that's what they do. That's a standard technique, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think it's great. Yeah, it's interesting when you go and you look at the old catch wrestling,

like Farmer Burns books, which shows all the different positions that he was practicing. And you see, like, a lot of those are being used in MMA today. The lockdown, the half guard, that was old school catch wrestling technique. You know, you even saw triangles. I didn't know that they had triangles back then. Oh school catch wrestling technique. You even saw triangles. I didn't know that they had triangles back then. Oh, yeah. The triangle chokes.

Absolutely. But they were sort of more refined by the Brazilian jiu-jitsu guys, right? Yeah. You can't knock that. They improved on it because there wasn't that many people that were really experts. Is it real exciting for you now to see all these people today? Like, there's so many grappling tournaments, Grappler's Quest, Naga, regional championships, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and submission wrestling championships all over the place.

It's amazing, isn't it? It's amazing. What is amazing to me, how these people, now wrestling's back in the Olympics. Yeah, thank whoever, Zeus, whoever hooked it up. I got a kick out of the Russian that says, what are they, crazy? Then he used a couple of your vocabulary. And he says, those people don't realize that's the oldest sport in the world is Greco-Roman wrestling. It's also one of the sports that's the most character-building sport known to man.

It's one of the most difficult sports at the highest level to compete at. You can't get by just on talent. You have to work hard. There's no way around it. No one rides for free. And the guys who work harder are going to be the guys that gut you out and win you. They're going to beat you. They're going to figure out a way around your defense, and they're going to push you just a little bit harder than you want to be pushed, and they're going to and win you. They're going to beat you. They're going to figure out a way around your defense,

and they're going to push you just a little bit harder than you want to be pushed, and they're going to get you down. They're going to beat you. And that's the difference between champions and runner-ups in that sport. It's work, work and will. And it's a hugely important part of the character of young men that go through that. It shows them what they're capable of, shows them that they can overcome

some seemingly insurmountable barriers. Absolutely, absolutely. It's, I get back to what you call the kabur, which is a double wrist lock. When this show's over with, have I ever showed you how Carl Gotch did it? What was the variation that Carl Gotch did? Yeah.

You planning on putting me in a submission? Why don't you show me on Brian? You could tap him. I would be glad to. I've heard never to allow you to put someone into a position. Oh, no, no. Except a guy like Brian. It's not going to be sexual.

Brian, you're so gummy, you won't even get hurt. Brian, he said it's a sexual thing, though. For him, but not for you. For me, believe me, you won't even get hurt. Oh, Ryan. He said it's a sexual thing, though. For him, but not for you. For me, believe me, you won't even get wet. You know, it's like they do the Kimura there, and they grab the wrist. Are you going to let him do it to you? Oh, you're crazy. Okay, what does he have to do?

Oh, I don't believe. Please be nice to him. He's very delicate. Don't hurt him. Okay, the Kimura like that. Yeah. Right. Oh, you're doing a wrist lock as well.

Oh, I see. Did he tap too soon? Oh, you're doing a wrist lock as well. Oh, I see. What? Did he tap too soon? You just came on me. Outrageous. So what you're doing is you're attacking the wrist as well. Is that what it is? See here, I turn it. Uh-huh.

Instead of going like this, it's just straight up. Oh, I see. Okay. So you have his hand twisted around, and he's got no strength to get out of that way. Your hand's all twisted up like that. Very hard to get any strength, right? He's going to do it. Shit.

Right. Don't let him see you doing that. He's going to hurt you. I'm going to bitch slap you in a minute. Here, I'm not going to do it. Okay, he's going to do it. Then as you go, instead of going like this... Right.

You know, you just go up. Is it harder to hold on to it that way? It seems like, especially with a sweaty hand, it might be a little difficult. Good for MMA, right? If you could get your thumb inside the glove and they don't catch you. On a glove, it depends how big your hand is.

Carl Gotch had a big hand. He had very small woman hands. Yeah, Brian has very small woman hands. You can't let go of him, Gene. You're making me uncomfortable. I feel like you're going to hurt my little buddy. Get out of there, Brian. Quick.

You're just wrestling with a crocodile, you fuck. It felt awesome. Did it feel scary? Did that do it tight to you? No, no, no. I could see where you could just... No reason to be a bully. Unless it makes you feel good.

Well, Gene, when you look at the state... Grab that microphone, sir. Pull that towards you, if you would. Oh, God, that thing. There we are, round pear-shaped tones. When you look at MMA today, what do you see like the biggest area for growth? What do you see like when you see like the technique of fighters?

What's one thing that you would like to see guys improve on? What would I like to see them do? Get more variety? More versatile in their attack, you mean? There's some things that are not used that I think are good finishing holds. things that are not used that I think are good finishing holds. They don't catapult off the turnbuckle or the cage. They don't catapult off the cage like Anthony Pettis does,

like that kind of stuff? Yeah. I mean, you're there, lean back, shove the guy out, and he comes back. Then he's away. you can do something. But the cage doesn't have nearly as much give as ropes, right? Ropes, that's a little easier to do, right? Yeah, it's easy. You can kind of manipulate it a little and push guys back.

Muay Thai guys are great at that, the trips, push guys off the rope and then trip them as they're doing it. Yeah, but in Muay Thai, if they trip them, it doesn't count. I mean, you throw a, but in Muay Thai, if they trip them, it doesn't count. I mean, you throw a person down in Muay Thai and they stand. Well, actually, in real Muay Thai, when they fight in Thailand, it actually counts for a lot. Oh, yeah, but I mean the stuff they have. In America, like K-1, you mean?

Yeah. Well, that's one of the biggest arguments against K-1 is that they don't use the full range of techniques. And Glory as well, which I'm a big fan of. I love that high-level K-1 style kickboxing, and I love the tournament style that Glory's doing. But real Muay Thai has elbows as well, like standing elbows. I love it.

I think those elbows are very important. And the ability to grab the back of the head, very important. When they cut that out and say you can only grab the back of the head for like a couple of seconds, you're taking away a lot of the fight. A lot of the fight is the pummeling. And the trips in Muay Thai in Thailand, that's big. That's very important. The grappling is very important.

The being able to control the infighting and the throwing each other down, those slams mean something in Thailand. Yeah, well, everywhere you go, they have different rules for the same sport. In the Olympic, a knockdown is like a good hook or a jab. It's the same thing. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? A guy could get knocked down three times

and win the bout, you know? Yeah, it's ridiculous. They count how many times you touch a guy in the face. Well, it'd be better if they had international rules that were same-same. Well, I think they've kind of changed the style of Olympic boxing judging now, right? It's not that straightforward, just touching a guy. I think they do count for damage now. I might be wrong, though, but it certainly varies between that and the way they judge professional boxing.

Well, I only pay attention to that once every four years. Professional boxing or the Olympics? Oh, the Olympics. Yeah. I used to train with guys that were going to the Olympics, and I think the United States had better competitors then. I don't think it's a challenge. They should have MMA in the Olympics, I believe.

Oh. I believe MMA is a very pure and very popular sport. And if it was in the Olympics, boy, I think there would be a lot of attention on it. And I see there'd be some incredible fights. The only thing I like better than MMA is synchronized swimming in the Olympics. Well, it's more aggressive. You know, you're fighting through water all the time. Yeah, that's true.

Every movement is a fight. If they have sports like that, and I don't knock them, why wouldn't they have MMA? It's just popular. Yeah. I think they think, you know, maybe at this point in time it just hasn't been accepted enough in the public. I mean, if they were thinking about taking wrestling out, just showing that, look how clueless that idea is. I mean, that's just ridiculous. Well, it depends what you're looking at. When I

look at the sports in the Olympics, they don't show everything that I want to see. They do show a lot of swimming and a little track and field, which is good. Two of my favorite things, but the judo is very... Very sparse coverage.

Yeah, and boxing, very sparse. Yeah, you're right. And Taekwondo, same thing. Very hard to find a Taekwondo match in the Olympics, you know, on television. Unless you're in Korea, I'm sure. South Korea, they probably cover the shit out of Taekwondo. But in America, I think...

I think what you're seeing also is a lack of boxing talent from the United States in a weird way that we haven't seen in a long time. You're not seeing nearly as many gold medalists. You remember the days of Mark Breland, Meldrick Taylor. Those got Purnell Whitaker. They were all gold medal, gold medal, gold medal. They were just dominating the Olympics. Tyrell Biggs dominating the Olympics.

Yes, yes, yes. And you don't really see that as much from the American boxers. It's kind of unfortunate. I think boxing has gone down the drain. At the Olympic Auditorium, which my family had for 38 years, every week was a boxing show. Then there were boxing shows back east every week. Now now, what's a boxing show? You have a big boxing show. It's two guys that fight once every two years

to build up something. They don't have all the heroes. There's definitely less boxing. But at the highest levels of the game, I think Floyd Mayweather is the best boxer that's ever lived. As far as pure boxing talent, I think the guy is almost untouchable. I think he's the best boxer that's ever lived. As far as pure boxing talent, I think the guy is almost untouchable.

I think he's the most best defensive boxer and the best use of controlling what happens inside the boxing ring. He's an incredible boxer. Okay, let me ask you something. I knew he was going to disagree. Okay, I agree with you. It's a setup.

I love the guy. Okay, but Sugar Ray Robinson. No, no, no. Ray, there are different kinds of guys. We're talking about money. How much does he make? He makes the most out of anybody ever. Okay.

How come the MMA guys aren't making that kind of money? Well, he gets monster pay-per-view numbers. The numbers that he gets on pay-per-view, they're coming to, first of all, they're coming there to see Floyd Mayweather Jr., him, period. And the numbers of pay-per-view, he broke the world record.

He got like 2.2 million on his last fight, and maybe even more, might have been 2.4 million, when he fought Canelo Alvarez and just shot him out. It's his production, Money Team Productions, you know, he's in charge of everything. He also, I'm sure, has to pay for everything. I mean, I'm sure he's got a lot of costs involved in promoting these fights. And whoever he's doing it with, whether it's Bob Arum or, you know, De La Hoya,

everyone's making a lot of money. It's an insane amount of money you're getting from this guy. The UFC is a different world. And the guys who draw big on pay-per-view, they make a lot of money. Like, George St. Pierre makes a lot of money, and I don't know what that number is, but I know he said it's between $4 and $5 million per fight.

He also has a lot of sponsors, big-name sponsors. You know, the champions at the top level make a lot. But the difference between how many pay-per-views he gets, like maybe $500,000 is a really good one for George St. Pierre, maybe more, $600,000. Floyd gets $2.2 million. I mean, those are bananas numbers. And he's the only guy that does that, him and Pacquiao. He's the big guy, obviously, because he's the best marketer. And he's marketed himself that everybody hates him. I mean, it's really a genius pro wrestling move. I

mean, you've got to appreciate that. He's playing the heel. I love it. I love it. And same thing with Ronda, who I love. You say playing the heel. Ronda says where it's at, you know? Ronda plays for keeps.

She's not trying to make friends. She's not trying to win any publicity events. She's not trying to make friends. She's not trying to win any publicity events. She's not trying to do PR and get everybody to love her. She wants to break Misha Tate's arm. That's what she wants to do, and she's pretty adamant about it. Misha Tate's a great competitor and everything, but if I was Misha Tate, I wouldn't show up that night. Wow.

But you can't tell what's going to happen. You can never tell. Well, you know, she had Ronda's back in the first fight. Oh, yeah. Well, Ronda had a couple of people that have had her back because she's got so much confidence. Yeah. And she's so strong. Confidence that she can get out of everything and anything.

There's a picture of you guys together. Oh, yeah. It wasn't that. I was a picture of somebody behind. That's a picture of Rhonda. Yeah, there she is with you. I don't know if they can zero in on this. Perfect.

My arm feels cold. Well, you broke it. Judo Gene LaBelle broke it. Zero in on this. Perfect. My arm feels cold. Well, you broke it. Judo Gene, the bell broke it. You should be honored. You're one of many. Can you autograph it? Here. He'll autograph your cast.

Don't let anybody get behind you. Yeah, don't ever let people do that again. Gene, what more can we say? This was a lot of fun, man. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed talking to you. And I'm in your book, too, right? What is the technique you're say? This was a lot of fun, man. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed talking to you. And I'm in your book, too, right? What is the technique you're going for?

Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Now, I'll tell you something. If I never see the back of my neck again, I've done a lot of textbooks. So what? But I do a book just for Gene LaBelle and a few very intimate friends. Okay. Now, this is one of my very greatest teachers. I learned this from

Judo Joe Rogan. Oh, my. Screwed. Can you get that in? And this is like a leg trip when someone grabs your boobies? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Why did I have to be the technique where you get your boobies grabbed? Hey, it works for me. I feel terrible about this. And an inside leg hook grapevine.

They call it Ochigary in Japanese judo. So it's an inside grapevine and then a punch to the face. Is that what it is there? Oh. I only read the first page. The second page is too devastating. Oh, it goes to the balls too. Oh, well let's see

if it goes. And then the eyes. Can you get to the balls? Yeah, you can see the balls there. Right there. Ouch. Oh yeah. That's wonderful. And then the inside leg trip and then the eyes. Can you get to the balls? Yeah, you can see the balls there, right there. Ouch. Oh, yeah. That's wonderful. And then the inside leg trip and then the punch. I love it. Well, I'm honored.

I'm honored to be in your book, sir. That's awesome. It means the world to me. And congratulations on being really the first mixed martial arts fighter ever on TV here in America. And congratulations on your 50th anniversary of that. And just thanks for being an awesome guy. And thanks for, you know, sharing so many great stories with us. And I'm honored to be your friend, sir.

I consider it a privilege if I never see the back of my neck again. Joe Rogan is a friend of mine. You want me to go sign an autograph somewhere? Oh, yeah, I know Joe Rogan is a friend of mine. You want me to go sign an autograph somewhere? Oh, yeah, I know Joe Rogan. Gene LaBelle, you're a real original. Love you, boy. Love you, too, brother. Thank you very much, everybody, for tuning in to the podcast.

And thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring it. Go to squarespace.com and use the offer code Joe and the number number to save yourself 10% off and thanks also to I gotta read the copy here because I make sure I say it right which is essentially a website to train your brain a gym for your brain

go to that's click the start training your brain, a gym for your brain. Go to Lumosity.com forward slash Joe. That's Lumosity.com forward slash Joe. Click the Start Training button. Start playing your first game. Thanks also to Onnit.com. That's O-N-N-I-T. The big sale that we have ends tonight,

if you're hearing this on Monday, December 2nd. Ends tonight at midnight Pacific time. You can save a shitload of money at OnIt.com. If you hear this after that, use the code word ROGAN and save 10% off any and all supplements. Lots more fun this week. What do you got going up? San Jose, December 11th, we're having a dirty show at

the San Jose Improv. Me, Brody Stevens and Sam Tripoli. Check out Brody Stevens' show. It's on Comedy Central. Check it out, folks. All right, we love you. We'll see you soon. Big kiss. you