The Joe Rogan Experience - #511 - Enson Inoue

Episode Date: June 11, 2014

Enson Inoue is a Japanese American mixed martial artist. Currently has a new book out called "Live as a Man. Die as a Man. Become a Man. (The Way of the Modern Samurai)(Volume 1)" available now on Amazon.

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day! Way, way, way, way back in, I think it was 1998, I first got to meet Ensign when you armbarred... 97. Wow, you armbarred Royce Alger. And Royce Alger was one of the latest and greatest of the wrestlers that was entering into the UFC.

And they were going to take the place. There was a Mark Coleman era when Mark Coleman was smashing everybody. And he was 255 pounds of solid muscle. I think Kevin Jackson beat John Lewis then too. Yeah, put that thing closer to your face so we can move it around a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Kevin Jackson beat John Lewis. We had like, there was like some serious wrestlers back in that day that were just starting.

Kenny Monday was entering into MMA. Oh, that's right. Did he do Extreme Combat? Yeah, Extreme Combat. And then he did, remember they had the same people, they had a submission only thing where Frank Shamrock took on Dan Henderson and got him in a heel, like an ankle lock. I remember that. Yeah, there was a lot of that going on, man.

It was a lot, all these high level wrestlers were just starting to find their way into MMA. They're like, oh, this is finally an opportunity

to use their wrestling skills and try to... Every time I saw the wrestlers fight, I always said that they don't understand arm bars. It's true yeah you

had a wicked one man you're one of the few guys to ever submit randy couture you submitted randy couture with an arm bar and before you caught him with that arm bar man you landed some of the most devastating kicks from the butt scoot position i've ever seen because everybody used to just throw straight kicks to kick guys off yeah from the scoop, but you figured out a way to torque your hips from the ground. You were landing some- Like a low leg kick. Yeah. A nasty leg kick from the ground.

It's kind of interesting because you don't see that from other dudes. And even to this day, that's a rare technique. I think that fight, your fight with Randy Couture, might have been the most effective application of those low leg kicks from the ground I've ever seen. Randy Couture might have been like the most effective application of those low leg kicks from the ground I've ever seen. Yeah. So you, I just wanted to, my whole objective in that fight was just to keep pressing forward, just pressure him all the way.

Yeah. That was, uh, there it is right there. That was a great fight, man. That was a great fight. That was a really interesting fight, man. You are a wild motherfucker, dude. You're one of my all time favorite fighters to watch because of that. And your style

of fighting, man, was always balls to the wall, do or die. A lot of people talk that, but you did it. You did it in every single fight, man. Without a doubt, you had one of the most exciting mixed martial arts careers ever. And despite your

wild, crazy style, you got through it. You're fine, man. All those years of fighting and you're fine. Not stuttering too much. Not at all, man. How did you manage to pull that off? Make them all short and fast, man. Yeah, this was the butt scoop thing.

You were doing something totally different because you snuck up on him like he scooted forward. Randy was standing right in front of you, but you were blasting him with these leg kicks. Yeah, you know my ankles, my shins, I had like a whole roll of tape on each shin. Boom. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you really taped it up hard. Yeah, I taped it up hard. They let us do it, so I was like, why not?

Like casts on my legs. Well, do you remember when they used to let everybody fight with wrestling shoes on? That was a big thing, too. They used to kick guys in the face with wrestling shoes, which I thought may be okay with the top of the wrestling shoe. But if you do shit like wheel kicks and, like, side kicks to the face, you could scratch the fuck out of someone's eye. Like, with the bottom, the textured rubber part of the shoe. eye like with the bottom the textured rubber part of the shoe you know that's uh that's a weird thing when they were the transitionary time of mma when they were for sort of first sorting out the rules but this was a big fight because this is randy had left the ufc and uh randy was uh

one of the elite guys in the ufc this is after he had beat vitor yeah and yeah and randy was known as like one of the best guys in the world with cha-pow! Slapped on that armbar, son. And that's it. Ensign Inoue is a motherfucker, ladies and gentlemen. Are you still training guys now

over in Japan? More doing stuff up north, yeah. Up north? Working with my bracelets, that's it. I'm popping in the gym here and there. You're still working with the people near the nuclear plant? Yeah. Are you still doing that?

Going up, yeah, to the temporary housing. What is that situation like up there? For everybody here, you know, you hear a lot of hysteria, and you hear everyone's kind of scared because they're afraid the radiation is getting into the water, and it's coming over to America. What I've read from scientists that have actually been off the coast of Fukushima who have analyzed the fish is that it's not something to worry about yet. They've caught fish directly off the coast that live there that are like not migrating fish.

And they say those fish are safe to eat. It depends where you're talking about. If you're talking about the power plant, as of right now there's not much of a worry but it all depends on what's going to happen with that because they're getting too much radioactive waste storage yeah they can't store it anymore yeah yeah they're doing this crazy thing when they have a pit and they're surrounding the pit with frozen rods so they're going to freeze the ground and turn this pit into this like temporary housing for all this radioactive water but they're getting too much they can't they can't supply it anymore they got these big bins that they're um holding them in and they're cracking now so yeah so as far

as up by the plant it's a lot of radiation but as far as um the people who were displaced from the tsunami or from the radiation, they're in like a Rojo Place situation because they have temporary housing, which is boxes smaller than this room. And they have to live there with their families through the winter. It's like just a small wall. You can hear the rain hit the roofs. Wow.

So that has been extended. It was supposed to be a two-year thing. They extended it for another three. So that's five. And they're still not going to be able to move on from then. The government's not helping them. Why isn't the government helping them? I don't think they can afford it yet right now.

Why isn't the world helping? I mean, that's a world issue. I feel like any sort of a cataclysmic disaster like that, that is a time when the world has to show world community. Forget about all the borders and nations and all the nonsense. If there's money that can be donated, if there's people that can be helped, that's a time to help. I mean, that's a real clusterfuck of a situation. Yeah, I've been up there 29 times now.

Wow, that's amazing. Still going to continue, yeah. It's kind of shocking how quick that whole thing went bad like everybody thought that when you see nuclear power plants you you assume they have some sort of a backup plan like if it goes bad i didn't know until this this event that power plants you can't shut them down like i didn't know that either isn't that crazy like what do you mean you have to keep them down like i didn't know that either isn't that crazy like what do you mean you have to keep them operate like what are you talking about like you have

to keep them going to keep them cool and if you don't they burn through the containment and they you know they melt down melt down and go into the earth and yeah and they don't know what the fuck happened i think in fukushima was just a just the the size of the earthquake and then the timing of the tsunami coming in so fast. Yeah. And so hard, yeah. But it's weird that that's also one of the things that they do with nuclear power plants is they put them near the ocean to keep them cool so they could use the water.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. But it's just like, what the fuck? Yeah. Really, yeah. I learned a lot about nuclear power plants from that, from just paying attention to it. Because before that, I didn't even know what they did. I thought like the nuclear energy somehow or another made electricity. But it's really just make steam.

Yeah, I didn't know that either. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's, it's still like some old school method of, you know, using steam power to create electricity. And they just do it through nuclear power. There's a lot of them all over the world. Fuck yeah, there are. It's kind of scary.

You drive to San Diego down the coast and you see them and you're like, oh, Jesus, that's a fucking nuclear power plant right there. Yeah. That fucker could go bad too. Yeah. All they have to do is get hit. With the wrong natural disasters. Well, I think the one in Fukushima though needed to be updated, right? It was like an old system.

They didn't have the right amount of backup and redundancy as far as the generators and stuff. They had a lot of reports on it prior to it and didn't do anything about it. So now it's a situation where the government just doesn't have enough money to fix everything? Yeah, there's too much. Well, see, the thing is they have a 20-kilometer radius now that is an exclusion zone where people can't go in and out because of the radiation. But in actuality, it's supposed to be 30. Because when I went in there with my Geiger counter, I found hot spots higher than 10 kilometers from the plant and 30 kilometers. But they said they won't do that because they can't displace

that much more people they can't afford it and i'm like i'm like so you're gonna let people live in radiation it's kind of crazy sometimes and they're having weird birth defects with like rabbits and shit are born with no ears yeah which is to humans going to happen in the next what eight seven eight years right is that what it is they say about 10 years before you start releasing the effects to it oh wow yeah yeah it's a real wake-up call for people and you know it's there's not a whole lot of options as far as like how to generate power nuclear power when you get to large cities is one of the most effective ways to generate power yeah like people are protesting to shut them down man what's going to happen if you shut them down yeah well i think there's a way that they if they have like a plan to shut them down there's a way to maintain it i'm talking completely out of my ass by the way but from what i've read it's they can do it much better than if

it just shuts down because of a natural disaster and they can't plan for it which is the situation they're in now you know what's crazy is la, because it's never rainy here, but there's no solar anything. Like, you talk about, like, not using a resource. Every fucking building in LA should be covered in solar panels. They should get all their electricity from the sun. That's the next big business, I guess, huh? It should be. Someone should bring that in, because it's all over Hawaii.

I'm doing it in my house, and I have a, my neighbor doesn't have electrical bills anymore. He, everything he gets is from the sun. Yeah. He has no electricity. He doesn't pay for electricity at all. Yeah, for the sun. There's like some maintenance and like the, apparently the batteries lose a certain amount of effectiveness every year,

a very slight amount. And over a course of like 10 years, it could be like, you know, come a certain percentage and then it becomes noticeable. But then you just replace the batteries. My house in Hawaii, we got I think 70% of the roof is covered with them. Really? Yeah. It costs a lot, but I heard it brings on your electric bill. Yeah, big time. In Hawaii, you could also collect rainwater too. I know a lot of people that do that. I knew a dude who lived up on Mauna Loa

and he had a whole system set up in, he lived up on Mauna Loa, and he had a whole system set up. Like, he just lived up there. He had solar electricity. He had rainwater that they collected in, like, a bin because it rains up there. He was in the, there's, if you've been to the Big Island, the Big Island, I'm sure you have, but for folks who haven't, the Big Island has, like, a bunch of different ecosystems. It's, like,'s like desert like arid dry climate and then you go to another place it's like like near hilo is like a goddamn rainforest it's crazy it's like a polynesian tropical rainforest and that's where this dude lived

and he collected rainwater up there and that's how he got all his water and all his electricity just from mother earth grew all his own food in his garden. Crazy. Wow. Just lived up there, you know? You're, like, that island itself is, like, one of the most magical places on Earth, you know? I mean, all the Hawaiian islands are pretty goddamn magical, but the big island itself is just incredible. That's an active volcano. Yeah.

Yeah, it's constantly getting bigger. Yeah. Do you ever fly over? Do you do the helicopter tour? No, I never did that. I went and saw the observatory though. Oh, the observatory. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The helicopter tour is pretty dope because you get to see the lava actually pouring into the ocean. Oh, really? Yeah. You see the big island grow. You see it getting bigger, huh? Yeah.

You can see it grow. It's wild. It's just all steam. Like you can see the red lava going into the ocean, and then you see the steam coming off. And you're literally watching the island grow. Oh, wow. Yeah.

It's pretty intense. It's pretty cool. And also on the big island, they have all these areas where you can see like photos of houses that were lost when the lava came down and just wiped out certain towns that were just a little too close. Isn't that a freaky thing that you have a house and you see the lava coming at about, what, like a mile per hour? Not even, huh? Yeah.

And you just can't do nothing about it. Nothing. There's nothing you can do to stop it. Nothing. But just watch. I mean, you'd think you'd dig a, a ditch, or pour water on it. It'll just pour. It's hard in there, huh?

No, there's nothing. There's nothing you can do, man. It just slowly. Well, it's amazing. It's so beautiful there. People don't give a shit. They're like, so what? We'll rebuild.

Fuck it. It's still better than living on the mainland. When you lived in Hawaii, did you get island fever? What do you mean? When I was away, I missed it? No, no. Island fever, like living there, where you like, it's too small, like you feel like you gotta get to. No, I never did. I love the ocean, that's why. So, a lot of diving, a lot of

surfing, and I was good. I missed it whenever I went away, though. Your brother's like some crazy free diving champion, right? Where he can hold his breath for like seven minutes? He's a surfer now. How long can he hold his breath for? I don't know. He used to go deep, though.

He used to go into deep blue. That was after my time. We used to just free dive, night dive. But that thing about going down 100 feet and that kind of stuff is crazy. Yeah, he had a ridiculous ability to hold his breath. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people don't know your brother was a badass mixed martial arts fighter, too. Egan's done a lot of stuff, man.

Yeah. Racquetball champion, right? Whatever he does, he does good, yeah. Racquetball champ. He did jiu-jitsu. Yeah. Did MMA. He was going to go into dentistry.

He had his massage license. Wow. He was a pharmaceutical rep for merc wow yeah i know what's he doing now he's doing a boot camp now oh like a boot camp yeah i think he's like every day man he's up at five in the morning teaching classes wow in hawaii yeah in uh which honolulu in honolulu yeah nice right near right in town right in town. So he has, I think he has three or four locations now. And the most crowded class they have is 5 o'clock. Can you believe that?

5 a.m. 5 a.m. Well, people who want to get fit before they go to work, I guess. I guess, yeah. Fuck it, man. You know, if you get used to doing that, I've been doing that over the last couple months. I get up in the morning, first thing I do is work out. I never used to do that.

I used to eat breakfast and lay around. But now I force myself to work out first thing in the morning. thing I do is work out I never used to do that I used to eat breakfast and lay around but now I force myself to work out first thing in the morning it makes the whole day a different experience yeah yeah you know get that out of the way. It's good to get that in yeah. How much are you training these days? Not much I when I go there I try to do bootcamp I met I met Shurikia and Olimwana doing bracelets like 12 hours a day so I don't want to go to boot camp and get a little tired in the day and have to be working. These bracelets that you're wearing right now, you sent me some and I gave them to my daughters. They love them. So thank you very much for that.

What is the significance behind these bracelets? Well, in Japan, they believe that the bracelets protect you. So if a bracelet breaks, it's actually a good thing because it's taken something that was supposed to come to you. And that's the main reason why I started wearing them and was interested in them. And later on down the line, someone told me, you know, there's power stones. They're real gems. And I'm like, what do you mean? There's crystals.

I know crystals. Okay, cool. But what do you mean? What are the gems? And they told me, you know, the onyx, they have the citrine, and there's all different properties for different things.

And I'm like, really? And it's crazy because, you know, there's one for every ailment. There's one for depression. There's one for diabetes, you know. And for me, I make the bracelets. I'm not a stone expert. Right.

And I love the bracelets. And, you know, when I started making them for color, I realized I was using different stones. And then we started reading up on that. And now it's like sometimes you get people coming in to make a bracelet for arthritis. And I'm the one making the bracelets. But I'm not a stone expert.

And I'm not this guru that's pushing power stones. I'm pushing bracelets. And it just so happens to be power stones. I'm pushing bracelets and it just so happens to be power stones. And so they want to line up for arthritis. So I get out my, you know, little book and okay, arthritis stones, okay, calcite, I line up the calcite, get a good look and something nice

and something that's for their ailment. And two days later, I mean, this happened numerous times. They'll walk in and say, you know, my hands aren't tight when I wake up in the morning. Do you believe that though? Yeah. See, the thing is I'm supposed to be like.

Like a placebo effect? Well, I'm supposed to be like, yeah, I know. But then for me, it's still new to me. So I'm like, no way, really? I'm super skeptical at this point in my life because I've just seen so much bullshit. But I think that if you tell someone that a rock can help some part of their life, then it actually can. The placebo effect is real. And I don't understand it, but you can give people sugar pills and tell them that it's medicine.

And their body, thinking that it's medicine, starts to relax and concentrate on healing. Up here, huh? Yeah, a lot of it is just people are, I think there's a lot of ailments that fall upon people because of stress and because they're imbalanced and they can be somewhat alleviated by placebos. We just don't understand how the mind works. What frequency are you tuning into when you're taking in a placebo that you think is medicine that allows you to get better? We don't know. We have no idea. But we do know that it's a real effect. Yeah, it does.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. So that's probably what it is. I don't think that a rock can cure diabetes. But what the fuck do I know? I don't know. You know, I mean, maybe you can. I don't know what it is either, man. But it works, man.

Might be that placebo thing, yeah? It's got to be. Whatever it is, man, it's working. I think. Do you remember when everybody was wearing those hologram wrist bracelets, those rubber ones? Yeah. Like a lot of athletes were wearing them. I still see Do you remember when everybody was wearing those hologram wrist bracelets, those rubber ones? Yeah. A lot of athletes were wearing them.

I still see you wearing them, the balance ones. Yeah. They got sued for like $100 million. Oh, really? It's bullshit. It's 100% bullshit. But I swear to God, people were telling me that it worked. Like real athletes, like Shane Carwin.

Shane Carwin was telling me, he's like, dude, I'm telling you, I put this thing on and it changed my life. And I was like, what? It's a placebo must be, huh? 100%. It's 100% placebo. Yeah. But placebo, somehow it's real. It's like, there's this dude that I know who's a chiropractor who does a shit called zone healing.

And it's a weird shit. They press down on certain parts of your back and claims it can help, you know, digestion and help all sorts of areas of your body. But when you press them about it, like how's this stuff work? How's it work? It's essentially he's providing you an avenue for the placebo effect to work. By telling you that this is helping you in certain areas, it actually can help people in certain areas. So you got to believe it. But if you're smart enough, you know it's bullshit,

then you can't believe it. So you're robbed of the placebo effect by being too smart. Yeah. It's fucked. It's weird, right? It's almost like you can be too smart for your own good. Yeah, sometimes. In that situation, it's not good to be too smart, though.

In that situation. What it's like, I had a conversation with someone once when it came to religion and fighting. And they were like, why do so many fighters, why are so many fighters religious? And I said, well, it's probably the same reason why so many, like, people at war are religious. You know, there's that old expression, there's no atheists in a foxhole. It's like when you need to believe in something, a lot of times people fall on religion and that it can help. Like there's people that have a real true belief in God and that true belief in God does benefit them substantially. It's real.

The effect of that belief is real. And it doesn't necessarily mean that what they believe in is real, but the fact that they believe in it and they give themselves to it can actually benefit them. So it becomes real. Yeah, it does. No, it does. I've seen people like that where, you know, it's God's will and they accept things easier because of that. Yeah. It's actually beneficial for a lot of people.

It's very beneficial. yeah it's actually beneficial for a lot of people it's very beneficial and in a sense sometimes being an atheist or being someone who just doubts everything can kind of fuck you because i've always said like i wish that someone could come along with a cult that i truly believed in like something that's really good really well like i just not think about all this shit you guys got it all explained out? All right. Good. And just let me look at it a little bit.

All right. Seems like you got your bases covered. Now I don't have to think about these things. Well, as much as being an atheist can screw you, you know, being too religious can also too. Yeah. Well, especially if you're too religious in like a hypocritical sort of a way, which is a lot of times people, they pick and choose what they believe in when it comes to religion. You know, there's a lot of Christians that are like angry people. They're angry about people that are non-Christians or angry about people that don't follow aspects of the Bible that they believe in.

It gets kind of squirrely. Uh-huh. But the nature of it, I think, all, I think the nature of all religions, the best aspects of all religions that aren't tainted by man, are the lessons that people learn over a life of trial and error and wisdom and sharing ideas. And you kind of learn that to be a good person, you have to do good things. And to be a happy person, you have to help others.

And when you treat each other like they're your brothers and sisters out there in the world, you truly have a better life. And you live in a way that makes you more connected and makes you, in their eyes, more connected to God. And in a big sense, that's what you're doing with your life these days. All your work, helping all these people in Fuk eyes, more connected to God. And in a big sense, that's what you're doing with your life these days.

All your work helping all these people in Fukushima, you're not a guy who just kind of does charity because it's a public thing and it makes you look good. You feel very dedicated to these causes, and it's very admirable because you go out there and you risk your health and safety. I've seen the photos that you put your health and safety. You go to, I've seen the photos that you put up online, man. You were in the fucking hot zone.

Yeah, we went up there three times, yeah. What is that like? Nothing. It's like this, man. Doesn't feel like anything. No, there's nothing. You can't feel nothing.

You don't get hot. You don't feel itchy. There's nothing, man. Radiation's a scary thing, thing man and all you see is the guy you're counting going up on the count and it's like that just scares you just watching that thing go up yeah how what is like a normal radiation level um well well when i went into fukushima the most i got in one time was 25 000 microsievertsverts. So as far as to put into relation, 65,000

micro sieverts within a year would change your blood chemistry. So I got 25,000 and I think I got a little more after that but nothing. I kind of stopped at about halfway just to be safe. They say that you're supposed to take iodine?

Iodine tablets. What is iodine? Iodine tablets. What is iodine? Iodine tablets helps to counteract it, but it's mostly for thyroid cancer, which is one of the most common cancers. Oh, so it just works on a thyroid. Yeah. And there's all kinds of stuff. They say to eat seaweed. Seaweed's good. Seaweed's strong in iodine, right?

Yeah. Seaweed helps with the radiation. What if you get seaweed that's contaminated with radiation? What a mindfuck that is. Then you're fucked. Yeah. They said that they've started catching tuna that show a 3% increase in radiation, and everybody started freaking out.

But they say that that's still negligible. Still a very small amount. You know, the thing that I always wonder now is, since Fukushima, everyone's been testing everything now. Have they been doing that before? Have you caught, before Fukushima, have they caught a tuna and tested for radiation? I don't think they've done that, you know? I think they probably must have.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have a base level to compare it to. Oh, to say that it's a race. Oh, I see, I see. But I read a thing recently about Grand Central Station in New York City is radioactive because it's made out of granite. And granite has natural radioactive properties. So in actuality, when you're walking through Grand Central Station, it is more radioactive than is required for a nuclear power plant to be below. Like nuclear power plants have – like when you're working at a power plant, it has to be below a certain amount of radiation. Grand Central Station

is higher than that just because of natural granite. That's the best of people to understand. There's radiation all over. Yeah. Like once on Antifukushima when the winds were blowing

the right direction for me, I got 16 microsieverts. I flew on a, I flew on a plane, went round trip to New York. I got 19. I had the same gyro corner. So it's like, you're riding a plane, went round trip to New York. I got 19. I had the same gyro corner. So it's like you're riding a plane, you're getting radiation.

No matter what. Walking the cement outside, going to the car, and the radiation bouncing off the concrete. You're getting radiation. You're getting radiation. We're getting radiation right now from the computers. I'm freaking out. Shit.

Yeah, well, that's what they say about cell phones, right? Like we're going to see a bunch of people that have brain tumors later on because they're holding phones up to their ears all the time. So, you know, it's something that's really misunderstood right now. The plane thing is a big one. Yeah. Planes. So I think it's high risk. Yeah.

There'll be a flight attendant. A lot of flight attendants can't work too long. Yeah. Yeah. It's like getting apparently a round trip flight is like getting a bunch of x-rays yeah just x-rays yeah we talked about it before i tried to figure out what the actual number was but when you get an x-ray when you go to the dentist that chick hits that button from behind a fucking concrete blast barrier you know they go ahead and hide they cover you with lead

and then they run out of the room and hit that button and then come back in. But meanwhile, you're getting that same kind of exposure every time you get on a flight. Flight of London, flight of Japan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but flight attendants, I don't hear about them getting sick all the time. Well, my friend that's a flight attendant told me there's a lot of them. They get cancer? Yeah.

Man, what kind of cancer? I don't know. Yeah. I wonder if there's some, like, if the iodine thing protects you from thyroid cancer, if there's other shit that protects you from other cancers. There probably is, but we don't know about it yet, huh? It's probably antioxidants, green leafy vegetables, things like that. I mean, isn't that what, I don't truly, totally understand the process of evolution, but from

what I understand, a lot of it is from random mutations that are caused by radiation. Oh, really? Yeah, random mutations that prove to be advantageous. Those are the ones that are kept. Didn't you just get off a plane? Oh, yes, I did. Maybe that's why I'm so stupid today.

That's why I can't talk so good. Yeah, there's certain days, you wonder. stupid today that's why i can't talk so good yeah there's certain days you wonder yeah um but rocks granite like a lot of different things just give off natural radiation yeah yeah what are they gonna do um to to try to uh contain that area do they have a long term no there's a um i have a friend up in fukushima that's actually trying, he has a machine that will actually melt down radiation off glass, out of water. And it's in the testing stage right now, almost in the final testing stage. So if that can get accepted, it's going to be a big thing. It can melt down radiation.

Yeah, the heat goes so high that it can melt down, melt it down off water, off glass. Whoa. Yeah, it's crazy. So it takes glass that's radioactive and it melts it down. But where's the radiation go?

Then it goes, yeah, I know. I'm too stupid to have this conversation. And then even like the problem in Fukushima is like the cow shit. Oh, Jesus.

Yeah, so they have tons of that and that can melt that down and then it turns it into like drywall so you can actually use the cow shit is radioactive yeah there's great amounts of cow shit they have tons of them they don't know what to do with it radioactive cow shit that you can turn into drywall wow people are weird what a weird world we live in yeah i know there was some kid who had figured out some sort of a way to take radioactive waste and to reprocess it and turn it into fuel again.

Wow. Yeah. Because most radioactive waste, you know, they have to store it in the ground. Like there's places in Nevada where they have these. Did you see Godzilla? The new Godzilla? No, I didn't. It's okay.

It's kind of stupid but one of the things is the monsters go after the radioactive waste that's stored near las vegas like way out deep in the desert apparently they have these these vaults where they they take radioactive waste from nuclear power plants they bury it deep into the ground the monsters went after that because they eat radiation oh wow pretty fucking stupid yeah but this kid who has invented this uh this process believes that in the future that they'll be able to take all of this radioactive, quote-unquote, waste, and that it's not waste. It's just that they don't completely understand the process of converting it back to fuel yet. But once that process is understood, there will be no radioactive waste anymore. They'll be able to convert that back to fuel.

Wow. Yeah, pretty interesting, right? Yeah, crazy shit going on there. Well, that's the interesting thing about when we fuck up. Because when human beings fucked up, we fucked up so many different things. But when we fuck up, our backs get pushed against the wall, and then we're forced to innovate.

Like there's a 19-year-old kid who figured out a machine that can take the plastic out of that Pacific garbage patch. You know about that garbage patch that's in the ocean? Do you know about all that? No, no. Oh, that's a crazy thing. There's an area in the ocean, enormous area, bigger than the size of Texas, that is all plastic from the world, from all over the countries of the world, people that have littered,

things that have fallen off of boats, things that have got picked up from the beach and they've all swirled because you know there's um there's currents in the ocean and these currents create these paths and inside yeah inside these paths in these areas where all this stuff has sort of congealed and congested um those aren't the right words but it it's formed this like floating patch of garbage and it's really fucked up because it's in the water there's there's an image of it but they've um they've done all these um missions to go out and and try to figure out how big it exactly is the problem is a lot of it is suspended underneath the water and it's being broken down slowly by the water so fish are eating it ingesting it and getting sick birds are taking the plastic back and feeding it to their children to their babies because the birds don't understand what the fuck

it is so they there's islands that they find where these birds these baby birds are dead and their stomachs are filled with plastic bits that their mothers have given them because their mothers don't know what the fuck they are. Their mothers think that it's fish or food or something like that. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. So this kid has figured out a way to take this gigantic machine that skims the ocean,

and it's going to suck all the plastic out of the ocean and clean the whole thing. Whoa. Yeah, incredible. A 14-year-old kid. Yeah. And then they've also said, well, you know, hey, we've got all these problems with the ocean and clean the whole thing whoa yeah incredible kid yeah and then they've also said well you know hey you know we've got all these problems with the ocean and the there's these

dead zones there's lack of oxygen and pollution in the ocean they figured out a way to throw iron to take iron scrap and pour it into the ocean and that iron scrap will create algae and create different environments for fish to live in, and it'll re-oxygenate the water. Wow. Yeah, so it's weird. Like, when people get their back pushed up against, beyond both of us, I don't even, I shouldn't even be allowed to talk about it.

I'm too fucking stupid to explain it correctly. But it's fascinating. There's this kid, he invented this giant ocean garbage patch skimmer, and that's this machine that he's he's invented and i believe he's only 19 too but in within a few years time he did a ted talk on it within a few years time they're going to be able to clean up that patch if this invention pans out yeah that's the weird thing about people we fuck everything up but when we fuck everything up someone smarter comes along goes okay okay. Let's figure this shit out.

It's amazing what some people have invented, huh? It's amazing. It's amazing. What we're doing right now. Glad everyone's not like us, man. We're still primitive days, man. Caveman days yet. Well, I'm glad there's people like us too, though.

That's the yin and the yang, right? That's the great balance of life. Can't all be eggheads. There has to be all sorts of different people to make this world so interesting. But if it was just up to you and me i don't think there would be an internet we wouldn't really be having a podcast we wouldn't be taught it's true who the fuck knows how this works how's this microphone work i have no clue i rely on these i have no idea how they work true i don't have a clue i couldn't even draw you a fucking, like a crude schematic of what's inside of a microphone. Oh, shit.

You know? But it's important. Yeah. That's the beauty of being human is that we all sort of contribute in one sort of a way. We're all like one piece of a gigantic organism that's kind of doing all these things. And occasionally, part of the organism fucks up. Like, oh, we didn't have a backup on a power plant shit and then the world has to sort of scramble and right now i'm sure there's people far more intelligent than you or i and they're trying to

figure out a way to fix things like fukushima yeah i bet there's a lot of them you got to yeah that thing that they're doing with the ice is pretty crazy. These giant pipes in the ground, and they're trying to freeze the ground to turn it into a giant containment wall. Like a big pool, a huge swimming pool filled with radioactive waste. Unreal, huh? Fucked. I mean, isn't there a better way to do it? It sounds so ridiculous.

It sounds like something a little kid would invent. But I don't think there is. Is the government of Japan, do they have a financial problem right now? I don't know, man, but they're just not reimbursing the people. They're not helping the people. If you're going to take a land and a house away

from a family who's worked hard for worked hard to work for it all their lives because a company that's run by the government, which is TEPCO, the nuclear plant, is run by the government. If your plant is going to fuck up, you're going to take responsibility and relocate them to an equal amount of things that they had instead of putting them in a little box. How much money would that cost? How many people are being misplaced? Yeah, over $100,000.

So that's why they can't afford it. Over $100,000 and you'd have to spend at least $100,000 probably on each one of them. Yeah. Well, a lot of them were helped out by Red Cross. Oh, yeah? Yeah. So the government's doing, yeah. Fuck. So, I don't know what the government's doing.

Fuck. Well, you figure the government didn't tell the people what was really happening with the radiation. Well, that was one of the few times, I think, that I can recall where I talked to, you know, Japanese people are very orderly and very polite. It's a very different society. Yes. very polite it's a very different society but when i was in japan what was fascinating because i was only about a year after uh the fukushima incident and i was talking to this guy and uh he was very reluctant to talk negatively about the government but he was trying to hedge his words and basically said was i don't think they've been entirely honest. That was like... That's the worst he could have said.

Yes. He didn't want to say anything different. The Japanese culture, like for Americans, everybody in America wants a pill to lose weight. They want a quick fix for everything. I don't think they totally understand the Japanese culture. That's why... Did you see the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi?

No. It's fascinating. Fascinating documentary. It's about this guy who has a small sushi place in a Tokyo subway. And this small sushi place he's been working at for decades. And he works 16 hours a day, every day. And will work, like, for years and years just to develop this one dish. And has all these apprentices.

And has this one apprentice. The guy was working for years on this particular egg dish. And then finally he got it right. The guy said, you got it right, finally. And the guy was crying. Because some fucking egg dish. Whoa. Some egg dish.

That's Jiro. It's an interesting documentary. Apparently he has the best sushi in Japan. It's incredible, the delicious sushi, and it's like a 10-seat restaurant. Really, huh? Yeah, and before the documentary came out, it was booked for months in advance, but now the documentary's out. Who knows?

I mean, it might be impossible to get in there. Really, yeah. But because of the fact that he keeps the place so small and he doesn't have that many people working for him, he's not really concerned with branching out. If he was an American, they'd be like, we're going to sell our brand. Our business is our brand. And what we're going to do now is we're going to spread out to the malls all across America.

Giro dreams of sushi stores. Nope. This guy has one place. And he's humble. He's hardworking. He's fucking 80 years old. He had to quit smoking cigarettes because he had a heart attack but you know healed back up stopped smoking cigarettes

jumped right back in still working 16 hours a day wow that's neat i should check that out it's it's admirable right but isn't that that's the sushi place tiny little place man but isn't that sort of indicative about the differences between japanese culture and american there's a lot of differences yeah extreme differences in the way of thinking and the way of doing things yeah well that's where you you know you're known for not just being uh one of the pioneers of mma but you're known for that expression, Yamato Damashii, that you have always, you've always promoted that ideal, this samurai spirit and this spirit of Japan,

this way of doing things wholeheartedly. And, you know, you've talked openly that you freely give yourself, like when you would go to fight, you would be ready to die. Yes. And not just saying that. You'd really reconcile it in your mind. You would say goodbye to your friends, say goodbye to your family before a fight.

I wrote letters. I wrote letters to people that I wanted to say goodbye to in every fight. That's some deep shit. You know, the thing too is fighting to die, planning to die, you're going to train with the will to die too.

So you can imagine how much good training I got. I mean, I'm training every day before the fight so I won't die in the fight. I'm planning, I'm okay, I'm accepting the fact so I won't die in the fight. I'm planning.

I'm okay. I'm accepting the fact that I might die there. But I know that the better I can be is the less chance of me dying in the ring. So, you know, I'm not going to get up in the morning because I'm sore. I'm not going to miss training because I'm tired or I'm lazy because it might be the difference of me living and dying in the ring. So, you know, it helped me out a lot in the training aspect. And, you know, the dieting.

I mean, I want to drink a Coke, but I'm trying to eat only good things before my fight. And it's a lot easier to do that when you're to that level. It can't hurt you, you know, to plan to die in the ring to to believe that and to train and to walk that life for that three months while training for the fight it can't hurt you is it difficult for you because you earnestly embraced that thought process is it difficult for you when you see guys that are kind of dabbling in mma they're kind of like half-assing it not training hard enough. Maybe they have some talent,

but they don't really put their will and heart into it. Well, it's a whole new era now, yeah, because back in the day, we didn't get paid good. We weren't that worried about losing a sponsor here, being cut by the UFC. That kind of stuff didn't, because there was all these little associations. We were fighting for so little bit money the objective and the the whole movement of that era was different

yeah so you know when fighters start getting lazy you know or they don't fight as hard or they tap out a little sooner you know i understand that because it's a whole new era because you're fighting for a different reason though they're fighting for money they're fighting for living they're fighting for sponsors they're fighting to look good you know so it new era because you're fighting for a different reason now. They're fighting for money. They're fighting for a living. They're fighting for sponsors. They're fighting to look good, you know. So it's easier when you're fighting for those reasons. I mean, there's only so much money will make you do. But if you're fighting for your honor and you're fighting for your life, it's a whole different level, you know.

It's interesting, too, because in this day and age age it's a real business as well so it's almost like you have to have a little bit of both to be the elite of the elite you almost have to have the attitude that you had but in order to be to maximize your profits you have to kind of think about it in a different way and you have to like avoid certain fights or pick and choose your opponents but then once you have an opponent locked in it's almost like the best of both worlds seems to be like the answer well i i think yeah you have to have a good balance yeah because if you just like a fighter like me wouldn't make it today i mean i probably wouldn't have that much wins i probably would have three losses in a row and i'd probably

be losing my my job at the ufc you know there UFC. You know, people ask me a lot, you know, are you disappointed at what happened to the fight game? And, you know, I always say, you know, a lot of times now in the fight game, where the warrior will start is where the fight ends now. I mean, right where his heart is going to kick in. Right now, okay, this is where we're going to see if this guy has it in his heart or not. That's when the ref stops the fight because it's getting dangerous, you know? Did you see this past weekend's fights?

Yeah, I did. Did you see Jason High and Rafael Dos Anjos? Yeah, yeah. What did you think about that situation? Do you know what happened? When he pushed the ref? Yeah. That should never happen.

Should never happen, right? That should never happen. If you don't know what happened, Dos Anjos cracked Jason High, hit him with a real good shot, had him down, but I thought it was a premature stoppage. He was getting hit, but he was moving into position, but

Dos Anjos did that thing that guys do where they look at the referee. They're hitting him, and then they look at the referee, they're like, aren't you going to stop that? And then the referee comes and stops that, which is kind of fucking manipulative. Guys do that all the time. That's what's hard about the refereeing job is a split second can change a good stoppage

to a shitty stoppage. Yeah. And if he stopped it like a second earlier when right at Jason High got dropped and was kind of a little bit out of it after the flurry, it would have been a good stoppage. But he waited and Jason High actually got his posture

and started like coming up again it's a little premature but do you think that it's better to be premature than it is to be to have guys take too many shots like what are your thoughts on that in the day today today's mma yes definitely today's you gotta stop the fights yeah you can't let the guys getting hurt but in the mma of your era pride was such a completely different animal because there was stomps and soccer kicks. And the rule system was completely different. It was just a completely different kind of fighting. Well, it depends what you're fighting for.

Right now, in the UFC, it's a sport. It's a sport. It's a huge sport now. You can get sponsored. You can make a living with it. It's huge. You're fighting for a sport it's a it's a huge sport now you can get sponsored you can make a living with it it's huge you're fighting for a sport and to to be a huge sport that is you need the media you need the sponsors you can't have guys getting hurt you can't make it too brutal you know so in this day and age yes you you should be more cautious than anything and stopping the fights i agree with that

but back in the day when you're fighting for honor no i mean if that fight was not televised and you need to worry about sponsors and you know and people getting hurt and suits and everything i would if i if in my day i would prefer the fight not to have stoppages well like perfect example in my opinion is frankie edgar like frankie edgar and gray maynard there's a lot of referees would have stopped two of those fights in the first round a lot of referees but Frankie Edgar came back to uh to have a draw in one of those fights where it looked like Gray Maynard had him out he was yeah he had him out I mean it was ridiculous a lot of people would have stopped that fight and waved it off but Frankie Edgar came back to win the second round and then start winning enough rounds to make it close enough so that it was a draw.

And then the second fight, or the fight after that, same thing. He gets tagged and hurt real bad in the first round and then came back to knock Gray Maynard out later in the fight. It's hard. And everybody's different. Some guys can take a shot. Some guys just can't. Some guys get hurt and they never come back.

Some guys are known for coming back. You know, the thing I think about that is, you know, if the stoppages weren't so soon, you know how many unbelievable inspirational moments we'd have in fighting. But that's the sacrifice we make for it to be such a big sport now. Yeah, the butt part is a big part. Yeah. part no yeah the butt part is a big big part yeah it's it's a weird thing because there's no absolute correct moment in a fight to call a fight like one person's call like the guy's had a punishment another referee may disagree it's so subjective yeah it's a real hard thing yeah

like you know it's i mean i wouldn't say i could be the same fighter if I fought today. Now, when you say that, like when you say that you would have three losses in a row, what would be the difference between the way you fought and the way, say, modern MMA fighters fight? Well, for me, the win isn't getting my hand raised. The win is hitting the fears that I have head on and growing as a person if I it's really sometimes it really

counteracts each other because for Igor Vovachanchi when I fought him the best thing for me to do was to take him down and get on top but

the best thing for me to to grow as a man as a person is to hit that fearful stage of throwing toe to toe with Igor but the best thing for me to grow as a man, as a person, is to hit that fearful stage of throwing toe-to-toe with Igor. You know what I mean? Yeah, well, Igor Vovchanshin, for folks who don't know, when you were fighting him,

was one of the most devastating strikers in the sport. He was a brutal knockout artist, and he was a small guy, but he fucked up Mark Kerr. When Mark Kerr was big, remember, he caught Mark Kerr with a bomb standing up. I mean, Igor was only like 5'10", right? Yeah, he's shorter, yeah. He looked like a guy that should have probably been way bigger and longer, but someone chopped his arms off at the end and put these knots for fists in the middle of his...

And he was just this ball of muscle and bone that guy could crack yeah for me for to win the fight and to win the battle in my heart to be a stronger person it's two different things so to win the fight is was to use your jiu-jitsu to take him to the ground and try to submit him but to overcome your fear was to bite down on your mouthpiece and just wing. And fuck did you ever, man. That was some crazy shit. I remember I was watching it at my house with Eddie Bravo,

and we were just screaming. The whole beginning of that fight was, oh, shit, oh, shit, because you just did exactly what a Greg Jackson would tell you not to do. Yes. They would say, okay, I want you to avoid his punches. This is what we're going to do. We're going to kick the legs. We're going to move around a lot.

When you see the opening, we see the punches come, you're going to shoot in for the takedown. Yeah. He just went in there, bit down that mouthpiece, and that was one of the wildest opening exchanges I can remember from the day of the prize. Well, you know what's the most ironic thing about that fight is it was my worst beating that i ever took but it was the best fight for me i've learned so much about myself in that fight i learned about my heart and that that actually solidified that

you know living the yarmouth lamashee way you You know, a lot of people, you know, you can say it, you can have these kind of sort of hard fights, but that fight kind of showed that I'm actually living it. So it was the worst beating physically as far as getting the results, as far as the victory. That was probably the worst fight in my career. But as far as me growing as a person and as far as, you know, something that was

a reputation that was saving me forever it was the best fight do you have a fight that like you you look back and you remember is like a proud moment or one of your proudest moments well that fight would probably be it but not at the moment yeah because at the moment i didn't think i was that bad i uh at the, when I was getting hit, the biggest... I remember getting hit some shots that really rocked me, and I remember thinking in my head, the thing that I thought was I can't let him know it hurt.

And I remember looking at my corner and looking at him and just saying, I'm okay. They didn't ask me, but I just did it on purpose because I knew he'd be seeing me doing it like, what the fuck's wrong with this guy? I just hit him so hard. What did you knock people out with? And this guy i just hit him so hard what they'll just knock people out with and he's guys look in his corner so i'm okay and then you know that that's the kind of stuff you know when the when the fight was stopped and i was screaming no it wasn't

because i was you know trying to be tough i just just felt in in that moment and time i felt okay i got two minutes between rounds. Why are you coming in at 30 seconds and saying the fight's over? And the second thing I'm thinking too is you guys don't know the training that I went through for this. This is nothing compared to what I did every day. I mean, I felt like, let me go on. And I also felt that this is the time right here. This is the time, my breaking moment. And this is the time where I can show myself that I let me go on. And I also felt that this is the time right here. This is the time, my breaking moment.

And this is the time where I can show myself that I can still go on. But I didn't realize that, you know, my ear was perforated so bad that I had my equilibrium was off. I didn't realize that I needed, you know, I was saying to the doctor, no. I still got two minutes. You know, I'm thinking, I got two minutes. Don't check me now. But I actually should have been yelling, give me three months. i didn't realize how bad i was yeah wow so how long did it take for you to recover three months to recover from that wow so i had a perforated ureterum um i had a

broken jaw broken finger and i had a swollen brain whoa yeah, and that was a big worry for the doctors. The other big worry was the kidney. The kidney levels rose 2,000 times a normal person. The kidney levels? Yeah. See, what the doctor explained to me was when your muscles get any type of trauma, even if it's just one area of your body, your muscles all act together as a team, and they'll put off toxins. Hmm. That'll affect your body, your muscles all act together as a team and they'll put off toxins.

That'll affect your kidneys apparently. So the breakdown of the muscle tissue was processed by kidneys and so your kidneys had to deal with a lot of tissue. Toxins, yeah. Tissue trauma. And so it was a lot of toxicity. So something about the kidney levels, if they go too high, the kidneys will shut down. Well, it's also probably the effort that you put forth too because it was such a crazy, crazy fight. a lot of toxicity. So something about the kidney levels, if they go too high, the kidneys will shut down.

Well, it's also probably the effort that you put forth, too, because it was such a crazy, crazy fight. You know that issue that a lot of CrossFitters have, that rhabdomyolysis? You hear about that? No.

It's a big issue that's going on with a lot of these CrossFit competitions. They push themselves so far. They push themselves to the brink of your total body failure.

And this rhabdomyelosis is very common amongst CrossFitters. I know a guy whose wife got it from just training CrossFit because they push themselves so fucking hard that they have like kidney failure. Their body starts breaking down. It's really common. I mean, anytime when someone over-trains, that's probably, it's a big issue. So a fight, post-fight, a fight like that especially, pull up Igor Vovchanchin versus Francisco Bueno. Yeah, I saw that. You can see what this guy was like back in the day.

That's a fight that actually got me intrigued to fight Igor. When I saw that devastation was something like, well, can you imagine stepping in that zone knowing that that could happen to you in any moment but standing there in that zone fighting that you know when I fought Mark Kerr it was right after he beat up

Hugo Duarte so I was looking at fights to grow as a person not to get a win-loss record. You know, that's why I'm saying Anthony Noyev today wouldn't make it. Right. Yeah, because it wasn't looking, it wasn't very good for my career.

Well, you fought some big fucking guys, too. And you weren't like, like you fought Randy, who's a heavyweight, you know. And like, here's Igor Vovchanchev versus Francisco Bueno. And this was Igor at his prime. Like, who are those guys built? Look at this. Ding, ding, ding. He caught him three times as he was out on the way down.

Yeah, he was out for a long time, too. Oh, yeah. Dude, he got flatlined. I was sitting ringside, and there was this, I guess, a girl, his girlfriend. But she was going crazy, screaming, man. Like, she was. He didn't wake up for a while. Well, that was a brutal, screaming, man. Like, she was. He didn't wake up for a while. Well, that was a brutal, brutal, brutal KO. And that was Igor at his very best.

And look at this again. Look at the way this guy's built. I mean, he really does look like a guy who's way bigger, who's like cut off the ends of his body. Look at this. Clink. And he had those crazy punches, too, those casting punches. He threw.

He was one of the first guys to throw like the way Fedor was known for throwing those punches where it's almost like your hand is perpendicular with the ground instead of horizontal with it. He would throw a lot of his punches like this in a very unorthodox way, casting punches is what they're called. Those are the days, the glory days. When you look back, man, and you think from the 1997, you're right with Royce Alger.

Did they have gloves on back then? That was the last UFC that they gave us an option. So I opted to not have gloves because I always wanted to try that. Wow. So you were in the last UFC where you didn't have to wear gloves. UFC 13 was the last one that they made it an option. Wow. After that, it was a rule that you have to. gloves. UFC 13 was the last one that they made an option. Wow. After that, it was a rule that you have.

So I feel like I just made it, yes. Well, for a grappler too, you know, that's a big advantage, sneaking in chokes and stuff. And the way they taped, they didn't allow you to tape the hands. Really? And they taped it for me, and it was like, it cut, like, here is like just pretty much the wrist. So all the gloves? So you really had nothing on this at all to protect your hand.

Huh. Yeah. What do you think now about these new, like there's a lot of issues these days with guys with eye pokes. But it wasn't a big issue back then, which is weird to me. That it was not nearly as much of an issue in those early days. Like you didn't see a lot of eye pokes yeah you didn't yeah no and you you didn't see a lot in pride and i tim kennedy was on the podcast we have these pride gloves there was a bunch of them like the last ufc yeah oh

there's a lot of them a lot lately but these pride gloves tim kennedy believes are superior to the ufc gloves because they naturally promote a curved fist, whereas the UFC gloves have much more of a straight line to them. Everlast has a new glove that they're using with Bellator, and it's a much more curved fist. And it's also, there's more padding across the top to reinforce the metacarpals when you're hitting. And they apparently stopped a lot of bone breaks because of that. Oh, really? But I almost feel like the same thing I feel like with football, that everybody is concerned about head trauma in football,

but no one wants to look at – there's a lot of people who have analyzed football. They say, well, there's the best way to stop this head trauma is probably to make people play football with no helmets. Because if you play football with no helmets, you're going to play totally different. You cannot go head to head and clash into each other if you have no fucking helmet. And the only real way to control the way these guys do this is to make it so that it's impossible to... I mean, they're spiking each other with helmets on and shoulder pads and shit. They're saying if you really want to do it, look at rugby and look at Australian rules football.

Less head trauma, less instances of traumatic brain injury. And they're fighting with no pads. I mean, that's probably... And I think that might be the way to do with MMA too, man. Because I get that people think that it's brutal to punch people with no gloves on, but guess what? You're kicking people with nothing on your feet. Your foot is way fucking stronger.

Your heel never gets hurt. I mean, you could heel kick someone in the face all day and it's never going to hurt your heel. I mean, I've seen people wheel kick people, full clip, slam into their face, they walk off fine. You never see them like, ow, my foot. You know, it doesn't hurt your foot. Your heel, you can stomp on the ground. You know, you can do things with your foot you could never do with your hands. I think they should probably go bare knuckle.

I think that might be the way. Well, the gloves are actually just to protect the hands. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe stop some cuts. But you've cut people with elbows. Elbows cut. Yeah, you can elbow now.

So probably we couldn't elbow him. What do you think about that? Because some people think that elbows actually stop a lot of good fights because of cuts. Well, you're asking a guy who didn't, I didn't want, I wanted growing shots allowed. Right. I mean, even eye gouging, you know. Really? You know, because I believe that you see all

the people that get hurt in the eyes because you can't do it. So you're not expecting it. If we're professionals, I mean, you're, you're training to, to stop all the joint locks, all the different chokes. You're, you're training to, to stop being in bad positions.

If you, if, if you're allowed to have growing shots, you groin shots, you'd train not to get hit in the groin. I think if you're going to allow eye gouges, you've got a real problem. Yeah. I mean, biting is the only thing that I wouldn't be for. But biting is good. If you get side control and bite someone in the neck. I know. Biting would actually change a fight.

I know. That's the thing. Or biting the ear. Fuck yeah. I mean, look would actually change a fight. I know, that's the thing. Or biting the ear. Fuck yeah. I mean, look how Holyfield reacted to Mike Tyson. He bit a chunk of his ear off. I think eye gouges, that's a dangerous problem. You got a bunch of guys,

like Alan Belcher's career is in jeopardy because of detached retinas. Michael Bisping had to have several eye surgeries. He's got a real problem now. One of his eyes looks weird. That was from the thumbing by accident, yeah? And I'm talking about grappling when you try and grab the eye. He's got a real problem now. One of his eyes looks weird. That was from the thumbing by accident, yeah? Yeah.

And I'm talking about grappling when you try and grab the eyes. It's hard. If the guy's going to defend from that, you know, Nakayuki lost his eye because I believe a big thing was you're allowing these dirty fighters

to get away with it because it's not in the rules. Right. So he's not expecting it, yeah. Right. So I figure a professional expecting it, that would not have happened if Nakayuki knew that's not in the rules right so he's not expecting it yeah right so i figure professional expecting it would that would not have happened if nakai knew that it was in the rules hmm yeah that was he fought gerard gardot yeah that was big yeah big karate guy that was shameful

yeah that was shameful that was yeah he lost his eye because of that yeah he's one of the few but there's quite a few guys have've had... Detached retinas. Yeah, that's really common these days, man. Really common. I just, I don't know what they could do about it. I almost feel like

there's a way to cover the tips of the fingers, though. I wonder. I wonder how much it'll affect the grappling, though. I wonder if it's a small, like a thin piece of like a thin leather

that it maybe even enhanced the grappling because it'll give you more grip like when your hands are sweaty you know when you clamp down like maybe as we speak someone's working on it right now probably huh i'm sure there is these are the bellator gloves you could see up on that thing see the bellator glove is on the left whereas the ufc style glove is on the right and the bellator glove has a more padding on the metal carpal and it's curved more uh-huh i don't know what they what they have shown though bellator has had far less hand breaks

because of that oh really yeah but then again it goes back to the football thing like maybe you're better off knowing that you can't just tee off on someone's head without breaking your hand i mean if guys had to be more conservative with their punches, maybe we would see more kicks, maybe we'd see more grappling, and maybe MMA would be more realistic. That's true, man. That's true. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. Yeah.

I think it's still... We have a bunch of issues in MMA right now. The judging issue is a tremendous issue. Oh, the judging, man. What's going on with that, man? Did you see the Diego Sanchez-Ross Pearson fight? Yeah, that was crazy. Fucking ridiculous. That was crazy. Ridiculous.

I haven't seen one person that thought Diego Sanchez won that fight other than Diego and Diego's family. And I love Diego. It's not Diego's fault that they scored it wrong, but God damn, that was a bad decision. Yeah, it was very bad. I mean, Diego's got a lot of heart. You can't take it away from him. That guy, he's a Yamato Damashii type fighter, right? Yeah, he is.

He's a motherfucker. Diego Sanchez comes to parties. I love watching the guy fight. One of my all-time favorites. He's a wild man. He's one of the few guys today that still fights with complete, total reckless abandon. Especially when he starts getting hurt. Oh, yeah.

His face could be hanging off. When he fought Martin Kampman in that third round, his face was hanging off. Hanging off of his skull. And he's charging just like a wild beast with rabies. Yeah. You know? He's a crazy dude, man.

He's fun to watch fight. He's pure aggression, that guy. He is. Pure aggression in heart heart i like that guy yeah love watching him fight man i just don't think he won that decision yeah i don't think so either what do you think about the way the ufc has rounds too because one of the things i really loved about pride was that first 10 minute round that really separated like the people that had real true endurance and knew how to pace yourself

there's one thing around pacing yourself on a five minute round is one thing pacing yourself on a 10 minute round as an entirely different proposition when it comes to conditioning yeah well again it goes to that question you know the the reason why mma is being changed in the way it is for the sponsors and for the audience. And I think it's depending on the fighter. Can you imagine, you know, you have those boring fights where they get to the ground and you just want them to stand up, but they're doing enough that they don't get broken up and you're like, damn, five minutes is not that bad.

But you can imagine that happening for 10 minutes. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's the thing. I think that's the thing that really works for the sport now because they're shorter rounds for the audience more. I agree, but there's a purist in me

that I don't like stand-ups. I don't think you should be stood up. Yeah. I think if the guy's on the bottom and you don't like the fact that the guy's holding you down,

you've got to get better at getting up. You've got to get better at sweeping them. You've got to get better at trying to attack from the bottom, attacking to try to get a better position to stand back up or to try to finish them from your back.

I just don't think it's realistic for a guy just to hang on and let the referee stand him back up again, which is a strategy. You see it all the time. Well, it's a sport now, man. Yeah. If you're looking at it as a fight, that's why he's a good MMA fighter. I mean, not like a street fighter. It's a whole different thing.

Right. But even as a sport, I think if you're going to look at the sport, it's still a sport of fighting. And if a guy can hold you down, he's holding you down. Like, you can't just stand him up. Like, he worked hard to get that guy down. And the guy on the bottom doesn't want to be there. So the guy on the bottom. He's not like technique.

Yeah. He's just locking his hands and just holding them. Yeah. Just to get a better position. Yeah. Get stand stood up again that's what a lot of guys do they just wait to get stood back up i think that's kind of crazy yeah yeah i don't like that either i like to see a guy like you know you know charles olivera you know that kid i like watching that guy fight because he's so dangerous off of his back because he's he's real aggressive standing up and one of the reasons why he's so aggressive standing up he's not worried about being taken down because if he's taken down attacks attacks attacks right away off of his

back arm bars triangles boom boom boom like there's no picnic taking that guy on the ground you take him down to the ground you just did another different type of attack he's constantly attacking yeah i like that that's good yeah when guys have-dimensional games, that's when getting taken down becomes a problem because they get taken down and then the guy can hold them there. But you can't hold some guys. You know, there's guys that have wicked guards. You take them down and, man, you're in a fucking new world of shit. Yeah.

You're just running into another sort of a situation where you can get submitted or lose the fight. I think that that's the best way for mma the but the best way is not standing guys up because then why not even just why have it mma then why not just fight kickboxing if you just want to fight standing up then where there's no threat of takedowns then you can do some wild shit you know but you have a different sport then if you're gonna have takedowns, I don't think you should have stand-ups. I really don't.

Yeah, true. But, damn, can you imagine the sponsors wouldn't like that? The TV would be a problem. But fucking baseball, man. How do they watch baseball? That shit's way more boring. Or golf, yeah. Yeah.

And they will watch it. That's true. You look at that, then they should not break them. That's not that boring after you look at that. It's not even close. Well, even football, man. What do you think of two-on-ones and stuff? I don't like that.

You don't like that, man? No. The team fighting shit? No, not the team fighting. Like two-on-one. Even two-on-one. I think it would be a whole deal of strategy, man. I think two-on-one would be interesting if it was like a guy like you versus two non-trained guys.

Oh, that would be funny. That would be exciting. That would be exciting. Non-trained big guys. Yes. Non-trained guys, though. But with trained guys, no. But that's like a circus.

Yeah. But say if you had a guy like Jon Jones versus two football players that don't really know how to fight. That would be exciting. That would be exciting. That would be exciting. But a guy like Jon Jones versus two Jon Joneses? No. Yeah, no way.

I don't want to see that. I mean, for me, I always felt that that was one of the things I wanted to try and do. Two on one? Is fight two guys at one time and see because there's a whole near fear element yeah oh yeah fuck yeah so there's that fear element is what i was kind of intrigued to try and experience would you want to fight two guys of the same size as you no but like say if i'm if i'm two i'm 230 like guys that are like 180 or even 200 even 200 pounds just have a little bit of an advantage in size to balance it out.

Yeah, yeah. And then the issues would be different. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, well, that's why I'm saying like two untrained guys. You get like two rough, tough fucking football players, you know, that don't really know how to fight. Give them like a couple weeks to fucking hit the pads or a little bit you know just a couple weeks to do some

fight training but the real the reality is a guy like you versus a football player that has no martial arts experience he would need years just to be able to survive on his own but two of them yeah they have that you know the gangster fights yeah yeah and it's it's actually pretty semi-trained. All of them are semi-trained. What do you mean by gangster fights? You're talking about the Russian? No, the ones in Japan, the Yakuza's fight and stuff.

Really? They have one guy and the guys are a little bit smaller. And it's crazy in some of the fights, man. So it's one guy versus two guys, you're saying? Yeah, one guy versus two guys. And the two guys are a little bit smaller? A little bit smaller, just a little bit, yeah. And the Yakuza sets these up?

There's fights that are run by them, yeah. Is it organized? Yeah, it's organized. What do they call it? They call it a chika kakutogi. Chika is underground, and kakutogi is fighting. Chika kakutogi? Yeah, so underground fighting.

If you're in Japan, when they have one, they'll take you to one. Fuck, yeah. It's crazy. The good thing about it is a lot of these guys don't have that much skill, and they just brawl. Wow. Now, do they have a doctor standing by for these things? Yes, they have ring doctors.

They have referees. They have everything. And you could get away with that in Japan because the Yakuza has, it's a different sort of a scenario than, like, say, the mafia in America. Yeah, it's a little different, yeah. Like, it's much more accepted, right? Yes, it is. It's something inside of people know that's around.

Wow. But it's not something that you want to be public about. Huh. Yeah, they made me cover up my tattoos. We talked about this the last time we were on the podcast. I was in a gym, and they made me put on a long-sleeved shirt and come back. Yeah, and you probably can't shower here. Yeah, I could shower in my room.

But the Yakuza is not talked about, but it's everywhere. Yeah, it's everywhere. You can see them around. There's nice guys that are yakuza there's assholes there's there's a whole bunch of i've i've had a lot of stuff with them yeah we talked about a little bit about that last time you're here on the podcast we had to smack the shit out of some guy yeah it's all in the book too man okay now tell me about the book and when when is it out? Is it out already? This is the one for you, man. Beautiful. Oh, awesome. Beautiful. Yeah, it's, I think, four years in the making. Live as a man, die as a man, become a man.

Do you understand that saying? Yes. Do you know what, I think, I don't know if we talked about it before, but, you know, the middle line is to die, huh? Mm-hmm. When everyone thinks that's the end. So everyone thinks that the normal reading would be to live as a man, become a man, and die as a man. But I believe that until you face that most fearful test of dying, you don't know how strong you actually are.

So you live your life with all these little tests in life all the little trials that you have to build your strength and build your heart to the last test of dying and the way you die is going to determine whether you've passed that test or not so that's why I like that title that's a

in today's day and age this strange soft pussified society that we live in, you know, and there's a lot of good things about the pussified society. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of good things about people being civil with each other and about having laws and about having, you know,

being able to get your food from a grocery store. All those things are good. But what's bad about all these things, and it's not bad about these things, but the the repercussions of them is that men don't develop character. And a lot of men fold under pressure because they've never experienced pressure. They don't know themselves. They don't know what they're capable of because they've never had to face adversity.

True adversity. When you're really worried about your life. When you're really worried about your safety. When your back is up against the wall and you either rise to the occasion or you are dwarfed by the moment. And so many people that have never faced adversity, they just immediately fall apart. They panic. They fold. They don't know what to do.

Yeah. That's what you were fighting against. Yeah. And a lot of it in the book is a lot of the stuff that I've went through. a lot of it in the book is a lot of the stuff that I've went through and it's not like me being a big hero and being flying with with bright colors in every experience sometimes there's experiences where I really just fucked up and I just and some of those fuck-ups are actually really taught me about like what they go there was a book starts off with this story about my friend that was a nurse.

I was little, like 12 years old. I watched a friend get beat up by bigger guys. And I didn't do anything about it. I was so scared. I was frozen. I didn't know what to do. And I just watched it. And I was afraid of getting involved and getting hurt, physically hurt, you know, beaten up, possibly going to the hospital, possibly a broken bone.

And I didn't do anything about it. Wow. The thing about that now is if I did something about it and say I got a broken arm, broken leg, they broke my orbital, I'd be here today probably healed up because the body heals. I'd be here today probably healed up because the body heals. But to this day, even if that episode was 30-something years ago, I still hurt from that inside, thinking about that, wishing I could rewind and do something about it, wishing I could see that my friend again and tell him I'm sorry. But to be seeing my friend and telling him, man, fuck,

I don't know why I didn't help you. I never saw that guy again after that day. Wow. Yeah, and it's something that just is even just talking about it right now. I don't know why I didn't help you. I never saw the guy again after that day. Wow. Yeah, and it's something that just is even just talking about it right now. It's just I heard about it. I heard in my heart I heard thinking about that. Do you think that those moments when you have these moments,

those are to make the wrong decision and to feel the repercussions of that wrong decision that's an integral part of the learning process because when something comes up in the future you've experienced the pain of the wrong decision and then the right decision becomes the only decision yeah that's probably the best way to learn

trial and error it's the only way I think to really truly understand you can learn a little bit from other people's mistakes you know you come sort of internalize their mistakes and you put it into your category or your your catalog rather of knowledge but i think to truly have a a real lesson in your head you have you almost have to fuck it up yourself well that one experience has helped me make the right decisions and a lot of other things that came later in my life. But still, just that one, that one just still hurts, man. 30-something years later, man.

Wow. Any bone that was broken would have been healed by then. Wow. That's the true thing also about losses is that everybody wants to win. Winning is everything. Winning is the only thing. It's not everything is the only thing. People always say that.

There are no second places. It's just the first loser. You know, but the reality is those losses and that awful feeling of those losses are so fucking important for the growing process. If you don't realize what it's like to drop your hands and get cracked by a counter shot, you don't realize how important it is to really keep your hands up you won't know

you won't internalize it but when you've been cracked and rocked and you wind up losing a fight you're like fuck then when you're in that fight again or in another fight those lessons are concrete those lessons are tangible those lessons are a part of who you are now it It also depends on what level you're going to look at wins and losses at, yeah? Because if, after you fight, if someone asked me after I fought, how'd you do? I mean, if, if you're talking about the way I

think, I don't know yet. Cause I'm going to know if I won or lost that fight in my next fight. If I become a better fighter because of that experience, I'm a better fighter. I won because i gained and i got better so you know losses are determined on what you're going to do after the loss yeah yeah there's oftentimes wins that fuck a fighter up more than a loss does because like

say maybe you catch a guy with one punch and you knock him out and then you just decide that you're a knockout puncher now instead of being, instead of using a comprehensive game, you're just going to come... Become a striker all of a sudden. That happens to a lot of guys, man. A lot of guys who are jiu-jitsu black belts all of a sudden started getting in these kickboxing matches and getting fucked up. And it was so frustrating for me to watch. Like, I understand

that you like to strike. However, you're a fucking wizard on the ground and you're not even attempting to use these skills because you had success in this one thing. So they decide that they're a striker. A lot of the game is the mind, right? Yeah. The book covers every fight exactly how I was thinking from when I got the fight to when I was preparing for the fight during the fight it's going to be interesting because a lot of people think that i'm just yamato damashii guy that has no fears and just comes out and has this iron type of thinking

but it kind of tells you exactly what i'm thinking during the fight what happened what i felt after the fight and it's it's it's straight up real stuff i mean well you know customato the guy the longtime trainer mike tyson famous guy who was really but what his his take wasn't just the technical aspects of boxing but also the psychology behind boxing and one of the things that he ingrained in mike tyson he said that a coward and a hero feel the exact same thing it's just that the hero chooses to act while the coward falls apart uh-huh it's what you do with fury it's what you do with the fear and his other thing was that fear is like fire it can it can cook your food for you it can keep you warm or if you lose control of it it can burn your house down and kill you yeah yeah that's so real yeah Yeah, it's like your impressive performances are more impressive

knowing that you were scared, knowing that you had all the fears that everybody else has, but you decided anyway to still clamp down your mouthpiece and fucking throw lead at Igor Vovchanchin. Yeah. That's what I was fighting for. This Yamato Damacy and, you know, Eastern philosophy,

which is very different in a lot of ways than Western philosophy, the philosophy that a lot of people associate with martial arts, the respect and honor, integrity, and warrior spirit, a lot of that is kind of missing in some MMA camps. And it's almost like they become jocks

and athletes and not not as much martial artists what do you think about that i think it's uh it's something that people are losing yeah it is true there's a benefit in having that right oh definitely because what happens when you you run your gym and you fight in that mentality you're once you're done with mma you can't fight forever right and when you're done with it or carry you it'll carry on with you as a person if you're just being a jock and doing this mma and you're just doing that once you're done with that you're gonna you're gonna go into the real world the person that you were when you started fighting not only that you'll probably be one of those motherfuckers those boring ass glory

day stories they keep talking about back when yeah back when you won the olympic trials for wrestling and you know it's doing great till i blew that disc you know yeah but if you train with that honor and discipline and you develop that during your fighting career you're gonna definitely be a better man when you finish your fighting career well i got real lucky when i first started uh doing martial arts is that my my taekwondo instructor was very into the the the aspects of martial arts that we consider like the philosophy and the mindset and the warrior code indomitable spirit like all these these different things were promoted very heavily and promoted that one of the big ones was that martial arts

are just a vehicle for developing your human potential. And that this is even when you can't kick and even when you can't punch and even when your body's old, you're still doing martial arts because this path that you are on, this path of learning, this path of testing yourself, this path of trying to overcome resistance, this will stay with you forever in life. Yeah.

I believe martial arts for me was a stair in my life, a stair that I had to climb to become a better person. Do you think that it would i think it would stop a lot of bullying if martial arts were mandatory in school yeah i think so yeah it would it would stop a lot of them crazy you know being tough fights in the school yeah yeah test if guys could test each other and guys could test themselves and guys could push themselves like in the gym and also just develop confidence because you actually know how to fight instead of like pretending you know how to fight

to try to scare people off because you're insecure which is we're always gonna have those though no matter what less of it though don't you think you'd have less of it yeah for sure i mean you have bullies in the gym there's always going to be problems with guys in the gym that beat up on lesser talented guys or hurt guys when they're sparring they're supposed to be yeah going 50 they go 100 yeah you're always gonna have that yeah who's gonna have gym wars or one guy elevates a little bit and the young guy catches up to him and then the other guy takes to another level next thing you know they're in a full-on fight yeah when you were training for um for m fights, how did you structure your training? Like when you set about, like say if you have,

if you're about to fight Mark Kerr, for example, and you have eight weeks to prepare for your fight, how did you structure your training camp? Did you do it all yourself? Did you have someone help you design your programs? I did a lot of work with Egan. Egan would help me with a strategy. He'd help me with a game plan.

And then we'd set our training in correspondence to the game plan. Mark Kerr, for me, I didn't think I could get strong and big enough to match him par for par. So I thought getting stamina and moving faster. So I think I was like 94 kilos in that fight. What is 94 kilos? 94 kilos in that fight, yeah. What is 94 kilos? 94 kilos, I don't know. Okay, let's find out. 94 kilos.

About 207, 208 maybe. Let's see. How many pounds is 94 kilos? It is 207. 207, yeah. And Kurt was like 260, right? Yeah, he was like 260. God damn. Muscle, yeah. He was fucking gigantic., right? Yeah, he was like 260. God damn.

Muscle, yeah. He was fucking gigantic. Yeah, and he was saying that he was going to throw a total toe at me. So I was working my striking. I actually went to Maurice's gym, Maurice Smith. Oh, really? And worked there with him, yeah. How did that fight go down?

I don't remember that fight. He tackled me. He tackled you immediately. Yeah, I thought we were going to throw down, and he tackled me, and I was like, oh, damn. Yeah, I thought we were going to throw down, and he tackled me, and I was like, oh, damn. And he held me and just kind of chipped away. And he was good enough that I couldn't finish him, but he wasn't good enough to pass my guard.

But he was good enough that I couldn't arm-by-arm. And we got broken once, and that was when Pride had those 10-minute rounds. We were broken once, and that was when Pride had those 10-minute rounds. We were broken once. And then dumb me the second time. I thought, okay, we're going to stand now. And boom, he shot for a tackle again. Yeah. That was frustrating. He was an interesting case because he was one of those guys that sort of tested this.

this we were in the beginning of mma when people would watch the various styles and the various strategies that people would uh be successful with inside the octagon they would try to figure out what what is the best way is it the best way to be a big wrestler well no if you fight maury smith because maury smith figured out how to be a smaller guy chip away at the legs of mark coleman take it into the later rounds and that's how he won the title he won the title with stamina and with his striking but then you see a guy like mark kerr and he was like the the very like as far as you could go with like the big steroided up muscular frame and wrestling like pull up a picture of mark kerr mark kerr in his prime was you know his nickname was the smashing machine yeah and uh the specimen huh yeah the specimen the smashing machine and he was a big

wrestler who didn't have like a lot of skills as far as like submissions like he submitted a guy with a can opener once probably the only guy ever like there is yeah jesus fucking christ that is barely human uh-huh he was fucking gigantic man yeah that's the one i fought he submitted a guy he submitted uh dan bobish by putting his chin in his eyeball he tucked his chin into bobish's eyeball and fucking crushed his head into his own chin. It's like he pulled his chin into the guy's eyeball and tapped him. I think he mounted him and did that, stuck his chin in his face. Yeah, he's strong. Strong as fuck, I bet, right?

Yeah, he's one of the strongest guys I've met, yeah. He was as big as you could get. Yeah. And still do MMA. That was like, he was like that example, like the example of the big strong wrestler. He was the most extreme version.

And he was real successful in the beginning. Oh yeah, real successful. Yeah, real good. But it seemed like the wheels started to come off after a while. Is he still fighting?

No, no. He did a few fights afterwards, but after the Smashing Machine documentary came out and the folks have never seen that documentary that is he's got an incredible amount of courage for letting people into that

world because mark had a significant problem with painkillers and with drugs and showed it all in all of its they they started that documentary wanting to do a documentary to follow one of the best mixed martial arts fighter in the world, the Smashing Machine, the guy who a lot of people thought was the heavyweight to watch. And along the way, they caught it at the perfect time where he was starting to unravel, and they got to see a guy whose life was just sort of falling apart. Yeah, yeah. That was pretty crazy. It's an attack. All the syringes that came out. It's crazy.

I know. He was just shooting himself up all the time with all these painkillers and stuff. Painkillers are a motherfucker, man. Yeah. That's addicting, huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're opiates. Oh, jeez.

Very addicting. Never tried them at all. No painkillers at all? I never tried any drug except marijuana. Did you ever have a surgery or anything like that? No. No surgeries at all? Nothing? No a surgery or anything like that? No. No surgeries at all? Nothing?

No. No knee surgery? Nothing? No. How the hell did you manage to go through an MMA career with no surgeries? A lot of luck. A lot of luck, man. The worst I had, I think, was the orbital crack from the Royce Alger fight.

From Royce Alger fight? You got an orbital crack? That's what happened in that fight. When you interviewed me I was fine and I went to the back and I felt my nose bleeding so I blew my nose and it just wow that's crazy and it just filled my eye up with air and then the doctor came in and said can't fight and I was like no I'm fine please let me fight I still can see that was the who that's what Tito took your place wow Tito was my historical took your place? Wow. Tito was my alternate.

That's historical shit, man. I know, yeah. Tito Ortiz was my alternate. That is historical shit. What did you think about Tito Ortiz fighting Bellator? Did you see that? The little guy? He fought Shlomenko.

Well, I was hoping he did beat that guy up because I was thinking that guy shouldn't be calling out a heavyweight class. It's ridiculous. Yeah. I don't know what he was thinking. Yeah, I'm glad. And he even, he passed them all. He knocked them all, yeah. Put him to sleep. It's ridiculous. Yeah. I don't know what he was thinking. Yeah, I'm glad. And even when he passed them all, he knocked them all. Yeah, put him to sleep. That was nice.

Put him to sleep with a head and arm choke. That was nice to see. Yeah, Tito's got a really underrated submission game. A lot of people don't give him enough credit for a submission game. He's big, too. Fucking huge. Yeah, he's like my weight class. I just saw him the other time at one of the events.

He was a guest, and he's huge. He's enormous's enormous yeah it's hard to believe he even makes 205 when you look at how big he is drops good weight and schlomenko is like my size like he had no business being in the cage with tito and tito he called he's the one who called tito out right yeah i don't know what that's about and tito sort of sponsors him too which is a lot of people thought like some fuckery was afoot. They're like, wait a minute, because Tito, like Team Punishment, he represents Team Punishment. Really? Yeah.

Oh, that's weird, huh? I don't know. I mean, maybe they just said they could make some money, let's just do it, and Shlomenko wanted to test himself. I don't know, you know? Oh. But when you see the two of them inside the cage at the same time. Yeah, you know what it looks like? It's like a movie where a giant is fighting a little man you know and tito got him to the ground man you just

saw that weight and pressure and just submitted him pretty quickly look at the difference in the size there yeah i know look at that that's crazy but good for tito to get that win back man you know that's one thing that bums me out is people don't i mean i i guess tito kind of brings it on himself sometimes because he says a bunch of crazy shit but that guy doesn't get enough credit he a lot of people disrespect him tito's a real he's a real pioneer yeah he is oh yeah for sure he was there back with you in 97 man yeah really yeah yeah he's been using tank abbott at the time yep yep yeah i mean that's when Tank Abbott was the Huntington Beach bad boy. Yeah, yeah.

And Tito sort of became the Huntington Beach bad boy somewhere along the line. That's right, man. Wow. Yeah, he was a part of Tank Abbott's crew. He said he learned a lot from Tank Abbott. And it's interesting because what you say about attitude and about, you know, about the mindset of fighting, that's what he said that he learned from Tank Abbott. Oh, really? He learned from Tank Abbott how to just go in there and fuck somebody up.

You know, just go in there and kick somebody's fucking ass. And that's what Tank Abbott used to do. Yeah, yeah. Just say whatever you want about Tank Abbott. That motherfucker never passed on a fight, would fight anybody within an hour's notice. You know, you could literally call him. He'd be on a bar stool. He'd be on a flight the next day, headed to wherever the fuck you wanted him to fight.

Drunk. He wouldn't fight anybody. And he would win a lot of those fights. Yeah. Yeah. He was a hard puncher. Because he had that attitude. He was just ready to get in there and fuck somebody up.

Yeah, there he is. And there's Tito right next to him. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's an oldie. Yeah. Tank Abbot is a goddamn classic.

He's an American classic, that guy. Yeah, he is. He had some wild fucking fights inside the octagon some crazy knockouts huh yeah i don't remember i don't know the last time he fought but i have a feeling it was like i want to say it was fairly recently tank avid yeah somebody told me that he fought recently let me see here let's look up in wikipedia they'll tell us when the last time he fought. Because I want to say that he fought fairly recently.

Yeah, he fought in 2013. Whoa. He lost to Ruben Hurricane Villarreal. That's the same guy that Boss Rooten fought on one of his last fights, too. And he beat Mike Bork in 2009. So he took four years off, came back, and lost in King of the Cage. Wow, that wasn't hyped up at all, huh? No, it was kind of crazy.

King of the Cage fighting legends. Wow. That was 2013. I would have watched that. Yeah, you probably didn't even know about it. Yeah, that's the problem. For sure. Yeah, it's kind of crazy that it was so uh you know low

profile before that he fought uh kimbo slice in 2008 yeah yeah in miami that was before kimbo went to uh the ufc he fought yoshida and he fought uh yoshida and pride and, and he got choked. Yeah. It's a lot of fights. Yeah. A lot of fights. He fought a lot. Yeah.

I mean, if you look at his career, there's a lot of losses in there, but god damn, there's some classic fights. Yeah, there are. Classic fights. Matua. Matua is one. Yeah. That was his first fight.

His very first fight. And then Paul Varlins. Remember that fight? Yeah. That was another great fight. That's right, yeah. There it is. King of the Cage.

Legends. Oh, wow. Tank Abbott, gray beard now. Yeah. Still slinging lead. King of the Cage is a place where a lot of guys had their start, right? Yeah, King of the Cage, yeah. Where did you have your first fight?

Mine was in Chuteau. Chuteau shoot oh yeah did you fight in Super Bowl was that yeah I can just eat it for Super Bowl once yeah you fought it once yeah would you fight over there Tommy saw her and Super Bowl was almost like old-school Valley to do style right yeah different rules yes Hawaii had a different different set of rules that you were allowed to compete under. What was the rules of Super Bowl? At that time, it was more just pride rules. Soccer kicks, knees to the head on the ground. Knees to the head on the ground, yeah.

I liked those rules. Do you think that MMA in its current form right now, if you could change any of the rules and still keep it a sport, I think that first of all, 12 to 6 elbows, that's got to come back. I think 12 to 6 elbows is a ridiculous thing to have banned. But I think knees to a grounded opponent would change a lot of shit too. Yeah.

Even soccer ball kicks I think is okay. Really? Yeah. You're fucking crazy. Yeah. I think those, I would like those to be in. The only thing I have a problem with the soccer kicks is the cage. I like the soccer kicks in a ring because you can move your head away.

But the fact that you're trapped and you can get kicked and stomped when you're trapped up against the cage, that's the only time that I think that it would be a problem. Because the guy can't really defend himself because of the environment as opposed to because he's out. That would be just one more danger in a cage. There's a lot of that. That's true. That's true. That's true.

People would be keeping their head away from the cage a little more. When you look back, I mean, your first fight in the UFC, 1997, when was your first actual mixed martial arts fight? 1996. That is the early days, 1996. 96. That is the early days, man. That was right after Hickson came to Japan. Hickson fought in the Japan Valley. That's what made me want to fight.

Really? Yeah. Wow. That was incredible, man. Those are incredible times. And when you look back at that, and now you see the guys of today, you see the Demetrius Mighty Mouse Johnsons, and you see the John Joneses,

and the high-level guys, the pound-for-pound best guys of today, man. It's just like a totally different thing. Yes, it is. There's actual fighters that are called mixed martial artists now. Yeah, full mixed martial artists. They can do everything. It's not a karate guy or a wrestler. Yeah, back in the day, it was always like that.

Your fighter was either a striker, a wrestler, or a karate guy yeah back in the day it was always like that your fighter was either a striker a wrestler or a ground guy and it was always a real straight up strategy to fight those but now man they can do everything nowadays i mean i see the you know the younger fighters coming up nowadays and and you know the some people tell me like oh when you fought there was no money there was it was so small and shit and i want you don't you wish you're growing up this day and age and i'm thinking to myself i don't know man you can't the fighters nowadays man they're so mean shit they can they're black belt jiu-jitsu that are professional kickboxers yeah and wrestlers that can fight boxing you know i mean it's like wrestlers with black belt jiu-jitsu it It's unbelievable. And it's getting better. Yeah.

It seems to me that it's getting better. I mean, it seems to me that the level keeps rising every year. Oh, yeah. The level's just way... Like TJ Dillashaw? Uh-huh. What the fuck? Oh, yeah.

What was that? What the fuck? The kid comes out of nowhere. Man. I mean, I thought that was going to be a real difficult fight for him. I thought, like, man, Hennon Barau is a killer, one of the best pound-for-pound guys in the world. And then TJ Dillashaw just goes in there and runs a clinic on him.

Runs a clinic on him. That was unbelievable. And there's more of those coming. And then knocks him out at the end. Yeah, head kicks him in the fifth round. And didn't ever fight like he was ahead. Didn't ever fight like he was ahead. Always trying to finish.

Crazy. Good fighter, man. Fuck yeah. Great fighter. Is there going to be a rematch on that? I hope so. Yeah, there should be, man. I hope so.

Well, there's a lot of great fights at 135. There's so many. Oh, Dominic Cruz, you know. Can you imagine they never had that division before? It's crazy. Yeah. It was just the heavier guys, yeah. Well, I think they're probably going to have a 115 too.

They're going to have a straw weight. Oh, wow, really? Yeah. Well, there's a lot of great fighters in other in other countries especially a lot of great japanese guys 115 a lot of brazilian guys 115 i think um that and a few more women weight classes would be good too you know i think they're gonna do a 125 women's weight class yeah maybe a 115 as well yeah that'll be big. That's good, yeah. It's amazing times. It's exciting, man.

It's exciting. Do you have pride when you look back and you think that you were like, I mean, you were one of the real pioneers of the fastest growing sport

the world has ever seen. There's never been a time in my lifetime, there's never been a time where a sport was introduced and became this gigantic thing over a matter of a decade, two decades, and grew.

Yeah, unbelievable how fast it grew. Yeah, and grew the way the UFC has grown. Yeah, unreal, huh? There's nothing like that. Yeah. It's amazing. Do you look back on that and go, wow, I was in a special time in life? Well, I look back at that and say, yeah, I love what's happening.

I mean, my life is made by MMA. And I just appreciate all the things Dana's doing, the people who are making it big. And you ask if I have pride in that. Not really, because I don't feel like I'm the one who did all this. No, I just feel I was the lucky person to be the person that was actually there in the beginning to see what it was like in being when it was banned in states and everything whenever someone heard you're a mixed martial arts fighter they said oh so you beat people up for a living or human cockfighting you know back in that day when it was like frowned upon now it's like it's a cool thing. Now it's so nice to see that change. Yeah, it is nice to see that change.

When I first was working on a sitcom, I was on a sitcom news radio, and it was when I first started doing the post-fight interviews, back when I interviewed you. It was one of the first events. That was the second event I ever worked at. Oh, wow. And I would tell people that I was going, you know, I was like, where were we at?

Was it Augusta, Georgia or something like that? Yeah, Augusta, Georgia. Yeah. And I remember telling people that I was going to go work for the UFC interviewing fighters after their matches. And they looked at me like I was fucking crazy. Like I was involved in dog fighting or something. That's what it was like. Yeah.

Like I was involved in porn or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like that, yeah. Now, you know, people say, what do you do? I say, oh, I do commentary for the UFC. They go, oh, I love that. All right. My husband all right my husband is it awesome to see that change though it's amazing yeah i when i when i see that it's i mean think that i'm you know i was back and i was lucky enough to be a part of that that's what i feel yeah back in the day man i can only imagine from your position

because from my position i feel very lucky but obviously I'm like an outsider watching and commenting on it. You were like in the heat of the battle itself. What are we on though? UFC what? 175. 175, yeah. I was in 13, huh? Fuck. That's crazy. I know. 13. Well, not only that, you were not just at one.

I think the position that you were at at UFC 12, I think in my opinion, the sport changed radically around UFC 12 because of Vitor. I think the position that you were at, at UFC 12, I think, in my opinion, the sport changed radically around UFC 12 because of Vitor. I think when Vitor entered into the cage, won that tournament at 19 years old at UFC 12, the whole game changed. Because you got to see really high-level striking from a jiu-jitsu black belt. And he was light, but he he was fast he was a total new specimen yeah i mean it wasn't the vitor that fought uh randy couture i think that vitor got too big he got up like two was for 240 he was just too jacked but when he fought at ufc yeah

he was like 205 at ufc shredded. Strong, explosive. Fast as fuck. Powerful. God damn. And when we first saw him in his first couple of fights, man, it was just like this was a new athlete, completely new person. We'd never seen a skill level like that as far as his hand speed, the boxing combinations that he put together. Nobody had seen that before.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that you came at that time. You came as a sport was just exponentially expanding and you were starting to see like real world-class athletes. I think when time, when we look in the future and they look back at this era, like the era between 1993 and 2008. Really, yeah.

Not only around today, but still fighting at the highest level. Yeah, yeah. Which brings up another point. How do you feel about all this testosterone replacement shit? I wouldn't do it. If I was fighting, I wouldn't do it.

I just... I don't know if I'm for it or against it. I mean, if a fighter wants to do it, I wouldn't have a problem if my opponent did it. You wouldn't have a problem with your opponent doing it, but you wouldn't do it? Yeah, I wouldn't do it. Why wouldn't you do it?

I guess I wouldn't know if to do it. I don't know the real effects to it, yeah. And I feel like I can get, I can, I could get in shape enough to fight without it yeah john fitch said something real interesting once i talked to him about it and he said when i get older he said i would definitely take hormone replacement therapy but not when i'm fighting he said i want to know that everything i did i did because i did it i did with my hard work and i did with my mind you know and. And that was Fitch's attitude.

I thought that was very admirable. He's a real man. Fitch lives by the sword, dies by the sword. And that attitude, that wasn't just some talk and bullshit. I mean, he's never been popped for PEDs. He doesn't look like he's doing them. Yeah, he doesn't. He's the same.

He's just a tough motherfucker, a hard-nosed wrestler who became a great mixed martial arts fighter. But that attitude was attitude was you know he wanted to know that he did it all himself but you see guys like you know vitor it's a perfect example vitor got on trt got on testosterone replacement therapy and became this he had this resurgence where you saw vitor from the old days the trade talisman fight he was 19 years old he was a phenom but vitor a lot of folks don't know He had this resurgence where you saw Vitor from the old days, the Trey Telegman fight. He was 19 years old. He was a phenom. But Vitor, a lot of folks don't know,

post the Randy Couture fight, after Randy Couture beat him, he went into a dark period where he wasn't very good for a while. Sakuraba beat him up. A lot of guys beat him. Alistair Overeem submitted him. He wasn't the same guy anymore. He lost his confidence for whatever reason. Dan Henderson submitted him. He wasn't the same guy anymore. He lost his confidence for whatever reason. He just, Dan Henderson beat him.

And then he fought in the UFC, had some good fights, but didn't look like the same guy. Didn't look shredded. Got on testosterone replacement. And then all of a sudden shot through the fucking roof and became this motherfucker again. So I could see both. See that's uh the one on the left is him pre-testosterone and the one on the right is post-testosterone i mean i could see but this

is the weigh-ins photos by the way these guys are completely dehydrated they don't look good they're sick i mean when you're weighing in your your body's completely dried out. They lose, Vitor probably loses 10, 15 pounds easily just to make weight. But the resurgence when you saw him fight Michael Bisping, Luke Rockhold, and then the rematch with Dan Henderson, he was so fucking good. Yeah, yeah. And it makes you wonder, like, what is it? Is that testosterone? Is it hard work?

Is it the testosterone that allows him to work hard? Like, where is a kind of gray area? Like, where do you draw the line there? Well, it's definitely with hard work. Definitely. You can't just take testosterone and get good. Yeah. It allows you to work harder, I think.

Exactly. Definitely hard work and definitely talent and definitely his mind. Yeah, confidence, yeah. But that's the thing about the testosterone. It allows you to you get that crazy gorilla confidence it changes the game right yeah it does but you know the thing is you know as much as people that are against it isn't it kind of cool to see him all the fights he put out yes he's on it that's a good point it's like bodybuilding yeah people like fuck steroids

and stuff but when they go to watch bodybuilding they're they ooh and ah at the muscle tone and the size and it's like now that's there i'm against steroids but when they go and watch bodybuilding, they ooh and ah at the muscle tone and the size. And it's like, I'm against steroids, but you go there and you love the bodybuilding. It's like a give and take, yeah. Yeah, well, bodybuilding without steroids is almost non-existent today. Yeah, true.

None of those guys are clean. You can't get that big and be clean. You might be clean for the last year. Do they even test? I don't know what tests they do with bodybuilding, but it's got to be horse shit. If somebody tests positive in a bodybuilding competition, it's probably because they pissed off the promoter.

And they said, test that motherfucker. Yeah, for real. Test him for real. Just time. And Pride, did they test you at all in Pride? No. I mean, you didn't know that they had a clause in the contract? What clause?

They had a clause that said what they test for. Oh, and they don't test for steroids. They test for weed. They test for cocaine. They had a whole list. And not only did the steroids not, wasn't on that list, they had a sentence after that saying, we do not test for steroids. Wow. Wow. It was kind of crazy.

Jason Chambers, he was on that show, Human Weapon. He fought MMA a bunch of times. He's a friend of mine. They were trying to get him to fight in Pride, and they wanted him to fight at 185. He was like, but I weigh 170.

I was like, yeah. Just do steroids. They were telling him to fight at 185. And he was like, but I weigh 170. And I was like, yeah, you can just do steroids. And they were telling him to do steroids. And he was like, what? They were telling him. We think you should, because he's a handsome guy. They're like, you should fight at 185. And he's like, wait, what? They wanted him to juice up and look big and muscular

and fight at 185. And he was like, I'm not 185, guys. You know, I heard a lot of stories about that, how Pride used to like really bully the fighters around. Yeah, you never experienced that. No, they used to kiss my ass, man.

Really? It was weird because I remember Mark Kerr saying something about how Rampage was caught up like one week before the Sakuraba fight. And if he didn't take it,

they told him something like you'd never fight in Japan again or something. Like bullying him around like that. And the same people that are bullying him around are the people that I see. And I can't even imagine that side of character from them. Do you think it's an exaggeration?

Like, maybe you're not getting the full story from them? I think it's a play of the Japanese, yeah. They know what they can do. You know, like a dog, your dog's the most obedient dog to you, but then when your friend takes care of him, he. They know what they can do. You know, like a dog's a... Your dog's the most obedient dog to you, but then when your friend takes care of him, he's pissing all over the place and barking and shit.

I think it's the same thing. They know what they can get away with. Yeah, my friend Eddie Bravo was over at my house once, and he was scared of my dog, and so my dog attacked the cat in front of him because he knew that Eddie was scared of the dog. He's like, Eddie, he just decided that he's the boss because the dog because i was i was taking a shit he freaked out he started screaming and i had to run in and rescue the cat but he just decided that

eddie was a punk and because eddie was scared of him and he could feel it so he decided i've been wanting to bite this fucking cat for a while so So he went. But it was a clear example of that because Eddie wasn't used to being around big dogs. He didn't know how to handle them. And he didn't know you just got to be friendly with the dog and just establish. So Eddie was like, oh. He was always like this around the dogs. The dog was like, this motherfucker's scared. He's a fag.

I think I'm running shit here. But it was a clear example. He would never do that in front of me. The dog would never attack the cat in front of me. But in front of Eddie, he just decided it's time. That's a good example, I think. It's a perfect example. Yeah, so they bullied those guys around.

These guys would... Do you remember the Guy Mentzer incident with me? What happened with Guy Mentzer? When he fought Egan and then we had a little thing in the ring with him. Yeah, what happened with when he fought Egan and then we had a little thing in the ring with him yeah what happened well he was supposed to um apparently

this is what he said was he was supposed to call me out in a bad way I just retired right and he he beat Egan

and they told him to call you out they told him to do that and they told him that I knew about it so it's like some protesting bullshit thing right

but I knew nothing about it so I'm here i go into the ring after egan loses and i'm just going you know how you go check on your fighter i checked on you okay everything's okay and guy walks up to me and says it's not personal i'm like what's not personal you beat up my brother of course it's not personal congratulations he goes no no no what i have to do what are you talking about and if you see the video i'm shaking his hand and he's telling me that i'll shake his hand and i'm like i don't let go of his hand and we're i'm never we're like i'm guiding him into the corner like what do you mean what are you gonna do and he goes i gotta call you out i said you know i'm retired he goes yeah but it's in my contract i said no no fuck you i said i told him if you don't want to do it, don't fucking do it.

He goes, I got to do it. I said, don't fucking do it if you don't want to do it. And then I realized that the way pride plays that shit with the fighters, and I realized, you know, Guy was in this position that, you know, he really couldn't do anything about. And so I was like, you know, it's not Guy's deal. You know, Guy's not the bad guy here. And it's like, so he turned around, and he did different though he didn't he didn't be a dick about it

he kind of went and he said uh something about yeah the better fight would have been with his younger brother ensign but after that the it's all in the book too but after that i went in the locker room and i guess i don't know i think um think Gary Goodrich was in my locker room. Igor was in the locker room. Those fighters all saw this happen. But I went on a rampage calling for the president of Pride to come in and see me right now because that's bullshit. This protesting bullshit doesn't work. Wow.

And they wouldn't bring him. So I would, I was, you know, the little staff guys, I was kicking them around, telling them to get the president. And one of the guys come in, this guy called Kawasaki. He was a matchmaker for Pride. And I got on him and threw him on the ground. Really? Yeah, it was a huge thing.

You threw him on the ground? I threw him on the ground. I'm mounting him. And then Egan stopped me. And then I told him, I don't want to see you. I want to see the Morista, the president. That's when he was alive. And, of course, in the middle of the event,

the president just can't come in. But the vice president comes in. And then he sits me down. He says, you know, we didn't know nothing. We'll get to the bottom of this. But according to a guy, that's the guy he talked to. So it was in the contract that he was supposed to call you on. Yeah.

If he beat Egan in. And then the president wound up dead, strangled in, like, hung himself on a fucking shower rod or something? Yeah. That's a weird one, huh? Yeah. Because I talked to him a week before that, and he told me that, I remember he telling me that he likes the way I fight and he wants fighters to fight more like me.

I remember him telling me that. And he had a big image about changing the fight game into more of aggressive fighters. But wasn't the death was very controversial. Yeah. It was. It wasn't suicide. Yeah.

It didn't seem like. It seems like it's really hard to do a chin up from a shower curtain. Yeah, he didn't. I mean, how can you. Those rods are not that strong. Yeah. How can you even hang yourself from one of those? Can you?

He did the wrong. He pissed off the wrong people. Allegedly. Yeah, allegedly. Allegedly. Let's leave it at that. What was it like in that day, like dealing with that aspect of mixed martial arts? Like it wasn't just mixed martial arts like it is in the UFC where it's a business and there's promoters and there's, you know, they have an agenda to try to promote to the fans and try to make money but you were dealing with a very intense organized crime

aspect to it what was that like it was good good for me yeah yeah because of who i was and the respect that i have from the underworld people in japan it helped me that's why they didn't dick me around and everything was straight. Did they support Japanese fighters more there? Like, were they excited about Japanese fighters? I think there were more. Yes, they wanted the Japanese fighters to win. Guys like Yoshida. Yeah.

Well, back in our day, there was some more Sakuraba, some Shoji, Matsui, you know, all those fighters. They wanted to promote those guys so they win, yeah. Takata. Takata, yeah. Who was a pro wrestler. That was an interesting situation, too, right? Yeah, he was a pussy. Wellata who was a pro wrestler that was an interesting situation too right pussy well he was a weird one because he was one of the few guys that was in a

very obvious fixed fight his fight with mark coleman yeah like pull up that pull up takata versus mark coleman yeah because this is one of the few fights that i love mark coleman but mark coleman never admitted that he he he did that but I'm sure that that's what happened. Mark would never lose to Takata. Well, not that way either. No way, yeah. I mean, the way he tapped to the heel hook, it was total pro wrestling.

I was like, no, I don't want to tap. Oh, I got to tap. Yeah, it was almost like, I'm going to tap. Yeah, yeah, I saw that. It was like a movie tap. Yeah, yeah. It was weird. Well, Takata's a fag.

Really? Yeah, straight up, he's a fag. What is his background? He's just a- Pro wrestler. Just, but does he have martial arts skills? I saw him on the street. I saw him in the street and he fagged out.

What happened? I was in a club. My friend was, my students were, Ricky, Ricky Fukuda was the security there. So here, it's like, so you see Coleman see Coleman, he's like punching him in the leg. It's so fake. You can see his punches. Coleman sits it all

in his punches, but that one he's not. It's the arm punches. Yeah, he's barely punched him. And this was like back when Coleman had won the heavyweight

Grand Prix, right? Like, look, he's punching the leg. Like, what is that about? These leg punches. Like, come on, man. Mark Coleman was not about little baby punches That's not Mark Coleman punches. Yeah, even if he about? These leg punches. Like, come on, man. Mark Coleman was not about little baby punches to the leg. That's not Mark Coleman punches.

Yeah, even if he did punch the leg, it'd be heavy punches. Yeah. Well, everything he did was heavy. You know, it's the godfather of ground and pound. And so he gets on top of him, and he gives up his leg here. And look at this. I mean, he is giving up the leg here. He rolls with it a little bit.

And look at this. I mean, he is giving up the leg here. He rolls with it a little bit. And you see, first of all, Takata's not even a heel hook. He's not even turning it. I mean, look at that. He taps. But that heel hook was a terrible heel hook.

He wasn't even turning it. He was just holding it. He was like, in a 10-step process, he got to eight and then just hung on at eight. Yeah. Calling it a tap. That's screwed up because I'm not against pro wrestling, but I am against pro wrestling being done in the mixed martial arts arena. Well, wasn't that a weird part of pride with that? There was a lot of pro wrestling guys that fought in pride, but a lot of them legit guys. Like, who's Diet Butcher?

What was that? Otsuka. Yeah. That guy was tough, man. Tough. Yeah. Very tough. And started out as a pro wrestler.

Yeah, yeah. And what was Diet Butcher? What was that thing? I don't know. It's this thing that he always had on his pants. That was like his nickname, I think. I don't know. But it was the pro wrestling guys were the guys that had brought a lot of fans, sort of like Brock Lesnar, that brought a lot of fans to watch them fight.

Yeah, that's true. And Takata was one of those guys, right? He's a fake. So what was the street situation? Well, Ricky Fukuda, I was training with him at the time. And I got him a job at a security at a club that we hung out at. So we went to the club. And I remember Takata was there at the club. And he said hi to me and stuff.

You know, just like, hi, what's up? And that's it. And then I heard there was like a big riot at the top. So I'm worried about Ricky, making sure that he's okay. So I went upstairs to check on it. And there was this huge mob, almost like bees moving across the street. And I was like, who's fighting? I don't know who's fighting.

Someone, what's going on? What's going on? And I noticed some of the guys, there's a group called the Kanto Rengo in Japan. This is like a gang. They're not Yakuza, but they're like a gang of kids guys, there's a group called the Kantorengo in Japan. This is like a gang. They're not Yakuza, but they're like a gang of kids that don't give a fuck. And they just get into, they beat people up. I mean, with bats and all kinds of stuff. But I noticed a couple of them.

I knew who they are. So I went and followed that thing to make sure that everything was okay with Ricky. Ricky's not involved in everything. And I went there. And in the beehive, when we get to the back, one guy breaks free. And it's this rugby player, and he's running down, and his face is all fucked up already.

And he's running down the street, and Takata's running after him. And Takata sees me, and he goes, Ensign, help! They're going to kill us! Help, help! And Takata's not touched. He has noign, help. They're going to kill us. Help, help. And Takata's not touched. He has no scratches, not a bruise on his face. And then those guys ran by me. And I'm still wondering what's going on.

I'm like, whoa, shit, something. And they ran by me and they caught up to the rugby guy, tackled him. These gangsters tackled this rugby guy, had him and started working him again, kicking him in the face, flower pot on the head, everything. And you know what Takata's doing? He's standing on the side, screaming his lungs off. Stop it, stop it, stop it, and not doing anything about it. And he's fucking huge.

Yeah. Giant dude. He's not grabbing anybody. He's not physically stopping anybody. He refused to physically get involved. And he sees me come. He goes, Enzen, stop him, stop him, stop him. I'm like, dude, that's your friend.

So I click in my head thinking I can, you know, I can kill two birds with one stone. I can help Takata. And I can help these guys because this fight was going on for like eight minutes already, you know. And the cops are probably on the way. So I think these guys got to get out of here because the cops are coming. So I'm grabbing these guys guys throwing them in their van and as i'm getting another guy that other guy's coming out it was like ridiculous i was trying to get them in the car fight them got them in the car got away they got away right when the police are coming high speed chase they actually got caught

up the street put in prison and nothing from Takata not a thank you not a what's up nothing from Takata and I haven't I haven't talked to him since that day what does that guy do now? I don't know

he does some acting he acts? that's good he's probably better at that than fighting he was doing that in the ring was a little bit of that yeah so yeah

so I have no respect for Takata at all and if he comes up to me in japan and try to shake my hand i'm not going to shake his hand until before i shake your hand you guys don't you have something to say to me because he i saved him on that and he just he's such a pussy and you know that's real upsetting for me to see him in the ring at the pride and looking at sylvan saying are you a man? Looking at Rampage, are you a man? Are you a man? Saying that,

like, Is that what he did? Yeah, he said, in Japanese, he was saying it. Like, it was about the tournament,

I think. Are you a man? Are you a man? So the big theme was being a man. And I think, God, this is the biggest pussy is asking people if they're a man, you know?

You remember when he fought Hickson? Yeah. Yeah. Hickson just fucking worked him. Yeah. That was, I mean, everyone who knew how shitty Takada was knew that Hickson was going to kick his ass. But for the Japanese people, it was huge because Takada was this big hero. Yeah.

Yeah. That was Hickson in the special time, too. Yeah. I wish Hickson fought in the UFC, man. It's one of my biggest regrets as a fan. Yeah, I know. One of my biggest regrets as a fan. One of my biggest regrets as a fan is that Hickson in his prime didn't fight all the top guys. I would have loved to have seen Hickson versus Coleman.

I would have loved to have seen Hickson versus Mark Kerr. I would have loved to have seen him versus a lot of guys, man. It could have been some amazing fights. I mean, we got to see him versus Funaki, who was legit. Funaki was legit. Yeah, he was legit, yeah. That was a good fight, and Hickson got hurt. He got a ruptured orbital, fractured his orbital in that fight. His eyes swole up, and then he had to finish Funaki,

and Funaki just went to sleep. He didn't even tap out. And retired right after that. Yeah, I respect the shit out of that. Yeah, I mean, Hickson got on top of him, and remember he gift-wrapped that arm across, and he was holding onto his arm and just beat him down and took his back and choked him to sleep.

That was an intense fight, and that was a real fucking fight. Yeah, that was—Finnaki's good. That was Hickson's last fight, too. Oh, was it? Yeah, that was Coliseum in 2000. 2000, 14 years ago. Yeah, 14 years ago. And Hickson was still talking about fighting years later

when Fedor was the champ of pride. Hickson wanted a lot of fucking money, but he still wanted to fight. He wanted to fight the best guys. But for whatever reason, it never happened. It never happened. Yeah, because I went to dinner with Hickson and his wife and his family,

and his wife didn't want him to do it. She didn't want him to do it. They're separated now. Yeah. But Hickson was like, that's the guy I would want to fight. Yeah, this is the end. This is when Hickson was at his best. And I think Hickson was probably around 40 then too.

Yeah, he was, yeah. And he was, you know, still at his best. And he was big too for this fight. He got muscular. Probably the most muscular and the strongest he got for any fight because Funaki was no fucking joke, man. Yeah. But he got his back, and here it is.

Got that rear naked on, and boom. Funaki just, you see him right there. He's out. He's just sitting there, out, fucking cold. Hickson kicks him off. Yeah, and he's not an easy guy to choke out to. Hickson made it look so easy, huh? He was something special, man. Yeah, and he's not an easy guy to choke out to. Hickson made it look so easy, huh? He was something special, man.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, when you talk to all the different jiu-jitsu practitioners that have trained with Hickson, none of them come away and go, eh. Yeah. It's a lot of hype. None of them. Not a single one. Every single one would talk about Hickson saying he's the best.

Yeah. Unbelievable, huh? Yeah. You know, I got to hang out with him one night and talk positions with him and strategy and stuff like that fascinating

you know fascinating fascinating watching him break down fights too watching him fight watching him watch fights

with top guys like Mario Sperry and stuff like that but just showing all the holes in their game really huh showing all the things

they're doing wrong yeah yeah Hickson he's an a an elite of the elites you know i would have loved to got a chance to roll with him man i got to but i was a white belt so yeah everyone asked me did you get to roll to hickson yeah kind of yeah but no you know yeah he's like i was a white belt and he was he was uh you know he kicks in and of course he's not gonna go hard on the white belt.

So he kind of just rolled with us and just beat us up. So I didn't really get to feel Hickson. Right. Hickson. Actually, in a way, kind of. No, not really. I did, but no, not really. Yeah.

Yeah, even if I did, it might as well be me being a white belt. It's the same thing. Yeah. That's what's really crazy. It's like I try to tell people, like, there's levels of white belt. It's the same thing. Yeah. That's what's really crazy. It's like, I try to tell people there's levels of black belt. You could be a black belt and then you roll up

Marcelo Garcia and you get treated like a white belt. You're still going to get strangled. Yeah. There's guys that are just... I heard he lines up

all the black belts in Brazil and submits them all. Hickson? Yeah. That's what I heard he used to do every year. I don't know about now,

but back in the day, he used to go to Brazil and line up all the black belts and actually submit everyone one by one. Yeah. He used to do that,. I don't know about now, but back in the day, he used to go to Brazil and line up all the black belts and actually submit everyone one by one. Yeah, he used to do that for sure. That's unbelievable.

He's got back problems now, though. Oh, really? Yeah. He looks good, though, yet. Oh, he works out still and he still does yoga and he surfs a lot, but he can't really

train anymore. He doesn't do jujitsu. Yeah, Kron was on the podcast and he said that his dad has something like seven herniated discs. Whoa. Whoa. Yeah.

That's the issue with jiu-jitsu guys. Same thing with Ricardo Laborio. He's got like seven herniated discs, too. All of them bulging out, sticking in spots of his body. Ricardo, when you see him standing there, he's always in pain. Really? He never fought MMA, yeah? He did.

He did? Yeah, Ricardo, I think, had one or two MMA fights. And looked fucking great. Let me see. Let me pull it off. Ricardo Laborio. I remember seeing him doing jiu-jitsu seminars. I thought this guy would be so good in MMA.

He's a fucking beast. Yeah, he is. Back in the day, man. Yeah, he had one fight, and it was a draw. One fight? He fought Minoa. Minoa? Yeah, yeah, one fight. Oh, I think I saw that.

Yeah, and. Minoa just defended a lot, yeah. I think so, yeah. And just a three-round fight, went to a draw, and that's it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember much of the fight, but I just remember that at the time, a lot of people put him in the same category as Hickson.

And this was 2001, he had that fight. And Laborio was very, very highly respected amongst jiu-jitsu guys. A lot of the guys that roll with him say he's just unbelievably good. Very tactical. Very strong. Big, solid guy. If you saw him back in the Manoa fight, he was fucking huge. Pull that fight up.

Ricardo Laborio versus Manoa. You could see how he looked at the time. Oh, he's in incredible shape. But he's got a bunch of back problems too, man. Wow, really, huh? Yep. Well, he still rolls incredible shape. But he's got a bunch of back problems too, man. Wow, really, huh? Yep. Well, he still rolls with all those guys. You know, he's the co-founder and the head instructor at American Top Team.

So, you know, he's always there on a regular basis. But he still rolls with all those guys. Wow. I think they had a super fight, a grappling super fight planned between him and Mario Sperry. But I don't know if that's still going to take place. With his back problems. Well, I don't know. I think if that's still going to take place. With his back problems. Well, I don't know. I think he was still going to do it,

even despite his back problems. How is Mario Sperry doing? That's a good question. I mean, he was the head coach of the Black Zillions. Yeah. And then, for whatever reason, they had a falling out, and he wound up leaving the Black Zillions. I don't know what the fuck happened.

So I don't know where he is now. But he was an interesting coach. They called him the Zen, huh? The Zen Machine. Yeah, Zen Machine. When I was first starting out, I started out at Carlson's place in 1996. And Mario Sperry was there. And Mario Sperry was talking about how he got really good at triangles by making his

girlfriend sit in his guard, and he would just slap a triangle on each side over and over again. She's like, I don't want to do this anymore. He's like, shut up. And he just kept triangular over and over and over again. It was just kind of fucked up. But he used her as a grappling dummy. Really?

Yeah. Yeah, here it is right here. Ricardo Laborio Manoa. He shaved his head. That's right. This is way back in the day, in 2001. And Manoa's still fucking fighting. Manoa is still going at it. Manoa's fought a lot of guys, man.

Yeah. Huge boys. The big circus thing, huh? Yeah. Manoa. Attacking each other here. It's interesting how there was a lot of dudes that were heavy favorites,

like going into MMA. And everybody thought that, wow, this is going to be the next motherfucker in MMA. And like Salo Hibero. Salo Hibero, a lot of people thought he was going to be the next Hickson. He was going to go into MMA and dominate because he was so good at jiu-jitsu.

But it never quite panned out, you know. That's the end. Even in Japan, the judo guys that go into it. Yoshida was one of the most successful, but there was one after him that came out. He fought here. I think he trained in Vegas, huh? Which guy? What's his name?

He was like a gold medalist. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he trained in Vegas, huh? Which guy? What's his name? He was like a gold medalist. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. He lost to Yoshida later. He came back in Japan and fought. Yoshida lost, but not Nakamura. Hmm. Big boy, man.

Let me see. I'll pull up Yoshida's career. And he was real aggressive in judo too that's why they thought he was gonna be the next big thing was it nakamura no not nakamura he lost to he lost to yoshida um he's uh he fought in astra huh and it wasn't ogawa ogawa not ogawa not ogawa this new kid man hmm he didn't didn't really do much, but he was up here. I think he trained with Baroni, too. Hmm.

I don't know. I'm looking at his record. I forget. Ishii, Ishii, I think. Oh, Ishii. Yeah. Yeah, Ishii is, that's right, Satoshi Ishii. Yeah.

That was, in Japan, that was like, he was going to be the next huge MMA guy, but never panned out. Well, he fought him too young. He was just starting to get into MMA. Yeah, Yoshida had too many striking skills. Like, remember, Yoshida fought Tank Ab and head kicked him. Remember that? Yeah.

Yoshida was a pretty good striker. Yoshida threw down with Silva, too. He was a strong motherfucker, man. He was a strong motherfucker. Yeah, he had some good fights. That guy was supposed to be like the next big thing in Japan MMA, but never turned out. Yeah. Ishii, I think that was probably.

He came to the States. I think he's training in the States now, you know. Yeah. No, I think he is. I think he's still fighting MMA. Yeah, I think he's still fighting. Yeah, well, he fought in April. He fought, he won.

He beat Phil DeFries. Phil DeFries, who fought in the UFC. And before that, he beat Fujita in 2013. I didn't know Fujita was still fighting. I didn't know that either. He fought in the Inoki New Year's card, the Bumbaye card. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And before that, he beat Jeff Monson. He's won aeh card. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And before that, he beat Jeff Monson. He's won a bunch of fights in a row. He already moved here, too. He's trying to get residency. Oh, really? Because Japan Judo

won't take him back. Oh. And he wants to fight Judo. He beat Tim Sylvia. He beat Sean McCorkle. He beat Kerry Shaw. Then he beat Pedro Hizzo, Clayton Jones,

Jeff Monson, Fujita, and Phil DeVries. Those are all legit opponents. So he's still working at it. But I think, you know, you look at his first fight in MMA ever was Yoshida. Yeah, yeah. That was just too much of a jump. Too much, yeah.

Too much of a jump. Yoshida was already adapted to MMA. Is that a big part of fighting? Like, that's something that you see in boxing that I don't necessarily think you see in MMA as much as where a fighter is brought up correctly. Like, they give them tests that they can win and then, you know, they test them and then

they graduate with those tests. Well, it's like that in the UFC now, right? Not as much. Really? Because a lot of guys get fed to the dogs like real early. I mean, like the TOF and stuff, Ben, you really gotta be good to make it into that The what the two after toast Oh the to you out the ultimate fighter get into that Yeah, but I think that you're seeing now like I watch the ultimate fighter Sometimes you see guys gas out really quick. You see kind of low-level striking in jiu-jitsu

I think the talent pool is kind of dry in a lot of ways I mean every now and then a new guy comes up like a uriah hall who uh who got on the ultimate fighter and just knocking everybody out and look sensational and you saw like real talent in that guy and um and uh the guy who uh like i mean dillashaw came from tough you know and now he champion. Just, I mean, there's guys that have come from the ultimate fighter. The guy who just won the tough too, the Silva Sonnen one. He had no hair on him. Yeah.

That guy was good, huh? Yeah, I'm trying to remember his name. Yeah, I forget his name. There's so many of them now. Yeah. It's almost impossible to. Calvin Gaslam, who beat Uriah Hall. He's another super fucking talented guy who came from that.

But for every one of those guys, there's like 10 guys that are just not at the same level. Is it because it's such a new sport? Yeah, I think so. Boxing's been around for ages and so many boxers that... When you really think about it, high-level MMA is only 15 years old. Yeah. It's a baby.

Like we said, Vitor Belfort, 97, so it's a little bit older than that. It's a fucking crazy sport, man. Yeah. Exploding, growing thing right in front of us. Can you imagine? I wonder what it's going to be like in 10 years. I can only. I think when we look back at history, they look at the history and the growth of mixed martial arts, of martial arts period, they'll see that martial arts grew more in 20 years than it did in 20,000 years.

It exploded out of nowhere. And they really figured out what works and what doesn't work. You know what tripped me out is when I first went to watch the UFC in Vegas and I saw the fighters' pictures on the billboards is I couldn't believe that it's weird right yes I mean back in the day when I used to go to Vegas we see like Donna Summers and you know Kenny Rogers doing a concert but man the MMA fighters up on the billboards it's like a whole different level yeah it's wild isn't it yeah i love it it's great i mean the bigger mma gets the better it's for me you know yeah for sure what do you plan on doing in the future now i mean you're making your bracelets and uh if people want to buy those by the way where can they get destiny forever.com

the book also is available say that again destiny forever destiny forever.com yeah um yeah making bracelets uh i'm doing the relief work is always going to continue up north, and I'm writing another book, second part. Do you think that you're going to be involved in martial arts? I'm not someone that's going to try and promote or someone that's going to try and get involved, but if there's anything that I can do, like when people ask me to do seminars

or to come and be involved in something, I'm more than willing. Like, you know, there's some kind of big tournament on the UG, right? The Underground Forum. What is it? It's a tournament?

Yeah, it's a fighting. The Underground is making their own tournament? Yeah, they have a little, like an amateur fight. Really? Yeah. I'm trying to help with that too. Okay.

You know, give braces to winners like that oh that's cool nice I mean like even even like when Dana comes to Japan

I always offer him if he ever needs my help if he needs any help with anything up there that's awesome I'm always willing to help I'll be involved in that way

for sure but what about like running a school running a gym again teaching fighters I know you did that for quite a while. Yeah, I haven't been doing that actively at my gyms.

I've been doing seminars. I just did one in New Zealand. I just went and worked with the guys in Portland at Fisticuffs. Okay, cool. Yeah, so I'm doing that kind of stuff. I still have a lot to offer to the fighters, but I'm not about doing it every day, you know, and teaching every day and being stuck at a gym at, you know, nine to five or even like every day at six to eight, you're going to teach. I got to teach a class. I don't know if I will ever be able to limit myself to that.

But, yeah, my life's exciting, man. Travel all over, travel all over the world. When you do these seminars and you sit down with young fighters, how much of the seminar has to do with mindset? How much of the seminar? Half of it. Yeah. So what I do is, for me, I have the techniques I have on the ground,

real basic techniques, stuff that worked. I think I have more to offer in the the mindset yeah so mine is always like a seminar slash philosophy so i i'll talk and then i'll show a technique and then i'll ask him a question and then i'll and you know like like one thing i i asked him the new zealand when i went to new zealand did one in new zealand i asked him you know i asked him why do why them, you know, I asked them, why do, why do fighters tap? Like, if I asked you that, why do fighters tap? Because they're afraid of injury.

Yeah. Because they're essentially, they've made a decision. I would rather not get my arm broken and just admit defeat. That's, that's in the lines of it. But basically why a fighter taps is because he's anticipating what he thinks is going to happen it's an anticipation of what you think is going to happen and that's why fighters tap yeah you're anticipating your arm breaking you're anticipating going to sleep and a lot of a lot of times people that the spectators think it's because of pain because it hurts but a lot of times it is

you know you know arm burn doesn't really hurt i mean you can feel like oh you know yeah fuck my arm my ligaments are going to start stretching off fuck you know but it's not to that pain that pain level where you're like oh fuck it's so sorry i gotta tap you know even even chokes it's not like you you know it's just anticipating what's gonna happen you know and i kind of develop on that kind of stuff like you know that kind of mindset yeah that there's a brief window where you can pull victory out of the jaws of defeat by not having the mindset to tell. Well, it's a focus, yeah. How many of those moments happen where a fighter has that door opens and either you can tap or you can push forward and occasionally the guys push forward and wind up winning?

I've seen some of that. That's that gray area, right? That's that weird moment, the do-or-die moment that you feel like with a Jason High type situation that the fighters aren't allowed to express and push through. They're not allowed to show how tough they really are, yeah. When guys talk to you in seminars, do they talk about specific fights and ask you about specific moments in your career yeah like what one comes up the Igor fight comes out of course right it comes up a lot what about the Randy fight the Randy fight uh not that much but it's it's always one that's mentioned yeah it's a big victory yeah that was a huge victory for me

yeah that's like my claim to fame kind of you know that kind of that kind of put you know what was good about that was that that victory made people accept that okay ensign is good and after i didn't need to prove that i was good by getting wins so so it kind of gave me that window to fight with my heart now that i didn't need to pull out the wins anymore but back in the day unless you pull out certain wins you're like he's the day, unless you pull out certain wins, you're like, he's just a tough guy. Well, that's the crazy thing about you, is not just your approach,

but your openness in discussing that approach. The fact that you weren't necessarily pursuing wins as much as you were trying to find out about yourself. That sounds like something that someone would write about someone in a movie. You know what I mean? Like you wanted to write about write about someone in a movie. You know what I mean? Like you wanted to write about some crazy warrior in a movie. I'm not about victory. I'm about finding out the answers for myself.

Who am I as a man? But that is really how you lived. Yeah. And at the time it was stupid, but not now. But it's not. You say at the time it was stupid. I don't necessarily think it was. It's definitely not stupid. Why didn't you think it was, it's definitely not stupid.

Why didn't you do this? You could have won the fight. But it's a decision that you made, the same way Diego Sanchez makes those decisions in a fight. The difference being is I think Diego is just hardwired that way. You know, I mean, maybe you were too in a sense, but those things in those moments define you in a lot of ways there's a lot of fighters from that era but when people talk about guys with a ferocious mindset you're one of the ones who always comes up and that's one of the reasons why people want to see you at a seminar want to talk to you want to hear you on this podcast you know the funny thing about that is

that people like i had so many fears too but you're open about that and like we we talked about before you embrace those fears you you face them head on and that's one of the fascinating things about you is that you were so willing to discuss it but honestly no fake tough guy bullshit nothing no bullshit man no bullshit yeah even the book is all real names man real incidents exactly as is man and i always live my life thinking that you know if i get punished for something that i've done and i did it and it's the right thing and i get punished for it then let it be because that's what's supposed to happen so if i get into trouble with stuff that i wrote in the book it's i'm not bullshitting i'm not talking shit about nobody I'm not bullshitting. I'm not talking shit about nobody. I'm not bullshitting.

I'm not exaggerating. I'm just telling things as it is. And if I'm going to get in trouble for that, then it was meant to be. Where can people get this book, man? Same thing, DestinyFurber.com. It's on Amazon. Okay, Amazon.

And it's live as a man, die as a man, become a man. Ensign Inouye. You can order it through DestinyFurber.com. Ensign, another fucking awesome podcast. Hey, thank you, man. I had a great time, brother. Thanks for having me. We've got to do this man. Ensign Inouye. You can order it through destinyforward.com. Ensign, another fucking awesome podcast. I had a great time, brother. Thanks for having me. We've got to do this again. Anytime you're in town, man, let me know.

I'll be texting you whenever I let you know whenever I'm in town. Anytime, man. I enjoy it. I always do. All right, man. Thank you, brother. All right, man. All right, folks.

That's it. We'll be back next week. I'm off for the rest of the week. I'm going to be in Canada this weekend. You can check joerogan. off for the rest of the week. I'm going to be in Canada this weekend. You can check JoeRogan.net for the dates. We're going to be in Lloydminster tomorrow night. I'm with Tony Hinchcliffe and Brian Callen.

And then we're at the Orpheum in Vancouver on Thursday night, Lloydminster, which is tomorrow night. And then Friday night, the Orpheum in Vancouver. Thanks to Stamps.com. Thanks to Stamps.com. Go to Stamps.com. Enter in the code word JRE for your special offer.

And thanks to LegalZoom. Use the referral code ROGAN at checkout for some savings at LegalZoom. And use that same code for OnIt.com to save 10% off any and all supplements. Lots of crazy podcast guests coming up next week, ladies and gentlemen. I got a lot of shit coming for you. Got Dan Savage is coming up. He will be here on the 16th. Joey Diaz is going to be here on the 18th.

Duke Rufus on the 19th. Lots of shit happening, folks. So we'll talk soon. Much love, everybody. Take care. Take care.