The Joe Rogan Experience - #458 - Campbell McLaren

Episode Date: February 19, 2014

Campbell McLaren is CEO of Combate Americas & Co-Creator of the UFC.

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Once upon a time, I met a man named Campbell McLaren, who dragged me into a world of mixed martial arts wonderfulness. Dragged. You pulled me in, buddy. I was in Los Angeles, and I got a call from my manager, and it was essentially saying, all right,

there's this thing that we got an offer for. I'm sure you're not going to want to do this. My friend, Jeff Sussman. Yeah. What a pitch. Mine as well. And now here we are many, many years later. That was UFC 12 in 1997,

and Bob Meyerowitz was the president and owner of it. Did you just give him the finger? How dare you? Is that what that was? No, I was picking my. Bob Meyerowitz was the owner, and Campbell McLaren, what was your official title? Co-creator.

I was exec producer, you know, co-creator is what they call me now, but, you know, I EP'd the shows and was the head of programming for the company. And you were there for UFC 1. I was there for.01. Look how young I was. Oh, my boy. I was like a little, see my up there on the screen?

I was a scrappy little youngster when I was working for you guys. What happened? I became an old man. You know, you can gain years and, you, you know, you still can look okay. Cause you look like a fighter to me. You look more like a fighter now than when you started. Well, I didn't lift weights then. That's why I started doing jujitsu like right before I did that show.

But back then I was just doing kickboxing. No, no weightlifting ever. But once I started doing jujitsu and getting manhandled, I decided to put some meat on. This is ridiculous. I'm tired of getting raped. Well, the Gracies, here's the pledge they made to me. They go, you know, gamble, come, study Brazilian jujitsu, Gracie jujitsu with the family.

We promise not to break your ribs the first couple times. That was the promise? I was like, that's it? That's what I get for putting your ass on TV? Nobody rides for free. Yeah, you don't get good at jujitsu by not getting your ass kicked. Everybody gets their ass kicked. It's impossible to not get your ass kicked and get good at jiu-jitsu.

You have to do it. You have to experience it. Do you think you're good at jiu-jitsu? I got a couple black belts. As far as like regular people, yeah, I'm good. As far as like really good jiu-jitsu people, I'm not that good. So say you were going to fight like a guy named Wesley Snipes. That was Campbell's other idea.

Oh, I'm so sorry that didn't happen. Oh, God. That would have been great. Dude, I changed my whole life for like four months. That was hard. He changed his life too, by the way. Yeah, unfortunately. But we found out why he wanted to do it in the first place when all the tax stuff came out.

But Campbell called me up and asked me out of the blue if I wanted to fight Wesley Snipes. I didn't think I thought about it very long. I don't remember how long I thought about it. I think you came directly to my house. You dropped the phone and ran to my house to sign a contract. No, you were very into it. There was no doubt about it. Well, I just didn't imagine that a guy who's never done jiu-jitsu in his life was going to keep me from strangling him.

I'm like, okay. Like, what are you going to do? Are you going to get good in a couple months? Do you know, you think there's anyone out there now that still thinks they can do the… Yes, people who have never trained. It's that simple. Anybody who's ever trained jiu-jitsu at all, you feel so helpless.

When I went to jiu-jitsu, I was 26 years old. I was a black belt in taekwondo, former U.S. Open champion, very good athlete, kickboxed my whole life, was constantly working out. I was very lean, very in shape, and I just got rag-dolled. And I just got ragdolled. I mean ragdolled. Where like guys would just do whatever they wanted to me.

It was so humiliating. It was so like enlightening too though. Like Sergio Cohen. I don't know if you remember Sergio Cohen. He was one of Carlson Gracie's guys. And John Iwano who makes Iwano Gies now. That's where I first started. at Carlson Gracie's. And I took a class, one class only, at Hickson's.

And then I went from Hickson's in, I guess it was 97, 96? Maybe 96? I went from, yeah, it was 96 in Hickson's and Carlson Gracie's, and then 98. From the 98 on, I've been with the Machados. So when I started training with them, it was just immediately apparent that I had these delusions in my head. The same thing that I...

The first feeling I got when I saw UFC 2, I watched it on videotape. I got it from one of those Hollywood video stores. And I remember thinking right away, shit, I got to fucking learn this. This guy knows how to do something that none of these people know how to do, and it was a real disturbing awakening

watching Hoyce strangle all these people. Like, okay, this ain't a coincidence. He keeps doing that. Nobody can stop him from doing that. Like, oh, I've got to learn that shit. And when I actually did start training it, it was so shocking. Like, I was so far off from what I thought I was going to be able to do. I thought I'd be able to stay safe.

Yeah, you know, I'm a pretty good athlete. Most of these people don't know what they're doing. I've been in martial arts my whole life. Helpless. Helpless on the ground. Just helpless. And I wrestled. I wrestled a year in high school as a decent wrestler.

Helpless, getting strangled, triangled, armbarred. If you don't train, if you don't go in there and don't train with, like, really elite jiu-jitsu people, you really don't know how helpless you are. You don't know. You've got these ideas in your head. And I think that's probably what was going on with Wesley. Probably had these ideas based on his karate background. These ideas about what he was going to be capable of doing.

Yeah, or maybe he thought he could use a sword because people kept saying, does Blade get to use the blade? Well, he has vampire strength too. It's a lot of advantages to being Blade. You know, I told you I saw that video that he sent. He was training in Kenya somewhere. Maybe it was South Africa. And training's training. I get it, right? I know training is not a fight. But, you know, I've seen Floyd training videos too. You know, he looks good. And Wesley looked good. He looked fast. You know, I didn't see

how anyone could go through that and have the drug problems everyone said he had. What about Mike Tyson? Mike Tyson had a huge cocaine problem. That's what he's coming out and talking about. Now he fought when he was doing coke. Yeah, there's a difference between crack and coke, though. Oh. You can maintain a healthy lifestyle on cocaine.

Once you go to the pipe, man. So you're saying that Wesley was on the pipe? Is that what you're saying? That's what the rumors were. I never saw it, didn't know it, not from me, but a lot of people told me that. Well, I've heard that about me, though. Not about the pipe, but about coke. I've never done cocaine in my life, ever.

But I've heard... And why do they do that? Because you're manic energy? I get a lot of energy. Like when I do the UFC. Like when I do commentary, people say, oh, he's all coked up doing commentary. Can you imagine being coked up doing commentary for the UFC? My fucking head will explode. If you were coked up at some point, you would come down though, right? I would imagine.

Yes. Yeah. So I've yet to see that happen. Well, during the, I mean, I come down after the event. Boy, let me tell you. Like I used to do shows after the UFC. I'll do the UFC and then get out at, you know, 10 p.m. in Vegas and then go to like the House of Blues, do a midnight show. But it was way too much energy.

Like the energy that you put out when you're doing a commentary for like six hours of the UFC. Yeah, I'm on the whole time. But it's natural. And the UFC is so intense, though. I mean, I think you probably could do golf coverage, right, and then go and do a comedy set. Yes. Well, I've done coverage for pool, actually, and then gone and done comedy. No problem at all.

No problem. Yeah. The UFC, like the jolts of fucking head kicks. Jesus! You know, I hadn't been to a UFC since I was with you. And it's like three or four years ago before I went to the 20th. Yeah. And, you know, and I's like three or four years ago before I went to the 20th. Yeah.

And, you know, and I know the 20th was pumped up. I mean, it was a pumped up event. But still, when you go, you forget. If you haven't been to a UFC live, it's like there's nothing like it. There's nothing like it. There really isn't. You know, there's other great sporting events. I've never been to, you know, the Super Bowl, and maybe it's like that. But there's just that feeling of anything can happen at the UFC still.

Yeah. Even though I'm no longer in charge. And there's a lot of changes. It still has that environment like, whoa, a lot of variables. Yeah. MMA has a lot of variables. Lorenzo has a great saying. He said that every event has an oh shit moment.

Or it happens and everybody just goes an oh shit moment or worse it happens and everybody just goes oh shit oh shit I mean how many times have you seen a result of UFC and you look over you see fighters like Jon Jones or or you know Uriah Faber whoever it is sitting watching the fight holding their head going oh shit oh shit like when Vitor it fought Anderson and Anderson front kicked him in the face. I remember the camera scanning the crowd and you saw all these pro fighters going, oh, shit. Oh, you know, that moment. Stuff happens.

Yeah. Amazing stuff happens. In a way, a sudden way that you're not going to get in a sport like basketball or baseball or football that has innings and rounds. I mean, innings and periods. A fight can end in five seconds. Dwayne Ludwig won a fight in five seconds. Anything can happen. I think I've come to enjoy boxing much more than I ever have in the last few years, basically.

I think because I'm doing Combate Americas, a Spanish version of the UFC, if you will, and just been around a lot of boxing. And I like it. I really do. And when we started out, you know, you remember it was a real us versus them mentality with boxing, right? And I think that's mostly gone. Well, the Lou DiBella thing, I had a thing with him on ESPN. Well, he's silly. Here's the thing.

I mean, everybody's like, oh, Joe Rogan hates boxing. And people like, whenever boxing does well,. I mean, everybody's like, oh, Joe Rogan hates boxing. And people like, whenever boxing does well, people like tweet me things about like, yeah, is boxing still dead? It's still a dead sport, you faggot. And they'll send me these things on Twitter or Facebook or whatever. But I'm a boxing fan. I buy every boxing pay-per-view.

I watch every Showtime event. I watch every HBO event. That guy was just being a jerk-off. And when he was being a jerk-off, I had to clown him. But what I said, I stand by. It's one aspect. Oh, the polite one was disingenuous. He was being disingenuous. He was not accepting the truth for what it is because it didn't fit in with his worldview.

Well, he was also using the human cockfighting analogy. No, the guys all wear pants. I said that once to an ESPN reporter, kind of shut the thing down. He goes, is this human cockfighting? No, they all have pants. That's the perfect, I'm going to steal that. Please. It's a gift.

Thank you very much, sir. That's the perfect thing to say when they say that. That's such a dopey thing to say, too. No, cockroosters don't know they're going to fight, okay? This is a person trains they spend their whole life dedicated to learning these skills and then they test themselves at the very highest level look if he was a chess promoter you might take that from him but he's a boxing promoter it's not such a cerebral sport right not only that it's, it's not MMA has boxing in it. Like, the idea that

it's a stupid saying, you know, like, that, or it's a stupid thought process that would allow someone to criticize or not like other effective combat sports. Like kickboxing. I'm a huge fan of kickbox, like Glory that's on Spike. I fucking,

every time one of those is on, I tweet it, I watch them all. They're fun. I mean, I'm a huge fan. But just because there's no takedowns or submissions. You know, the owner of Glory owns part of my company now. Does he really? Oh, okay, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pierre Enderand. Okay, I know that dude. Glory rocks. Are you kidding? You watch those fights? I told the UFC a long time ago. I was like, you guys should buy K-1. K-1 was struggling financially.

Everybody loved K-1. K-1 was struggling financially. Everybody loved K-1. It was hard to do, though, Joe, because it was the guys with these fingers, right? Yakuza? Yeah, it was a lot of... You go in a meeting and guys are missing fingers, so you go...

Well, then right after Glory, there was It's Showtime. It's Showtime put on a lot of really high-level fights. And then there's Lion Fights in Vegas. No, that's Mu on a lot of really high-level fights. And then there's lion fights in Vegas. No, that's Muay Thai, though. Yeah, but still, kickboxing. Well, I like Muay Thai as well. A lot of people don't know.

Kickboxing, they allow you leg kicks, but they usually have rules on how long you can hold the back of the guy's head and the clinch, and they don't allow elbows to the face. So because of those limited rules, a lot of the real Muay Thai purists feel like— You must wear pants, too. No, no, no. You can't do the human cockfighting. You've got to wear shorts, actually.

You can't wear pants. But the elbows to the face and the clinch, that's a really effective tool. I think it's a mistake to take that out. And it's glory by doing just straight punching and, you know, sort of Dutch style kickboxing. It is Dutch. Well, but then you can do it in New York. You know, there is an advantage to those rules. That's true. That's true. The elbow is. Well, and also the elbows. I mean, elbows are a very, very effective weapons. I don't buy that elbows just cut people. You know, that was an argument a while ago. But the reality of standing elbows

is we're seeing them more and more used inside the octagon with incredible effectiveness. Have you ever seen Jordan Meehan when he fought Cyborg? Did you ever see that? He fought Cyborg Evangelista. Cyborg Santos. He's in Combate Americas.

We had him demonstrate. Pull up Jordan Meehan, M-E-I-N, versus Cyborg. Cyborg's a monster. He finished him off with this standing elbow combination. You get to really see how effective a guy who really knows how to throw elbows can be. So I think Glory should probably leave the rules the way they are because they can get in New York. But if it wasn't for New York, I would say standing elbows and just Muay Thai rules in general. There's, there's something like, there's something important about the various, uh, various tools, like, uh, grabbing the back

of the neck and kneeing to the face and kneeing to the body, like using that plum clench and working the body over. It's a real, it's real, you know, it's real effective. And you chop that down and don't allow the clinch, and then you chop it down further and don't allow elbows. I mean, you get some great fights, like all the K-1 fights. Well, I mean, but you're hearkening back to the early days, right? I mean, all the controversy aside. Go to the end. Finish.

This is it. This is the end? Yeah, you hit him with a body shot, and then another left hook. This Jordan Meehan kid is really bad. Look at this. Look at this combination of the elbows. One, two, three. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

That's not slow motion. What a combination of elbows. I mean, unbelievable elbow combination. That was just fucking beautiful. See, that's real you need to need yeah again you remember how we started joe you know it wasn't everyone goes yeah there are no rules one man enters six men leave you know whatever we were saying but you know we couldn't figure out how to put the different fighting sports together right so whose rules to use

right i mean and so really the basis of the u was always, you know, no rules became, you know, this huge thing. But it was also whose rules do you use? I mean, how are you going to get a boxer against a jujitsu guy? Right. What are you going to use? You can't. There's no rules you can use. Did anybody try to gouge eyes?

Was that legal in the early one? Well, you know what i mean i always would hear about these wing chun masters they'd had 50 ways to pop your eye out with their thumb and i kept calling them going bring your thumbs and do it man don't talk about it come and pop everybody's eye out what would you have done if a guy lost an eye though what would you have done it would we'd pick it up what do you do what to do? What would we do? Come on. There's also a reality to fighting that you know better than most people on the planet. If you're defending yourself, you're defending yourself, whether it's from a right hook, right cross, an elbow, a knee, or having your eye gouged out.

You're blocking. You're aware. If a guy comes at you with his thumbs up to do the gouge, you're in a defensive position. It is interesting, though, how many people are getting poked in the eyes now when it's illegal and how often it happens and the reality of how devastating the results are. When guys get their corneas scratched and they get a fingernail in the eye, they get a finger jab in the eye, even if it's accidental, man, they scream and run away.

Eyes are sensitive. Is it any different in other sports? The same in football if someone gets their hand inside the helmet. The same in boxing. In the old days, guys used to do stuff to their gloves so they could kick it in the Roberto Duran versus Davey Moore. He thumbed him in the eye. Well, he was kicking his ass anyway, but Davey Moore couldn't see out of his eye and then Roberto beat the fucking shit out of him so you know the UFC didn't invent this no thumbing

is a long time strategy in boxing and they actually develop gloves that have the thumb pinned down because of that because in the old days the thumb would detach from from the uh the glove and even when it's like stitched in a little bit you can still kind of get it in there you can get it in there if you're just trying to poke a guy in the eye which many people did do that's a definitely a dirty trick well it is a fight yeah you know uh i mean shamrock was who did he fight this was like ufc three or four he said maybe one of the preliminaries, someone reached into his speedos and moved his cup out of the way so he could knee him. And Ken was going, dude, we're fighting. We can get together later, but for right now, hands out of my speedos. Well, there was a fight between Gary

Goodridge and the Pedro in Brazil, a famous fight. It was like straight up valetudo, no gloves, Pedro in Brazil, a famous fight. It was like straight up Vale Tudo, no gloves, no rules. And Gary Goodrich reached into his fucking pants and grabbed his balls and crushed them. And Gary Goodrich was... I guess that is the cockfighting part we were talking about. I'm pretty sure it was Gary Goodrich. That doesn't sound like his style, but you know better. Back in the day, yeah.

Well, he was an arm wrestling champ, so maybe he figured that was playing to his strength. He'll yank your Franklin. I'm pretty sure it was Gary Goodrich. Yeah, Gary Goodrich versus the Pedro. This was way back in the day, from 1997. And he had vicious

grain attacks. 97 isn't back in the day. Yes, it is. It's still back in the day. Not to me. Not to you. I retired I think at that point. You were in the game for four years by then. Yeah, dude leached into his pants and fucking crushed his balls. You know what Forrest Griffin said to me at the 20th anniversary? He goes, you know, I love the early UFCs. He goes, I would have entered earlier, but I didn't want to wear those Speedos.

I wanted to wear man pants. That sounds like something Forrest would say. When you guys first created the UFC in 1993, how long did it take from the initial idea to the first pay-per-view? Whoa. You know what? Nobody's ever asked me that, Joe. You know, Art Davey called me to pitch me War of the Worlds in April of 93, and we were on in November. Really?

So, and, you know, and and you need three month lead time for pay per view so you know it was like it was a go wow so you guys realized right away what a great idea this is gonna be oh it was i realized that on an arts call you know how can you not same with you you saw it you loved it you know i heard about it. I really did see it as a live, you know, a real-life Mortal Kombat. That is really what I saw when I imagined what it would look like, you know. And I thought, who would not watch that? I'm watching it. It's my show.

I probably would pay myself to watch it. I mean, how can you not watch that? I got aboard, like I said, in 94. I found the video of UFC 2. And I don't think UFC 1 was even available on video, right? Wasn't there some sort of a dispute? No, no. It wasn't a dispute.

But Don Gold, who we all know and love and is still at the UFC, he bought 2 and at the same time bought 1. And back in those days, you tried to release the videos to be fresh. So he didn't want to release one before two. He wanted two to be the first one, come out very close to the event, all the hoopla, and then later on added one. Also, as you know, one had arguably the worst commentator team in the history of sports. Bill Goldberg and Jim Brown. Jim I liked. Jim Brown was cool then.

I still think he's cool. But what's Superfoot, man? Super moron. How dare you? How dare you? He's a goddamn hero. He's a karate hero. Bill Superfoot Wallace.

He's a karate hero? I thought he was a karate hero. Is that what he did? He was a badass kickboxer. Did you not know? A kickboxer. Of course I knew. I was standing backstage

and i'm trying to explain to him the name of the show right which is not the ultimate fighting challenge like it's you know maybe it's just a subtle difference you know but to me it meant a lot championship versus challenge i'm trying to explain it to him and he is practicing his kicks over my head it's not i'm not such a guy, but he was a high kicker, right? So he's doing these kicks over my head as I'm going, Bill, try to remember the name of the show. So he's just showing off or something? What is he doing? I think he was being silly.

Yeah, and just showing he was too cool for school. Yeah, I got it. And I said to him, I go, are we going to see any kicks like that? He goes, ah, no, you do that in a real fight, they'll rip your balls off. I'm like, dude, isn't that what you teach no he's a jerk off he's not a really he's a jerk off you know what he did joe there's only a couple where there's actually a more than a couple of people i'm you know maybe still annoyed at back then before email right when you wanted to communicate something you had to write it down, put it in an envelope, use a government-issued form of sticker thing you put on an envelope,

and you sent it through a government process. And it was called the mail, right? Okay, so there's no email. So Bill Superfoot shows up, gets the name wrong, burps into the thing, pays no attention, does a horrible job, takes the money. And then like three days later in Black Belt Magazine, an editorial comes out how he says he's totally against it. So he must have written that before he did it. Like six weeks before. So he just did it for the check? He did it, I don't know. I mean, it wasn't that big a check. It was probably 2,500 bucks. I mean, if that was life-changing for him, he's in bad shape. But I think he didn't like it.

Like a lot of the guys that I think of as paper tigers, right? I think it was a threat. Well, you can't call Bill Superfoot Wallace a paper tiger. Bill Superfoot Wallace was a great kickboxer. He really was. I saw him fight live. He was a badass kickboxer. I saw him fight live deep into his 40s

he came out of an era of kickboxing when they're really when it really was a great thing to watch right and he was a great kickboxer he's from the check norris yeah absolutely and there was a bunch of guys which is named um uh rick rufus rick the jet rufus yeah i tried to get him uh uh benny the jet benny jet orkides yeah yeah i mean i was after all these guys and it was just a little Rufus. Rick the Jet Rufus. Yeah. Tried to get him. Benny the Jet. Benny Jet or Kiedis. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was after all these guys.

And it was just a little bit too late in the day for them, right? For Benny. Benny was, yeah, they were retired. And, you know, and you're right. I shouldn't go off like that. As a kickboxer, he was something. He really was. You just didn't enjoy working with him.

I didn't enjoy working with him. I thought it was bullshit to show up ready to condemn something or already have condemned it and not pay enough attention to get the name right and something that was his history making as our first event but anyway well now he better they were horrible because it just goes down in the record books as the worst commentating team of all time well it goes down as the beginning and everything's i mean i sucked when i first started doing it too just you know no one. No one had any background in it. No one knew what to do. Yeah.

You know, I didn't know about your fighting background when I asked your manager to do it. What I liked was your comedy style. I liked your persona. And when I talked to Jeff, he goes, you know, he was a kickboxer or something. You know, I forget what he said. It was like, it wasn't very specific. I was like, really? He was a fighter? That's something. You know, I forget what he said. It was like, it wasn't very specific. I was like, really? He was a fighter?

That's how I found out about it. But I always thought you were, you had a tough guy persona that seemed very right for the show. And we needed someone, God knows, that could talk when all hell was breaking loose because hell broke loose pretty regularly in those days. Yeah, and you had a couple guys that were doing the post-fight interviews that just weren't so good at it they just weren't so good at media like tony blauer who's a really good martial artist knows a lot about self-defense and we had to choose between people that sort of knew what was going on and real announcers right right i mean that was the choice because we couldn't find anyone do you know brian kilmeade you know started out doing this too who's brian kilmeade he's on a show called fox and friends uh you know it's like he started uh out doing this he did oh i know exactly who that guy is through five i think and brian if you're listening or anyone

knows brian i'm sorry if i got the the number wrong but you know and bruce back you know bruce back to this day i i, I owe Bruce a debt of gratitude. He gave me some really good pointers when I first started doing the post-fight interviews. He gave me some real good pointers on, like, you know, like what to say or what to say if you're stuck and, you know, like how to do it. He's a pro. He's a really good guy, too. So did Blotnick, you know. Yeah, he was a great guy, too.

To have Jeff in there, that was good. He was a, yeah, Olympic gold medalist. I mean, good guy, too. So did Blotnick, you know. Yeah, he was a great guy, too. To have Jeff in there, that was good. He was a, yeah, Olympic gold medalist. I mean, awesome dude, too. Really, really, he was a great guy. It's so sad when he passed. I really miss that guy. He was a really fun guy to do commentary with, too. Just a real genuine, nice person.

Great guy to be around. He had this, like before the show or backstage, or if there was any problem, he was unflappable. And it just kind of gave off a calm. Sure. It sort of helped. Because, like, not everybody on the team was calm. Right, right, right. He was.

He was a great wrestler, too. Knew a lot about wrestling. You know, and eventually developed his knowledge of MMA, jiu-jitsu skills, and was really interested in learning, you know. I remember there's some videos of him rolling with Frank Shamrock, like, very, very early in the day, back, I think, when Frank was the champion, and, you know. That's about the time of it. Yeah. I mean, I left right when Frank won, when he beat Kevin Jackson and armbarred him in Japan. I didn't go to the Japan show. That was when I quit.

I was like, that's... When did you quit? About 98. Somewhere around then, which is right around when Frank won the title. I was so sick of the UFC at that point. I really was. It was miserable.

It was weird for me, too. It was like, you know, it was all these little tiny propeller planes to these strange places. Augusta, Georgia, and Dothan, Alabama. Augusta wasn't – I kind of liked Augusta. You liked Augusta. It wasn't bad. Good barbecue.

Yeah, good barbecue and somewhat friendly town as opposed to Charlotte where they invited me never to return. The chief of police said to me, if you come back, I'm not sure what I will arrest you for, but I guarantee you I will arrest you. Wow. What year was this? The chief of police said to me, if you come back, I'm not sure what I will arrest you for, but I guarantee you I will arrest you. Wow. What year was this? The chief of police. What year was this? Well, that would have been on 5, so 95?

Wow. What a dick. The chief of police. It's not like a guy in a car. What's his name? Do you remember his name? Dick something. Hey, Dick, go fuck yourself.

Dick Weed, I think. Dick Weed. I don't know what is this. What the fuck? How am I going to remember the guy? I mean, come on. What a crazy abuse of power. But it's all good now because John McCain said he would have entered MMA.

Now it's okay because the war hero said it's okay. You know, it wasn't, you know, McCain, I've said this before, like was sort of hoping jerry falwell or somebody would come out against you know somebody i could take you know a war hero and you know a powerful senator but you know who was really a tough opponent to counter was uh um the senator from colorado that had the judo champion he'd been an olympic uh judicon um ben he he was Native American. Ben Lighthorse Campbell? Ben Nighthorse Campbell? I don't know who he is. Never heard this before.

You know, because we were kind of intimating that McCain didn't really know anything about the martial arts. And he went and found Ben, who was an Olympic gold medalist in judo. Or a medalist. He might not have been gold. And he said, yeah, that's no good. You can't do it. You can't use elbows. What are you thinking? Can't use elbows have been gold and he said yeah wait that's no good you can't do you can't use elbows what are you thinking can't use elbows oh whatever he said who knows whatever the rule yeah whatever it was he didn't like one of the early opponents and that was all for a lot

of folks that don't know this is where it gets weird with john mccain john mccain's wife their family was involved with budweiser right and he was the Budweiser was in bed with boxing and boxing was... Yeah, but Budweiser's in bed with the UFC now. Now? But they were in 93. Joe, I don't really think that's the connection. I don't think that's what it was. What do you think it was? I think it's odd. I mean, John McCain, you know, is a Republican, so Republicans tend to stand for state control, right? You know, keeping a small federal government. That's kind of

a Republican policy. But I think John McCain really wanted a National Boxing Commission. And I think that this was a good way to promote that. And I think he just was generally offended by the UFC. And I think it was a great way to get press. And it wasn't like people were coming out and going, keep the UFC, keep the UFC. You know, he just could beat on the UFC and get as much press as he wanted. And look how different America is now. I mean, back then, that was the biggest problem facing the U.S. was the UFC. I mean, now look at the problems facing America and the world. And you go, we really lived in kind of a magical time, you know, back then.

Wait a minute. What do you mean the UFC was the only problem the United States had? Were you not reading the news in 1993? There was a lot of shit going on in the world. Like what? Well, there's always things going on overseas. There's always things going on in the United States. Had you heard of Osama bin Laden in 1993?

Okay. In that sense, no. Afghanistan, that was a Russian problem. Yeah. That was the Mujahideen back then. Yeah. They were fighting the Russians, so they were cool with us. Clinton years, the economy

was good. I mean, he diddled the intern. I mean, that was like the biggest thing. Or she diddled him, or whatever. I wasn't paying attention. Yeah, that was the biggest issue. Well, I'm sure that what I was going to say, what I mean is there was certainly other problems in the world. There's violence and all sorts of things in our... Not if

you were reading the media, apparently. Was it really that really that big of a deal well maybe it was you because you were really close to it too you know i'll tell you what for me it was uh you know it was riding the tiger right because you know it was great to be in mad magazine it was great to be the uh final episode of friends when courtney cox's Cox's boyfriend enters the UFC and goes to it. Yeah, that's right. It was great to be in Virtuosity, you know, the Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe movie. I mean, there's big, 95. I mean, it's really big media stuff.

But on the other hand, when you're that visible, you know, you're making a lot of people angry. If they don't like you, you're in their face all the time. So it was kind of a tough thing. So, yeah, I mean, it was fun until it wasn't. And you, I mean, you know the story. We were, we had backed off that marketing and we're, you know, the unified rules, you know, were coming into place and, you know, it was a very different sport. Well, for a lot of folks who don't know what we're talking about, when the UFC first came out, there were no weight classes and there were no rules and you could not, you know, a fighter could tap, they could, but no one could throw in the towel and the referee couldn't

stop the fight. But that was on one. That changed by two. That was insane, by the way. Yeah. That was insane. Okay. So, but this sort of highlights it. So, that's the first episode, the first UFC. And then from there, slowly but surely surely rules start becoming implemented strategies change rounds weight class gloves things got really interesting really fast and I think a lot of people were unaware of it if you think about the difference between 93 and 97 I came in in 97 when Vitor made

his debut gloves were still not mandatory they were optional some fighters fought without gloves. But it was, wasn't that the case? Yeah, I was against gloves. After I saw Tank knock out, what's his name, Mantua, Tank was smart. He figured out, he goes, gloves are a weapon. I'm bringing them.

Yeah, you can hit harder with gloves on. A lot harder. You can hit harder. You don't worry about breaking your hands. And all the wraps and everything, they give you a much better thing to hit with. Bare knuckles, tricky. If you hit someone with bare knuckles on your forehead, you can break your hand very easily. It's really common, especially if you catch them with the last two knuckles, the ones by where your pinky is.

Well, that was the most common injury in the early days. Breaking hands. You know, and the Gracies were like, wear gloves, don't wear gloves, wear a hat, I don't care. Yeah. You know, whatever you want. Wear a vest, we don't care. If someone else is wearing gloves and you're grappling with them, you actually can hold on to the gloves. I mean, if there's no rules about it.

And guys use the gloves to finish submissions now, too. They started doing a lot of that. A lot of guys, the way Josh Thompson finished off, who was it? Ryan, Pat Healy? I think it was Pat Healy. No, not Pat Healy. Yeah, I think it was Josh Thompson and Pat Healy. Anyway, he grabs the glove as he's finishing the rear naked choke. Like he's going for the rear naked and he switches to palm to palm. And then he grabs the glove and uses the glove to finish it off. And I was like, that's slick. Well, it's totally legal.

It's totally legal to grab your own glove. And it's also totally legal to grab your own shorts, which is kind of interesting. Because one of the best ways to defend against Kimura is to just grab the inside of your shorts, like by your crotch, and just hang on for dear life. I mean, the Gracies always use the gi for that type of effect. You know, I'm sitting here, I'm watching you do this, right? And I was watching your brain try to find that, you know, find that opponent. And you know what you are? You're a renaissance man of tough guy stuff. You know, that's what you are. You know, because your comedy is like that you've acted as a tough

guy you do comedy from a tough guy point of view and you know i think you've probably is this true i think you've probably seen more mma than anyone on the planet up close maybe joe silva's seen more than me because he closes his eyes i've seen him he's over there he's got his hands over his eyes it was pat healy who it was definitely definitely Pat Healy that Josh Thompson fought. Yeah, man, look, I've seen a lot. Up close, I've been to I don't know how many events, but I've seen well over 1,000 fights up close and personal and some of the best fights in the history of MMA.

In history. But Joe Silva goes to all the Fox Sports 1 events as well now. Over the last two years, he's outpaced me. It used to be we would all see the same amount of fights. But over the last two years, I don't really do those Fox Sports 1 ones as much anymore. I do Fox and the pay-per-view, and then the Anik Florian team does the other one. So Joe Silva might be the only guy on the planet that's seen more fights than me. Unless, you know, really hardcore fans.

There's some fucking psychos out there. I've seen everything. Every local show. I don't know. It's hard. I think Joe fits into that category, by the way. Oh, he's a psycho. He's a psycho fan.

Joe Silva is a real MMA fan. That motherfucker loves MMA. Yeah, here it is. This is Josh Thompson finishing off Pat Healy. What a beautiful technique, too. He's got the body triangle, and then he's using... It's hard to tell here. Nope, that's palm-to-palm. I'm wrong.

That's just a regular palm-to-palm grip. I stand corrected. Unless he finishes it in a different way and pulls the gloves. I definitely have seen someone do it before. I don't know why. I thought it was Josh, because Josh is a very clever guy. He's, uh... The point stands.

It's a good move. The point stands. It's a good move. The point stands. That's a fucking badass technique, though. Let me see. No, I couldn't tell if he did it there. Is that John? Is he wearing a gun belt? No, no, he's wearing a microphone, you fuck. Jesus Christ.

It's like as he's finishing this off with the... That's another thing, too, that's changed over the years, that body triangle, man. Guys, oh, yeah, he is doing it. He is doing it. He was doing it at the end. See, my memory is good. I thought my memory failed me.

Josh Thompson's a bad motherfucker. Good jiu-jitsu. You know, so much of the fighting has changed. Mm-hmm. I mean, it's. Yeah, it's incredible, right? It's really incredible. It's like, you know, like even when you see old films of the, you know, the NFL back in the leather helmet or football in the leather helmet days. You know, football hasn't... I mean, the UFC changed more in the 20 years.

I mean, it's remarkable. But yet you and Joe Silva are still there. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, it changed radically. And I brought both you guys in. You did. Yeah. You did. Well, I was the post-fight interviewer. I I brought both you guys in. You did. Yeah. You did. Well, I was the post-fight interviewer. I'd never done any commentary ever.

I'd done commentary for Muay Thai, but I'd never done— But you're a professional talker. Well, yeah, but still, you have to learn how to do it. Absolutely, and you got a lot better, right? Oh, for sure. I was terrible in the beginning. But you were better in the beginning than the people that we brought in

on that first show. Yeah, maybe. You were a serious upgrade. I had the benefit of, first of all, of watching them make mistakes. That's a huge benefit. True enough.

And then the other benefit was I was a huge fan and always have been. I've been a fan since that tape that I picked up at that Hollywood video store. And that was two? two, that was, that was number two. Yeah. And then I started training. Fuck yeah it was. I started training soon after that. Um, and uh, I remember thinking, man, this is a, I hope this works out. You know, I hope

this takes off. Cause I remember when I looked at the very box that had the UFC on it, the first time I found out about the UFC, looked at that box and went wow they did it they did it because this is something that everybody in MMA had talked about I should say MMA everyone in martial arts and there are no martial arts anymore there's styles but everything is essentially in my eyes MMA is martial arts now it's not this idea in your martial arts in your work yeah I mean I think they're still teaching kids taekwondo. Sure. And there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing. No. But martial arts is MMA. You know, it is martial arts.

And when we were coming up, like I was a Taekwondo guy and, you know, I had friends that did karate and I had another friend that did this and everyone always wanted to know what was the best. And you didn't know. You really had no idea idea you had no idea until the UFC came along it was all just speculation and everyone was convinced that their style of judo was unstoppable or their shotokan was the best death touch and you know whatever it was it was all just shit talking and guesswork when I looked at that box I remember very clearly thinking in my head, wow, they fucking did it. They actually did it.

This was the thing that everybody always talked about. Get everybody together, make them duke it out, Kumite style, like a fucking Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. In a cage. But even better, because it was in a cage. Big octagon. Dude, what I would tell people, when I was working for you guys, I was on News Radio,

which is an NBC sitcom. Fortunately, News Radio was not doing well and it wasn't popular so the network didn't come up to me and go, hey,

fuckhead, what are you doing cage fighting commentator for? The advertisers are very uncomfortable with your side gig. They didn't have any problem

because that show could have been canceled every year. It almost got canceled. That was a good show, Joe. It was a very good show. It was a very good show. Good characters.

But we didn't have the benefit of political backing, so we got moved a lot. And it was never, like, a guarantee. But when I was doing it, people would talk to me like I was doing porn. They would talk to me like I was off, like, shooting porn on the weekend. They're like, what are you doing? You're doing cage fighting? Why are you doing that? Why are you interviewing cage fighters? I was like, I like watching it. And people would look at you like there's something wrong with you for liking watching it. I like watching it. Dude, I'm telling you, man, I got

seriously judged by people in the industry back then when it was not popular at all. I commiserate. And when I moved to Larchmont, which is a snooty little town in Westchester outside of New York, my wife goes, please don't tell anyone what you do. You know, the UFC had paid for the house. Isn't that hilarious? Please don't, if you could not bring it up. Yeah.

It's much, much, much, much, much more acceptable now. No, absolutely. It's on Fox. It's, you know, it's rumored to be an Olympic sport in the making. Well, that would make sense. But if you have curling as an Olympic sport, I think you've got to allow MMA in. Your people, you Canadian? Well, Scottish, which is-

Oh, the Scottish curl as well, right? Well, they invented curling. And the Canadians are Scottish because that drink Canada dry, the Scots thought that was a challenge. So they all went to drink Canada dry. You know, that's an old whiskey joke. I'm sorry. The three Scottish listeners you have are busting a gut right now. I love the Canada dry material.

I was on one of those shows like Best Damn Sports Show or something like that way, way, way back in the day. And I was telling them I said, I think it's going to be an enormous national sport one day. And they were laughing. They thought it was hilarious. You know, look, there's a lot of stick and ball guys in the sports business that still are waiting for it to go away. Oh, yeah. They don't like rock and roll

or hip hop either. Well, there was some shithead on who does amateur football. He does college football. And he was talking about after Anderson Silva broke his leg, that this is the reason why he would never cover the UFC. Never has, never will. You know, and MMA fans got really offended. I'm sure. What was the reason?

Because Anderson broke his leg. Because his leg got broken. Exactly. He works in football. He's a fucking football guy. Not only that, he's college football. They don't even make money. They're getting head injuries for free. And the colleges are making billions of dollars. Well, the are no rules guys not commenting on other sports, Joe.

I'm not doing that. The no rules guys. Those guys, those fucking higher moral ground sports guys, they're ridiculous. But there's a real reason for it. And it is, and if you look at the NFL, you know, with NFL films that turned the sport into a heroic endeavor. And I think NFL films was really changing in the media business and in the sports business because they turned football into this epic story and it became very advertiser friendly and it you know ends up in you know

the Super Bowl which is the most advertiser friendly thing in the planet right so I think that whole thing was built out and anything that rocks the boat the way we rocked the boat with boxing when Tyson was moved from pay-per-view to Fox opposite the Ultimate Ultimate back in the day, there hadn't been a heavyweight boxing match on broadcast in, I think, 16 years. And strangely, Tyson has put up against our Tournament of Champions. You know, that's not a coincidence. So I think when you're protecting something, you know, it's a siege mentality mentality and i think a lot of the pure sports guys still feel a little bit threatened by the ufc well you better tell

dana white because dana white will put shows on well he used to always do that put uh spike shows on opposite of affliction or opposite you know he likes to go to war. I do. You know, I am the number one Dana fan, I got to say. He's the greatest. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be working for the UFC this time around. No, you know, none of us would be sitting here talking about the UFC if it wasn't for him. Well, I had no intentions of going back and doing commentary. I was totally talked into it by him. I was watching the fights like Cage Side.

That's back when Goldberg and who else was doing it by him. I was watching the fights like Cage Side. That's back when Goldberg and – who else was doing it with them? Jeff from Hook and Shoot, Jeff Osborne and Blatnik. They were doing it. That was 2001 or 2002. Yeah, 2000, 2001. Yeah, so I was just watching. Look, Dana got it the way I got it, the way you got it, instantly, and then was in. And then you're in.

And you're a Mormon. You're going to have four wives or whatever. Wear the special underwear. Yeah, whatever it is, you are in. Yeah, and the UFC has that effect. I was in early, no less today. Are you shocked at all by the popularity of women's mma shocked is not the right word um it makes sense to me um you know i wanted to try women but we

were in enough trouble with the cock fighting without making vagina fighting you know we weren't gonna we couldn't do that uh different kind of boxing. But I think it took a Ronda, you know, and I'm a big fan of Invicta too. I think Sharon Knapp is really good. And I think the Invicta, those are fun. Those are fun to watch. And I think, you know, a couple of the women fighters from a few years ago just were a little bit too much ahead of their time. And now it seems like there's a critical mass. Plus there's Ronda, you know, who's the greatest.

I also like Misha Tate very much. It's fun to watch, you know. So if it's fun to watch, it's going to work. And I also think what Dana has figured out to do, whether it's instinct or, you know, whether it's strategy or both, he's like reinventing stuff every couple of years, too too just to change things up and make it fresh again. And I think The Ultimate Fighter is a good example of that. And I think the Fox broadcast deal and putting it in that spotlight. And I think Ronda. And I think it's like the sport is almost like, I don't want to say reinvented, but re-energized every couple years.

And I think that's a very cool thing. Yeah, it's certainly a new element. every couple years. And I think that's a very cool thing. Yeah, it's certainly a new element. And it's new, like seeing how many women are becoming MMA fans, not just because of watching the men fight, but also now watching women fight as well. You know, in your favorite show other than the UFC called The Iron Ring, which was a BET show I did, it was sort of the hip hop UFC, huge female audience because we had great looking guys with their shirts off and a lot of celebrities. And it was a good formula. And so women liked that.

You know, I'm doing this new thing, Combate Americas, if you don't mind me, you know, plugging the show that's on Sunday on Mundos. And what we're trying to do is reach out to an audience that maybe has heard of MMA but is not familiar. And I think that includes women too. And it's all Spanish speaking. It's a bilingual network. Mundos is bilingual. So when Hoyce Grace is on, he speaks in English. When Eddie Alvarez is on, he speaks in English.

If you speak Spanish, you speak Spanish. And so we've created – I put together a thing called Gringo Wednesdays. So we've created – I put together a thing called Gringo Wednesdays. So Wednesday nights, 10 o'clock, it's got English subtitles for those whose Spanish is creaky, me included. So next Wednesday, if you want to check it out, that's the first episode. It's English subtitles and those that speak English will be continuing to speak in English. And it's Combate America. Combate America, which means the fighting America. This is your highlight for it right here.

That's cool. So how long have you been doing this for? Well, we shot it in the fall in Miami. Bun and Murray Productions, very famous TV company, created The Real World, produced it for us. It's got a bunch of Spanish stars. I even tried to replicate a little bit of the Joe Rogan thing with a guy named Piolín, who's sometimes called the Howard Stern of Spanish radio. Does he have a martial arts background? He loved boxing.

You know, like Daddy Yankee, who's in the show and someone I've gotten very close to, like you, you know, he had a professional fight background. Daddy Yankee had five professional fights before he became a singer. And you know the difference there. Like if you've actually had a fight for money, you know it's a very different world. And I think Daddy Yankee came to this like a lot of Hispanic fans do, knowing boxing and going, you know, the UFC is cool. This is cool. What's this about?

What are they doing on the ground? You know, what kind of gloves are those? You know, like there's a lot of things that people – we take for granted. I mean you grew up in this sport. You invented this sport too, Joe. I mean we've watched it develop. But you got to think if somebody has heard of the UFC but has never seen it and they turn it on, it's a very different thing. You know, you're on there.

It's intense. They don't know what's happening on the ground. They don't know the players. They don't know the's happening on the ground. They don't know the players. They don't know the rules. You know, and what I wanted to do is sort of reach out. You know, when I went to tell Dana about this last August, I said, look, this isn't competitive with the UFC. I'm going after an audience that I think doesn't know anything about MMA. You know, I want to bring in this next generation of fans.

You know, I'm doing it, the U.S. Hispanic marketic market you know three times the size of canada by the way and people talk about you know we're all going to be speaking spanish in 20 or 30 years yeah whatever but i know next year the majority people in this country under 18 will be hispanic so it's a youth culture the majority of people by 2015 mexicans know how to fuck. They know how to put it down, man. What did he just say? That's the way you do it. Don't say that about Mexicans.

Nothing bad. What, they don't? They do. It's good to know how to fuck. Don't forget the Puerto Ricans. They know how to fuck too. Dominicans. They know how to fuck as well.

Colombians. They can fuck their brains out. It's a fascinating statistic, though. That's quite amazing. You know, we're in a youth business. This is a move to the youth culture. Los Angeles has 21 Mexican radio stations, 21 Spanish-speaking radio stations. That's amazing.

21 stations, one city that don't even speak English. And I think Piolín's the number one drive time. I'm not sure. Don't know Spanish radio. I've seen his name on billboards and shit. So he's your guy? He does kind of what you do. You know, he talks to the fighters, gets everybody pumped up.

Does he understand Jiu-Jitsu at all? You know, it was, he understands wrestling. Again, you know, the background here is very different. If you're a Mexican, Mexican-American, you know Lucha Libre. Right. And you know boxing. And that's what you know. But he's doing commentary, right? Mexican-American, you know Lucha Libre. Right. And you know boxing. Mm-hmm. And that's what you know.

But he's doing commentary, right? Yeah, but remember, this is a reality show. We're introducing the guys. We do fights on episode 9 and 10. And what I've done is sort of tell the stories of the guys and sort of involve people in MMA. Uh-huh. And bring in Hoyce and bring in Eddie Alvarez and bring in people to show them.

The guys I'm using actually are pretty interesting fighters. I've got a guy that's sometimes called the Hispanic Kimbo Slice, Level Martinez. He's got a million views on his YouTube channel, Backyard Fights, very similar to Kimbo. So I've got an interesting group of guys, but what I'm doing is I'm explaining it to the audience. So we bring in experts to talk. And Hoyce comes in and he doesn't show them jiu-jitsu. He talks about the philosophy and mentality of a fighter. Right.

And Eddie came in. The guys were beat down from the competition reality show. And then they had fights in about a week. And Eddie Alvarez was, you know, he came in and he said, you know, at times you're really tested. And it isn't always tested in the cage. You're tested outside the cage. And he knows what he's talking about. So I wanted to bring in guys that really meant something and introduce them to

these fighters. So these guys saw, you know, class acts, world-class fighters. Right. And mixed it in with a bunch of Spanish celebrities and, you know, Andrea Calle, you know what? I think she's the most beautiful woman in the history of MMA, and she's the co-host. She was a journalist we found. She does Spanish-language commentary. Pictures, young Jamie, pictures. Find Andrea. So does anybody— C-A-L-L-E, Andrea Calle.

Do they have commentary where the people are fighting? Absolutely. And do the guys who are doing commentary understand jiu-jitsu? Yes. They do? Yeah. But no one has doing commentary understand jiu-jitsu? Yes. They do? Yeah. But no one has any experience in jiu-jitsu? No.

Hmm. So I'm hearkening back to my past. Yeah. We need you. You need a guy who speaks Spanish? You speak Spanish? No, I don't. Victor Davila, who works for the UFC,

says, well, goddamn, son. Jesus, Louisa. That's her? Oh, my goodness. That body's ridiculous. That should be illegal. You know. Holy shit.

I'm telling you, she knows more about MMA than I do. Maybe not more than you, but she knows. Because I kept showing her to people. Oh, my God. Look at that picture of her ass. Hold up. That's my ass. Get to that one.

There's no way that's near her ass. Hold up. That's my ass. Get to that one. There's no way that's your ass. Jesus, son. Andrea, I know you're listening. He's saying this with love and respect. Yeah, much respect. For a fellow broadcaster. Much respect for your genetics. Listen, you're a fellow broadcaster.

If you've got a thong on, your ass is up in the air. I wear a thong in the show. I wear a thong and a cape. You do? Yeah, try to conjure up that image. When do you wear a thong and a cape? No, I don't wear a thong and a cape. What do? Yeah, try to conjure up that image. When do you wear a thong and a cape? No, I don't wear a thong and a cape. What are you saying then?

Trying to disinformation? Yeah. Look at her ass. That's the girl you work with. Pow. Pow, pow, pow. You don't think she knows what she's doing? She wants you to say that, Campbell McLaren.

That's why I heard it. You can't apologize. Joe Rogan, Joe Silva, Andrea Calle. So if no one understands, if no one trains in jiu-jitsu, do they know what the fuck's going on when guys are scrambling on the ground? Because that, to me, was one of the most important aspects of the— You know, you're 100% right, but you're right for my next season or the third season. What we're doing now is trying to give an overview of what's happening.

Remember, you are so deep in this that you can't imagine anyone not knowing. Take yourself out of this mix and look at it. Someone, they don't even know why they're on the ground. Listen, believe me, I completely understand people not knowing. I have to explain sometimes to people what I do. Like I've had conversations with people like on vacation or what have you that have no idea who I am or what I do. And you know, that it'll come up. Like someone will ask me a question, and they'll go, what's that guy talking about? I'm like, oh, I do this thing.

And then I'll explain what it is. And the looks they give you, cage fighting, MMA. You know what the cage is in Spanish? This is why I like, you know, Hispanic culture has really drawn me in. The cage in Spanish is la jaula. La jaula. It just sounds bad, man. It just sounds pretty badass. La jaula. It just sounds bad, man. That sounds pretty badass.

La jaula. I got it right there, too. Cage in Spanish is la jaula. It's J-A-U-L-A. Ooh, it's J. La jaula. Cage starts with a J. That's even better.

That's cool. So how long have you been working on this for, man? Oh, boy. I thought of it. You know, when I was thinking about this is when I came to the UFC, the Indianapolis show, which is four years ago. You know, because I was – I don't know if you remember. I was really – my mom was very, very ill and I'd gone out to Indianapolis to see her. And I wasn't going to come to the UFC.

And I called you last minute. And you and Dana always, gentlemen, very great. You say, come sit with me at the event. I was really depressed. And I went out, and Dana was great. And, you know, I forget if it was you or Dana. Someone said, let's go to the Round Card Girls trailer. I think it was Dana.

He goes, why don't you stop in and say hello? And, you know, I'm married 28 years. You i'm happily married but yeah i went to the round card girls because i did just take a peek in there i just thought i'd look and i thought you know these girls are so pretty and they're really pretty girls but they're so skinny you know and i was thinking about the difference something would look how everything would look different if you were doing mma for a Hispanic audience. That's funny. And it was the girls.

Pretty girls. I mean, you know the UFC. Round car girls, you could take them home to your mom. They're beautiful. They're wonderful. They're skinny, though. Skinny Asian girls, a lot of them. So we were thinking they would look more like Andrea Calle.

The problem, Andrea, is so beautiful that the round car girls kind of look, they didn't match up to our host. Really? Well, no, they were okay. They're okay, too. And we're doing a big contest here in L.A. to find next season's round card girls. Now that's going on all around us. Yeah, what is it about people that think that girls are supposed to be skinny?

Like, will you ever understand that? Who figured that out? There's a lot of women that are actually trying to lose weight, to get skinnier. It's not right. Because they think that that's the ideal. To get really thin, model-type skinny. They think somehow or another that that's attractive to men. It's very bizarre. I guess some men must like it, but most men that I know prefer that.

Some men like boys. Prefer that. That big, juicy ass. Kapow! Pow, most men that I know prefer that. For that big, juicy ass. Ka-pow! Ka-pow-pow! Look at that. Oh, God damn, son. I just, it seems unnatural.

The real skinny, skinny look seems like, it's weird that that's like something that women shoot for. And I think they do it for themselves. It's almost like for the approval of other women or the attractiveness of other women, like clothes and shoes. I've heard women actually say that they dress that way for girls, that girls appreciate it. I don't know where you're going with this, but I like it.

You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying lesbian shit. I'm just saying there's something weird that they're missing a lot about what men like. What men like is that chick you got. Pow! Pow! Don't you think it's the women's point of view is men really don't notice that much unless they're naked? So it's like—

Well, we notice. We like women to look nice and dress nice and a woman who feels confident in their clothes and all that good stuff. But health— Health is good. You know, a woman who looks like she works out. You know, symmetry and health are actually the hallmarks of beauty, right? When you change that around, that's when you start to get strange. Ronda is a very beautiful woman, right?

Yeah, and she's a brawny chick. She'll kick your ass. Yeah. She's a thick girl. Not your ass. She'll kick my ass. She's a tough girl, man. She's tough.

She loves fighting, and she's the perfect person to be the champion in the emergence of women's MMA in the modern era. I mean, Gina Carano was an excellent spokesperson as well for sort of a lot of the same reasons. She's an ass kicker, and she's also very beautiful and very talented and very tough. But Ronda's just some next-level shit. Her judo is the best representation of judo in MMA, without a doubt. The fight with Misha Tate was a perfect example of that. Her throws are—it's ballet, man. It's fucking magnificent.

It's magnificent. That's a good way to describe it. And she's got the best armbar setups in MMA, period, of any weight class. Men, women, doesn't matter. She's the best. She hits those armbars from everywhere. And the way she does it is just fucking laser sharp. Everything's, her transitions are sharp.

She doesn't even hold onto the legs. It's one of the things, she finishes arm bars like almost, she's got like some crazy percentage rate of finishing. Well, and you know, some people say it's harder to do that to women because they're just naturally more flexible than guys. There's more give in the woman's joints. I don't know about that. I think that's ridiculous.

Their arms aren't as strong. That's silly. Their cores aren't as strong. That doesn't make any sense at all. Do you do yoga? Yeah, I do yoga. And do you do as well as the girls? No.

I do pretty good. I'm actually pretty good. You know what? You're a bad example. Like when I go in to do the yoga, they're laughing me why is that because i can't bend over any direction well that's you though i think i'm more representative of the american man than you well not the american man renaissance uh that's gonna get armbarred true i might get armbarred i do you know american man's no challenge they gotta get armbarred on a regular basis looks more like me.

This is true. Women are pretty easy to armbar. I had a girl say that to me once. She said, oh, I can't be armbarred because my arm goes too far back. I'm double jointed. I'm like, let me show you. I can armbar you, bitch. Just relax.

That's a lawsuit. Well, it's not hard to do. First of all, there's a bunch of Different arm bars You know Inverted arm bars Doesn't matter How far your arm goes back Because you have so much

Leverage to play with But the Just standard arm bar You know Look Frank Mir Broke Tim Sylvia's arm And it wasn't even He was like

Far down On the elbow He was actually He broke the forearm You know That's how crazy That technique was. Leverage and strength combined.

Yeah. Someone's got a good armbar, they've got a good armbar. Let me change the subject here. Let me ask you something. So you said you're pretty good at jiu-jitsu. You better at comedy or jiu-jitsu? Comedy. Interesting.

I've been doing it longer, and it's more, I don't know, it's more a part of who you are. You know, I mean, it's really, comedy is sort of like a living, breathing thing that you kind of throw it and add to every day. And jujitsu is in a lot of ways as well. But jujitsu is something that your body, if you do it on a regular basis, you do it really like all the time, five days a days a week six days a week your body breaks down. You're just gonna get fucking injuries. There's no way around it Everybody's got neck problems. Yeah back problem I think the difference is jujitsu is classic 2,000 years ago 2,000 years from now You can look comedy is continually adaptive comedies like a fight. You're continually adapting right comedies change so, you know, I think you you and comedians of about your age represent the group that changed over. You know, you know, I was in the comedy business for a long time. I didn't know that. You know, Jeff.

Yeah. I ran Caroline's around Catch Rising Star and managed Joy Behar and, you know, managed Larry David. No shit. You know, I mean, I was deep in the comedy business. That's how I knew about you. Oh. You know, and my first pay-per-view was Andrew Dice Clay. No shit. Yeah, which... He had a pay-per-view? He had two, man. He made a lot of money.

I'm sure. Because he was banned everywhere. Mm-hmm. It was perfect. Yeah. And it was really with Andrew that I figured out how to do the controversy in lieu of a marketing budget. Wow.

You know, because he was banned. He was dropped by his manager, his record label, the movie company, HBO. But yet he still had, you know, he sold out the Superdome, you know, when he was performing. I believe it. I mean, he had millions of fans. They couldn't see him anywhere. He was perfect for pay-per-view. He does the podcast all the time.

To me, him being a friend, I mean, he catches a lot of shit and caught a lot of shit from people that are very PC. He's a character. I mean, that's what Andrew Dice Clay is. But to me, he's an all-time great. I think there's a handful of all-time greats that I have, like the 20 top comedians ever. I put Andrew Dice Clay in there.

Because to me, when I was a kid i remember when i was like 18 or 19 years old when i first found out about him i remember sitting in my car with my girlfriend laughing our ass off just crying laughing at dice clay about how funny it was and it was a cassette i was listening to a cassette in my car and that's you know that was like around the time i become a dice clay fan and the rhymes like the fact that people could they could sing along like they wanted they you knew it was coming and you still left that's the first time that's ever happened in comedy because that sort of violates what comedy is what comedy is supposed to be a supposed to sneak attack on you this is

way too esoteric a conversation but do you remember yak Yakov Smirnoff? Sure. He reminded me a lot of Dice because it was a very similar setup, cartoony character. But it was – there was one joke. The government – the Russian government is going to do something to you. Right, right, right. You know, and Andrew was much bigger because he hit something that registered, like the UFC, registered with everyone. Do you know how I promoted his pay-per-view? We went to a George Foreman press conference for his fight. Dice walked in with a boxing robe, one glove, and a cigarette in the other hand.

Yeah, Dice coming to pay-per-view. And we broke up Foreman's press conference because we didn't have the budget to do our own press conference. We broke up Foreman's press conference because we didn't have the budget to do our own press conference. And I go, I walked into that with Andrew and I go, you know, it's either going to work or I'm going to take a beating. I really am going to get beaten up and thrown through a door. And then George Foreman stood up and he lifted Dice Clay's one glove and lifted it over his head and that was the picture. And that was it, man. That was great.

Foreman was great. The group surrounding George were not so thrilled with my appearance. Did they beat you up? No. We got out, you know. Got out with it getting good? Yeah, you know, discretion was the better part of valor. You've been involved in some shady deals, man. I don't know if that was shady.

It's called guerrilla marketing. Yeah, shady. It's called guerrilla marketing. Yeah, man. It's called guerrilla marketing. Back when there was no pay-per-view. Back when there was no internet. There was no internet. You had to do things like that, right? It had to be creative.

No social media. To quote Betty White, we didn't have Facebook. We had phone book. We had to call people, do stuff, show up. It was different. Yeah, it's a completely different time. It's hard for people to really wrap their head around the idea of promoting something without social marketing now. But back

then, that was the reality. I've been in martial arts my whole life, but like I said, I didn't find out about the UFC until UFC 2 was on videotape. I really didn't hear about it. I didn't know. How would you hear about it? Exactly. But whereas if it happened today. So the New York Times wrote, you know, death is cheap, $14.95. That did sort of. Is that what they wrote? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't read that either. I don't read the New York Times.

I used to deliver it. Just delivered the Times for a while. You know, I'm not sure who reads the New York Times except people in the media. Well, there's a lot of New Yorkers. And they read that, and then they went batshit. New Yorkers and pseudo-intellectuals worldwide who like to pretend that makes them extra smart if they read the New York Times. Well, let me give a shout out to Richard Sandemir who's still covering sports poorly for the New York Times. So I got to say he is one of the unsung heroes of the UFC.

If it wasn't for Richard Sandemir, I'm not sure any of us would be here. Why is that? Because he wrote Death is Cheap 1495. Listen, we would still be here. And every media outlet picked it up and wanted to interview me, Jim Brown. It went crazy. It went crazy. And I'm not sure Richard was really trying to help.

I'm not sure. I couldn't tell from maybe it was irony that he was using in the article. But he asked me, he goes, you're promoting violence. And I said, you know, there's gun violence, which is an issue. I said, and this is the martial arts. I said, have you ever heard of a drive-by kicking? Which I thought was a reasonable thing to say. And he said, that shows what a sick sense of humor that guy has.

That's the kind of guy. You know, a drive-by kicking, that's... That's a sick sense of humor? I guess to Richard Sandemeyer of the New York Times. Well, people like that get into positions like that and they make a mess of things. He helped. Well, maybe.

Whatever. Fuck that guy. Yeah, exactly. There's just so many of those people out there, so many of those silly people that have these really shitty personalities and poor points of view. Their points of view suck.

And when you're expressing your point of view and you have the outlet, like the media outlet, like a New York Times, you have that ability, you can get incredibly arrogant. You can get incredibly arrogant about your position, your point of view, and also incredibly arrogant about your ideas being more important than other people's ideas. You are a protector of the common good. The moral high ground is the big one. We experience that a lot on Fear Factor as well, people taking the moral high ground is the big one. We experience that a lot on Fear Factor as well, people taking the moral high ground.

Fear Factor. I forgot to add that in to your list of renaissance man of tough guy stuff. You know, where would Dave Chappelle be without Fear Factor? Because that was clearly the funniest stuff he was doing on his show. Clayton Biggums, the fucking blind racist that didn't know that he was black, that's the greatest sketches of all time. That's the greatest comedy sketch of all time. Dave would have been fine. Yes, he would.

But he did do their Fear Factor. Yeah, that was a fun one. What did he call it? Do you remember? I don't remember. I think it was Fear Factor. He was on Fear Factor. Tyrone Biggums was on Fear Factor.

Yeah, that was fucking fun, man. We had to do that. We had to do so many takes because I kept cracking up. Because Dave as Tyrone Biggums. I've known Dave since he was a kid, man. We had to do that. We had to do so many takes because I kept cracking up. Because Dave is Tyrone Bingham. I've known Dave since he was a kid, since he was a teenager. So it was beautiful seeing his show take off. And I was a fan of it and being so funny. But he's just always that guy when you're around him, you're always laughing.

So while we were doing these things, we had to do many, many takes just because people started cracking up. The time I've spent around you is divided into either laughing all the time or you're on some rant. You're on some mission. Because the last time I was talking to you, we started talking about punching in the UFC. And I contended that it could get better. Yes, it can. But you went from there. Well, it can get better, but there's a lot of issues.

You know, the gloves, the boxing style that a lot of people are used to utilizing in an actual boxing match, a little bit of it is dependent upon being able to block with those big gloves. You know, when you take that out, you have a completely different thing. Absolutely. War Machine was on the podcast recently, and he was talking about MMA sparring. He's like, I don't spar with big gloves anymore because it gives you a false sense of security. But don't you think a stance is more of gives you a false sense of security. It gives you... But isn't it the...

Don't you think a stance is more of a factor? Stance is definitely a factor. You have to be more square in MMA to avoid the takedowns. Because I'm seeing that with these Spanish guys that are all coming in from boxing, right? And they're opening themselves up. They're good punchers, though. I mean, crisp punchers, you know? And it's...

You know, some of them would get eaten up in the UFC because they're leaving themselves so wide open. I'm very interested to see how that shakes down because most of these guys are coming in. One guy, Joey's dad, is a pro boxer, so he's coming in from that. How many wrestlers do you have on the show? One guy from Mexico. One guy? Two guys from Mexico. Those guys are going to win.

The one, yeah. Those guys are going to win. The one, yeah. Those guys are going to win. Put the money on the guys with the fucked up ears. In the early days. When you see those ears. Well, the early days, you're essentially going right back to UFC 1. Well, you're kind of coming in at UFC 3 or 4. I was going to say it's more like 5, but yeah, whatever. Point well taken.

Now they know something's up. It's not like when Hoy showed up and everybody goes he's in his pajamas he's in his pajamas I'm going to kill him you know

no it's different they all know something's up but what do you do and how do you adapt you do what you did before you do it all over again no worries

you do it all over again and you let it adapt from there I think it's something that every culture that gets exposed to MMA is going to have to figure out for themselves and that's one of the things that I meant

when we were talking about the Wesley Snipes thing that I don't think anybody I think he probably did think he was gonna kick my ass you know well just like I thought I was gonna kick his ass but if he had just rolled once just gone into train once with go and roll with here Heron or Henner or you know anyone anyone who really knows what they're doing. Not saying that I'm those guys, but roll with someone who would feel how utterly helpless you are and then extrapolate. How you get manhandled. Get in there with

a decent purple belt and watch how many times you tap out in a minute. You know, just a purple belt. Just some guy who, you know, knows what to do and you're not going to be able to stop it. You know, I think that these guys are going to have to learn that. They're going to have to learn how to stop the shot because if you get in there with a world-class wrestler, you're going down, period. Stop all this nonsense about I'm going to go to the side.

I'm going to duck under his takedown. Bitch, you're going on your back. You're going to be a – you're going to either figure out how to get back up or stop that from happening. That sounds like a dating line, by the way. Bitch, you're going to be on your back. Yeah, and then there's also going to be – But that's how it is, right? It is that dominance thing.

Sure. It really is. To see fighters that didn't have a ground game in the UFC be so manhandled, and it was like a prison scene. It was like a prison movie. Even guys that got good, like Pat Barry. He recently quit. He says, I'm done.

Done with MMA. I don't want to wrestle anymore. He's going to go to, he signed with Glory. He's going to do some kickboxing. But he got to a point where he was on his way into the octagon. It's like, shit, I don't want to wrestle. Do you think there's too much ground in the UFC? No.

No. No. No. Not a fear factor for you. No. This is the problem. That's reality. Look, I've said this on the podcast many times before, that I'm a fan of Ben Askren.

Ben Askren is a guy who fought for Bellator. He's a great guy. And like Eddie Alvarez, challenged outside La Jaula and maintained his dignity and his gentlemanly take on things. Yes. I really admire that. And they had the same problem with Rabigny, Rabignu, whatever. He's an excellent wrestler. And he gets criticized because he's able to take guys down,

manhandle them on the ground, and punch them in the face, and they can't do shit about it. And he takes guys like Douglas Lima, like really high-level guys, shuts their game down. Just shuts it down with his wrestling. That's important because that's reality. That is the reality of fighting with that guy. Douglas Lima might be more exciting to watch on television because he's a devastating striker and he's really scary, knocks guys out cold. And maybe Ben doesn't do that,

but so fucking what? When those two get together, what happens? Ben Askren dominated Douglas Lima. That's reality. Whether or not it's fun and exciting to watch, you can't change that. And you can't regulate your sport to make things that are less exciting when you're dealing with a sport that involves fighting. Because you can't regulate your sport to make things that are less exciting when you're dealing with a sport that involves fighting.

Because you can't get rid of the things that are less exciting. Of course you can. Why would you do that? It's entertainment. You have a legitimate sport. No, no, no, no, no. You have a sport. There's a lot of entertainment in that sport.

Wait a minute. Let's pick another sport. Hold on. There's a reality in being able to shut a guy down. And a guy like Askren can shut a guy down, take him down. That guy does not want to get shut down. That guy does not want to get taken down. Now, if Askren can utilize his martial art, which is wrestling, legitimate martial art, and take these guys down and completely dominate them for five rounds, tough shit. You can't stop that. Of course you can. How? Why? How and why? Listen, baseball.

Pitchers are dominating, lower the mound. Why do they do that? Listen, that doesn't make any sense. Yes, it does. Then it's not the pitcher's advantage. But it's baseball. Fighting is fighting. Basketball.

Hold on a second. You can change your rules, but the objective is still the same thing. The objective is still to throw a ball that a guy can't hit, hit a ball that the guy's throwing at you, catch the ball when it goes in the air. The objectives are exactly the same. The objectives in MMA are exactly the same too. Stay up if you can or take a guy down and submit him. If you can't stay up, you can't stay up. That is reality. There's no way you can change that. If you change that, you're

cheapening what you're selling because what you're selling is a martial art. You're selling, this is as real as it gets. This is what happens when two people who are incredibly skilled actually fight using the skills they have. If you handicap a guy's skill just for entertainment, you're cheaping the whole product. You're cheaping the whole sport. I can't believe I'm arguing with you on this. We're cheaping the sport. I tried to do this.

This is what we started out trying to do, to make it as real as possible. Well, let's quantify what we're saying. Let's quantify what you mean as far as like, yes, you can change it. Because if you're Well, let's quantify what we're saying. Let's quantify what you mean as far as like, yes, you can change it. Because if you're talking about, like, what are you talking about when you're saying you can change it to stop a guy who some people perceive as being boring or make the fights more exciting? Well, for one thing, you cannot sign him to your franchise, right? I mean, that's one thing you can do. You can let him fight. I think that's it. I'm going

to go on record. I think that's a mistake. I think the UFC should have signed him. If I was running things, I would have signed him in a heartbeat. I really like Ben. I wish him... I hope it all works out. I wish I talked to him so he didn't talk shit about the UFC. Because he said a bunch of shit and talked some shit about Dana, which is unnecessary. I wish...

Maybe the heat of the moment. I'm sure. Well, he's a fucking proud guy. He's a proud champion athlete. He's a fucking proud guy he's a proud you know champion athlete he's an accomplished athlete i i'm i'm that's one of like i i'm bummed out about that but say i had a say i had a fight franchise and say it was called combate americas and you can watch it this sunday on mundos right so like one of the things i did like i have this the guys have a tradition of you know mexican wrestling lucha have this, the guys have a tradition of, you know, Mexican wrestling, lucha libre, right? So I brought in a guy called the Blue Demon to show them stagecraft.

Because there are some things you can add to the sport, right? How you enter, how you leave, what you do after you win. I think that's a really big part of this. I think this is an entertainment too. You know, boxing, Joe Louis always made more money than Babe Ruth, right? Because there's an entertainment factor to what fighters do. And you have to acknowledge that. And the fighters have to work with that. And I think sometimes it's put upon them with John Jones, you know, great fighter, tremendous athlete, really good athlete. But the fight with Gussie

is the one that I think it was thrust on him. He had to show heart and he had to work it through and he had to do all this stuff. So that was fate. That was karma. That happened to him. But if that hadn't happened, you got to do something with a guy like that because the fans weren't responding to him. Wait a minute. What are you talking about? You're saying the fans weren't responding to Jon Jones dominating people, choking out Liotta Machida, choking out Rampage Jackson. I'm not saying people didn't think he was accomplished. But I didn't see the surge in popularity that he should have had from those accomplishments. Wow.

I don't agree at all. I think he's incredibly popular. I'm confused about that. Why would you think that? You think his style is boring? Like John has a boring style? I wouldn't say boring. I would say methodical.

I'd say brilliant. I'd say brilliant. The best ever at keeping distance, utilizing his distance to his advantage. And what's his best fight? Which fight is the most fun to watch? Well, Gustafson's fight was the most competitive, so that's probably the best one to watch. But the way he dominated the Rashad Evans fight was a great fight as well. Do you think Gustafson was his

best opponent, his most skilled opponent? I think Gustafson is very, well, it's all in styles and how they match up. That's true. Gustafson matches up with him incredibly well. He's a very good boxer. And Gustafson is also the first guy that he ever fought that was taller than him. That's a big

factor, man. You know what? I think you really hit on it. I think when you were asking what you can do to sort of keep the sport true but have more entertainment, you have to think about those matchups. This is what I think, yes. But it's also a matter of you've got to – look, if a guy's boring or you think a guy's boring, I don't feel like Ben Askren's boring. But if a guy like Ben Askren comes along that people feel is boring, what do you want to see? Well, you want to see him fight Johnny Hendricks. That's what you want to see, a guy who he's going to not really have a big wrestling advantage with. I would love to see that.

Fuck yeah. Are you kidding me? I would pay mad money to see Ben Askren fight Johnny Hendricks because Johnny Hendricks knocks motherfuckers stiff. And he's a wrestler. And he's a great wrestler. He's a world-class wrestler. He might be a level below Askren, wrestling-wise. I believe he is.

I believe Askren is just a little bit higher-level wrestler. But he's good enough that he can keep the fight standing. I mean, he might not have achieved the international respect that Askren has, wrestling. But it's close enough. Close enough where I think Johnny can keep the fight standing. And Johnny Hendricks can punch holes through fucking steel. That dude hits hard, and that's the difference between the two of them. His fights are like the Martin Kampman one-punch knockout,

the John Fitch one-punch knockout. Guys who we've seen are really durable. They get hit by Hendricks, and they go to sleep. I want to see that fight. I want to see if Askren can do the same shit. That would be awesome. But the only way you find that out. You don't know more than me. You know a lot more than me.

But the only way you can find that out is to get a guy like Askren and let him use his shit. We've got to find out. If he can stifle Johnny Hendricks, he takes Johnny Hendricks down and gives him fucking noogies for five rounds. Holy shit. What the fuck? How do you figure out a way to stop that guy? Because you're

dealing with a guy like, and Hendricks, obviously he didn't do this, but if he did do this, you're dealing with a guy like Hendricks who went five rounds with GSP and most people thought he should have won. And GSP is widely regarded as, if not the best pound-for-pound fighter ever, at least top three ever. So if Johnny Hendricks can get stifled by Ben Askren, what the fuck does that say about Ben Askren's wrestling? You've got to find out. You've got to fucking throw him in there. If you don't throw him in there, it's an illegitimate sport. You've got to find out with every style.

If you've got a guy who's a kickboxer who just doesn't have any ground game at all, but he knocks motherfuckers senseless, find out if that guy can stand up. Well, that's what Pride did with Mirko Krokop. When Mirko Krokop first fought Vanderlei Silva, he didn't have a fucking stitch of ground game. He had nothing. They would go to the ground, he would just hang on for dear life, and they had a 30-second rule.

And after 30 seconds on the ground, they would stand and back up again, and they would start kickboxing again, trying to stay up. They found out. They threw him in there. They find out. That's part of the evolution of MMA. And the evolution of MMA is still ongoing. Because if a guy like Ben Askren can dominate a guy like Douglas Lima, who just smashes people in Bellator,

just beautiful knockout striker, I want to see what that guy can do against the very best in the world. How the fuck does he deal with Tyron Woodley? How does he deal with that unbelievable athlete, that ridiculous superhero body that Tyron Woodley's got, and deal with that unbelievable athlete, that ridiculous superhero body that Tyron Woodley's got, and ridiculous one-punch knockout power along with great wrestling? I'm on your show. I'm sitting here listening.

Wait, I'm on the show. I should say something. I disagree. Disagree with what? I don't know. I just want to stir you up. I just think that I just think that you can't change the rules because you don't like the results. The results are unusual.

That's the thing about a guy like Askren. What if Askren and Hendricks rolled around and it was, you know, what did Silva say, 25 minutes of one guy on top of another will kill the sport? It's not true. It's not true. Because you're always going to have people that don't fight like that. You're always going to have the Vitor Belforts. You're always going to have the Chris Weidmans. You're always going to have people that don't fight like that. You're always going to have the Vitor Belforts. You're always going to have the Chris Weidmans.

You're always going to have guys who win and don't win that way, but that way is a way. And if you deny that that way is a way, you're cheaping the whole sport because you throw this element into the mix. It's very effective. You don't like the way it looks, so you pull it out. But it's still very effective. It's still an effective element of fighting. See, you've got to take the boring along with the good. That's why I don't like stand-ups.

If a guy can take you down and dry hump you for five rounds, tough shit, you've got to figure out how to get up. If that guy can hold you down and just punch you in the face, or even just hold you down, you've got to figure out a way to get up. If you can't get up, a referee coming along, standing you up, it's illegitimate. I mean, I'll say the referee's probably going to stand a guy up. Well, I'll do that during commentary. I'll do that because that's just the way they do it, and that's part of the rules,

and I'm doing commentary on a real thing. But if I had my choice, if they said to me, what do you think? Should we have stand-ups? Fuck no. No stand-ups. No ever stand-ups. If a guy takes you down, tough shit. If he can hold you down for five minutes, tough shit.

If he can hold you down for five minutes of every round, tough shit. That means you've got to figure out how to not get taken down. And when you get taken down, you've got to figure out how to get better at getting up. You don't see that with some guys. You don't see a guy like Jose Aldo getting taken down and held down. Because you can't do it. You can't take him down. And if you take him down, you can't hold him down.

That's because he's the best. And the guys who are the best, you can't do that to. And the guys who you can do that to, well, they've got to learn how to not get taken down and they've got to learn how to not get fucking mounted for five rounds. So you're saying it's like a handicap in golf. Absolutely. The guy's coming in, he's got a handicap. Absolutely.

Absolutely. You can't take away a guy's ability because you don't like the result because the the ability is unusual and if you get it to a point where that guy is so good at that unusual ability that he makes fights boring tough shit you know hope and pray for a man to come along that can solve it you know you we talk about this you talk about this joe silva talks about this sport um as if it's Joe Silva talks about this sport as if it's 100 years old. It's true. It's not been around that long.

It's almost 100 now. It's 20. It's getting there. It's getting there. It's getting there. It's moving. I got to say, some of the years, the development had been retarded. A little bit.

A little bit. You know, 99. Well, that's also my frustration when I quit. It was when I quit the first version, the UFC with SEG, the UFC was in that weird state where it was on pay-per-view anymore or wasn't on cable. It was on direct. It was on direct TV only. Well, it was on broadcast. A lot of people don't know.

It was on Spanish broadcast channels because they were taking it and airing it wow it was fcc broadcast wow david isaacs did that that's right i kind of remember that now i remember people telling me because you could see it in la i think at midnight they were running it on i forget which it was probably the univision channel here wow in la i i think that... Did you do the tournaments? I'm trying to remember. No. No, I didn't do any of the tournaments.

Joe, that was something, man. The tournaments were... I mean, that was a different level. I think I was involved in maybe... Wait a minute. Now that I think about it, there was like maybe one or two... Well, I was involved in the first one, the heavyweight tournament with Vitor. I was involved with my first one. UFC heavyweight tournament with Vitor. I was involved with my first one.

UFC 12 was a tournament. Vitor beat Trey Telegman, and then he beat Scott Ferrozzo and won the tournament. Scott Ferrozzo. Yeah. And that was also the first heavyweight champion because that's when Mark Coleman beat Dan Severin for the UFC heavyweight title. So I was involved in that tournament, that heavyweight tournament. And there was a couple afterwards. But then it broke down to weight classes. Then guys stopped fighting more than once in a night, which I think is also very intelligent. Oh, it was a crazy thing to do.

And I look back on it and I'm amazed it happened. I'm amazed those guys did it. There were so many things wrong with it. You know, like when someone was hurt and we had to put an alternate in that hadn't had an earlier fight, you know, it was just undo hurt and we had to put an alternate in that hadn't had an earlier fight. You know, it was just undoable. It's unfair. Unfair. Those alternates were incredibly unfair.

You couldn't make it fair. There was no way to make it fair. We used to laugh and say, okay, if the alternate's going in, we'll take him in the parking lot and we'll have someone beat him up for two or three minutes. I mean, there was no way to make it fair. Well, I don't think Glory should do that either. Glory still does tournaments. And I think it's a huge mistake. Well, there are round robins in boxing, too.

But they don't fight twice in a day in pro boxing. No one has two fights in a night in pro boxing. There was a round robin in Atlantic City a few years ago. Really? Yeah. And I forget who promoted it. Well, Glory right now in America represents the highest level of kickboxing in the world. In the United States, at least, that we have access to.

If you have the highest level of kickboxing in the world and you have a tournament format, imagine if that was the case with boxing. Could you imagine Floyd Mayweather and Canelo Alvarez fighting someone else earlier in the day and then fighting each other? Fuck that. That's crazy. That would never happen. It's crazy.

It's ridiculous. And I think that's the same thing with Glory. You saw Bazooka Joe's, that tournament he was in? What's the Bazooka Joe's? Joe Vitolini from... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bazooka Joe and Ray Daniels. Yeah.

That was great. Bazooka Joe's in my show. We brought him in to talk to the guys. He's a bad motherfucker. Bad motherfucker. He really is. Badass kickboxer. That fight with him and Raymond Daniels was amazing because Daniels has all these wild, crazy, flashy kicks

and Baltellini just kept kicking the legs, kicking the legs and chopped them down and then head kicked them. It was classic, you know, Dutch style kickboxing. Dutch style kickboxing. Yeah. Yeah. That was a great, great fight. But then Baltellini went on after that hard fight and lost in the finals. Disappointing from my point of view. But because he had a hard fight. I mean, two hard fights in a day. That's crazy. And then a lot of time off in between the fight, like over an hour.

You know what I think it did back in UFC's early days? And it's very different now, but we didn't have a reality show. We didn't have social media. There was no way to get to know the fighters. And if you saw a man fight a couple fights in a night, you really did feel like you knew him. You saw him tested in a couple different ways. You saw his heart. You saw his stamina.

You saw his style because the style started to break down pretty much unless you were a Gracie. So I think it was a way to really tell a story about somebody in one night. And by the end of the tournament, you were rooting for one of the two guys. That's a good point. You know? It's just, I don't think it's a good idea as far as... I'm not advocating for you.

...health and safety factor, but I agree with you that there was a spectacle factor to it that was quite interesting. It was really kind of exciting, the fact that, you know, Hoyce would beat this guy, and then, you know, Hoyce would face that guy later,

and, you know, and if he beats him, he gets to the finals. Like all those tournament things were fun. It was fun to track and follow. We pulled the names out of a hat, too. That's crazy. Yeah. Well, it's crazy now. When you look back at it now and, you know, you go to these events, like whether it's UFC 100 or one of the new ones like this weekend Ronda Rousey versus Sarah McMahon and and

you're there in Vegas and there's 15,000 people screaming at the top of their lungs and standing on their feet what does it feel like do you feel do you have a sense of pride that you're part of this absolutely absolutely and I'll tell you but and I don't mean that pride not in the sense that I had anything to do with those live events, because when I was doing it, our live events sucked so bad. It was unbelievable. They were so bad. But of course, pride. I mean, Joe, I know how much it's changed and I hear how much you know, but it's still the Octagon. It's still you. It's still Joe Silva. You know, Al Connell, still producing, right? I mean, it's kind of the creative thing that I put together. So it's like going to a high school reunion. You know, that's what I felt like at the 20th. I recognized everybody. You know, I used Herb Dean in The Iron Ring, too.

So I had Herb and Big John. And, you know, it's like this is the group that I did. It's very, very different. You know, it's very different, but it's also the same. You know, it's like this is the group that I did. It's very, very different. It's very different, but it's also the same. It's also the same. So I have a great deal of pride not claiming credit for that. But I do think – I think maybe another – bringing in Silver, bringing in you sort of like helped create the DNA of the UFC. And another thing, bringing in the wrestlers, you know, when it looked like

Hoist was going to win everything and I reached out to Dan Severin and Mark Schultz, who was the first Olympic gold medalist to be in the UFC, Severin,

you know, these guys came in, Coleman, you know, they came in to sort of challenge and I think that helped set up the DNA

of the UFC too, the big college wrestlers. Mark Schultz was a beast, man. A lot of people don't know him. You know, he took that fight on, what was it, like eight days or something. And, you know, I called his brother Dave, you know, who was murdered by the DuPont heir, if anyone remembers. Yeah.

Horrible, horrible story. I called him originally because he was bigger. I wanted him to do it. And he goes, ah, that sounds crazy. You should call my brother. He'll fight right in there. Well, he wound up having to quit his MMA career because he was a wrestling coach. And because of his—

Where is it, BYU? Is that where he was? I think that was it. Wherever he was a wrestling coach, they didn't want him doing anything with this cage fighting stuff. So it was the opposite problem you had with news radio. Yeah, exactly. Well, it was one of those things where I think he was in a position where he wasn't going to make any money. And the way to make money as a wrestler is to get a coaching gig.

When you're an elite wrestler, he had a real serious staph infection, too, where he almost lost his arm. Really, really bad staph infection where he has this huge i wonder if there's a picture of him there's a huge scar that he had uh on his uh arm like all the way up his elbow the mursa mursa mursa yeah well it's not flesh eating it's different than that it's just a very strong form of staph infection. Yeah. Yeah. You know what impressed me about him? He was fight ready. You know, he was in fight level condition walking around. Yeah.

You know, he never was not like that. That's why he could take that fight and be very secure. Well, a guy like that, his wrestling is so goddamn good. You're just not going to stop that guy from taking you down. Do I sound as fat as I look? Is it distracting to look at yourself? like that. His wrestling is so goddamn good. You're just not going to stop that guy from taking you down. Do I sound as fat as I look? No. Is it distracting to look at yourself? Well, shut the camera down. It's that angle. It's that angle emphasizing my girth.

Listen. My white hair. You look beautiful. You've been around. Listen, do you know Ariel Helwani? Sure. Is he a nice guy? What's up with him? He's a very nice guy. He is. Okay.

Why? He doesn't seem to know me. What do you mean? Well, he confused me with Art Davey the last time I was on the show. How rude. And I love Art, but I can tell us apart. You look different. Yeah, we look different.

You and Art are very different. Yeah, I don't have a hat. He went anti-UFC for a while, right? Art? Yeah. Didn't he? After he got fired, he got angry and was saying a bunch of shit? He wrote a letter.

He wrote an open letter to John McCain saying, you know, you're kind of right. Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't that? And Art, if you're listening, that was wrong, my man. You should have called me before you did that. That was a bitch ass move. Yeah.

That was kind of a punk move. Art's a good guy. Well, what happened? He just didn't get along with you guys anymore. Well, I was gone at that point. Right. When did you leave? What event did you leave at?

with you guys anymore. Well, I was gone at that point. Right. When did you leave? What event did you leave at? Well, I was consulting and EPing through like 20, 21, 22. But, you know, I think of the first 12 as mine, right? And because of the concepts were mine. You know, we were doing themes with David versus Goliath

and, you know, stuff like that. So I think of the first 12, first 12, Jesus had 12 disciples. I had 12 UFCs. Wow, I hope that's not true. Basically the same. Yeah, I mean, that's horror. Wow. 12 steps.

I'm just thinking of 12. I'm just thinking of 12 steps. He's sorry, people. I apologize and did not mean any comparison between me and, you know, Christ. I way didn't. It was just jokes. It was 12. It was a dozen.

It was a dozen, like a baker's dozen. So, you know, but I think I was trying to find always something to promote. You know, back then, again, no social media, no internet, you know, no budgets. We always had to have some hook. And to me, it had to be fun or I didn't want to do it. And, you know, Joe Silva says famous. You know, this quote, the worst thing that would happen to the UFC is if it became a sport. That gets attributed to me.

You know, it's Joe Silva that's actually been saying I said that. I don't actually remember saying that. You probably said it and you just forgot you said it. Of course I said it. I just don't remember. Joe remembers. John Peretti. How'd you get involved with John Peretti? Never liked John. Yeah, I found him creepy. Why? Why was he creepy? I just, he creeped me out. In what way? In the creepy way. No, no, John, I'm sorry. You're a great guy if you're listening. He listened? I don't know.

I don't know. You're going to find out. He sent me a tweet once asking me why I never had him on his show, why I won't have him on his show. Tell him because he's creepy. But he said it was a weird tweet. He goes, you know, I can't believe you won't have me on my show. I always respected you when we hired you. And I go, I'll have you on my show. When he hired you, he was nowhere around. He said we.

He said we. Mira, here's why I think I don't like him. He was nowhere around. He said we. He said we. Mira, here's why I think I don't like him. Extremely challenging fighting, or whatever the penthouse version was, they totally fucked it up. And that was Bob Guccione. Extreme challenge, right?

Whatever. Extreme fighting championship. Whatever it was. Fightingly extreme challenge. It's good fights, whatever it was. Yeah, they did have a couple. They had some good fighters. And Peretti, I think, was doing the matchmaking. But Guccione's son announced that he was going to do extreme fighting in Madison Square Garden.

And that's what made Giuliani crazy. That's what made everybody crazy in New York. He announced he was coming to the Garden. You know, we were going to go back upstate again to Buffalo. You remember. But they announced they were doing the garden. And Giuliani went, not in my city. I draw the line in the face of tyranny.

I mean, Giuliani fought the mafia. He's like running down to try to hold up the World Trade Centers during 9-11. Giuliani's not scared of anyone. So when you piss him off, you've got to get off that bus, man. And you've got to go take another bus and you've got to get out of town. And extreme fighting, they were rubbing, you know, look, I went pretty far. That was too far. Don't piss off Rudy Giuliani.

Guy caught the mafia. So how did Peretti wind up going from extreme fighting to the UFC? What happened there? It was someone's bright idea, not mine. And then he came over and was doing commentary for the UFC or just happened there? It was someone's bright idea, not mine. And then he came over and was doing commentary for the UFC or just matchmaking? I think he was doing matchmaking commentary. Did he do commentary?

I think he was doing a little camera work. I don't know. I'm trying to remember. I know he did commentary for Extreme Fighting. I think he did hair and makeup for some of the guys. I know he did commentary for Extreme Fighting. I just want to say, John, there's no challenge if you see me on the street to beat the shit out of me. It wouldn't mean anything to you. You could kick my ass.

Why? Are you worried that he would do that? Is he that kind of a guy? I'm saying kind of outrageous stuff. I don't really know him. You're not really saying anything that outrageous. I'm trying to find out

what you don't like. I don't remember. We haven't really established that. You know, I have a bad memory, but I'm very creative. You have a bad memory, but you're adamant about fucking getting pissed off.

If you had anything to do with extremely extreme fighting, then you really screwed it up for the UFC. You really hurt the UFC. So you should have, you know, you know. Well, I don't think it was their idea. You should have moved to Japan and do K3 or whatever it was you wanted to do. If it was their idea, they didn't want to get that result. They were a press release.

They were not real. They were a press release. They had some good fights. What are you talking about? They had some good fights. There was Mark talking about? They had some good fights. There was Mark Coleman or Conan Silveira when he fought. Conan was, you know, Conan, you couldn't not. Maurice Smith.

Maurice Smith head kicked Conan. Yeah, Maurice Smith. One of the first head kicks in MMA. But, you know, Maurice Smith was one of those, you know, he was a little bit like the Dutch kickboxers. Fought everywhere. Just kept going. Professional fighter.

Yeah. Always gave a good show. Never gave great half Gracie half Gracie fought with a wedding ring on punch the dude in the face with a wedding ring on you remember that yeah the bare-knuckle days man that was uh that was a Mario Sperry Mario Sperry first fought MMA Igor Zinoviev Mario lost Igor Zinoviev and his first losses how do you remember us you and Bruce Beck I just literally remember bought MMA. Igor Zinoviev. Mario lost to Igor Zinoviev in his first loss. It's a huge, huge loss. How do you remember this? You and Bruce Beck literally remember everything. I remember

a lot when it comes to MMA. It jogs my memory when you say it, but if you'd asked me that before you said it, I couldn't come up with it. Well, I don't have any other sports in there clogging them up the pores. I don't know anything about basketball. Because baseball will soak up all your memories.

Yeah, stats, right? Stats, man. All those stats, they just get chiseled in the spaces and nooks and crannies of your mind. There's no room in there for Igor Zinoviev,

Carlson Gracie Jr., you know, all that shit. Yeah, Conan. Yeah, man. There was some- With the spider tattoos. I remember that. The tattoos were bad.

Gary Myers. Gary the Iron Bear Myers. Remember him? Gary Myers? Yeah. Holy crap. Heavyweight, and he was like 5'8". Built like a fucking brick shithouse.

Great fights, man. That's something. It's like the guys, the physiques now are very different, right? It's much more- There's a similarity to the guys. I don't mean that in any bad way, but it's like you see the specialized form in the NFL. The different positions have different forms.

The UFC has sort of taken that on. In some ways, yeah, there's Gary Myers. In some ways, it has. But in other ways, I mean, one of the guys I brought up earlier, Tyron Woodley, Tyron Woodley's built like a fucking superhero. He doesn't look like an MMA fighter in a lot of ways. He's so big and muscular.

He kind of looks like almost like too big for MMA. Yet, he's fighting at the highest level. And he's fighting Carlos Condit next in Dallas. And a great fight. And really interesting because Condit is built like more of your standard MMA fighters. Lean, tall, long guy with, musculature, but nothing crazy. Whereas Woodley is just this fucking beast. And Carlos Conrad has shown that he can go five rounds. Go five

rounds against GSP and still have endurance in the fifth and final round. So it's going to be interesting to see. Look at Tyron Woodley. Look at the build in that guy. Jesus Christ! That's a fucking athlete right there. That guy's unbelievably fast and powerful. Well, he's a little bit right there. That guy's unbelievably fast and powerful. Well, he's a little bit thicker than your average boxer.

But yeah, I could see some boxers being built like that. Just it's not unusual for MMA. Do you think boxers have better cardio than the MMA guys? No. No chance. Not even close. Not even close. You think MMA is superior.

Fuck yeah, by 1,000%. Wrestlers say that they are above a boxer. Yes, they are. An Olympic wrestler. You have to do more. It's harder. It's harder to control a guy's body than it is to move your own body in and out and around a guy. When you're controlling the other guy's body and grappling and pushing and tussling with him, they break it up quickly.

That's the reason why Muhammad Ali, who was so intelligent, used to lean on guys. When he got him in the clinch. Ropa-dopa, yeah. Yeah, but when he got him in the clinch, he would lean on guys' backs and their necks. He would pull them down to lean on guys. When he got him in the clinch, when he got him in the clinch, he would lean on guys' backs and their necks. He would pull them down and lean on them. A lot of fighters do that. Bernard Hopkins, famous for that. He leans on those guys. That shit

wears you out. It wears you out. It slows you down. It's the same reason why George St. Pierre did that to BJ Penn when they first fought. The first fight, or the first round of their second fight, grabs a hold of BJ, pushes him up against the cage, and turns it into a wrestling match. The more he can keep BJ wrestling, the more he's going to exhaust him. But if you're just standing around with him, kickboxing with him, moving in and out, it's way easier to kickbox.

It's way easier to box. You're only controlling your own body. You're moving your own body back and forth and around. But as soon as you've got to move another guy's body and he tries to move you when you're trying to counter him moving you, that shit's exhausting. As usual, you're right. But I think in any fight, the change, the adrenalized change in your body takes its toll. The focus.

Anytime you're in a fight, I believe humans, you know, fight or flight. We're made to run away or we're made to fight. And I think when you're in a fight, professional, amateur, bar, when you're in, the focus is what becomes really challenging. The ability to stay that focused to protect yourself or to attack. And I think that's also what wears people down. You know, and I think that boxing, you're exactly right. MMA, there's so many variables, so much happening, you're going to wear yourself out. But that focus in boxing, I think, is very, very wearing for those guys. Oh, for sure.

To be a target for that long is wearing. Certainly. Yeah, it's certainly wearing. But that exists in MMA as well. The other thing is the five rounds or five-minute rounds. Five-minute rounds is a big difference. To do three minutes boxing as opposed to do five minutes of grappling is a big fucking difference. I think the amount that they have to train is different as well.

Like boxers oftentimes will just train once a day, and maybe they'll run in the morning or get a little bit of a strength and conditioning workout in the morning, and then they do their boxing at night. With MMA fighters, it's often two really hard workouts a day or three sometimes. And when you're talking about three, I mean, that's just unbelievably taxing on the body. It's one of the reasons why there's so much of a performance enhancing drug problem in MMA. You hear more about it. What? You hear more about it than you hear about it in boxing. It was the first sport to test for HIV-borne disease, blood disease.

We were the first. You don't want a guy mounting you with the AIDS. Not in the cockfighting, no. Yeah, you don't want that. That's smart. What year was it? Did you guys do it as a publicity scam? Yes, we did.

I love that you admit it. That's huge. Yeah, that's probably a good thing to test for. You know, it's funny. My son works for the Manhattan DA, and they do this big charity boxing thing. So my son was a baseball player in high school and a little bit in college. And he's gotten into boxing for this charity thing they're doing. And he's a good athlete and in pretty good shape.

Plays soccer, plays a lot of sports. Whipped from the boxing. Whipped from the boxing workouts he's doing, you know? It's really, you know, fighting is a very different thing. We talk about this. You know, Joe, I've got to say, we want to talk about this like it's a sport because I think it brings a certain dignity to the athletes. It brings a certain sanctity to the events, and it brings a certain advertiser into the process.

So it's important to talk about this as a sport. But, you know, it is a fight. These are fights. And that's why it's different. You know, and that's when you talked about that electric atmosphere. It's a fight, you know, and that whole shit moment that Lorenzo described. It is a fight. And I think what we're doing here in promoting this is, you know, I got to say, I may take crap for this. I think it's a good thing because I think people need this sort of escape mechanism, you know, and I do think martial artists and even, you know, most boxers, even though boxing has become such a ghettoized sport in some ways, you know, but I think the way these fighters conduct themselves and what they have to go through and what they face and going into whether it's the octagon or La Jaula, you

know, there's an inherent dignity in this because it's a fight, not in spite of it being a fight. You know, this is a real challenge. You know, I remember Ken Shamrock had fought all over the world, one of the real professional fighters in the early days, right? He, you know, he'd fought in Japan, he fought all over the world. He said when he went into the octagon and that steel door went behind him, he said that was a no shit moment for him, you know, and that guy had been around, you know, and I think I agree with this being categorized as a sport, but in some ways it transcends sport too, you know, because I don't know. Football is a tough sport, but I don't think it's the same as going into the octagon. Yeah, it's a different thing if you lose.

You know, if the ball gets past you, it's not that big a deal. Well, it's not. You might lose. You might feel bad, but you're not going to feel bad like a guy beats your ass. If a guy gets on top of you, mounts you, and punches your face until you lean over and tap the mat, or go unconscious,

or the referee rescues you, that's humiliating. That guy stole something from you. I mean, so many people have said it in so many flamboyant ways, but essentially, he takes a piece of your manhood. He takes a piece of what it is to be a man. And people don't want to admit that, but the reality is you become less attractive to women.

You know, you do. If a guy kicks your ass, you become, instead of people admiring you, they feel pity for you. It's a completely different result than if you win. Tribal. It takes away. Elemental. And you worked six weeks for that, man. You worked six weeks and you still got fucked up.

You did your best. You did all your training. You put in all your time. You drank water. You didn't have any beer. You didn't fuck. You did all these things you're supposed to do and you still got fucked up. Well, Rhonda, you know, says the opposite about fucking.

Well, she doesn't have a dick. Holla. Yeah, it's a big difference. Women weak in legs, you know. Yeah, when you're shooting loads, you're getting rid of things you have to rebuild. You know, I'm glad you explained that to me. I hadn't really figured it out. You didn't know that?

No. Back to the cockfighting. It all comes back to the cockfighting. Well, this weekend is the first time ever in the history of the UFC two Olympic medalists are going at it, and they just so happen to be women. That's incredible. It's be women. That's incredible. It's beyond incredible. That's amazing.

And it's perfect that it's Ronda and Sarah McMahon because they're two very different world-class athletes. And they deserve it. Yes. Do you know what? I think that's another thing the UFC does. It gives a professional level to Olympic and college wrestling that didn't exist unless you wanted to go have Vince McMahon's dramas. Yeah, exactly. It turned wrestling into a professional sport. Again, wrestling used to be a professional sport a long time ago. It was very different.

Now it's theater. But, you know, back in the day, actually, guys, you know, were real wrestlers and wrestled. This is going back 30, 40, 50 years, right? So I think what the UFC did is give a group of athletes a career trajectory. You know, where was an Olympic judo guy going to go? Right. Teach. That's it.

Same with wrestlers. It's really shocking to me that there's professional avenues for things like tennis but there's no professional avenues for wrestling i find wrestling to be very exciting there is it's the ufc that's yeah but it's not because then they have to punch and they have to kick and they have to you know they have to worry about head trauma there's there's a lot of new skills that they have to learn they have to learn submissions it's kind of amazing that wrestling didn't become a professional sport. And it's really one of those factors of promotion. It was never promoted correctly. That real wrestling never

became a professional sport. Maybe. Or maybe it's back to my original point, that if guys are going to roll around on the ground all the time and your franchise decides to do something about that, that maybe makes it more exciting. Because in wrestling, it is rolling around on the ground. And I think... But it's not. It's trying to take each other down. It's battling those takedown attempts, trying to score points. But how do you win on the ground?

Yes. You can only win on the ground. Right. And so the sport is a mat sport. That's one of the years, right? You know this. You know better than I do. And I think, you know, there's still... i don't know what it is uh whether it was boxing or whatever

it is where it's ingrained in us that you want to see guys fight at least some of the time standing up i think the ufc is you know has added to you know the change in what we think a fight looks like without a doubt but you still want to see guys stand up and you know even the wrestlers at some point want to prove they can do that too maybe but i mean i think ultimately mma is always going to be the most exciting form of combat sports because it's everything combined but i think no argument here my friend but I love kickboxing I love boxing and I love jiu-jitsu I would love I would pay without a doubt

to see world class professional jiu-jitsu guys like Jacare guys like Marcelo Garcia just going at it submission grappling only yeah but you're

you're in a very elite group you know you're in a very aficionado you know very high end group do you know who

Bruce Dickinson is but I still think people watch tennis who gives a fuck if that ball goes Guilty as charged, but I still think people watch tennis. Who gives a fuck if that ball goes across that net? I don't give a shit. People watch women's tennis. Thousands of people in the stands, millions around the world, watch something that's on its best day.

It's not nearly as exciting as a Marcelo Garcia strangulation. Marcelo Garcia takes you back and gets those hooks in. You got to highlight that quote. That's a great quote. Pull up Marcelo Garcia versus Victor Shaolin, Victor Shaolin, Hibero. While he's doing that. You know what Big John said to me? He said, MMA is the best sport for women to do because if you watch women's basketball, you watch women's tennis, the upper body strength is obviously lacking in those sports.

MMA, leverage, skill, more below the waist. The legs are important. Watch this shit. Look at this arm drag. Look at this spin to the back. Come on, son. And then this strangulation. Not only that, he's doing it to a world-class Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt,

and he puts him out fucking cold. Look at this. You tell me that's not exciting, I'll tell you there's something fucking wrong with you. Look at that. Night Night Sun. Marcel Garcia, bitch. Who can argue?

Who the fuck would not want to watch that on television? Yeah. How long was that? How long was that? 15 seconds? I was going to say 20 seconds. Maybe. Right?

Stuff is happening. Watch it again. When he takes his back. This is technique, and there's beauty in this. You've got to get a better camera. All the way back. All the way back. All the way back.

All the way back. Watch how he takes his back. Watch his arm drag the left hand to his right hand, right hand at the armpit, spins, takes the back, keeps going, keeps spinning, keeps spinning, keeps spinning, keeps spinning. Shaolin tries to recover. The arm goes underneath the chin. He even gets him on the side. He's not even fully

locked in with both hooks in. He's almost in a half guard with a rear naked and puts him out. If you don't think that that would be exciting on TV, you're not a man. Are you kidding me? If every match was like that? They don't have to be all like that. The potential for that is what makes you excited.

I am impressed you pulled that one up from memory. It was exactly as you described it. You did great commentary. I'm in awe. But just like what I'm saying with baseball, if every time a guy went to bat, he hit a home run, then it would be much more exciting, right? So let's make people throw the ball slower. Let's make the bat bigger. Yeah, that was called the 90s with steroids.

But even then, it never happened. No one's ever done that. So, like, every fight can't be knockouts with kickboxing. Every fight that you see in a jiu-jitsu match can't be, you know, Marcelo Garcia strangling. Absolutely. But it's the potential for those amazing moments that make the dull spots more important. You know, you raise a great point.

But let me ask you this, because now I'm looking for a new audience and maybe an audience that literally would not understand what you just said. Not just because they don't speak English. They do speak English. But just because they don't have the background. I mean, your background's phenomenal. They can't even come to your party. They're not even on the wait list to get into what you're talking about. So how does UFC grow? How does MMA grow? Is it bringing more of a highly – you know, when you go to – you said you weren't a baseball fan. I know you're from Boston. I played baseball when I was a kid. Until I found martial arts, I was a baseball fan.

So you go to Fenway. You go to Yankee Stadium. The crowd knows what's happening, right? But if you go to the Marlins game, you know, there's places where you go and the fans clearly not into the baseball as much, right? So I think the UFC is, I don't know if it's, it's not a crucial point for the UFC at all. The UFC is doing great, but how do you reach a new audience? How do you spread out? You're calling up fights. When was that fight? 2003. That was 11 fucking years ago, Joe. And you're calling up fights when was that fight when that was 2003 11 fucking years ago joe and

you're calling that up from memory and it exactly is what you were talking about how do we reach a new audience that can't do that that say someone has one thousandth of your knowledge and that's probably still more than what a lot of people have right how are we going to reach them how are we going to tell them about this sport? Well, you don't have to. They don't have to know what I know to enjoy it. You know, what I am is what, you know, what I represent proudly is the hardcore fan. I get to talk.

I'm the hardcore fan that gets to talk. And that's one of the reasons why I still post on MixedMartialArts.com. I still, you know, have a combat sports forum on my own message board. You're on the underground because I always see... Joe Rogan reads this. I read it all the time. I read it every day.

And I think that that's important that I take great pride in the fact that I represent those guys, those fucking savages. Those are my people. And it's my tribe. Yeah, but you don't have to be me. Someone, just a casual

person could appreciate fighting because it's you just watching it is exciting watching that you didn't have to be able to call that arm draw drag to the back and and point out that he's choking him out from actually a half guard position almost it doesn't matter you're still knowing what's going on if you know it's a choke and it's exciting. Look, UFC won. Denver, Colorado, McNichols Arena. You know what? I read in the New York Times was talking about how the UFC was started on the edges of the fringes of society. And, you know, my office was at Park Avenue and 57th Street.

You know, Bertelsmann, one of the biggest media companies in the world, owned the company. John Milius helped create, you know, it was ridiculous. And, you know, we were in McNichols Arena, whichilius helped create. You know, it was ridiculous. And, you know, we were in McNichols Arena, which is a very famous, you know, big arena. And so we're there and it's Hoyce versus the assassin, Gerard Gourdeau. And because I think he really was an assassin, you know, because he just had that look. And they do the fight and Hoyce gets him on the ground, and he does his python thing. He gets in, and he chokes him, and he taps.

And down front, there's a gentleman, and I don't know if he actually was a pimp. Maybe he was a pimp, but he had one of those full-length fur coats, and he did have a purple hat with a feather in it. And he did have two women on each side of him, and the women, i'm not saying they were prostitutes but they certainly could play a prostitute in a movie with what they were wearing right and so they're watching watching a hoist choke some unconscious and uh or he taps he doesn't go unconscious and the pimp stands or the guy stands up and he goes some some bullshit. I've seen two hoes fight better than that.

And I'm there. I bust a gun. I go, you know, I don't want to say I have to because I can't really say if I've seen two hoes fight. But, you know, I took his point. And I think you've got to remember that, Joe, is we're going forward with this sport. It's hard. It's hard to come to the ufc for 54 95 and try it out right and it's hard to turn on the tv and this is you know i i really do love you and

i admire you and i respect you and i did you know that's why i wanted you in the ufc and i figured you could you know sort of save it that's why you sort of came in and but i think that there's a whole group of people when they turn on they go what the fuck and what is that guy talking about how did you ever think that i was gonna save it first of all remember the stuff you've said about the ufc the dark ages and it was the most disorganized yeah but why did you think they're bringing in the comedian could in some some way save anything because comedians d, DJs, are professional talkers. Professional talkers. We needed a professional talker.

You had a great persona. You had a great look. You looked the part. You know? You're much more buff now, but you looked the part back then. And I thought you were going to be the guy that was going to try to figure it out and explain it to people. And if you had to do time, remember in the comedy club when someone did this you could do that right i know you could stretch right so i knew you were going to be able to do that and to me it was a really good move you know it was a it was a very strong move to give a public face a

persona in front of the ufc that wasn't talking about human cockfighting and why it was really okay and we were really nice guys. You could go out and just pump the shit out of it. You weren't apologizing for anything. You were really, you were the perfect guy for the job, Joe. You really were. There wasn't anyone else I would have rather had. Honest to God.

And I guess I'm proven right. Well, you were ahead of your time. I just thought it was going to be just this ridiculous job that I would keep for a short amount of time. Oh, I could have had Jay Moore for that. I love you, Jay. I love you, Jay. You're compared. You know, there's comparisons between, you know, there's a similarity.

And you may not like to hear this. You're both tough guys in your persona. Stop right there. Back up. Erase your words. Wash your mouth out with soap. Get the fuck out of here.

I want your audience to know what balls I have to have said that on Joe's show to Joe. And you're three and a half feet away. How dare you? When you watch the UFC today,

what, if anything, would you change? Nothing Nothing You don't think there's anything that needs to be fixed rules wise? What about the 12 to 6 elbow? That's some ridiculous shit The fact that you can't do that You know everything in context

Everything is in context It's not coming out of thin air Things are the way they are Because over the course of 20 years I think Dana and Lorenzo and you and Joe, you don't have figured out the best. I don't want to say compromise because compromise is a word that, you know, it implies you're not doing your best, but you've, you all have found the best way to promote this as a sport and yet still have, it's still a fight.

promote this as a sport and yet still have. It's still a fight. It's still great. It's still a fight. That GSP fight, that was a fight, man. I was sick. That was a fight. That was a full-on fight.

No doubt. And so when I see that, and there's a lot of UFC now. There's a lot of UFC. So there's going to be somewhat of a variety of quality in the fights just because that's how it is. There's a lot of baseball. Some are great games. Some aren't. But I think the consistent level of the UFC is what impresses me. I mean it's generally always good.

Do you think it's good to have one predominant mixed martial arts company? Do you think that – As long as it's the UFC, yes. Anyone else, I'd go Monopoly, bitches. It's got to end As long as it's the UFC, yes. Anyone else, I'd go, Monopoly bitches. It's got to end. No, it's the UFC. Everybody else, pack up your bags and go home. Just leave. Just get out of the

business. What do you mean? It's the UFC. You mean, so you don't think that a company like Bellator is legitimate or important? No, I don't. Really? Important to who? For what? For fighters. For Spike, maybe. Well, for fighters,

for fighters to have other venues. I am sure that if there were no other franchises, that there would be a system put in place by the UFC to totally utilize the talent that's gone. Ben Askren, I like him a lot. Good luck at 1FC. Eddie Alvarez. Eddie is, I really like Eddie.

Michael Chandler. Chandler. Another one. Yeah. There's good fighters, but there's only one UFC. I mean, you've got a sprinkling of good fighters elsewhere, but the other franchises, they're lame. They're just lame.

Well, I think- And you know they're lame. Well, I don't, they're lame. They're just lame. Well, I think it's... And you know they're lame. Well, I don't think they're lame. But you don't want to say it because then everybody goes, oh, he's a shill for the UFC. But it's not true. Truth is truth. Okay, I don't think Bellator is lame. I don't.

No. I can't even follow the tournament. You know, my tournament's three hours. My tournament was in three hours. Their tournaments are like three months. I don't even remember. Well, it's because they're doing it the right way. They're not having people fight more than once a night.

I think that's a good thing. But then you can't figure out who won. I think your tournaments the way you did it were great for back then. But then they do championship fights that have nothing to do with the tournaments and everything to do with who they just signed. Right. That's true. So that's kind of bullshit. Well, that is a little weird, but they should be able to do that.

God bless. No, go on. Rock on. I'm not a fan. I'm not necessarily a fan of the tournament format. Which is better, Bellator or UFC? UFC. Yeah. For sure. That's my point. But I still watch it.

I still watch Bellator fights. I look forward to it. World Series of fighting. Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler. That was a great fucking fight. That second fight and the first fight. That rocked. Both of them were great.

Third one should be good, too. Why would you not want to watch that? I do want to watch it. And Jimmy Smith, the guy who does my job in the UFC, is great. In my opinion, he's one of the best in the world at MMA commentary. I think he's really good. He knows his shit. He knows his shit when it comes to striking.

He knows the transitions on the ground. He knows when a guy's in danger. He knows when a guy's okay. He's world class. Yeah, but he doesn't seem like he's going to explode. You seem to be redlining from the moment the camera goes on. It's like, redline, redline, redline! That's intense, man.

I know it's you. That's me. That's what I like. When we first did Fox, the first thing, they were talking in my ear, telling me to calm down. Telling me to take it down a notch. And I was like, I can't believe anybody's telling me to take it down a notch. Like, they wanted it to be fuck sports. This is what's going on tonight.

Junior Dos Santos out of Brazil. And I'm, you know, I'm like. Two men enter. Several steps ahead of that and red in the neck. My veins are pumping out and I'm ready to fucking explode. And I'm excited for real, legitimately, you know, so I don't think they like that. That's what I like about it. That's why I think, that's why, again, it is a sport, but it's more.

It's a sport of fighting, yeah. Well, it's the purest example, the purest expression of competition. What any sport about is, whether it's basketball. Oh, no, that's fixed. Basketball is two men competing to try to do a specific goal, to get their ball into a hole. But it's just they're competing through this metaphor. Is that a cockfighting reference again? No, we're talking about basketball.

I said basketball. Basketball is a game which you play against gravity. That's what basketball is. Well, and other people that are playing against you. But the dominance of another man by slam dunking a ball in his face doesn't mean much. It only means something because you choose. You're back to that cockfighting thing. What did you just say?

You're dominating people. No, slamming your balls in their faces. That's not what I said. We slam dunk a ball. That's what I said. You're getting a little... I need more of the bulletproof. Trying too hard.

We're out of it. That's it. We drank it all. You can't drink too much. We'll have you have a heart attack on the show. Too much caffeine is not good. Is that good for our ratings? Can I plug my Twitter, Joe? That's how you think. Everyone said my

Twitter is embarrassing. Dana has 2.8 million. I have 2.8. Well, you just started out. You've had a Twitter for a week. How long have you had Twitter for? My daughter helped me put it up, I think, Tuesday. Yeah, come on, man. Look, how much did you have when you started this show? 200-something. Now you got 482. That's what I'm talking about. Cambo Combate. Come on.

C-A-M-P-B-E-L-L-C-O-M. Get a free t-shirt. Don't talk while I'm trying to plug your fucking Twitter, man. I can't help it. Jesus Christ, you're bad at this. Cambo Combate. I work alone, usually. Oh, my God god I'm sorry Go ahead

Oh my god C-A-M-P-B-E-L-L-C-O-M-B-A-T-E Campbell Combate Why didn't you just go with Campbell McLaren? Does somebody already have that? I didn't think of that Jesus Christ

What if this fucking show Gets cancelled And you're still stuck With this Combate shit I'm getting off Twitter I don't want to hear from these knuckleheads. You can't say that. You can't say that. You're fucking, you're

tanking your whole operation online, this social media thing, right off the bat. I gotta be me. You gotta be you? I gotta be me. I appreciate that, man. I appreciate that. What else you got going on? I'm, you know, I'm really focused on this Combate Americas. I like it a lot. It's the first, it got going on? You know, I'm really focused on this Combate Americas. I like it a lot.

It's the first. It's the thing. You know, it sounds cliche. I'm as excited about it as I was 20 years ago. That's beautiful. It's cool. Because there's a bunch of people that I go MMA, they go, is that? What is that?

I mean, they really ask that. I have to bring this up. Because this is one of my favorite stories that you ever told me. Oh, no. Ron Van Cleef. Oh, what a fucker. Me or him? Not you.

No, no, no. You got to tell me. Which one? You got to tell me what it was like, first of all. When he came to the office? Ron Van Cleef came to the office with disciples. The black dragon. With disciples.

This is an insult to my sensei. Tell me. Tell me the whole story. Is there a picture of him? Help inspire. Yeah, Jamie will pull one up. Ron Van Cleef. So, you know, Ron Van Cleef is a weird guy, right? There he is.

I mean, he's a weird guy. I think he was 50 when he came into the UFC. Yes. 5-0, right? Maybe even 51. Yeah, because he came in and he said, and we were, I forget which one it was. Would it have been six?

It was, yeah, it was somewhere in, he had some other involvement with the UFC before that, correct? No, he did the fight and then he became the commissioner. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So he came in, he said he was going to do the New York City Marathon. I go, all right, finish that. And I forget, york city marathon i go all right finish that and i forget you know i set a time finish that and then we'll talk but the last thing i wanted was some 50 year old guy you know having a fucking dying ufc i mean that that's not even like good for the buy rate yeah pull up the video of him his fight against hoist gracie ron van cleef what he

fights he did luck out that he fought Hoist Gracie, right? And Hoist, yeah. You know, and Hoist is a gentleman. He didn't want to hurt the old guy. Well, Ron Van Cleef was a legit karate fighter. There's some really good footage of him fighting. He was very fast. He was a real karate guy.

I think he did a lot for, you know, say the community. He helped inspire poor kids at a time when, in the 60s and 70s, there weren't a lot of good role models, and I think he was a pretty good role model. And I think what I took, he did an Art Davey. He did an end run on the UFC and tried to start something else while he was under payroll. You guys just have some thick ring card girls.

Ron looks good there. Look how thick these ring card girls were. I told you. Get back to that, son. I was presaging the Latina. ring card girls. Ron looks good there. Look how thick these ring card girls were. I told you. Get back to that, son. I was presaging the Latina. Feed these girls. Rich coins. Yeah.

Holy mackerel. Old school, man. Look at even the padding around the octagon. Look at Alio, still spry. Look at the padding around the octagon. Yeah, it was actually the shipping material that we sent the octagon in, and then we just unwrapped it and used that again look at that with zip ties around yeah that's hilarious holy shit and then there is ron van cleef at 50 years old with uh timac behind him who is the star

of the last dragon no he it was like the next to the last dragon wasn't it no is that he was the one where he played Bruce Leroy. Remember? Yes, I do. And then he was in some wacky MTV thing, too. Was he? He was a real athlete. He's a real martial artist.

Yeah, exactly. But nothing ever happened to him after that. He's like, he did that movie, The Last Dragon, and then, okay, you cut way ahead. It's okay. You've got to see the takedown because it happens like seconds in. And this is what happens when, you know, a karate guy. It's like the Gracie family's asleep during that.

Yeah, well, they knew. This was about as close to a foregone conclusion. Foregone conclusion? How does that expression go? Foregone? As you ever get. And Hoyce was 27 years old in the prime of his life, and he just came out, threw a kick, ducked under.

Look at that beautiful duck under. Started out with a front kick to measure distance and then came down with that kick into the takedown, and that's a wrap. And that's a wrap. Got a hold of Ron Van Cleef, and this is just academic from here on in. Ron's not going to advance position.

He's never going to get out of side control. Look at his legs. He doesn't know what to do. Yeah, Hoyce is just academic from here on in. Ron's not going to advance position. He's never going to get out of side control. Look at his legs. He doesn't know what to do. Yeah, Hoist is just taking his time here. He's waiting for Ron to relax or make a mistake or whatever. And Hoist was a master at that too, a master of what they would call cooking guys. You cook them, hold them down,

and then once you got them down, you decide that you're going to mount them. You start sliding that left knee up. You would get that left knee in between the space of the two legs. Go back to it. How should I get that fat off there? What ad? Who gives a shit?

Show the fight. So he's got him holding down here. And Ron Van Cleef literally had no idea what to do. He never thought he was going to be in this position. Now, why didn't he? Because he's a karate master. This is UFC 4 he? Because he's a karate master. He knew about hoists. Didn't matter. Look at it. And the hoist slowly but surely takes

the back. He slowly but surely used that left leg, spun him around, and now he's full mount. And then you hear Jim Brown. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, look, here it goes. He saved my day. Listen to Jim Brown. I love Jim Brown. Totally dehydrated. Yeah, look, here it goes. He saved my day. Listen to Jim Brown. I love Jim Brown. Totally dehydrated.

Totally was fatigued. Oh, he was talking about losing to chemo. That's what they're talking about. Because remember that, not losing to chemo, but beating chemo and then leaving the fight when he was supposed to fight. Do you remember how chemo came into that fight? Yeah, with a cross with Joe Son, who turned out to be a gang rapist. Do you know about all that?

Of course. But that cross, you know, that was not a display cross. No. That was a full-on, like, actual cross. Yeah, it probably weighed at least 100 pounds. You know, they brought that in in, like, four different, these giant gym bags kind of, like, sewn together. They came in with it. I go, dudes, what's up with that?

They go, training equipment. And back then. No one even knew that he was going to come out strapped to a cross? No, man. That's hilarious. That's one of the all-time classic things. It's amazing. Chemo coming out, literally strapped to a big wooden cross.

Full-on cross. Yeah, a giant wooden cross. And then fought from there. Now, tell me what happened when Ron Van Cleef. He comes in your office. So, Ron that's an actual cross the chemo was a beast back then too holy shit that was a big boy yeah so tell me what happened so Ron comes in and he comes in I forget where he was maybe Philadelphia I don't think he was based in New York and he brings in a couple of his acolytes who are these two, how would you describe them?

They're very white looking guys. Like Abercrombie and Fitch kind of models. Kind of twinkish. I'm not saying that. Okay. I'm saying they're kind of cut and they're built, but they don't look like fighters. Okay. They look kind of gay. I'm not saying that okay i'm saying they're kind of cut they're kind of cut and they're built but they don't look like fighters okay they look kind of gay i'm not saying that and uh but abercrombie you know you can contribute you know what that looks like so they're with him

and he comes in and he says and they're standing behind him he's sitting at the chair in front of my you know my desk and they're standing behind him with their arms crossed doing this, you know, we're guarding our center. Yeah, right. And he goes, I'd like to enter the UFC. And I go, you know, Ron, I don't know, man. And they go, oh. Like, they're growling at me in this weird. Really?

Yeah. They growl at you? It wasn't a growl so much. It was like a, oh. Watch your step. Yeah, exactly. You know who you're talking to. And Ron goes, we're talking and they're growling.

And he goes, I'm in really great shape. And he pulls up his shirt. And he's ripped. He's 50, but he's really ripped, right? He's shredded. He goes, come over here and punch me in the stomach. One, let me tell you, I have no interest in punching him in the stomach. It's just not what I want to do. I have no desire. There him in the stomach. It's just, like, not what I want to do.

I have no desire. There's no part of my brain that goes, go punch him. Nothing. I don't want to touch him. I don't want to go. Good call. You know? And he's holding his shirt up.

And the guys start going, this is an insult to my sensei. This is an insult. Our sensei is insulted. And I don't know if I was insulting them because I wouldn't punch him or because I was considering punching him. I couldn't really tell from that. And Ron goes, oh, come on. And everybody calms down. And we say, Ron, what do I have to do to get into the UFC?

I go, man, I don't know. We're in a little bit of hot water here with the cockfighting thing. And I'm going to put your 50-year-old cock in, and it's not going to work out for me. And I just don't see any good coming from this. And he goes, well, I'm going to put your 50 year old cock in and it's not going to work out for me and i just don't i don't see any good coming from this and he goes well i'm going to run the marathon i said well if you can do that maybe you come back and when i said come back like the man behind the curtain and the wizard of oz you know the great and powerful then the guy started in again but this is an insult to our sensei you know and i want at that point to go what the fuck are you what are you guys doing here what are you the three stooges and he's Moe?

I didn't get the dynamic. But then he agreed to run the marathon in two hours and 49 minutes or whatever the time was. It was like a real time. And the guy's like, oh. Then they wanted to take their shirts off. And that's what I found very bizarre. Like I'm the only one in my office with a shirt on. So they took their shirts off as well. Shirts came off. And that's what I found very bizarre. Like, I'm the only one in my office with a shirt on. So they took their shirts off as well.

Shirts came off. So Ron Van Cleef has his shirt off. He's two Abercrombie and Fitch. He's more holding it up. So he's holding his shirt up. The Abercrombie and Fitch guys take their shirts off. Why do they take their shirts off? You know, I don't know.

Did they thought some fucking was going to go down? I don't know. That's how they roll. Pull the shades down. You know, I should have taken my shirt off. You should have. Yeah. Made my pants.

You should have taken your pants off. Yeah. Exactly. Just fucking cut to the chase. What are we trying to do here? Dude, what's up with this? So what happened after that? He did the marathon.

He did the marathon. He came back and, you know, we put him in and, you know, he was a decorated veteran from Vietnam, right? And he was a legend in the black martial arts world, the African-American martial arts world. In the white martial arts world, he was a legend. Absolutely. He was very well known. American, you know, martial arts world. And so that was good. You know, we were always trying to broaden the audience and we, you know, look pretty white at some points in the UFC's history. So it was nice to have him represent. Did I have him with Bruce Lee? There he is. A guy, you know, at least sparred, fought with Bruce Lee. That's kind of cool.

Yeah, no, it's very cool. The guy had guy had mad balls you know he still competes to this yes he did have mad balls i you know it's like 50 years old and you come into the ufc he didn't know he was going to get hoist he could have got chemo he could have got tank yeah oh jesus oh you know what actually i gotta say this because i'm making fun of him so i want to tell the other side of this so we made him the commissioner and there was a a point. It must have been. He was fighting in four. Maybe it was five or six. And Tank, we were in Wyoming. Tank's backstage, like, looking to pick a fight.

Backstage. You know, who goes to a fight to pick a fight? You know, he's walking around looking for a fight. Tank Abbott was going to do that? Yeah. Because Tank was, you know, Tank was all mental. walking around looking for a fight that's not in the act to do that yeah he because tank was you know tank was all mental you know everyone thinks you know he was just giant wide guy benched 600 wrestled at b byu but with those guys you know he was a tough tough guy but he was mental

fucked with everyone from the moment he showed up he's walking around and i said to the state trooper i go can you kind of because we had state troopers doing security backstage. And they're in their full-on state trooper gear, right, with the boots and the hat and the smoky thing. And the state trooper looks at me and goes, sir, the only thing I could do to that man would be to shoot him. Don't shoot him. That's it. So anyway, Tank was acting up and Ron Van Cleef went over and kind of buttonholed him and said, I don't know what he said. He said, settle the fuck down, son.

And Tank did. And I don't know why. Because, you know, Ron was about chin high to Tank. And probably Tank outweighed him by 150 pounds, 200 pounds. Maybe Tank was embarrassed. You know, he just realized he was just being silly and drunk. Maybe. Was Tank fighting or was he just partying?

I think it was the one before we introduced him. Oh, well, that makes sense. Yeah, so he was back there like making himself known. Well, Tank was a very interesting chapter in MMA, in my opinion, an important chapter in MMA. He was the Ronda Rousey of our day, you know? I wouldn't say that. I would say he was very, very different.

I'd say he's Tank Abbott. I would never say he was the Ronda Rousey of anything. I mean, he didn't have the credentials that Ronda has. He wasn't as skillful or a champion. Oh, details, details. But what he was was a guy who could talk mad shit and he would fight anybody. He would fight anybody.

You can call Tank Abbott the night before he could be out drinking and it could be Sunday morning and you could say, hey. He was fighting someone when you called. He was currently fighting. You know, Tank, stop fighting him and come fight this guy. He was the real deal. I mean, he wasn't just a character in a movie. He really was that guy.

Like Ron Van Cleef, he would step up. Here's why he was like Ronda. You're exactly right. You're 100% right. You're always right. Here's a different take on it. Jesus Christ, he's a big fuck. Look at that. That's a little late in the game for Tank, though, isn't it?

That wasn't UFC Tank, was it? Well, even UFC Tank, he was never lean. He's not a little guy. I mean, he's just a powerhouse. But Tank brought an excitement and a new fan into the sport the way Ronda has. And I think it was an important development for the UFC to have, you know, an all-American bad guy, a guy that represented the everyman, you know, the Yahooism, you know. And he was a pretty skilled fighter. You know, he did have skills and he was toughest.

He couldn't be tougher. And so I think he really opened it up beyond the gi world, you know, the martial arts world, and gave us a bunch of fans that weren't martial arts fans. Right. I see what you're saying. You know, and that was a very important step. There was certainly something in that. And he also knew how to promote. And he was a media favorite.

You know, he's a darling. Is he having a beer right before he gets into the cage? Is that Silva behind? I can't see. No, that's not Silva. Is that before he goes into the octagon, he's having a beard? Probably after. Might be after.

I think that's during. It might be before. He's fucking crazy. Yeah, he is. But he had some serious fucking power, though. That's one thing Tank had. He was massive. He could knock guys dead.

But punching power. He knew how to punch. He could knock guys dead. And with those gloves. Yeah. And, well, he was one of the first guys to wear them. I think he was the first. Was he?

I think so. Well, it was either him or his detour. No. All right, Jimmerson wore the one glove. Of course, right. Yeah, I think you're No. Mark Jimerson wore the one glove. Of course, right. Yeah, I think you're right. I think Tank was the first guy. And then Vitor came around and wore them for his debut as well.

But Vitor was 12? 12, yeah. Yeah. And Tank was 6? Somewhere around there, right? Yeah. Tank versus Nelmark, Steve Nelmark, to this day, one of the greatest KOs in the history of the sport.

One of the most brutal. Love Tank. And then John Matua, the first one. Cool. Oof, another unbelievable KO. You know, John Milius, who wrote Apocalypse Now, wrote I Love the Smell of Napalm in the morning, right? Wrote the Dirty Harry movies, directed the Conan movies,

and was really a creative force in the early days of the UFC. He goes, you can't let the big guys lose. And it's hard to tell John Milius he's wrong. I didn't want to tell him he was wrong, but he was wrong because I think when Manny Yarborough lost, when Matua lost, when Paul Verland's, the polar bear, when those big guys lose, it's amazing. Yeah, everybody's got to lose, man. That's the thing.

And also guys who you don't think are going to lose have to lose. That's still a wild watching tank, right, that clip? Yeah. That's like, holy mackerel. Tank could throw some fucking leather. That dude could bang. And he'd fight anybody. I really respected that, that he would just fight anybody at the drop of a hat.

Fought Pedro Hizzo in Brazil, you know. As you say, will fight anyone. Yeah, and had a lot of fun fights. He had a lot of fun fights inside the octagon. And then came back and fought in the UFC back in the early 2000s when the UFC was struggling. Tank Abbott was one of their things that they introduced. Like Dana White introduced him into the octagon, brought him in there and started talking shit again. And he's a great marketer.

His tank. Yeah. You know, he had the act down. It was good. Yeah. And he had a whole bunch of guys that he would, you know, Eddie Sanchez, a bunch of guys he would train with. Oh, man. A bunch of tough guys.

We used to say there was like the Three Stooges only dangerous. They were dangerous. They were like a, it was like a small riot following Tank through the hall. This is an outreach to our sensei. It's our sensei. There was none of that. I did like when Tank took the – there was posters of Ken Shamrock and Tank found big vaginas from Penthouse. And he glued the vaginas very carefully over Ken's Speedos and then hung those up at the UFC.

That's a nice touch, too. Yeah. Look at that. That's Matua, right? No, I don't think this one's Matua. I think that's Paul Varlins. It's hard to tell. Who's he got down there?

It's hard to tell who he's fighting. But Tank did that. He did that to Steve Nelmark. Or Nelmark he knocked out. Oh, that's Oleg Taktarov. That was a fucking great fight. Oh, my God. Oleg.

You know, you could hit that guy with a brick. I don't think it did anything. Yeah, and Oleg Taktarov. That was a fucking great fight. Oleg. Oh, my God. Oleg. You know, you could hit that guy with a brick. I don't think it did anything. Yeah, and Oleg again. Well, Henzo knocked him out with a fucking up kick. Remember that? I do not. That was in like the World Combat League. I think he was trying to throw somebody out of the octagon once.

That wasn't Bellator? No. He knocked him out with an up kick. It might have been in Brazil. I forget where it was. But Oleg was standing over him, and Henzo up kicked him and KO'd him, and Oleg fell back, and he was out cold. And then Henzo followed it up with a right hand,

but he was already out cold. He was out cold from the up kick. That's another thing that I think if I could change anything, I would allow the guy on the bottom to strike on the ground, like to kick to the face on the ground, even if the guy's on his knees. Interesting. You should be able to knee and kick a guy in the face on the ground.

Because you can't kick a guy, you can't up-kick a guy if a guy has one knee down. I think that's ridiculous. I think if you're on your back, the guy should be able to kick you. I mean, if you're on your back, you should be able to kick a guy in the face. Period. If a guy's on his knee, if a guy's anywhere, you know, the guy is, if he's above you and you're on your back, you should be able to kick him in the face. The fact that you can't is silly.

The only reason why I think you shouldn't be able to kick a guy on the ground is soccer kicks if a guy's head is near the cage. Because if you're near the cage and your head is pinned up against the cage, the guy could stomp you or soccer kick you and you can't get out of the way. But one of the interesting things about pride was the stomps and the soccer kicks. I mean, that was an interesting aspect of it. Those are effective techniques. It's hard to say that those are any more or less brutal than regular head kicks.

Basically, it's the same. I don't know. I don't know. But I tell you, what I do know is with Pride, you know, in early days UFC, the visualness was very important. That people saw it was very different. I'm not sure that's as important now with the UFC. In fact, you almost want it to be like something you recognize when you turn it on. to be like something you recognize when you turn it on.

It's not that people want a predictability, but I think they want to feel like they might be able to understand the matchups enough to pick who's going to win, you know? And I think the more outrageous techniques add to that outrageous visual appeal. And, you know, I'm not sure that's—it's not— You know, Joe, is it right to say you think as close to a real fight is what it should be yes yeah as close to a real fight as you can get which is why I don't like stand-ups and I know people say well I was gonna make it boring gonna kill the sport I don't believe that I don't believe that I think you're gonna have more guys like Hennon Burrell

more guys that you can't take down and if if you do take them down, you know, they're going to fucking submit you. You know, Charles Oliveira in his last fight caught a guy with, I believe it was a triangle, off of his back in the same sort of situation. The guy was trying to hold him down. The guy was trying to beat him. Guy took him down, held onto him in his guard, and he got submitted. And that's how it should be. A guy, if you take a guy down, that guy had better get good at one of two things. Either better get good at submitting guys or better get good at getting back up to his feet or sweeping. One or the other. You have to get good

at those things. If you're not good at those things, well, then guys should take you down and they should hold you down. And that's real. As soon as you instigate these stand-ups, you're putting something into, you initiate a stand-ups, you're putting something into—you initiate a stand-up. You're putting something into a fight that's not natural. I don't like stand-ups. I don't like guys who use time on the ground to recoup. I don't either, but if you can, why not? No, that's exactly right.

Well, look at what happened. The best guys are not going to do that. Again, I hate to use these two guys as an example, but you don't see that with Jose Aldo. You don't see Jose Aldo take guys down and hold on to them. You don't see Hennon Burrell take guys down and hold on to them and just catch their breath. I saw GSP do it a little bit. He did it. He definitely did it.

And I love GSP. He's the greatest. I think GSP is a very intelligent fighter. And part of being a very intelligent fighter is you fight safe. You use what you can. Yeah. You could criticize him for that if you like, and I understand it. I get it.

But it took a guy like Johnny Hendricks, who was trying to murder GSP, to drag GSP into the deepest water that he's ever been in in his career as a champion. Is beard grabbing allowed? It should be. Those Duck Dynasty guys. That's not right. Wrap it. Fucking get a good handle on that. Yeah.

Just give them a beating. Grab it with your teeth. Well, you can't grab hair, so I would guess no. I guess if a guy did have a big- Nobody has had one of those beards that came into the octagon. They've had a good, decent one. I also think it was patting some of the punches. It was like-

Who says that? People do say that. Wasn't that a thing in boxing? It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. That's a thing in boxing, though, who says that? People do say that. Wasn't that a thing in boxing? It's ridiculous. That's a thing in boxing, though, right? You're supposed to- I think it was more so that your skin wouldn't cut. Was that what it was?

I think that's what that is. I don't think anyone thinks it's bad. Well, what about Alex Caceres? He has this gigantic, huge afro. I mean, should that be able to protect him against head kicks? I mean, is that cushioning, that giant afro? That's fucking cool, though. That's badass.

If I had that kind of hair, I'd That giant afro? That's fucking cool, though. That's badass. If I had that kind of hair, I'd wear an afro like Caceres. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few rules that could be changed. I think a big one for me is the 12-6 elbow.

I think that's a ridiculous rule. But to get to the purity of fighting, that's your mantra. That's what I'm talking about. And that's a shorter version than I... Maybe I just remembered. Yeah, it gets bigger.

He's got a bigger one now. That's, he had a huge victory recently over Sergio Pettis. Did you see that fight? No, I did not. Great, great fucking fight. Woo. Very exciting. So much new talent.

You have seen so many fights and you're still, you love every one. Oh, no question. That's, you're unbelievable. Well, I'm just fortunate that I'm a real fan. You know, it's not like a job for me. I know, I know. I mean, it's not like a job for me. I know. I mean, it certainly is a job for me to take it very serious and professional.

Like, people always say, like, do you do UFC stoned? Like, that's a big question that I get all the time because I do a lot of things high, obviously. Why is that obvious? Never. I tell people. Never. I don't. Never. Don't do it at all.

Don't think about doing it. It's not necessary. It's not. It wouldn't be helpful. If that's you high. It's me't be helpful. If that's you high. It doesn't mean high. No, if that was you high at the UFC. I'd have real problems.

I'd have to fucking, yeah, I would really have problems. Marijuana turned out to be a very good medicinal drug for me, just for life. People say, what do you take medical marijuana for? Life. I need it for life. I got a condition. The condition's called the real world. It's called amped up in the real world. Life is fucking crazy, but my fortune in working for the UFC is I don't have to pretend to

like it. I don't pretend to like it. There's guys who cover basketball that don't give a flying fuck about basketball. No, no. You see it on a lot of sports. They just wanted to be sports guys. I never wanted to be a sports guy. So Dana in pushing me and you guys in hiring me first and then Dana in pushing me to become a commentator made me do it. If it wasn't for that, I would just probably be talking about it the same way.

I just wouldn't. I remember you at 11. Your eyes were like this big. You were a kid at Christmas. You really were. I was 12. Yeah, UFC 12. I thought it was 11.

No, it was 1997, Dothan, Alabama. Dothan, the peanut capital of the world. I certainly had a great fucking time. But I think that what the difference in today is, there's a bunch of differences. And the difference in today is that what you's a bunch of differences and the difference in today is that what you're seeing and when you're watching these guys fight is true world-class absolutely that's what's been the most amazing thing is watching that transition from

mma fighters that some of them were elite like vitor was elite even at 19 and when vitor fought scott ferrozzo and trey tellingman trey tellingman first of all, that was the first time we ever got to see him. I had seen him before because I was training at Vitor's school. Vitor was training at Carlson Gracie's. So I got to see him train there, and I also got to see his first fight with John Hess, which was in Hawaii. And he hooked up John Hess. I mean, just lit him up like a Christmas tree.

So I knew what kind of speed and power he had with his striking. But he was one of the first real true world-class athletes. How crazy is it? May I? Yes. I think Ken Shamrock. Oh, yes. Ken Shamrock was a really tough guy. More than tough guy. Good football player.

Very accomplished athlete. Pat Smith. Good kickboxer. Rodeo. Vitor was on another level. Vitor was. I know, I know, I know. But, you know, it's not exactly right that there were some guys in the beginning. Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, Gordeau was a professional fighter.

Mm-hmm. I mean, you know, he would do okay in kickboxing today. But he would not. No, I don't think so. He would do okay. He would do okay, but not like Vitor. Vitor was the first guy that, to me, had that real elite athlete ability. Like, pull up Vitor versus Trey Telegman.

Trey is T-R-A, Telegman. Vitor, to me, was the first guy that showed, like, modern martial arts skills. Like, if you watched what he did there, you could see a guy do that in this UFC. No, it's hard to argue that because as a physical specimen, he was a freak. Well, what's weird is he's just as good now. He must have been, how old was he? 19.

He was 19. I think I met him before he was 19. I think he just turned 18 when I met him. Not when he fought. When he fought, he was 19. When he fought in the UFC, rather, he was 19. I think I met him before he was 19. I think he just turned 18 when I met him. Not when he fought. When he fought, he was 19. When he fought in the UFC, rather, he was 19. I think he was a baby face. Yeah, look at him.

That's the first Vitor. And everybody knew him as a jiu-jitsu black belt. That's what everybody knew. His last name was Gray. He was using the name Gracie. Victor Gracie. It was Victor, too. It was V-I-K-T-O-R.

They spelled it differently. And then they went with Vitor after that. Like, when I was interviewing him and talking backstage, I even called him Victor Gracie at one point in time, like inadvertently. But they were all in the middle of something with Horian, where Horian was keeping him from using the Gracie name. And they also changed it from Victor to Vitor. And I don't know why they were calling him Victor in the first place.

I don't know if they were trying to Americanize him or what. But no one knew what to expect from Vitor. No, no, no. Vitor is less American. Yes, it was. Let's say Victor, why they were calling him Victor. I think they were trying to Americanize it. But Victor at the time, which we used to all call him, he came out like this.

And no one knew that he was this elite striker. I mean, he just unloads on Trey Tellegman. He was fast. Oh, he's fast, and he was a great grappler. And everybody expected this. They expected a takedown attempt, but he clinched with them and instigated these insane, striking fucking exchanges. Joe, flash forward 15 years.

Vitor, I don't think he's had the career he should have had. Maybe. Maybe. He went through some tough times. And you've got to give him a little bit of slack because of what happened to his sister. Horrific, horrific story. She was murdered, kidnapped and murdered. Horrifying.

And then there was the breakup, the split up between him and Carlson Gracie. He went through some periods of his life where he had some serious issues and was losing in fights in Japan that just didn't look like this guy. When he fought Sakuraba, it just never looked like this guy. Randy Couture stole a little bit of his soul.

That's a fact. Randy Couture, when he beat Vitor the first time, he took a little bit of Vitor's soul. That was back when Vitor was young and wild. Very young, yeah. He had all these good things going for him, but he couldn't deal with that Captain America pressure. I'm forgetting I'm on your show again. I'm like, tell me more about it.

Let's talk more about it. I want to hear more about Randy. Because he's right. Randy was a very experienced fighter and a great athlete. He knew how to win. That's the thing about those wrestlers is they know how to win they know how to suck it up and they know how to win

they know how to suck it up they know how to deal with adversity because they dealt with it every day in the training room look at the ears yeah the amount of adversity

you have to deal with to be an elite amateur wrestler is unparalleled in the world of sports because it's not just hard training it's hard training

where you're going to war with other men on a daily basis with every fucking ounce of your energy and every last drop of your fitness. Math time. It's about math time. It's a big part of it. And you almost couldn't do boxing that much as you can do on the mat. No, you can't. Because you get fucking brain damage by the time you're 12. You'll have to go to the hospital.

Yeah. If you boxed all day, just constantly boxed all day, just got your fucking head rattled in all day. And the same with jiu-jitsu. You can do that. Exactly. Well, that's one of the things that I really love about jiu-jitsu is that you can do it and you can train hard and still not get injured. The real problem with jiu-jitsu is just the wear and tear on the body over years and years

of doing it. If you do like an hour and a half, two hours of hard jiu-jitsu every day, things just blow out. Well, you can't build up the joints, right? Exactly. You can a little bit and you get better at rolling lightly and technically, but bad shit still happens to the best guys I know.

The elite of the elite, they blow their knees out. They twist their ankles. They hurt their backs. You make me love the UFC more. And I never didn't love it. No, that was one of the cool things about you being at the helm. I think Meyerowitz was more of a guy

who was in it for the business of it. Maybe enjoyed it while it was happening. He didn't even go to the first one. He wasn't even at the first one. What's the bullshit there? He probably thought it was going to fucking go crazy and people were going to die. There's Vitor versus John Hess. This is Vitor

at like 18. Look at that. Look at that. Look at that. She played that from the beginning. And John Hess was a guy who

poked guys in the eye and shit. He had a I forget Andy I forget the dude's name that he fought. Isn't there a beginning?

This video just has that. Oh it just has that? Dude. That is fucking ridiculous. He had some serious hand speed and still does. That's what's crazy. I mean, he still looks really good. Well, he's the next guy fighting for the title. Yeah, something along those lines.

He's fighting for the fucking title. He's going to fight Chris Weidman. Now, it's in Brazil or it's in Vegas? It's in Vegas, and it becomes a real issue because of testosterone replacement. He has an exemption that he uses for testosterone replacement. Wait a minute. Back that up. Black Zillions.

Oh, okay. That's Henry Hoost. That guy's done it. Ray Lewis is down there training with him. Henry Hoost has done a tremendous job with their striking. And he's certainly a part of the resurgence of Vitor along with that whole Black Zillions camp. But the real issue is testosterone replacement. You know, Vitor uses testosterone.

And he has a doctor's exemption in Brazil. But he can't get one in Vegas. Neither can I, brother. I just want to go on record. They won't give me the tea. If he can't get one, maybe he can get one in Vegas. Neither can I, but I just want to go on record. They won't give me the tea. If he can't get one, maybe he can get one in Vegas. What I'm saying is it's not just automatically being offered up to him. And one of the reasons for that is that he tested positive for steroids in the past,

and that's the big argument, is that if you did test positive for steroids in the past and they can prove that, then you shouldn't be able to get testosterone because the reason why your testosterone is low in the first place is because you cheated. So it gets real weird, man. Yes, it does. It gets real weird. But the results, holy shit, who's a better fucking poster boy for testosterone replacement than Vitor?

Ken? Because at 37, no, not even close. At 37 or 36 years of age Vitor's still world class Whereas Ken, I'm an admirer of Ken Shamrock He's a great fighter and had some great Really underrated fights in Pride You know, I mean You know, that's a great point

Because he had some very tough fights in Pride He's had a lot of tough fights He's a tough bastard He is a tough bastard He's been around a long time And he had really good leg locks too Back in the day when no one knew what a fucking leg lock was When he fought in the UFC And heel one knew what a fucking leg lock was.

When he fought in the UFC and heel hooked his first guy and ripped his fucking knee apart. Who was that guy that he heel hooked in one of the first UFCs? Oh, was it the kickboxer that you were talking about earlier? Pat Smith. Didn't he heel hook Pat Smith and fuck his knee up? I believe he did. Ken Shamrock versus Pat Smith. I don't know so much about this shit. Yeah, he heel hooked him and ripped his knee apart.

I remember Pat Smith screaming like Ken Shamrock just tears his fucking knee apart. Absolutely. Now I see Pat going, I remember him going, oh, God. You know, he couldn't tap fast enough. Ken Shamrock, Pat Smith. Ken, we'll end with this. Yeah. Ken's very underrated.

Very, very underrated. But, you know, he's a guy who... Are we rapping? We're three hours in, buddy. We did three hours already. You're kidding. Flew by. Who's going to listen to me? They'll listen to you. Plug my Twitter again. Campo Combate. Campo Combate.

And it's... The show is Combate Americas. And when is it again? This Sunday, but we're doing doing Sunday at 10 o'clock. But your fans might want to check out Gringo Wednesdays. Wednesdays at 10 o'clock with the English subtitles. You're going to love the show. You'd be amazed.

You've got to do the show next season, Joe. You've got to come on. What do you want me to do? I don't know if I can. Come on and talk. I might not be able to. I asked David to do it. Yeah?

Yeah. He said, okay. We'll see. If he does to. I asked Dan to do it. Yeah? Yeah. He said, okay. We'll see. If he does it. I asked him. I asked him to give me all his money. Well, you know what? If you are allowed, we would love to have you.

You can come on, plug the UFC. Well, if I'm around and I can, I would definitely do it. I think it would be fun. But I'll definitely watch it. I'm going to set my DVR. Oh, please do. And check it out. We'd love to hear it.

And I wish you luck. Thank you. You're a great guy. Thank you. If it wasn't for you, I would have never worked for the UFC. So I going to send my DVR. Oh, please do. And check it out. We'd love to hear it. And I wish you luck. Thank you. You're a great guy. If it wasn't for you, I would have never worked for the UFC. So I thank you. That is true. It is, man. You're the door. But then to the UFC's benefit. You're the door that got me in. And from there, it's been a lot of fun.

So I thank you. And I thank you for almost getting me a fight with Wesley Snipes. That was kind of fun, too. It was fun. It made me realize how hard it is to train to fight. It was a life-changing three months. Oh, good. Cool.

It made me exhausted every day. I've fallen asleep sitting in front of the TV, conking out every night. I was so fucking tired. Just training twice a day. And when did you go on Howard? Because you went on... A long time ago.

No, no. When you were talking about the fight. Where were we in the process at that point? Were you tired of waiting on me to get Wesley to agree? I don't think that was on Howard's turn. Yeah, no, that's where it first came out. You went on Howard and talked about it. Really?

Yeah, because Jeff, your manager, called me, I think gave me a heads up. Said he's talking about it. Hmm, I don't remember. That seems wrong, though. Trying to figure that out. I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember. This was a long time ago.

But how many years ago was that? Like 2007 or something like that? When did Wesley have those? It might have been before that because I was... It was before I did The Iron Ring. Yeah, it's about that time. 2006? 2006, 2007.

Yeah. That was... Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. How cool would that have been? It would have been cool for... It would have been very cool. As long as it took. cool would that have been? It would have been cool. It would have been very cool. As long as it took.

As long as it took. It would have been interesting. I don't not like that guy. I just want everybody to know. I'm a big fan of that guy. No, you never had a grudge against him. You just thought it was cool. He's a great actor.

He's a cool actor. He's been in a lot of cool movies. Here's Ken Shamrock. That's it. Yeah. And Pat Smith. Pat Smith tried to kick him. Look at that. He tried to kick him on the ground. And Ken got a hold of that heel. Pat didn't know how to escape. That was not even, there's some space in there too. These days guys would step over with that left leg and spin out of it or try to push on the butt and try to get their foot out. But Pat didn't know what he was doing. He's just laying on his back. Yeah, he's trying to elbow. And now, look, he's screaming. And his knees are just ripped apart.

Look, and Pat's laying there. And Ken's mad-dogging him now. That guy's screaming. That shit hurts so bad. Because with a heel hook, your meniscus just gets ripped apart. It just gets snapped and crackled and popped. It's a terrible feeling, too. You know, Pat was the first African-American rodeo champion. Was he really? It just gets snapped and crackled and popped. It's a terrible feeling, too.

Pat was the first African-American rodeo champion. Was he really? Yeah, he was a really good athlete. A rodeo champion. Did he ride bulls or horses or what did he ride? The fuck do I know? I don't know. He rode something with legs.

I don't know. I know less about the rodeo than I do about, I don't know. You've got to be a tough fuck to be a rodeo champion. And to be a black cowboy is a tough gig, too. Yeah, indeed. That's probably how you learn how to kickbox. Campbell McLaren. Campbell Combate on Twitter.

Follow him on Twitter. That's C-A-M-P-B-E-L-L-C-O-M-B-A-T-E. Campbell Combate. And watch Combate Americanas. That's it, right? Combate Americas? Combate Americas. Combate Americas.

Just look for it on your local guide. And it's probably on more than once a week, right? It's on five times a week. Boom, son! Gringo Wednesdays. Gringo Wednesdays. Speaking of being on TV, my episode, me and Brian Callen, we're on Meat Eater. And it airs tomorrow night. We go hunting for white-tailed deer

in Wisconsin. It's a two-part episode this week and next week. It's on the Sportsman's channel, so go check that out. Thanks to our sponsors, Lumosity.com. Go to Lumosity.com and use

Lumosity dot com forward slash Joe go there click start training and play your first game bitch and thanks also to what else is it today audible dot com audible dot com go to audible dot com forward slash Joe get a free

audio book and 30 free days of audible service the number one source of audio entertainment on the internets thanks also to on it.com that's o-n-n-i-t use the code word rogan and save 10 off any and all supplements supplements that's just like supplements but from a mush mouth motherfucker like me and we will be back uh tomorrow with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. Dr. Rhonda Patrick is an expert in nutrition

and vitamins and she's going to tell us a lot about what is and what is not effective, what has been scientifically proven about vitamins. It should be very interesting because there's a lot of misinformation and confusion and studies and counter studies so we're going to try to spell it all out and get to the meat of everything.

Campbell McLaren, you're a bad motherfucker. I love you. Thanks for doing this. It was a lot of fun. The people online enjoyed it, and they will follow you at Campbell Combate on Twitter. Tonight we will be at the Ice House Comedy Club in Pasadena. Not that many tickets still available. Duncan Trussell, Ari Shaffir, Justin Martindale,

Brian Redband, and Tony Hishcliffe. And me! Alright, we'll see you soon. We love the fuck out of ya. Bye-bye.