The Joe Rogan Experience - #596 - Brian Stann

Episode Date: January 8, 2015

Brian Stann is a retired mixed martial artist and U.S. Marine, who competed as a Middleweight in the UFC. He is a former WEC Light Heavyweight Champion and is currently an analyst & commentator for the UFC.

experience. That's it. It's up. All right. This is the first ever HD version of this podcast. Brian stand. You are the guest. Wow. You're the perfect guy for this first ever first ever you stream HD version of the podcast. And as it's gotten here, I just got an email. I'm on Victor Conte's email list. You know, Victor Conte, the Balco guy. The guy who was suspended for getting all those guys on some undetectable steroids, and now he's some sort of a crusader against performance-enhancing drugs.

And he just sent me this thing, John Jones testosterone levels are suspect. And it's saying that he was probably on steroids. Coming off the biggest win of his UFC career, a few would have expected John Jones to have the worst week of his life, blah, blah, blah, drug test. Cocaine is the big one that everybody's been talking about. But the thing about the epitestosterone levels, that's what they're

saying. I mean, Conte has a bunch of numbers and ratios and what's normal and what's not normal. But apparently this is an issue now too that people are talking about. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Kevin Aioli was tweeting some stuff about that yesterday. And when you take a look at some of the things that have taken place as well, there are some major flaws in the collection. Whoever was the sample collector, and I don't think the commission just wants to out them, whoever did that, because the first test was supposed to be for performance enhancements, and then it was actually recreational.

It was never supposed to happen like that. So then when they tested them two weeks later, after failing a recreational, then they test him for performance enhancing. And I guess that's probably where they got his testosterone ratio. So, you know, when, when they get back his post fight drug test, I mean, this, this will be real interesting. But when I talk to friends of mine that I have at USADA, I texted with them today. And USADA is as good as it gets. I mean, these guys don't miss. That stands for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Yeah, the federal government-backed organization that does the Olympics.

And they told me straight up, they said, look, yeah, there's definitely some indicators there, but they believe right now it looks like there's some flaws in the collection. So who knows how this thing could possibly hold up in arbitration and if that collection process had anything to do with the flawed levels. There's a lot of details yet to be uncovered. So when the collection levels, what it's supposed to be, it's supposed to be one guy. There's a chain of custody. He administers the test, takes the blood, and handcuffs it to his fucking wrist, right? Like one of those nuclear bombs, like the nuclear football thing.

And they take it, and it's supposed to be like, this guy has it. He signs off on it. He sleeps with it. He doesn't go anywhere with it until it gets to that lab. And then from there, they have a direct chain of custody. Exactly right. And the big key there, there's a few areas where it can be flawed. One, the collector.

If the collector's not fully trained and aware, then the second part is what lab do they send it to? I did confirm today Nevada had that urine sample sent to the WADA laboratory in Salt Lake City, which is one of the two best in the country. You've got Salt Lake and then you have UCLA. Those are the labs that can detect all the high-level stuff. However, it was still a urine sample, and urine is a lot less accurate than a blood test when you're talking about looking at testosterone levels, et cetera. Yeah, and WADA is the World Anti-Doping Agency, something like that.

They're the ones who make the regulations at the Nevada State Athletic Commission and everybody else follows when they say, hey, what's your protocol or what standards do you follow for performance testing drugs or banned substances? Well, we follow the WADA code. And so USADA uses that same laboratory as well. But the difference there is the collectors, the organization, and they're the premier organization in the world, probably. And they do it worldwide. For folks who don't know what we're talking about, Jon Jones, who's the UFC light heavyweight champion,

number one pound-for-pound fighter, pretty much consensus in the world, won his biggest fight of his career against Daniel Cormier, but then tested positive for cocaine metabolites, which means that the test was administered on December 4th, which means sometime between two and four days before that he had done cocaine. Yeah. Do you hear that whine, Jamie? It's the fan.

Does it come through the microphone? I can't tell. Oh, that's not good. The fan for that? Yeah. Is it coming through your microphone then? Shut your microphone off. Yeah, that's it.

Yeah. You're going to have to turn your microphone on and off, or we're going to have to put that thing somewhere. Yeah. Well, either way, we're cool. So for folks that don't follow the UFC This was a huge fight Probably one of the biggest fights ever

As far as skill level I think probably one of the biggest fights ever Because you got the number one pound for pound fighter in the world And a guy who many people thought could beat him And John wound up winning the fight And winning in pretty impressive fashion Because he beat him wrestling. He took Daniel down, first time ever in Daniel Cormier.

He was an Olympic wrestler, undefeated as a heavyweight and as a light heavyweight. It was a real threat, and John beat him. So now that the cocaine was one thing, but then the testosterone to epitestosterone ratio, which seems to indicate there's something else going on, that's a way bigger deal. It is. It is. And, you know, right now there's a ton of speculation. If the ratios were bigger, I think we'd hear a lot more talk about it right now.

You know, right now people say, hey, these could be indicators to something masking steroids. And, again, this all just developed. So I don't think either one of us have had a whole lot of time to dive into the details. So, you know, you got to hope that this scenario doesn't get any worse at this point. You know, you really don't. I, you know, personally having trained at that gym for a number of years now, I haven't been down there in years since even before I retired. But there were never any rumors about John doing stuff like that. I mean, from day one, when he came into the gym, he knew nothing. And he still kicked everybody's ass bad to the point where people were just jealous to the point where people thought, OK, you know, there's no way he

wins this fight. Now they finally match me against guy who's going to beat him. Then you watch him fight and he just smokes. I mean, we wondered how he was going to do against Brandon Vera. Do you remember that fight? He made it look like a joke. He did it to everybody. All the way through, other than the Gustafson fight, or even the Rashad Evans fight. The Rashad Evans fight, it was

a dominant victory, but it wasn't something where he ran through it. I personally have never heard any rumors. Inside the fight circle, you generally hear a lot. A lot of guys do a lot of talking when it comes to that stuff. But you just never know. Well, that was one of the reasons why you retired, right? You were having a real issue with the level of performance-enhancing drugs, like the permeation of it in the sport.

Yeah, absolutely. You see it when you train in these gyms. And so you'll see guys that you come in and all of a sudden their physique looks totally different and you can feel the difference. And so it's interesting because when you mention that, a bunch of people throw out excuses, et cetera, et cetera. Look, I didn't even mention this until six months after I retired and I was in a position where, hey, you know what, maybe I can influence the sport a little bit here and try and steer it in the right direction. But it's a major, major advantage when someone goes on that type of stuff.

And, you know, for me, I had to fight at a different weight class that I already thought was fishy about that as well. You know, Vince Vanderlei said, hey, you're going to fight at light heavy instead of middleweight. Well, I'm a middleweight. You know, those things happen. And I still sign to do the fight even with my suspicions. But if you're going to go at it clean and you're going to lose the guys that

maybe you suspect were doing something, you know, for me, it came down to decision point one. Am I willing to go back to a major camp and train and leave my family behind for weeks at a time? No. Am I willing to level the playing field and take something like that, compromise my integrity, you know, to be better and get back on an ascending climb in my career.

No. Well, then I'm out. I'm out. It wasn't worth the head trauma at that point. So the Vanderlei-Silva fight, why was it a light heavyweight? He wanted to fight it light heavyweight? Yeah, he wanted it light heavyweight. Well, he's, you know, he's got issues of his own, of course.

Vanderlei-Silva, who was an all-time great. I mean, in pride, long-time Pride, what they call middleweight champion, which was 203 pounds in Pride, which is light heavyweight in UFC, and most likely juice to the tits. I mean, let's be honest about it. I mean, everybody in Pride was – there was a lot of people in Pride doing a lot of crazy shit. You know, you talk to Ensign Inouye, and Ensign Inouye said that they literally had a clause in the contract in pride saying that

they would not test you for steroids. Yeah. And you know, that's, you know, this, this has been a subject that for me, you know, especially in the last year, it's one of those subjects where I get emotional and then my initial instinct is to speak with emotion and then regret what I say afterwards when I calm down. And so I've really, it showed an ugly side of me that I'm not necessarily proud of. And I've sat back and looked at more perspective on the whole situation. And not that I still don't condemn it, but when you look at a guy's career, I hate seeing guys like a Vanderlei, like a Kung Lee, go out with something that happened towards the end of their career that caused a black eye on it and then have it ruin the entire body of work that they perform.

Because right now the environment in every professional sports pressures a lot of guys to go towards that avenue. I mean, if we're talking about what takes place in mixed martial arts, let's talk about the NFL. If you lifted up that rock and looked underneath it, God bless you. It was a needle. You'd have a couple of quarterbacks and you'd have maybe a punter. I even think those guys, you know what I mean? You had like a 47-year-old guy, I think, kick a 53-yarder the other day.

You know, I I mean so the environment is there and I think if if if the sport in general goes towards a comprehensive testing policy levels of playing field for everybody I think it makes a safer environment long term for the fighters and you know maybe maybe we'll get there in the next couple years well for fighters it's a gigantic issue of course because you're not not talking about baseball where you can hit a ball better or basketball or anywhere running faster. You're talking about a guy being able to deliver more physical punishment to his opponent and possibly score a knockout that he wouldn't have been able to score, possibly land a shot that he wouldn't have been able to land had he not been essentially with superhuman hormone levels. not been essentially with superhuman hormone levels. And it's widely understood that, especially in the early days of the UFC, in the early days of Pride, there were a gigantic amount of guys who were taking performance-enhancing

drugs. I have a friend, I will not name names, he fought for a Japanese organization, and not only did they tell him to do steroids, they wanted him to fight at a higher weight class, they were going to help him set everything up. And you know, they were even picking opponents for him that he can beat. And they were, you know, they were setting the whole thing up. So like, when you know about that from the inside, you know, like the organization telling the guy to take steroids, you know, letting them know that it's okay, we're not going to test you for that, it had to be a major part of MMA in the early days.

Now those guys that came from those days, now they have to adjust. Because you're looking at Vitor. Vitor, who was on testosterone replacement therapy, had those incredible victories over Luke Rockhold and Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson, and now those fights, not only do they come into question, you've got to go, man, what does he have left now that he's off that stuff, and now he's got to fight with natural testosterone levels, and he's going to fight Chris Weidman for the title.

We're going to find out. We're going to find out next month. I think he just passed his most recent. I mean, they've to find out next month. I think he just passed his most recent. I mean, they've been testing him quite often. I think he just passed his most recent test. And absolutely right. You know, we're going to find out. And, you know, the whole TRT ruling, thank God it's gone because it just clouded the issue, I think,

and gave at times a sport a black eye. And, you know, not only the sport, but then it kind of screwed over some fighters, too. If you're going to allow something, look, then guys are going to do it. They're going to find a way to do it. But I think there's definitely been, from what I've seen talking to camps, talking to fighters, I'm calling all these cards now, there has definitely been a difference. The younger breed of fighters is very anti-performance enhancing drug. Especially a lot of these wrestlers, they're so used to being tested. drug. Especially a lot of these wrestlers, they're so used to being tested. And this is becoming like their NFL now coming from amateur wrestling, that they're all for it. And a lot of that old

breed is really starting to go away. And guys are starting to get randomly tested out of the blue. Yeah. And that's important. And randomly tested, the UFC is doing these random tests where they're doing the full Olympic blood panel, which is like $40,000 a fighter. And, you know, they can only do so many of those. And that's one of the things that everybody knows. So it's a bit of, you know, it's a bit of a game of musical chairs. You know, there's only a few chairs. Everybody's moving around. You're hoping that the music doesn't stop and you're standing up. Yep. And I mean, you're talking about over, I think it's over 550.

I think it was 585 we said on UFC Tonight. Fighters. Fighters on the roster. And this is across the globe. So if you want to start doing, you know, during their training camps, random testing throughout the year in all these different countries, language barriers, the labs, all that. I mean, that is a monster.

And I'll tell you, from private meetings with Lorenzo Fertitta, he is very determined to find a way to make it work. You know, we've had some meetings and I think it is in the hopper over time, but right now it's just, it's more piecemeal where they can't do it every single time here and there. It's going to be, hey, on this card, we're going to be able to do three on this card. We're able to do four, you know, and they're going to contract out and give the athletic commission the authority. Here's the money. You guys go partner with the organization and take care of it. Because, you know, as Dana said this week, they don't want anything to do with it.

They've botched it in areas already, so they know they don't need to do it. With the Kung Lee fight, you mean? Yes, exactly right. Kung Lee is a fighter who was a – his entire career was – he had some really spectacular victories over in Strikeforce. He's a great kicker, and he had a real good wrestling background too. He had a very unusual style in that he threw a lot of wild Taekwondo-style kicks, but he was also really good at stuffing takedowns and could throw guys around. Also really good at stuffing takedowns and could throw guys around. Came over to the UFC, had some wins, had some losses, you know, fought his heart out. And then took his last fight against Michael Bisping.

And there was all these photographs of him just looking different than he's ever looked before. Like we were talking about, this radical change in his appearance. He had this mad fucking six pack where you never saw that from him before. And, you know, he said, hey, this is the first time I'm healthy in a long time i'm doing a lot of strength and conditioning but it's just super odd to see someone in their you know late 30s 40s 40 years old 40 yes 40 years old being built like that out of nowhere it's very very odd and i mean unless someone goes on like a fucking vision quest for like you know seven nine whatever, and just radical fucking strength and conditioning training, you don't see that much of a difference in a person's

body. Yeah. Especially while you're working on skills and you're sparring and you're, you know, you're doing drills and you're doing all the shit that you need to do to win fights. And when you're, when you're training like that, it is so hard to then go hit the weight room and get that kind of muscle density and put on that kind of mass. I mean, that's where it gets really difficult. And, you know, and again.

Explain the story with Kung Lee. Sure. Yeah, exactly. Yes. I mean, he goes into fight and I remember it was Saturday morning. I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was calling the fights that morning and I wake up and my buddy's like, hey, the fight pass card is on.

We put it on. We literally just woke up because it was in China. And so fight takes place. Michael Bisping wins. And at the same time, I remember I was reading an article where Bisping was talking about the picture Kung took. And, you know, Mike has always been very vocal since he's fought a bunch of TRT guys. And he's had some opportunities squandered in his career. And so then I pushed out the tweet where it said, didn't pay to cheat for once.

Good start to the day. It's a good start or didn't pay to cheat for once. Good start to the day. And, you know, it sent off, you know, a just a wildfire, which all of a sudden I realized, yeah, that was one of those emotional times where, you know, it was told to me, hey, it's best to keep your mouth shut right now, you know, afterwards. So it was certainly not a situation that I was proud of. Regardless, I'm always going to be for proper testing, clean sport, etc. But it is not my job to go around making accusations or whatever. There's bodies to do that. But it is certainly something that does get me emotional. And it triggers a side of me I'm not so proud of, a side that speaks before thinking.

And that's been a real good lesson learned for me over the course of this year being an official sports broadcaster, not a fighter who does commentating on the side. And that's something where there comes a certain amount of responsibility with this. Are we not broadcasting audio? Is that what's going on? Yeah, there's this slight issue. It seems to be recording fine. I'm recording it here fine. What's the issue?

It's not hitting Ustream. I don't know. Why don't you reboot? Okay. Just kill your mic. Okay. Yeah, I mean, that is a transition, right? I mean, it's also like you're speaking from the heart, but if you were in a gym, if you walked in the gym and you were talking to a bunch of guys in the gym, that'd be a normal conversation, but you did it publicly.

And when you do it publicly, you invite every fucking troll and all these certainly dorks that just sit in front of the computer waiting for something like this to talk about, to get angry at you. And I don't, you know, I don't follow my own personal, you know, look, if that is a conversation I should have with him first before I ever go anywhere else. And, you know, I actually tried to contact him a few days after and, you know, he had just lost the fight. He wasn't, he wasn't ready to speak. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's one of those situations where, where you live and learn, you know, and you learn the hard way when you do something.

But at the same time, you know, it's not one of those situations where it's going to make me back down from stating right from wrong in this sport and standing up for what's right. And you were saying that he was ready to take the nine-month suspension. He was ready to take the nine-month suspension, He was ready to take the nine-month suspension, and then they changed it to 12, and then they started having this issue. Yeah, according to the UFC. So there was something where his camp was ready to take the nine-month, and then instead, when it got up to 12, that's where they fought it and ended up beating it, and then everything had to be rescinded.

Well, they ended up beating it because the way that the tests were handled was incorrect, the way that the tests were handled was incorrect. The way that the tests were administered was incorrect. It was all done by someone that the UFC had hired to do it, but it wasn't done to the protocol. Yeah, the lab. The lab was not capable of actually testing accurately for human growth hormone, which is what they said he failed for. So that's kind of a disaster. And it was an absolute disaster. Absolute disaster, which is really why the UFC has now abandoned, you know, trying to do this. And, you know, they've taken a step backwards to evaluate right now.

It's really fascinating to me because the sport is, it's the most intense and the most, in my opinion, the most dangerous sport in the sense that you have so much on the line like if you lose uh an auto race auto races are dangerous and you could crash you could die and there's no doubt about that it's a very dangerous game football also very good but there's something about losing a fight that is so much more personal there's so much more on the line it's so much more personal. There's so much more on the line. It's so much different than any other loss. You lose a basketball game, ah, fuck, we lost. You know, let's have a beer. You lose a fight, man.

It's a fucking life-changing event. Tremendous. Tremendous. Well, one, there's no teammates to point to. You know, it's just you and the other guy in the ring. Sometimes you get guys who will use the referee as an excuse, the judge as an excuse, and you're on a 50% pay scale. So when I would fight, I would get $40,000 to show up and fight and $40,000 more to win. That's a tremendous difference.

That's a lot of months of paying the mortgage debt. That's a big chunk that I can then put away for the future and what I need to do as a fighter for when I retire. There's a lot of that, so it becomes very personal, not to mention your standing, your contract negotiations, who you fight next, how soon you fight next. All these things go into a play, and depending on how you lose, if a fighter loses by a vicious knockout, how much of that just shortens his career? So there's a lot on the line, and a big part of that is the reason why people are so intrigued by this sport. That's why they want to watch it, because they know, wow, these guys, they lay it on the line and a big part of that is the reason why people are so intrigued by this sport that's why they want to watch it because they know wow these guys they lay it on the line this this is

different than any other sport who are these people that that are capable of making that walk and doing that and that that really i think is part of the reason why people are so uh eager to watch the sport and get so interested and so involved in it. That victory incentive, that doesn't exist in boxing, does it? They don't have a win-loss thing in Boston as far as like 50 to win, 50 to show, 50 to win. Does that exist in boxing? It may. I've never seen it. It's usually a contracted amount. It's a contracted amount.

That's an issue, isn't it? I mean, I think the UFC likes it because it makes people, gives them the incentive to fight. But, god damn, don't they already have the incentive to fight? You know, it's one of those things where when you talk to Joe Silva about some of those things, he has some very strong ideologies on it since he's been there so long. You know, there's one point where they did finish bonuses. For anybody who finished on the card, he said that was a complete failure. You know, so it's interesting.

That would be a pretty cool, you know, to pull all the data, put it into some kind of model and see. You know, but in my opinion, it seems like to me it's financially more beneficial to win long term than it is to take a whole lot of risks. Of course. Yeah, without a doubt. And it's also, I mean, you only have so many fights in your career. And if you're extending yourself and you're putting yourself in danger to try to eke out a win and fighting in maybe what you would call a non-technical way or fighting in a reckless way, a long time you're going to cost yourself money.

Absolutely. Because you're going to take shots you wouldn't take, and you're going to put yourself—it's a short-term gamble that really is only beneficial to the folks that are watching it in the UFC. Yeah, and when you look at it, you know, from spending the last year calling fights, and I've really gotten to know Joe Silva and Sean Shelby a lot better than I did when I was a fighter. I've seen them reward the guys. There was a miscommunication.

I think some guys just had it wrong back when I fought where, hey, I've got to go in there and brawl. I've seen them reward guys very well for going out there and fighting very similar to how Frankie Edgar fought Cub Swanson. He didn't go out there and trade with them. He went out there, he moved around, did what he needed to do, shot the takedown, and dominated the fight on the ground. Then gets the finish at the very last few seconds of the fifth round. And they absolutely love the fight like that. So I think that fighters need to realize, look, go in there and get the fight finished as fast as you can and win in most dominant fashion. What I've seen where they get frustrated with is where guys will ride certain positions out.

They get inside the guard, make no attempt to pass to do more damage. They get inside the clench. They're happy to just hold them against the cage for a while until the referee separates them. I think that's some of the things that get them a little frustrated when guys will win fights like that but then ask for major things after I want a better contract, I want higher profile matchups, I want to be on the main card, or I want to be the main event. And for folks that are not familiar with training camps, there's one thing that has to be taken

into consideration when you watch a fight. When you see a guy maybe stalling like that, that guy might have fought injured. He might have fought sick. He might have gotten injured during might have fought sick he might have gotten injured during camp and not been able to train correctly so he has to take advantage of what what little opportunities sometimes that he can get to take a break because he doesn't have the gas tank to go all out absolutely and you can't tell by looking at a guy no you're never with when you're warmed up like that you're going to be able to move through certain injuries but

it doesn't mean you have as much pop on your punch or your kick with that, you know, with that portion of your body. You know, it was funny because, um, I get it all the time, man, that fight with you and Vanderlei Silva was awesome. But why did you, why did you fight him like that? And, you know, I'll tell him, you know, honestly, I flew to Japan and, and I actually, I tore a part of my hip the second day there. It was real stiff from the training camp, and I would overtrain bad. It was a big problem for me. I always thought the more I could do, the better I'd be. So I couldn't lift my left knee to my chest.

And it's funny because Dr. D, who flies into all the events, he had to come right to my hotel room as soon as he got there. And I said, hey, just get me a lidocaine. Completely allowable by the commission. It's legal. It'll numb it. Be good to go. Couldn't get it in Tokyo. And so, all right, well you know i'm gonna have to find a way around that and this happens to all fighters who knows i mean vanderley could have easily showed up to that

you know with with something torn in his body as well yeah and so you know you go in there round one and i rock them they all right well this guy's got a lot of miles on him one more shot and i'll finish this thing oh shit shit, he just knocked me down. You know, and then it just, it kind of started going back and forth. And, you know, it's one of those fights you almost black out in. You just get lost in the violence and knowing you're putting on a great fight.

That even, you know, when I woke up and I started to realize what happened, which was when John Anik starts interviewing me, I was like, oh man, I lost. You know, it's one of those things where, all right, you know, but at least I went out on my shield shield the fights that really haunt you are the ones where you go home and you're like man i could have pushed a little harder i could have done this i could have done that that was a wild fucking fight with you and van de lay you know whatever you say whatever you

want about performance enhancing drugs and he did run away van de lay suspended for life for folks who don't know the whole story he ran away from a random drug test they showed up at his gym and literally ran out the door i was like i gotta go and they suspended him for life which is really unprecedented and in my opinion it's kind of fucked up because the guy is a legend and one of my all-time favorite fighters, if not my all-time. It kills me to see, you know, look, absolutely people should be punished for what they did wrong. But let's, and I've actually said this in a couple interviews, I don't know if anybody ever saw them, but let's not completely black out the entire career. You know, there are Hall of Fame worthy martial artists who they screwed up like every other human being in there. Hey, call a spade a spade and make them stand accountable for it.

But at the end of the day, they have an entire body of work to look upon. But isn't it true, though? I mean, some of these guys that are Hall of Fame type guys, Hall of Fame caliber guys, most likely were cheating their entire careers. I mean, there's a big percentage of guys who you could point a finger at, especially guys that are fighting in Japan. And if you talk to the guys who fought in Japan, they will tell you that, yeah, this is what was going on. Mark Coleman told me he went backstage and he saw Vanderlei oiling up his body.

He saw him oiling. He's like, what the fuck are you doing, man? You can't do that. They were oiling up so that nobody could takeing up so it was a circus back then that organization was an absolute circus and for core listening it is light years different in the UFC oh yeah but yeah that was an absolute circus well they let fighters fight like fights that should have never taken place like how about Bob Sapp 375 pounds fought tomorrow it was

like 185 right any anything I mean literally if they could have put a tiger in there with a human being they knew they would have made money off that and they would they would have absolutely done that if they could find a way to not go to jail afterwards they would have done it yeah they put together some fucking ridiculous shows what about Hong man Choi versus Fedor remember that I mean Hong man Choi was like seven feet tall He weighed 300 who knows what the fuck pounds. He was a legitimate giant. He absolutely with with less Athleticism in his body than my five-year-old daughter. Yeah, well the poor guy was like his bones probably weighed as much as his fucking table I mean he was just he was a mess. I mean, he was just, he was a mess.

I mean, physically, he had a fucking tumor in his pituitary gland. I mean, that's why, the same as Bigfoot Silva. Yeah, absolutely. Bigfoot Silva, who still fights for the UFC, still an elite fighter. I mean, that poor fucking guy. I mean, he's a guy who legitimately needs testosterone replacement therapy, and he can't have it. He's got to have some operation on on his head now and now he's going to fight frank meir right yeah yeah he's got frank meir coming up look god bless him i mean the guy's

still in there's throwing but he's he's a guy who legitimately needs it um fucking no gear we've we played it uh a couple weeks ago we did a fight companion and watched no gear versus bob sap and fucking no gear got piledrived by 375-pound Bob Sapp, picked him up, and dropped him and Noguera's weight on Noguera's head. It was the fucking most horrendous thing to ever watch someone do to someone. You're like, oh, God. And meanwhile, Noguera went on to win that fight, which shows you how tough that guy was back then.

That dude is, I saw him in Rio just a few weeks ago. And it was so cool to see, because everybody was just sitting at this little bar, and it was right next to the restaurant in the hotel, and when he came walking downstairs, as humble as can humanly be, he comes down and everybody stood up.

Not just Brazilians, but everybody associated with fighting stood up out of respect for this guy who, you know, the day he retires should be immediately put into the UFC Hall of Fame. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I mean, there should be some sort of a martial arts Hall of Fame, you know, like not just the UFC, just all schools, all disciplines, you know, he's in there for sure.

I mean, he showed how you could win fights off your back in the heavyweight division, which nobody was doing. Nobody was triangling Mark Coleman. Who the fuck is going to triangle Mark Coleman? He's going to pick you up and slam you. And Mark Coleman, by the way, fighting in pride, most likely on a variety of Mexican supplements.

I mean, he's fucking, he looks insane. He was enormous. He was so good back then, too. I mean, that was Mark, you know, like during the days where he won the Pride heavyweight grand prix leather skin oh he's a animal mark coleman i was there uh the first fight i ever worked was ufc 12. and that was when mark coleman won the ufc heavyweight title he beat dan severed he got him

in a judo headlock and just almost pulled his head off it was you know the old schoolyard the schoolyard move well it wasn't it wasn't quite the schoolyard move It was like he was kind of in side control But laying on top of him And he had his head And he was just fucking yanking his head I forget the name, you know, catch wrestling Josh Barnett, isn't that what he got Dean Lister in?

Yes And then Olsenik, who's a current UFC heavyweight Who's 2-0 right now at 47 years old And the UFC's a heavyweight He tapped out three guys in a row with that technique It's brutal current UFC heavyweight, who's 2-0 right now at 47 years old in the UFC as a heavyweight, he tapped out three guys in a row with that technique. It's brutal. Oh, yeah.

If a guy gets you like that, especially a guy like Josh Barnett, who's got a ridiculous grip, he gets you in that position. Good night. He fucking tapped Dean Lister, who's Abu Dhabi great, one of the best submission wrestlers in the world. It means something if you tap that guy out. Oh, yeah. Josh Barnett. You know.

Bad dude. Yeah, he's a bad motherfucker. And he is the best representative, in my opinion, in all of modern MMA for catch wrestling. I mean, he really is a student of that game. He really understands that sport. That was the fight when he fought Daniel Cormier. That was a fight that woke me up.

You know, when you see this, I mean, Cormier, what did he have, like, eight, nine fights at that point in time? I'm not sure. I mean, Cormier, what did he have, like, eight, nine fights at that point in time? I'm not sure. I mean, he had barely any experience, and he goes in there and beats a guy like Josh Barnett, where granted his wrestling gave him a major advantage in that, but, you know, still, Barnett's a crafty guy. You make any mistakes in there, he's going to catch you.

Screen keeps going black over here, Jamie. Is this not real? I don't know. It's still going out. Okay. It's not on my fucking computer. It's going black over here, Jamie. Is this not real? I don't know. It's still going out. Okay. It's not on my fucking computer. It's not. Yeah. Oh, there it goes.

It came back. Yeah, Josh Barnett is a very good wrestler, too. So to see Daniel Cormier launch him through the air like that, the same thing he did to Dan Henderson. Who the fuck has ever done that to Dan Henderson? I trained, the first time I trained with Daniel Cormier, we were all doing one of these shows here in LA. And he's like, hey, let's get a session in today.

And so we go to this tiny little gym, and it's got one of those really small cages. I mean, I could lay across it, and I'd almost be as long as the cage. And I'm training with Cormier, and he's picking me up. I mean, if he wanted to throw me right out of this octagon, I've never had a man pick me up that easy once his hips pop you're in the air and it just it shows the kind of leverage and be you know the length and the technique that john jones has to have stopped that repeatedly and stifled those attempts yeah and when the one time that daniel did take him down like that it was for a second and john was back up to his feet like he was on springs wouldn't even have been scored a takedown in wrestling

rules yeah i mean he bellied down immediately and popped right back up to his feet like he was on springs. Wouldn't even have been scored a takedown in wrestling rules. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he bellied down immediately and popped right back up. It was incredible. Yeah, John is a freak. I mean, he's a real freak athlete. You know, and the crazy part is he, you know, I don't know if John's ever been in a jiu-jitsu class and shrimped before. Really?

Like, he's never lifted weights in between fights, to my knowledge. He doesn't train. He comes, he does his seven- to nine-week camp, he leaves, martial arts is over. I think he's got a heavy bag in his basement in his house in New York that he'll hit every once in a while. What? I'm dead serious. And so now he's actually moving to Albuquerque and saying how I'm going to train year-round. I mean, it's, you know, aside from all the other things going on with him, he's obviously got some things to take care of, but he comes out of this the other end and starts

training year round. It's really, really scary. I mean, the guy never lifts weights in between fights. He just comes in and starts lifting men. That's so incredible. It's so crazy. He doesn't train in between fights. So what does he do in between fights? Just hangs out. He's got nothing. There's, he lives in Ithaca, Ithaca, New York. I drove when I was supposed, when I was fighting Phil Davis, they gave me that fight. It was right after I just fought in December. I had just had a baby. And so we were, we already had plane tickets booked to go to Pennsylvania to see some family for Christmas where I'm from. And so, man, I got to train with some wrestlers. I'm fighting this guy named Phil Davis who I can't find any footage of. I know he's a national champ, and I'm not really a good matchup for this guy.

So, of course, I end up driving all the way up to upstate New York to try and train with John, and I'm training in some, I don't know if it was like Ithaca College, some mat somewhere. He shows up in sweatpants and tosses me all over the place. I mean, he didn't even know anything back then. He knew a little bit of wrestling. He didn't know any jiu-jitsu. He didn't know how to strike. He was watching the first day in Greg Jackson's gym.

He's like, oh, man, I watched all these YouTube videos of Muhammad Ali. So he goes in there, and he's got his hands down, and he's snapping jabs playing the rope-a-dope with Muhammad Ali and just, you know, toasting everybody. What a freak. Greg was running around the gym, running around the gym saying to his wife, saying to me, that's my next champion. That's my next champion.

At the time, I was still at light heavyweight, so Greg politely said, well, after you, Brian. And I looked at him and I said, look, Greg, I'm old enough and mature enough that I can tell you right off the bat, look, you could save that shit for someone else, all right? Well, that's rare, and that's one of the reasons why you've been able to transition successfully into your career in broadcasting,

is that you let it go in a way that very few guys do like you you let it go with many many miles still left on your engine you you just decided you know what i'm okay i'm good i'm young i'm healthy i can still fight for sure you could still compete at the highest level but you decided and yeah i'm good you know and there was a you know, there are a couple things to it. One, you know, when I got knocked out by Vanderlei, I knew right then that night in my hotel room that I was done. If I can't beat a fighter who's an aging fighter, who, yes, he's one of the best of all time, but he's an aging fighter, I'm now taking a step backwards.

I had to evaluate because, look, I played football for 14 years um got hit with a few ieds in iraq i mean there's a few indicators here and then you know i i trained in the area and came up in mma where it was you go to war twice a week in sparring yeah that was a different era right people are starting to learn now they're starting well you're starting to see those guys in the gym the 10 year later guys that are still you know sort of in the gym, the 10-year-later guys that are still sort of in the sport but have diminished considerably and their faculties have diminished considerably. And that's a big issue that a lot of people have is those guys that nobody talks to, those guys that are still around, and you get a chance to see what that style of training can do to you.

Now you're seeing a lot of guys who are training. If you find good training partners, you can get so much better by not hitting each other hard. And that's something that people have a hard time accepting. Everybody wants everybody to be tough. Most fucking guys in the UFC are already tough. They don't have to take punches to be tough. You know, it's just what you need to do is work on your reflexes, your timing, your technique,

and then the skill set. Working on strategies, working on understanding what to do in various positions, where to never be, what to do if you find yourself in a place that instead of just winging it on toughness, which you're still seeing. You're still seeing guys fight at the highest level with their fucking chin up in the air, their hands down, and they're winging punches, and they're going in, and occasionally it works, and occasionally it doesn't. And they're flipping coins when they do it. And it's exactly right, and a big part of my focus when I get to visit with all these fighters before I call their fights, I'll talk to them about that. Your objective is to make the maximum amount of money for as long as you can in your career.

Fight as many times a year as you can. And I'll always ask them, do you get paid in the gym? Of course, they look at me like I'm stupid. No, I don't. You get paid when you fight, right? So why are you fighting in the gym? You know, look, I'm guilty of it and I use it myself. I, for years, never got rocked. And I mean, I spar with some really hard-hitting guys, you know, Jardine, Rashad Evans, you know, some really good guys that that would get after it. I would never get rocked. All of a sudden, you know, towards the end of my career, my last two camps, I started to notice, man, starting to get some headaches. You know, I started, you know, feeling the repercussions of training so hard for so many years. And instead of focusing on sparring partners that can mimic my opponent, I'm just focusing on winning in the gym against various level guys who are going to go a hundred percent

against me. And that takes away from your career, cuts it short, and it cuts down that window to where you can make that maximum amount of money. You know, where you look at these guys now that are getting smarter, just like you said, and they're tracking that sort of thing. You know, Mark Henry counts how many strikes Frankie Edgar puts out a sparring session because when they do their game plan, you need to fight at this pace. I want this many strikes per round. This is what you have to do to win the fight. So he'll watch Frankie sparring the whole camp to make sure he's on pace

to win that fight for what they feel he'll need to do to win. And he's using like a clicker. Mark Henry is one of the most underrated trainers in the game today. He's a guy who does not get enough credit. And I've talked to Shaub because Shaub did some training down there with Frankie Edgar. And he was like, this guy's got fucking notebook after notebook filled with all the different strategies, techniques, things they're working on, things to do for various fighters. I mean, you look what he did to Cub. I mean, Cub's a fucking monster.

He is such a good fighter, and Frankie shut him down. And Cub's a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And he got into half guard and really, he knew what to do from there, but because of the continuous strikes, I mean, it was a pace. Not even just in the striking realm, but on top. Frankie never stopped punching, which when you're punching a guy in half guard, it makes you a threat to pass to mount pass to full side control It made cub worry more about retaining half guard maybe getting back to full guard then blocking the punches hit his face and on top

Of that every time a guy's punching you you can't breathe so every time a guy's punching you you're tightening up You're you're constricting your body when he's punching your body and you're cutting in you're cutting back on the amount of oxygen again That's like one of the strategies that nick diaz has always used in his career he'll hit a guy 150 times at like 50 he just gets in front of your face and starts throwing punches and people like oh those don't even hurt yes that first of all yes they do yes they do you don't know what the fuck you're talking about let him punch you 50 it might not knock you dead but it fucking hurts and he hits you with four of those, it's probably almost as good as one full blast punch.

He's going to hit you with a bunch of them, and you're not going to be able to breathe. You're going to be tightening up constantly. Toe to toe with Paul Daly, Robbie Lawler knocked both out. Yeah. You know what I mean? Those are just two of the examples of what he's able to do. And, you know, he has good accuracy. I mean, he'll knock them out.

He's pretty pinpoint. When he goes and hits a guy in the chin, right when they think it's not hurting, and then he does drop them. And it's a suffocating style because I feel, and I don't know if there's science to back this up, I haven't researched it, but when you're exhausted, you're easier to get knocked out. Oh, for sure. You can't tense up as much and roll with the punches as much.

You end up taking it square, and it rocks the jaw, crushes the nerves, and you're out. Yeah, there's no doubt. And, you know, those fights, man, goddamn, especially the Paul Daly fight. His chin is another thing. I mean, you can't teach that. You can't teach the ability to absorb punishment that he has. I mean, it's just, he's so tough.

And the psychology, too. You know, to walk into an octagon in front of all these people. Everybody you know and care about in the world is going to watch that fight, and you've got to face them afterwards. And your decision, I mean, you talk about the fight or flight, and there's still fighters who, even though they're professional fighters and they're way tougher than your normal populace, there's levels, many subtle levels once you get to the highest level.

Nick Diaz, he doesn't care. He's going to go toe-to-toe with you. It doesn't matter who it is. Anderson Silva. He's going to go toe-to-toe with you. It doesn't matter who it is. You know, Anderson Silva, he's going to go toe-to-toe with him, and there's no issues there. Even though he hasn't been in the octagon in a long time, there's something psychologically in that man where, hey, you know what? If you tell me you're going to draw a line and fight, then I'm there.

And he'll admit he doesn't even like fighting. Yeah, which is pretty crazy. It's tough. Well, he wants that money. I mean, he made a lot of money in the georges st pierre fight and then took a long time off and now he's coming back and fighting anderson silvan anderson's comeback fight which is a man what a lot of questions in that fight right that's fights all it's one big that should be the poster for that

fucking fight just a question mark who the fuck knows what's gonna happen in that fight yeah and most people you know will look at it and say, well, you know Diaz is going to come out and he's going to want to box and Anderson just has so many weapons on the feet, but how does he throw those weapons? We haven't seen the Diaz brothers do too many checking leg kicks yet. Certainly Nate didn't

do it against Rafael dos Anjos, but if Nick Diaz comes out there and he checks a few leg kicks for Anderson, does that slow down the attack? Does he hit the same area again? Does he check that? Who knows? I mean, if I have to bet money, I'm going to put it on the all-time great Anderson Silva,

but I'm not quite ready to count out Nick Diaz out of this fight just yet. I'm not counting him out at all. And Anderson Silva, for folks who don't know what we're talking about, is the greatest of all time. Broke his leg in his last fight. Threw a kick. Chris Weidman lift up his knee. Anderson caught him in the top part of the shin, which is a brutal spot to get checked.

And Anderson's leg snapped like a twig. It was really—I've only seen it happen twice live. Corey Hill, a long time ago, who looked like a guy who would break. I mean, Corey was really tall for the weight class. Was he fighting 155? 155. That was a disgusting cut. Oh, he was really, really, really, really thin.

And, I mean, it probably takes something out of your bones, too. I mean, it takes something out of your organs, for sure. Super bad for your kidneys. And these guys are dehydrating themselves like that. But Corey breaking his leg was very shocking, but there was something about watching Anderson break his leg where you just know Anderson is an all-time great, the all-time great, the most spectacular performer

we've ever seen in the UFC, and his leg just snapped. The best martial artist, in my opinion, in the history of martial arts yeah when you look at like the end you want to talk about you know benny the jed bill superfoot wallace and you have bruce lee and all that you know you can go way back in history path pavers for sure absolutely you've got to then look at anderson sylvan how he was able to bring to the most complete fighting style known to man the artistry he brought to it, the many different ways he won

from different kicks to submissions. I mean, he can do it all. I still think the greatest fighter to ever go in the octagon is Jon Jones, though. I don't think anybody has ever beat the level of competition he's beaten by the margins that he's done so. I mean, drops Machida unconscious to the floor.

Yeah. I mean, the way he's done it, he submitted Vitor. After he got his arm fucked up in that arm bar and refused to tap. Yep. You know, I mean, fought Gustafsson and from all indications, barely fucking trained for that fight and still gutted it out in those final rounds and won. It's funny you bring that. I mean, that's what I've heard as well.

I don't know if they're true, but that's certainly the rumblings, you know, that there was some stuff taken lightly, he just talked for it. It's very rare when you hear those rumblings and they're not true. I mean, when was the last time you heard, ah, guy barely trained? You're like, what the fuck you talking about?

The guy was doing two-a-days, he was running five miles, he was eating nothing but the most wholesome foods. That's not what I heard. I heard he was doing the exact opposite. He was eating some very un wholesome foods. That's not what I heard. I heard he was doing the exact opposite. He was eating some very unwholesome foods. Yeah. Well, I mean, when he fought Shogun for the title, one of the worst beatings I've seen inside the Akegon.

He threw a fucking flying knee in his opening move. He's the youngest guy to ever fight for the UFC title, and he throws a fucking— not the youngest guy to ever fight for a title. I believe that was John Alessio. I think John Alessio was 20 when he fought pat militant way back in the day but youngest guy to win it youngest guy to win champion throws a fucking flying knee on shogun and cracks him right in the chin i mean i mean just ridiculous stuff that he threw i mean through what he tried flying

arm bar on cormier i got a theory about that shit. My theory is that guys who grow up with brothers that beat the fuck out of them are just on a completely different level. Because Weidman grew up with a brother that beat the fuck out of him. Matt Hughes and his brother beat the fuck out of each other. John Jones had two super athlete brothers. He's got two brothers that are fucking NFL studs. And, you know, his, Arthur, by all indications, kicks John's ass when they work out together. Yeah, and he kicked John's ass growing up plenty.

He was a state champion wrestler, I believe. Yeah, huge guy too. Yeah. Huge. Yeah, he's 300 plus. And when you grow up like that, I think you just have a level of toughness. I think also your body develops stronger.

You know, it's something about tangling with a brother your whole life I mean you're in competition from the time you're a baby you're always going to war and coupled with that I have not seen in a guy like John the belief you know John will you know he'll watch a movie about like chi or something. And I'm making this up, obviously. And he'll think it truly exists in him. So he has, he meditates near a waterfall the day of his fight. Always. They got to find water. He's got to go to water and you know, he sits there and he'll meditate and he focuses on it. Most guys would point to that and say, that is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. They try and make fun of somebody for it.

John doesn't care. John, you know, being in the locker room with him for several fights, we found the same card. He's back there as this young kid who has very few life experiences. So calm. Never once does the thought of him losing run through his mind. I mean, when he went out and fought Vladimir Matyushenko, I fought on that card.

And in John's jiu-jitsu, I had submitted him several times in that training camp he goes out there against Vladdy and the game plan was to strike with him because Vladdy was such a good wrestler and so good on the ground and John wasn't good on the ground immediately takes Vladimir down passes guard elbows him into oblivion the phone the fight's over I didn't know that John even knew how to pass the guard at that point I'm serious serious. You know, you don't do beginner's jiu-jitsu classes at Greg Jackson's gym. He'll do it in, like, private sessions with them, you know. But John, it just, you know, I remember submitting him several times one week,

and then two weeks later we're in Denver, Colorado for that camp, and he catches me in a submission. I look at Greg, I go, did he learn jiu-jitsu in two weeks? You know, it's just always been that way. The only other guy that I hear that's like that to that extreme to where every move they learn they could use it instantly is weidman really when i talk to guys and i i go into henzo's frequently for the the non-profit i run there's a lot of guys up in wall street who have been very generous and are very avid for veterans getting jobs and

they'll always meet me at henzo's and they train there and the guys there will talk about it like you know uh you sit there in these classes and it takes me thousands of reps to get this move to work on high level competition weidman learns it drills at once and then submits everybody in the class with it he's just that much of an animal yeah well he's a fucking when you get a stud wrestler that picks up juj-jitsu, what a fucking horrific combination that is. Especially for guys like me. I mean, absolutely. For anybody, man.

Yeah. You know who Eric Bradley is? A wrestler? I don't. I don't. He was training at Eddie's for a while, and we were doing this drill where, I mean, he's not much bigger than me, maybe 15 pounds, but we were doing this drill. We were doing this knee-to-belly drill,

and you start out with knee on belly and see how long you can hold it. He might as well have had a building on top of me, might as well have had a fucking full foundation, a few cars parked in the building. I mean, I wasn't getting up. I got on top of him. He threw me off like he was getting out of bed and he was throwing off the covers. It was just ridiculous. it's there's a kid just like that his name is Raymond

Jordan and he wrestled with Tyron Woodley and Ben Askren versus Missouri and he was younger than those guys and he was a two-time all-american there never was a national champion though and Woodley will tell you he's like I won't touch Ray anymore won't touch him and so he went to go be Jordan Burrow's main partner while he went and won gold. And I actually had him come to Atlanta to help me train for four weeks before I fought Michael Bisping. The first week he was there, the UFC cameras were in town. And you know, you had me, you had Tom Watson who fights in the UFC, you had Douglas Lima, who's the Bellator champion was in there. Juan Carnero, who's coming back to the UFC and fight Mark Munoz. And then here's Raymond Jordan, this kid who's never done this shit really before.

He was beating everybody so bad that the UFC camera said, Brian, this is some of the best footage we've ever gotten, but we can't use any of it. Who is this kid? And he doesn't want to fight. He doesn't. He just wants to wrestle. He mounts and taps high-level, world-class-level black belts

because he's got that same funky style on the mat that these Missouri Tigers have. He's the most natural athlete I've ever met. Everything he throws is hard, by the way. Just doesn't want to. He's just not interested in it. That's so crazy. So what does he do? Just coaches wrestling?

I help him get a job. He works at a company called Met Assets, and it's run by the gentleman who chairs the board of the company I run. And he's also brilliant, by the way. He's an African-American kid who grew up with a crack-dealing uncle. Both of his parents are dead by six, and you would think this kid graduated from Harvard. He's an anomaly, and he's brilliant. And so he works in finance with them and does deal analysis for a fortune 500 company

poker traded company he's awesome so just doesn't have the desire to fight no you know he looks a you know he's been grinding for so long with wrestling and i think it burnt him out yeah that happens to a lot of those guys it's tough is there a sport where people over train more than in wrestling no i mean it teaches a mental toughness, and that is true. There's no doubt about it. Wrestlers can perform and come back and push in ways that a lot of guys in other sports, they never developed that gear, that sort of extra gear that you see a guy like Johnny Hendricks have or you see some of these wrestlers have. But then you get a guy like Robbie Lawler who has that fucking gear, and he had a little bit of a wrestling background,

but he was never like an NCAA national champion or anything along those lines. Yeah, the odds are definitely higher coming out of that population. When you look at that talent pool of amateur wrestlers, and really in any country, I mean, look at the kids we're getting in from Dagestan now. I mean, these guys are animals, and it's not just because of their combat sambo and wrestling background i mean you go i would love to go over there and see how khabib nurmagomedov grew up the hardship saying it's just a different kind of people you know they're not nearly as spoiled as most of our asses are over here stateside that's a that's without a doubt a fact habib nerga medoff

is the scariest guy at 155 next to pettis in my opinion i can't wait for him to get healthy i mean i'm looking forward to dos anjos fighting pettis because i think stylistically it's a very intriguing fight but then you watch what norma gomenov did uh dos anjos he just shut up i watched that fight again the other day he just ragdolled him. Everybody. He does it to everybody. And he's not a... You look at him, he doesn't look like Tyron Woodley. You know, he doesn't look like... You look at Tyron Woodley, if he smashes somebody, you go, well, Jesus, look at the guy.

You expect it. Yeah. I mean, look at the guy. But you look at Nurmagomedov, he looks like an athlete, for sure. He looks like a strong guy. But the way he's fucking ragdolling people is shocking. The way he did it to Abel Trujillo. I mean, just like fucking shocking.

And Abel's a stud athlete. Yeah. Strongest athlete. You know, it's, you know, Nurmagomedov, his kinesthetic awareness and his leverage in technique. And then I think the real key ingredient, though, is his will. Yeah. Guys that have that wrestling background, they have that gear.

If you don't believe someone can stop you, it's so powerful. Yeah. And he has that and the talent, and that's really, really scary. Yeah, he fights like a werewolf. I mean, there's like something about him. It's like his intensity and violence is just so heightened. It's like his next level, just whatever it is. I mean, if his striking ever catches up to his grappling, Jesus fucking Christ. Man.

I mean, and it most likely will. I mean, depending on what's the state of his knee, because I know he hurt his knee, and then the rumors were he got it operated on and then hurt it again, like came back too quickly. Really? You know, I had seen him maybe two months ago, and, you know, speaking to some of his management as well,

I mean, they believe he's going to be back soon, right around, I think, the time that Pettis is going to fight Dos Anjos. So he'll be waiting in the wings, you know, quickly. I think he's even complained that Dos Anjos is even getting the shot. Yeah, he is complaining that. But he's not ready to, I mean, he can't train right now. No. And if he does fuck his knee up, he'll probably just fucking duct tape it together and get back in there anyway.

And that's the worst thing. You don't want to ruin your career to come, you know, take your time. And the one crazy thing is though, if, if, cause it's not a walk in the park for Pettis to beat Dos Anjos. Dos Anjos is dangerous and Dos Anjos wrestling looked really good against Nate Diaz, but Pettis, he's a sniper. He just needs one shot. That's how scary that kid is. I mean, he, you know, he can go into a fight and barely mess his hair and only hit you once. He also has a style that's based on not, like, there's a style of kicking and punching that a lot of these guys do that's Muay Thai style, where there's a step and then a kick, a step and then a kick. And Pettis has got that Taekwondo thing where he's standing there and he just throws it.

Zero telegraph. Zero telegraph with KO power. Yep. And it's tough to fuck with. If you watch him, like the head kick that he landed on Joe Lozon, it comes out of nowhere. The one he landed on Donald Cerrone, it comes out of nowhere. And Cerrone's a fucking excellent striker. And he's a phenomenal, that kid naturally has incredible cardio.

We would go do these sand dunes at Jackson's at altitude. We would go do these sand dunes at Jackson's at altitude. These things are 60 to 70 meter high or length sand dunes that are a steep incline to where the sand falls and you have to crawl up with all force. He glides up those things, smokes everybody, even when he's not in premier shape. To kick him in the body and KO him, I mean, you've got to bruise deep, deep, deep. I call them soul kicks. You kick a dude so hard and you see that... You see the shit face?

And the soul just comes sneaking right out the mouth. You know, that's what happens. There's nothing you can do. Those liver shots, man, they're not like anything anybody could describe, unless you've been hit like that. It's this weird thing where your body just stops working. And it's wor... It sucks because you're helpless, but you're conscious. So you're forced to watch the dude kick your ass while you're helpless.

You can't do anything to stop it. Especially in MMA. In boxing, at least, you go down and they count tens. Like Oscar De La Hoya versus Bernard Hopkins. I mean, it's the only time we've ever seen De La Hoya get stopped like that. But Bernard just fucking hooked him right in that liver, and you see his whole body just... It's the weirdest thing, man. And sometimes you can play it off, like, you know,

you get hit, and you can kind of move with it, and, like, a guy doesn't know. But then there's times where you get hit, like, it doesn't... Crow Cop versus Heath Haring. You ever see that? Yes. There's a fucking photograph online. See if you can find this photo of Crow Cop's shin buried halfway into Heath Haring's body.

And this is when Crow Cop was fucking Crow Cop. Yeah. When he was on his run towards the title and he hit Heath Haring with this. At my house, I couldn't breathe. I was watching it at home and I was like look at that fucking kick oh my god that's like taking your lungs

kidneys and intestines and just I mean smushing them all together for a brief second I mean that is disgusting and look his foot is pulled back so you know it's all shin bone and you know how god damn hard Mirko kicks that is the most horrific looking body shot i've ever seen anybody take in a photograph dude i mean you

don't you see that in like car wrecks yeah that's exactly what it looks like it looks like you get he looks like he was on a motorcycle and he crashed into a telephone pole that was on the back of a pickup truck you know just, just boom, his whole body just... That puts any picture... I've got a couple pictures where I'm taking shots, and that puts everything I have to shame. I feel like a chump just looking at it. That is the liver kick.

That is the liver kick. That's all... I mean, that's... Horrific. Your heart, it's everything. It's everything. Anything internal, it's over. Ribs are probably broken. Probably broke some ribs.

I'd like to talk to Heath about that. Yeah. Jesus fucking Christ. And we saw that with Machida versus Dalloway. I mean, you know, Dalloway has done such a fantastic job of finally, you know, reaching his potential and showcasing what he does. And it's so hard for fighters because you want to at least go out there and showcase your skills. And similar to Pettis, but a different style. You know, Taekwondo, now you're looking at karate, and a guy who, no telegraph, sends

it right underneath the elbow of your guard, pinpoint accuracy, and the fight is over. I call that fight, it sounded like someone took a two-by-four and just smacked it off this table, and it echoed throughout the stadium. Yeah, I watched that, and as soon as I saw it, I had a little look in his face like, oh, this is probably over. Done. Yeah, he's got that, and he hit him with his shin and his instep at the same time. I mean, instep kicks, like a lot of people think that the foot area is not as effective,

and it's not as hard, but goddamn, it's hard enough to knock you out. I mean, it's still a goddamn bone. You can kick somebody pretty hard. The Thai style, you could deliver a bit more power, but it does take a little more time to get there. And, you know, some of it's dependent on the athlete, too. You know, where I kicked harder more from a Thai-style stance, but I don't have the flexibility of a guy like an Anthony Pettis. Right. And, you know, what are their muscle levers like, too, in their hips?

And what's their fast-switch muscle fibers like? You can pick different styles, but sometimes you get the athletes who did train the perfect styles for their body style, their genetics. And that's where you get the Anthony Pettises and the Leota Machidas who have the perfect genetic structure for that as well. Well, there's also this speed that you develop when you do it your whole life that you almost can't replicate it by starting in your 20s or your 30s and learning martial arts.

Absolutely. Coming from a wrestling background and then learning how to kick, you're probably never going to be able to kick like Machida or like Pettis. They have this ridiculous speed. It's just this weird thing that they can do with their body because their body developed doing that. I mean, they went through maturity doing that. Their muscles literally grew onto their bones throwing kicks.

Yeah, I mean, lifelong martial arts. When I was still fighting in the UFC, you still had a handful of guys that were like me. I mean, I didn't even start thinking about doing this until 26. Never had a first real lesson until I was 27. That's so crazy. And so, I mean, now you got these guys like

Rory McDonald. They grew up doing it. GSP was one of the first. He was a lifelong martial artist. And that's where, you know, Michael Bisping was a lifelong martial artist. And now you're getting guys that are even higher-level athletes, not necessarily a GSP, but higher-level athletes that are lifelong martial artists coming into this sport. And I consider wrestlers lifelong martial artists as well. When you're doing that shit since you're five years old, you are, I mean, to me, wrestling's a martial art.

It's one of the best in the world. Yeah, I think the most important. If you're're a really good wrestler you dictate where the fight takes place Absolutely, but the some wrestlers never develop that strike It's almost like their body's not designed to strike like a good example with all due respect is Matt Linlin It was one of the fucking toughest guys ever fight in MMA was a fantastic grappler. I think he won silver You want silver silver? Yeah fucking great wrestler fucking toughest guys to ever fight in MMA. He was a fantastic grappler. I think he won silver. He won silver in the Olympics. Silver, yeah. Fucking great wrestler.

I mean, the guy got a hold of you, manhandled people. But his striking was always fairly awkward on his feet. Never developed like, I mean, you're never going to mistake him for Anderson Silva on his feet. And it probably never wasn't available to him. And you wonder, I mean, how much scar tissue they build up in their hips and their shoulders from years and years of wrestling, which I know for me, coming from football and the Marine Corps, you know, even now, I mean, you're supposed to be able to touch one hand behind your head, the other hand behind your back. You should be able to meet your fingers in between your shoulder blades.

I mean, I've got like two feet. Yeah, I've got like two feet on work. Give it a shot. Let's see what you can do. One hand behind the head. I have a very sore right shoulder, so I can't do it one way. I can do it like this. Can you?

Yeah. All right. Well, I mean, a lot of those guys probably can't. I'm almost embarrassed to show mine. Wow, that's crazy, dude. That's all I got. But you have a lot of muscle, too. Isn't that getting in the way of it? I've separated both shoulders, the AC joints a couple times each.

And, you know, humping with big packs all the time in the military and shit builds up scar tissue all the time. Oh, for sure. And then grappling is the worst on shoulders and knees and necks and backs. And just after a while, it's everybody's playing demolition derby. After a while, you know, frames getition derby after a while you know frames get bent fucking you know things blow out that's it yeah and you see that's where you got to get the crafty old veterans who come out there and pull off some sick moves and have their experience to win fights and or they ride off into the sunset well again with no gara the word is that no gara

needs like an hour to get ready just to train like Like he has a guy who travels with him, and the guy does massage and stretches him and does all this shit and literally can't train unless he does this hour-long regimen before he gets in there. Wow. Yeah, I mean, there's just so much your body can take. And so many guys have fucking fused joints or fused discs, rather. Some guys are getting artificial discs put in.

Apparently, they're getting way better at that. I know Braulio Estimo is a world-class jiu-jitsu black belt. He has an artificial disc in his neck that somehow or another it rotates and moves well. It's like it's something they do in Europe, and I guess they're starting to do it here in America. You know who had one? He had an artificial disc put in his neck. What the fuck is his name? Freddie Prinze Jr., the actor.

Yeah. He's just doing jiu-jitsu. And, I mean, he's really doing jiu-jitsu. Like, you know, he's doing a lot of rolling, and apparently he just had neck surgery, and he's showing all these photos of the scar and the neck surgery, and, you know, these photos of the scar and the neck surgery. And he trains down with Henner and Heron and those guys down in Torrance.

Yeah. And I asked him about it. I asked Henner about it. He said, yeah, he trains hard. He's a legit blue belt. No kidding. Yeah, and his neck goes fucksville. Yeah.

I mean, it happens. It happens in this sport for sure. And, you know, it's interesting because as we talk about this, and we've talked a lot about the damage, guys, because we've gone through all the various techniques. After you had a discussion with Brennan Schaub, a lot of people came out and they started saying, hey, should we feel bad for talking about this sport? And I've heard that conversation again. At what point should we feel guilty for watching guys we know are aging fighters?

You could do the same thing with football. You could certainly do the same thing in the military where there's a lot of traumatic brain injuries taking place in the military as well. One thing that I think people forget and that I think people need to understand, it's not to excuse anything or take away from the conversation. It's a little bit of a mitigation. The men and women who do sports like this, if you take it away from them, they're going to find it elsewhere. I mean, it's, it's a need, you know, for a guy like me, had I not found mixed martial arts, I was going to find something. There's, there's like this drive inside us to do something extreme that makes people raise their

eyebrows and say, are you sure you want it? You really are going to do that? They have that desire, and it's just a personality trait. I mean, if mixed martial arts didn't exist, I mean, look at Cowboy Cerrone, the things he does to fill that hole in his life. And you're going to get a lot of guys. That's why guys don't want to retire. It's just part of who they are. We all know the risks.

We all know everything we're up against. We still sign the risks. We all know everything we're up against. We still signed the contract. And so it's important to remind them that if, you know, for people that are anti this and anti that, you know, we're going to do something like that anyways. We're going to find something else to do. And at some point we've got to be accountable for our own actions. Well, there's a wide variety of human beings. There's always going to be sedentary people that sit on their couch. There's going to be people who want to fucking rock climb with no ropes

It's just like you ever see that Alex Honnold guy The free climber guys Jesus Christ we had him on the podcast He's the most mellow laid-back super sweet guy great to talk to but this fucking guy He not only does he climb these insane peaks that people get scared to climb with ropes, he does it with no ropes, he also takes paths that no one has ever done before. He takes these fucking crazy paths that have never been accomplished by anyone, and he does it with no fucking rope. He goes not just straight up, he goes at an angle the wrong way.

Like, he goes at an angle the wrong way like he goes at an angle like 15 degrees Towards him and he climbs look at that. I mean, that's that's him with ropes You could see a rope there, but there's there's video of him climbing this one area look at that right there That's no fucking rope. He's got no rope there He's got no bro. That is credible incredible he is like what a thousand two thousand feet over the fucking ground holy christ and the crazy i mean there's there's there's nobody around him that i see pushing him well you know in terms of hey like i have to do this like you'll see other people that'll do extreme amazing things but there's there's people around them to make

them feel more comfortable while doing it, you're on your own. Yeah. You know, that's incredible. No, he lives in his fucking van. He has a van. He sleeps in his van. He's got little boxes for his, like, underwear and toothpaste and shit. And he just sleeps in his van and climbs all the time.

Has he found a way to monetize them? Does he make any money for climbing and stuff at least? I don't know. I mean, I would like to help the guy. But, you know, there's the people that are in that industry, quote unquote, the free climbing world, they're terrified of him because they're like, well, this guy, it's just, I mean, there was an interview that I watched on one of those major shows where I found out about him where they said, look, it's not a matter of if he's going to fall. It's a matter of when is he going to fall. You know, he disagrees. He says, I know what I'm doing.

Every time I do this, I plot my strategy. I figure out what path I'm going to take. He does it with ropes first. He maps it all out. And as he's mapping it out, he's climbing up and he's seeing, okay, what can I do here? But he even told me on the podcast one time he was doing one of these fucking climbs and he started the climb got like you know x amount of feet up and realized he forgot his powder so you know they put that powder to keep their fingers from slipping i don't even lift weights without

fucking powder you know i don't even do kettlebells without this shit. This guy's climbing 5,000 or so, I don't know how many fucking feet he is right here. Like, look at that. That's incredible. He's insane. But he did it without fucking powder, got halfway up, ran into some other climbers who couldn't believe he didn't have any ropes. They're like, you're just climbing. They gave him a powder bag, and then he finished the rest of the climb and then left the powder

bag at the top for them. I'd love to put, like, a heart monitor on him. You know, something that would, like, show, you know, what's his heart rate at when he does this? And it's probably something, like, disgustingly low. Yeah, well, he says it's really mellow. He says if your heart gets... If there's a moment where your heart's racing,

you're probably fucked. Like, you probably made a really, really, really terrible mistake. But your point is that there's guys that are like that. I mean, what is more dangerous? Is fighting more dangerous than that? Well, it depends. Right now, fighting is more dangerous until he falls. Then that's way more dangerous.

Oh, yeah. Far more. But there's going to be, there's people that have, the reason why we have human beings in 2015 is because there's a genetic predisposition that some folks have to taking risks, exploring new lands, getting in boats, going across the ocean, fighting in battles, conquering new new environments i mean it's just a part of being a human there's a drive that some people have and it sort of speaks to this idea that everyone has a role in this crazy dance that is life and without each one of us it would never work and that all of us somehow or another are integrated as this one gigantic super organism and we're moving humanity towards some ultimate goal but without these risk takers without warriors without people that are willing to climb fucking rocks and all that it's it's a part of who we are absolutely and you can't you know i've heard people say like a mixed martial arts should be illegal i'm like whoa whoa stop

stop you can't nerf the fucking world. You're going to die no matter what. Yeah. If you don't get head kicked, you're still going to die. Absolutely. And, you know, there's a lot of mitigating factors. But at the end of the day, you know, every fighter chooses to do this. It's on them to do it. And, you know, gosh, football is way worse.

You know, I called one season of college football. There were two games where I saw guys, you know, tibias break in half in one game. The amount of head shots you take if you're a defense or offensive lineman in those games. When I played football, which I graduated from the Naval Academy in 03, we didn't have anybody checking if we had any concussions. Since then, they've banned having a wedge on kickoff return.

I was the wedge breaker on kickoff team. So I would take a couple of ephedra, and I would sprint all the way downfield, and I'd run right into four dudes standing right next to each other from Notre Dame. I don't stand a chance against these guys. I just got to be a sacrificial lamb to bust this thing up, right? You know, I have no idea if I got a concussion doing that. I know it didn't feel good. How does ephedra help?

Who knows? It gets your heart beating real fast. We thought it's just placebo. Oh, ephedra is like a stimulant? Yeah. Remember, it's like a ton of caffeine. Right. They banned it shortly after.

We couldn't even use it anymore. I think my senior year it was banned. It was taking out all supplements. I took a jiu-jitsu class once after I took a couple of rip fuels I almost had a fucking heart attack remember that I remember ripped fuel that shit used to be legal I used to be able to go to GNC and buy crank you get it like Sam's Club. It's fucking crank I mean it was your heart would be And you feel like you could fucking run through a wall. It was so retarded that that stuff was completely legal.

It's a very, very bizarre thing that, I mean, if you look at the 2003, what you're talking about when you were playing football, you look at that and you look at the reality of today. What are you showing us here, Jamie? Oh. Did you see the kicker? No, I didn't see it. You didn't tell me you were going to show me anything.

He just got destroyed. Oh, my God. He just flew through the air. That'll ruin your day. Oh, dude. Look at him. Look at him. Yeah.

And then he collapses and everybody cheers. Well, and back then, I mean, there was no protocols. Like, when I played, I played six years of Pop Warner football. And one of the drills we'd do for our tackling drills, two times a week, we'd line up the whole team in one line. The first guy to get the ball, you gotta run through each guy individually. One-on-one. Just run, hit. Run, hit. Run, hit. Pop Warner's little

kids. We got a bunch of dads or just guys from the neighborhood that volunteer. I mean, they don't know anything about football. They don't know anything. Isn't it incredible that human beings have been around for thousands and thousands and thousands of years and it was 2003? That's only 12 fucking years ago. Nobody knew that you were getting concussions all the time and this could be bad.

Oh, yeah. That doesn't seem to make any sense, does it? It doesn't. But, you know, it's funny. I mean, it opens up a whole other door. We are still so primal. For as advanced as we are technologically, when you look at what's taking place in the world right now and how easy it still is for people to take lives. I've seen

studies on chimpanzees where they have murder with chimps and things like that. And so some scientists will argue that it's kind of predetermined in our genetics and in our DNA that we're aggressive, we're going to do things like this. But, I mean, there's still a lot of primal qualities that we have in humanity. I mean, you look at what took place in France today. What happened? So in France, three guys who are expected to be Muslim because they were chanting Muslim chants and they went in, they did an attack on a French magazine that does frequent cartoons,

you know, basically making fun of the Muslim religion. And so these guys attacked it, separated everybody and executed, I believe, nine people. And then on the way out killed two more police officers. And these three men, you know, they think they haven't released a lot of information on them, but they went in there like they were trained military. It didn't look like your average, you know, typical terrorist who got recruited online, found a gun, and went and shoot somebody. It wasn't the two brothers who made a pot bomb up in Boston. These dudes knew what they were doing.

You know, and it's huge news. To couple with that, you know, it's getting less news. I think there was a suicide bomb in Yemen that killed 30 people. This is incredible. The parachuting suspects are still at large two of them are still at large and this was all over making fun of a fucking religion that's incredible yeah they in fact one of them i think they showed one of the one of the cartoons and the main cartoonist they they obviously knew her by name they knew people by name separated they made sure she was killed. But she even did one on Muhammad. Oh, God.

And so. What a crazy religion where you can't even draw their guy. I mean, you could have, I mean, Sam Kinison, who used to be a preacher, had Jesus Christ jokes about him getting nailed to the cross. I mean, he had jokes about Jesus Christ about his wife you know saying he's a loser and you're hanging out the the twelve apostles they're losers your friends losers yeah you know he mocked openly mocked this religion that you know he used to be a part of no repercussions you draw Muhammad just draw

him and you're fucking you know you're suspect or you're subject to this kind of shit it's incredible it's uh you know it never in my life and and obviously i haven't been everywhere so i'm pretty well traveled i've just i've never been anywhere like my time in the middle east where where i've seen not everybody but certain people value human life so little, so little. And it's a really hard thing to comprehend when you're there. And you try with a language barrier to understand it more. And the only thing I was able to conclude was that, you know, this certain population has been so accustomed to violence for so many centuries that their endurance for it is so much greater than Western civilization.

And that is part of the problem with us getting involved in conflicts over there, where, look, you know, they're going to replenish their forces. Every time someone turns 16, they're going to join the ranks or whatever age it may be. Whereas, you know, here, we're not able to do that. You know, in order to be, you know, Sun Tzu had a great point in order to be successful in a military campaign you need three things you need the people you need the government and you need the military without all three synchronized you will not be successful if you lose one of them it's out

and you could see Vietnam you could see Iraq when the people get disgusted then it becomes a problem and it's going to pull back the government and then the military is going to pull back and really you're going to see us get outlasted. Now I'm not making the argument that we belonged and, you know, that's a whole other bag of worms. We can get there, but, you know, over there, they know we're setting dates for when we're going to withdraw. I mean,

they're just so much more used to violence that, that not, and I shouldn't generalize everybody, but, but the, the, the units units you know I Al Qaeda Taliban they're so used to violence that they can stomach it and and they're just it's just the way they've always lived well it's like you were saying about guys like Habib Nurmagomedov growing up in Dagestan and growing up in these really harsh environments it they they become tougher people we're so used to a certain easy way of life that these folks have this much more intense much more dangerous environment that they live in and that is normal to them and when people

grow up in certain environments that becomes how they live and we're adaptable as hell oh yeah i mean you look at one of them one of the most disturbing, when I try to explain, because people will forget, or they'll take for granted, I should say, how evil or what kind of evil does exist in the world. And people will talk about ISIS and, you know, Ben Affleck made a comment, they couldn't even fill a baseball stadium, you know, a double A ball stadium or something like that. They're not a threat. double a ball stadium or something like that they're not a threat people will take for granted you know the type of evil that does exist in the world and it's not just obviously in the muslim culture i just you know as an example it exists it exists plenty in africa as well in certain areas but one video i'll tell people you know check out and it's not for everybody but if you look at a video of the dagestani massacre which which happened in dagestan, where Chechen rebels massacred Russian soldiers. And they basically, one by one, while they're alive, behead them, where it takes a long...

And I mean, the video is disgusting. I don't recommend anybody here who's listening this go watch it. This is when I get into intense debate with people that I know are mature enough to handle it and are trying to understand certain things. I'll recommend, if you want to understand this a little bit, take a look at this. I mean, it's hard to watch, to understand that that exists and to imagine that a human being is capable not only of doing it once, but repeatedly and talking casually like we are right now while they're doing it, while someone squirms on the ground being decapitated.

That takes something inside that is sickening, that is frightening. And it exists throughout human history. It does. It's a quality that human beings can tap into, and almost in a way that animals can't. It's almost in the mind has, the human mind has this ability to compartmentalize and to rationalize and to be capable of things that even animals aren't capable of doing. Animals kill to eat or occasionally the intelligent animals like

chimpanzees, you know, they'll kill to protect environments or property. Overthrow, overthrow the alpha. Yeah. But what these, these are, this is a different thing. I mean, this is, this is ritualized killing. This is, This is killing on a level that the justification of that is it's hard to comprehend for the average person that lives in a nice community and goes to the supermarket and likes to go to a restaurant and order a glass of wine, clink glasses. And this is like, well, I support war. Do you know what war is? Yeah. No idea. No idea. I mean, and it's not just, you know, I certainly don't want people at you know what war is? Yeah. No idea. No idea.

I mean, and it's not just, you know, I certainly don't want people at home to think we're generalized in the Middle East. I mean, you can go to Rwanda and look at what took place in Rwanda. Look what takes place in Sudan every single day. You know, and it's sad because you talk about how we're this global race of beings that all have a place at the table to progress ourselves. Yet there's still so many things that show that we are still very primal. Well, there's areas of the world that just have not caught up yet. No.

And there's areas of the world that give us a window into the past, what it must have been like to live thousands of years ago, when you hear about all these barbaric events that happened in human history that most people just like to look at and go, oh, those were the Dark Ages. This was, you know, back in Genghis Khan's day. This was back when Alexander the Great was around. No, no, no, no, no. It's the fucking Congo in 2015.

If you were there right now in one of those areas where warlords are tearing into villages and macheting people to death, you would watch exactly what would have happened 1,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago. I mean, the only difference is these people have clothes that were made in a factory and machetes that were made in a factory and guns. Yeah. Other than that, it's human barbarism.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's very disconcerting for a lot of people because, you know, when you're a child, especially, I was a kid. I'm 47. And when I was, I don't know how old I was. I was probably like nine or something, maybe 10 when the Vietnam War ended. I don't know what, but I was living in California. And I remember it was on TV.

It was on the news where America's pulling out of the Vietnam War. And I remember thinking as a little kid, well, this is great. Glad we figured out that war is bad and we're never going to do this again because everybody really hates war. We're moving on. I remember having this idea in my mind as a child that we are evolving past war. And this is good that I grew up in a day. Because I talked to uh my stepdad you know he he was worried about getting drafted and never did and there's a people in my

neighborhood that uh had been to vietnam and i talked to them about it and everybody was almost unanimous that we shouldn't have been there and that war is bad and then i was a kid i was maybe 21 when we went into the first Gulf War. And I remember watching it on TV with my roommate, and me and my friend Jimmy, my roommate, we were like, holy fucking shit, we're doing it again. Couldn't believe it, but it was that long stretch that America had not been in a real quote-unquote war. We had gone through some military actions, a lot of covert shit, a lot of things that weren't in the news on a daily basis.

And so people weren't really aware of how the world works and how much bloodshed is required in order to keep peace in certain areas. And then all of a sudden, it's on again. Yeah. I remember thinking, I don't bring this up often. Could you imagine what would happen if our Navy was so downsized that they no longer patrolled the waters? What would oil prices be like, shipping? Because piracy is still a problem. And we end up doing most or we do a lot of policing, you know, out there in the seas with constant deployments of our Navy. And it's crazy, but the world, you know, and, you know, it's interesting.

I got in a discussion with a Harvard law grad today about it. You know, what came first, the chicken or the egg? You know, had we not gone in the Middle East and interfered, would that have prevented a lot of the terrorist attacks that we've taken place? You know, and she threw that out there. And I said, well, you know, this attack happened in France. How much involvement has France had in Iraq and Afghanistan? Yeah.

You know, and so it's hard to ever comprehend at this point. But there is a lot of violence in the world. And there's a hatred that we can't comprehend. Like the way that Al Qaeda in Iraq, when I was there, hated us. We in America could never comprehend that kind of hatred. We don't even know what it's like. I didn't know what it was like. I couldn't imagine. I mean, to the point where you are willing to not only try to kill me, but you'll kill innocent children just to get at me and have no issues doing it. You'll repeatedly try to do that. That, what that

does to the mind, you know, and people will look at post-traumatic stress and the mind's not meant to handle all of that, especially when it's a young kid, you know, who's 18, 19 years old, who most likely came from, you know, a pretty poor background. That's the reason they decided to enlist in the military during a time of two wars. So it's, it's, it's an unbelievable debate and discussion that's going to take place for years. And we'll never, you know, we'll never fully know because of course there's, there's so much politics at play with it as well, that clouds the, the overall analysis of what truly takes place. And, and, you know, that goes into a whole other discussion on, on how, you know, certain policies are made, you know, that goes into a whole other discussion on how, you know, certain

policies are made, you know, based on political timelines, vice when they're actually needed. Well, that's also one of the true horrors about drones that is constantly up for debate, because drones are so nonspecific. There's so many people that have been killed by drones that were absolutely innocent, a lot of them children, a drones that were absolutely innocent a lot of them children a lot of them women a lot of them completely you know civilians and that a lot of people on the other side would say well what you're talking about these horrific things they're done by the United States but they're done in this weird way with a robot that flies in the sky and shoots missiles it's it's sterilized in the sense that it's not like these Russians killing Chechnyan rebels

or Chechnyan rebels killing Russians with a knife. It's sterilized in the sense that no one has to get blood on their hands. They're using a remote control. They're watching a monitor. They're pressing a button. But the same result is taking place. Certainly. And I mean, the end result is human life has been terminated.

Did you, when you enlisted and you went over, was this a part of, like, sort of the same drive that led you to be a fighter? You know, I think so. You know, for me, I was in high school at the time, and I was getting recruited by a bunch of different schools to play football. And I kind of already had a sense that I really would like to attend a military academy but then I also started getting heavily recruited by a lot of Ivy League schools and my education mattered I looked at some of the graduation rates of some of the other you know division 1a schools recruit me in West Virginia in Maryland and the graduation rates were low and I I knew look I'm not going to go play professional football I need need to go somewhere where I'm going to get an education.

And the Naval Academy was free. You don't get a scholarship to an Ivy League school. So my mom, who was a home health nurse, isn't going to be able to afford to send me to Yale, even with the financial aid. So I went to the Naval Academy. And also, I've always been a pretty intense guy who took things more seriously maybe than they needed to be taken. And so I thought, look, this is a place I'm going to go and I'm going to get along with the people better. But when I was there initially, it was time of peace.

You graduated, you either went in the Navy or the Marine Corps and you would deploy. You'd go on a boat, you'd float around a bunch of cities for six to seven months, have a good time, then come home, then maybe do one more, then move to a different duty station. It wasn't the same. When I was a junior is when 9-11 happened and shit changed forever. It was never the same. And then the second Iraq war actually started when I was a senior. So I had friends that were in the initial wave into the second Iraq war that I played football with before I'd even graduated. So you didn't necessarily sign up to go to war.

You signed up because you felt like those were people that you would relate to more. Yeah. But I mean, at the same time, I bought into the whole package. You know, I wanted to serve my country. I knew, look, you know, inside, I felt like I was a warrior at the time. And this is where I belong. And this is where, you know, my leadership skills can be honed and I can develop and this is where I should be.

When the war started, you know, I could have easily chosen to go, you know, I could have gone surface warfare and been on a boat and been pretty much away from the fight. You know, I chose to go Marine Corps, chose to go infantry, you know, and chose to be there where I already had friends that were there. You know, there was no way I wasn't going to be a guy who served at that time. What was it that drew you into doing infantry? What was it like when you decided, when you made that commitment, like what was on your mind? You know, I couldn't see any other choice. You know, I would feel guilty had I not, you know, before I had ever even gone to infantry officer school, Ronnie Winchester, who played offensive tackle first when I was a

sophomore, he was killed. And then while I was in infantry officer course, a guy I graduated, JP Blacksmith, he was killed in Fallujah. So, I mean, there was a time period there for several years where when guys called that we hadn't heard from in a while, we almost didn't want to pick up the phone. You know, it was, it was really, it was a really difficult time. Um, but, but that's, that's war. I mean, it's, it's ugly. It's, it sucks. There's, there's nothing fun about it. And, and, you know, a pet peeve of mine is a lot of other cultures and even sometimes, you know, in our own, they make these assumptions about the men and women that go to war. You know, I actually got asked in line to a weigh-in when I

was in Japan. I'm not even going to name the fighter because I don't want to insult anybody. He looks at me and says, while we're waiting, we're about to go weigh him. He's like, Brian, you know, how do you justify going to Iraq and just killing generations of people? And I was like, well, I think you're a little misinformed and I'm certainly willing to have that discussion with you. Um, but I don't think now's the appropriate time. He's like, well, I'm fucking nosy. So that's exact quote. I'm nosy. So, you know, let's, I'm asking about it. And so, you know, I mean, it's the, the, the happiest moments of, you know, especially my second tour.

There were two schools in our area of operations that never had school because if the teachers taught, they'd be killed. Al Qaeda would kill them immediately if they taught those students. And this area had never been patrolled before. So we started patrolling. We started securing it. Five months into our deployment, we had the area so secure that these kids were able to go to school again. And that was a really proud day. I mean, it wasn't, it's not what a lot of people think where, you know, we go over there and all we want to do is kill, kill, kill. I mean,

90%, I mean, you don't even see the enemy in these kinds of wars. It's snipers, it's IEDs, it's unseen enemies. You're walking the streets trying to help these people getting blown up and shot at, you know, where you can't even tell where it's coming from in most of these scenarios. And really what we found, because the doctrine for this kind of war was never written, the military had to adapt to it. And we had to create this new counterinsurgency warfare. The key was the people. Whoever owned the trust of the people won the conflict because the people, if they trusted you, would then give you the intel necessary to find out where Al-Qaeda is coming in from and who they're influencing, who they're

using there, who their informants are, how to catch them, what time you can catch them. And that was the main factor. By month six over there, we were literally getting names and full descriptions of who was coming in and we had snatched up 30 guys in a month. You know, we were literally getting names and full descriptions of who was coming in, and we had snatched up 30 guys in a month. It was because the people at that point trusted us and believed, hey, you know what? These guys are helping us. They're injecting money into our economy, helping us reopen the shops. They're securing the school so the kids can go to school.

They're helping to clean up the garbage. They're really here to help, and that's what made the biggest difference. It was more shaking hands than it ever was pulling triggers. Yet I can't tell you how many comments, you know, the biggest hatred I'll receive both social media and even just in the fight world in general from mostly foreign culture, sometimes even ours in America, is I'll get called a murderer. And look, I don't take it personally because I know the truth. Obviously, I'm secure in that. But there's a lot of misinformation out there that's um that's the the main representation um of of people that go to war is that you're over there you're invading

this country you never hear that you're you're getting the support of the people and that that's how you win those fights that's how you win those battles. You always hear like, we're invading in this country, they don't want us there. You're dealing with a Muslim country, but even in these Islamic countries, these people that practice the Islamic religion are still against these radical fundamentalist people that are throwing acid in the face of the children that are trying to go to school and trying to keep women from driving cars and all the crazy shit that we keep hearing about. So how much conflict is there, like inter-religion conflict? I mean, it seems like it must be very difficult for these people in this Islamic country to take trust in these soldiers that come over from America.

Oh, absolutely. Especially when you first get there and you go to an area that's never been patrolled before. You know, in any screw-up that takes place, you know, if something happens and there is collateral damage, if you do get into a firefight, the enemy only attacks you when you're surrounded by civilians. And so if something bad does happen it will set you back weeks months could even be years in the conflict and so and that goes against maybe the 350 positive things that that took place at that time but there were a lot of people at least you know i could speak from my perspective in the two area of operations i operate and there

are a lot of people that wanted us to be there. There were a lot of people that had smartphones and a lot of people that saw how people live in other civilizations and were fed up with having corrupt governments, you know, that, that were, that were basically taking from them at all times and using them as pawns. And they wanted to live that kind of life. And they get angry when these extremist groups set back their religion and even just their culture you know when you see something like what happened in Paris you know we talked about that that's gonna bring back everybody saying hey you know the entire Islam religion is completely evil you know you're gonna get Bill Maher out there saying it again and again again

there are people in the Muslim religion that don't believe like that they don't believe in that. And they're not extremists. But it's this horrible conflict that we're dealing with right now. And like so many others, we're not capable of having good open discussion. You get someone who believes in this ideology all the way at the far end of the table. Then you get the other person who believes this here. And for some reason, both of them think they're 100% right, which is absolute insanity.

I mean, what argument have you ever been in where you're 100% right? Yeah, well, especially when it comes to something like religion and Islamic religion in general. It's such an old religion, and it's got so many – you look at – So many interpretations. Yeah, yeah. So many interpretations. Yeah, you look at the Quran and you look at all the various things that people fight for and people that believe our doctrine, like the way women are supposed to be treated, the way gays are supposed to be treated. Those things, I mean, you're talking about some shit that's been around for thousands of years. And it's so hard to move past that

stuff it's so hard when when that's ingrained in a culture and people are fighting for it and willing to die for it that's it's it's so difficult to re restructure that oh absolutely absolutely and yet we still you know we continue to try it's it's interesting when you look at history like of afghanistan so but we only try when there's resources there. Oh, certainly. That's what's really fucked up. I mean, we really only get concerned about people's well-being when we can make some money out of the situation. There's got to be, yeah, exactly.

There's got to be some kind of political agenda involved, which is, you know, it's one of the more frustrating things you see in American politics where I just rip my hair off. Yeah, if we found a fucking Gigantic plot of oil under North Korea things we get very juicy very quickly If we found out like tomorrow that this fucking hundred trillion dollars of the oil in North Korea There's a very particularly unusually rich mine of oil and be like oh shit. We did cut off their fucking internet We'd cut off their electricity I mean shit would get crazy really quickly

if they found out that all the world's, you know, resource supplies, you know, as far as, like, natural gas, oil, whatever the fuck we need was in North Korea. The whole world could live fine. We'd be there. Well, you know, and one of the other things, though, too, is that we get the double-edged sword where if we don't go, we're criticized.

When we go, we're criticized. I mean, we're, you know, it's, you know, there, there's always a lot more details and we're not privy to all the Intel reports. You know, when people like when the, the Syrian rebellion started and people asked, you know, Hey, should we go into Syria? Should we supply them with weapons? What should we do? You know, we're basing our assumptions off what the media tells us, which there's so much bullshit wrapped up in that as well. We're not privy to all the intel that people in the Pentagon are getting. So it's really hard for us to speculate on what we should do. But in the end, we ended up arming a whole lot of people, and at least a decent-sized portion of those people ended up being ISIS.

Isn't that crazy? It's crazy at the level of, you know which crazy it's it's it's it's crazy at the level of you know where's the accountability in that well it's almost like you know what you're saying is like that the the average person is not privy to the information that the pentagon is getting but the pentagon is not they're not there like don't you really have to be there to get like hands-on information And who the fuck can do that other than the people that are directly interacting with them? And they're not dictating policy. What are they doing?

They're— Just feeding information. Feeding information. They're following orders. They're fighting battles. And, you know, ultimately you've got two people that are against each other. They don't speak the same fucking language. You're in a country that, you know,

ideally we shouldn't be in the first place. And, you know, people are trying to kill everybody. The whole thing is fucking crazy. And to be able to try to make sense out of that, the only thing that gives me any hope whatsoever is the idea that over time, logic and reason and education will work out. And as long as we're on the right side of all that,

that with all the blunders and the mistakes and all the friendly fire and all the civilian casualties that are unfortunate, that over time, logic and reason will settle all these issues. But you see shit like that happening today in France. It doesn't seem like that's the case. It seems like we're going to go birth to grave and live in this fucking crazy world of bombs and bullets. And, and then we're going to, we're going to end and our generation, the next generation is going to

have to fucking pick up and carry the ball. Yeah. And it's going to fuel the argument of, Hey, look, you know, and, and, and of course me having gone to Iraq, I would, you know, I would love to believe that whether we should have been there or not, at least going kept the violence there on us who signed up for it, vice, you know, here on our land, et cetera. You know, you like to hope that's true because you've had so many friends that you've lost doing it. Right. what happened in Paris, that's going to fuel the argument of, well, you know, we have to be in these countries to control these things because they hate us so much that they're willing to go to extremes that we're not. You know, ISIS, Taliban, Al Qaeda, they're never going to stop hating Western civilization. They're never going to stop attacking us. You know, Palestine and

Israel are never going to stop going back and forth, which is one of the reasons they hate us anyways, because of our support of Israel as well. It is such a complex scenario that, I mean, you could discuss it with scholars for hours and hours, and you wonder when we're going to find a better way to solve these problems. Yeah, if ever. And, you know, every time something looks cool, like Muammar Gaddafi getting killed, I mean, watch that crazy footage of those guys sticking knives up his ass, you know, and killing him. And you're like, well, they Gaddafi getting killed. I mean, you watch that crazy footage of those guys sticking knives up his ass. Oh, Libya, yeah. You know, killing him, and you're like,

well, they got rid of that asshole. Libya's way more fucked up now. Who's running it? Yeah, exactly. We spent, you know, that's one of my, I mean, we spend a lot of money, a lot of money on some, you know, on some really stupid stuff, too.

I don't know if you had a chance to take a look at what Rand Paul was posting. He was airing some grievances, and he was talking about millions we expend to monitor monkeys throwing feces. I mean, weird things that we actually legitimately did spend money on, which is just out of this world. But we spent a lot of money on what we did in Libya. We have no—does this administration, do they have any idea who's in control of that? We did something similar in Egypt, too. I mean, it's just the accountability and the dollar spent, you know, it's very frustrating.

Yeah, and incredibly frustrating. And it's also, it's hard for people that are in America who live this life of privilege, this easy first world civilization that we have it's hard for us to even understand that there's these things going on in these other countries we see it on television we read about it in the news but to actually witness it it's it's so difficult for us to to even comprehend war you you've been there you you you've taken part in it You've been there. You've taken part in it. You've been there. You've been boots on the ground.

You've experienced it. You've lost friends. Your perspective, it must be so difficult to communicate with someone who has this idealistic point of view where they're completely insulated from the reality of what a war actually is. It's very hard. It's very hard. And at the same time, you have to fight against your own bias. Because when you do go to war, of course you want to believe that you were there for all the right reasons.

You know, you don't want to believe any of the conspiracy theories, etc. And it's hard to do. It's hard to read all the, you know, hey, now we're seeing lessons learned. You know, was the Iraq war a complete waste? And, you know, when you saw as we've withdrawn and what's taken place in Iraq to people like me and all my friends and, you know, my generation of military that have gone over there, I mean, that's heartbreaking to see it begin to collapse and violence spike to the levels that have started since ISIS has been born. And again, the argument, well, if we never went over in the first place and ISIS would never been born, but had we never left prematurely, they probably wouldn't have been born either. There's so many ways you can go with it. And everybody wants to be right. You know, I don't think anybody truly has all the information to say exactly what

would have been the right decision, but it's all just really, really sad. And we, we elect people to make these decisions for us. And, you know, I, I can't say that I feel comfortable with all those people in there. You know, I feel like the private sector is much more accountable today than the government sector. I mean, it's easy to get fired in the private sector is much more accountable today than the government sector. I mean, it's easy to get fired in the private sector. You either deliver towards the bottom line or you don't and you go away. In the public sector, you can do all kinds of stuff and still get reelected. Yeah.

I mean, Marion Barry came back as the mayor of Washington, D.C. After he got caught smoking crack, he came back and won. That's an extreme example obviously but the the shit that goes on behind the scenes that we don't know about and then you compare it to what we do know about you got a guy like dick cheney who is the ceo of halliburton a company that's they make their money off of rebuilding shit that he blew up and then he gets into office and he's the fucking vice president and also we're blowing shit up and Halliburton is getting these huge fucking no bid contracts. There's no one competing against them and they're making billions of dollars rebuilding.

And if you talk to the people that are involved in the rebuilding, they're like, look, we're just putting fucking water treatment plants and factories in place that we don't even, they don't even need, they're not even going to use, but we have the contracts to do them so we're building this shit so we could submit it and we can get paid so we can submit an invoice yeah it's it's it's sad and look you know people love to point um at america at our corruption but you know we talked about him i mean there's corruption at every single level every single you know when you put money and power on the line does something to a human being Especially power. I mean that's my argument when all this police brutality shit's going on and everybody's like hey, you know the police need to be accountable

Yes, they've they absolutely do here's part of the problem. I don't think anybody is fucking qualified to be a cop I think when you're a cop for 20 30 years You're dodging bullets and every fucking door you open up, every domestic dispute, some chick might stab you in the neck for arresting her husband that beat the shit out of her. I mean, people are fucking crazy. You're dealing with worst case scenario almost every day. And I think we want cops to be better at their job. We don't want cops to kill people. But I really don't know how many people are qualified for that fucking job. I don't want cops to kill people, but I really don't know how many people

are qualified for that fucking job. I don't know how many people can do it. And it's not like we get the same caliber person that goes on to be a doctor that ends up being and going to be a police officer. It's a very difficult, it's, like you said, it's a very difficult job, but they're human. Yeah, they're human.

And we are, we are flawed. I mean, we are, we are all completely flawed and it's, yeah, I mean, that, that mean, that's been a frustrating thing, you know, in this country where we see this argument. And that goes back to what I talked about before. Depending on what news station you go on, you get one side completely over here. Then you get the other side completely over there. And nobody willing to really discuss this middle area. Because both sides make really good points in certain areas,

but nobody wants to discuss the way, hey, guys, there is a possibility that both of you guys are right in certain areas, and maybe if we can come to terms on this, we can actually fix the problem. I really felt that with Ferguson. With Ferguson, I felt like, god damn, everybody's digging their line in the sand, and there's people on one side that think that the the killing was unjustified and that that cop should have been tried and should go to jail and but they're unwilling to look at the fact that that guy robbed a fucking convenience store moments before he was shot

that guy definitely tried to get the gun from the cop i mean he had uh he he was shot in his fucking hand that he was trying it was a close range in this cop's car and they're like look at his face the cop was barely hit. Now you know as well as I know you could go through a fucking five-round fight and look like you were not barely hit. Meanwhile you're getting rocked. Like sometimes swelling takes you know hours to show up sometimes people don, they don't swell. Sometimes you get caught clean and there's no mark on you.

You get knocked out cold and you look fine. Like this idea that he should have a fucking hatchet wound in his forehead before he's pulling the trigger on this kid. Then you look at the other side that says, well, these are terrible people and, you know, he should have been shot because he was a bad person. Okay, what would you be like if you grew up in that environment? these are terrible people and you know he should have been shot because he was a bad person okay what would you be like if you grew up in that environment what would you be like if you were that kid in that fucking impoverished neighborhood with no hope everyone around you is doing drugs everyone around you is involved in crime that's the real fucking problem the real problem is you're wasting the potential of this young human being because he's being forced to develop in this horrible situation that

nobody seems to have any incentive to go in and try to fix. Nobody is talking about going into these neighborhoods and trying to clean them up and using massive federal resources and money to try to calm these fucking places down and try to give these people some hope. There's both sides digging their heels in the sand. And we ask these police officers to do an awfully tough job. They're not going to get credit for all the everyday right things they're going to do, but when it hits the fan and they've got to make the really tough decision,

we scrutinize the living hell out of them. Oh, for sure. And it becomes very difficult. But I couldn't agree more. You know, there's, gosh, I try to say that I hate both political parties equally, you know, just because of the lack of integrity. I tend in a lot of areas to lean more towards a conservative side. But then there's some areas where, you know, I've got completely liberal views as well. But on this one, you know, when you really look and I've had these great

conversations with kids who did grow up in neighborhoods like this, and you try and have these discussions and you look at it, you look at it. The one thing that you can look at to say, you know, at least one thing that can be the equalizer is education. You know, where I live in, I live in a suburb, North Atlanta, and in the school districts by where I live are the best in the state. Now, if I had to send my kids to a South Fulton County, which is in South Atlanta, to one of those public schools, there's no way in hell I'd send my daughters there. No way. Both public schools, both funded by taxes, but the difference is completely different. Isn't that fucked?

One is a platinum-level school, and the other one is an D minus level school. And so these kids who don't have a choice to which parents they're born or which household they're born into are forced. If they already have parents that were caught in a poverty cycle that don't have a whole lot of education and perspective. So their home life isn't great. Then they go to a school that's not so great. And then you've got the criminal justice system that can continually just recycle. And we we put them in jail. I mean, it's it's a situation where the odds are not in their favor. And if there's one, you know, if there's two things that in this country that we should have with all the money we have and that we send overseas.

I mean, one of them should definitely be platinum schools. Our school should be phenomenal. You know, you've got this 10 year thing, which makes it really hard to fire a bad teacher. You know, the whole system needs to be reformed badly because education could be that great equalizer, regardless of what ethnicity you are. And when you find out how much teachers get paid, I mean, I know UFC fighters fighters complain about pay find out how much a fucking teacher gets paid jesus christ they're making a teacher salary in one night it's but i mean obviously you can't compare the two but you you you have to look at the just the sheer ridiculousness of teacher salaries and the idea that this is these are the people that are supposed to literally teach our children the skills they need to get through life successfully.

And we're giving them no incentive. We're asking them to do it almost against their best interest financially. We're almost saying, look, I know you're smart. I know you have all this education. I know you could probably make a lot of money going and working for some company that's very profitable. But, you know, you want to be a teacher. Guess what? You're going to make 35 grand a year and, you know, you're going to, you're going to have months off. And, you know, while you're in school, you know, you're going to fucking deal with the dregs of society's children, people that, you

know, have all sorts of criminal pasts and all sorts of drug problems and violence. And these kids are going to grow up with violence, and you're going to be forced to corral them and try to wrangle them in class. I mean, I've seen videos of teachers getting assaulted in classes where there was some video where some girl jumped up out of her seat and started beating the shit out of this teacher, and the teacher started fighting back, and then other kids jumped the teacher, and it's just fucking chaos.

Imagine you're doing this for $35,000 a year or whatever the fuck they're getting paid. My older sister, she was a teacher for years. She left because of that reason. She wasn't getting paid very much. And then any time that she had a problem with a student, if the parent got involved, the administration would normally take the side of the parent and the student. And she wasn't allowed to actually teach and discipline a child who was putting up their own barriers to their education. It became very frustrating for her. Yeah, and you're dealing with a kid, get a kid that's 16 years old. 16 years of conditioning, of life, of experiences, and all the stuff that they're getting from their home.

I mean, you can only guess. You can only guess as to what what their background is like it's her it's really horrific in a lot of ways that we have the one thing that is just so important is human beings like the developing human beings i mean if you want to i've always said this if you want to have a culture with less losers like wouldn't that be like the best way to keep america strong develop less losers? Well, where do you develop less losers you fucking go with children you try to figure out? What's the best way to develop children and it's one of the least?

The areas where we put the least amount of resources in this country and when you look at I mean What is it less than 50% of people pay their taxes? Is that true? I think it's it's somewhere around they look up that stat if you can I mean, there's a big percentage of people that don't pay their taxes. And so you get a lot of people that complain, you know, guys like, I don't even want to know what you pay in taxes. I know I pay a lot in taxes. And it sucks every time you've got to write that check. You're paying a ton in taxes. But imagine what it's like if you've got a lot of people that that vice living off the government are now

providing for themselves and paying taxes and you know it's it's what you said you know having a country with less losers and it really the key is education yeah i i don't get the i know there's a lot of people that have a gigantic issue what are you looking around a lot of people have a gigantic issue with taxes and my my issue is waste and fraud my issue is bureaucracy my issue is the the amount of people that have jobs that only exist because the the government's trying to create jobs for these people because this is sort of some way to feed into the economy and this is a bunch of unnecessary fucking jobs there's a bunch of laws that shouldn't exist There's a bunch of people reinforcing those ridiculous jobs and the other reinforcing those ridiculous laws and that becomes a job It becomes an industry

I mean the war on drugs is a perfect example of that and I think that if we could figure out a way to utilize taxes in some sort of an efficient and Equitable way I'm all for paying taxes. I mean, I pay them anyway. Yeah, you're not going to not do it. I'm not going to jail. I'm not Wesley Snipes-ing it and just trying to avoid taxes.

They locked up Lauryn Hill from the fucking Fugees. She's some sort of a threat to the general peace of our culture. You know, and it's funny. 46%, is that what it says? 46% of American households won't pay federal income taxes in 2000 that was 2011 it's probably even higher now still yeah still pretty high but you know it's interesting you say that because um you know when when you look at at lockup so there's 50 new crime laws on average made a year which is about a total of 4,500 laws which is 2,700 pages of criminal laws and then over 50 percent of the the jail population are over drugs for non-violent crimes

god you know we've got in america we've got five percent of the world's population 25 percent though of the world's prisoners are in america that incredible it's um and 53 percent of the world's population 25 percent though of the world's prisoners are in america isn't that incredible it's um and 53 percent of the people that go to jail are beneath the poverty line 53 percent are below the poverty line as if you expect people that are just scratching by to follow the rules but i mean how do you fix that i mean if you look at what you know when you look at brazil for instance where the the we think that there's a gap between the haves and have-nots in America, it's enormous in Brazil. It is enormous. And it's funny because when you, human beings, we have ingenuity. I mean, it's like you talk about.

We have a drive for discovery. We will find a way. And when you have that poverty trap in certain areas, they're going will find a way. And when you have that poverty trap in certain areas, they're going to find a way. And in Brazil and some of those favelas, they found a black market, illegal way of sustaining life. And it's very difficult there. I mean, where are these favelas in the hills? I mean, those police don't have a whole lot of control over those, if any at all. Yeah. The favelas is a very fascinating situation where you've got this group of people above the people that have money. And the people that are in these places with this incredible view are the people that are really poor.

I mean, it's the opposite of how it is in California. The Hollywood Hills where all the rich folks live and down on the bottom is where the regular folks live. The people that can afford to live in the hills, they get that incredible view. The people that are down on the ground, those are the people that, man, I'd love to live up in those hills. But the favelas are the hills. It's really kind of crazy. Just wedged in, I mean, stacked boxes on top of one another

with just a horrible standard of living. But, yeah, it makes it really difficult when you look at our criminal justice system and some of those things you talked about. But one of the things that I look at, too, is where you get these career politicians that, you know, yeah, they've got experience balancing a budget, but they've got a staff that kind of looks at it. You know, my experience coming from the military, then over to the private sector and seeing the accountability there. You know, if you're a CFO of a publicly traded company, you are scrutinized to the T on every expenditure, what that's going to do to your stock price. These are men and women that are very, very capable of going into Washington, D.C. and leaning out some of the problems we have.

They're very capable of doing that. But, of course, they don't want to give up all their freedoms. They don't want to get paid $170K a year because they're making a heck of a lot more than that with this publicly traded company too. But to go be a politician and have every little bit of their life scrutinized, like, hey, this lady back in high school did this. That deters a lot of these really brilliant people in the private sector from going and running for office where they may be a lot more capable than this career long politician who got into office when they were 32 years old and has been, you know, in public office since.

Yeah. Isn't it kind of a crazy situation we find ourselves in, especially today with social media and the internet and the accountability that these people have about their private lives is the only people that we're going to get to run for office are people that no one can fucking relate to because they've never taken any chances they've never done anything fucked up they never had a fucking orgy they've never done coke they've never done anything stupid they never you know they just everything that they've done that was crazy or fun would automatically disqualify them for the job. But we can't, in our minds, rationalize the idea that people make mistakes, and through those mistakes you build character and you become a better person.

I'll tell you, I run a company, and the people that we bring into the company, and the company helps veterans get jobs and get out. One of my prerequisites is I don't want perfect people on staff. Not that we're, we don't discriminate against them by any means, but I like bringing people onto my team, specifically my leadership team, who have been down and out before. Who have had to dig themselves back up and overcome adversity because when things go bad, they don't panic. You know how they're going to respond already because they've been through things in their life before where it's been very difficult. It's one of the values that we pitch to companies on hiring more veterans is, look, you're going to hire these folks when there's a bad day at work, sales are down,

or somebody didn't show up for work. They're not going to panic about it. That's small to them. This is minor. That's a very good point. Those's, you know, those are the people that I want on my team. Same thing in political office. I mean, you get all these perfect people, then you throw them into D.C. where then they start having orgies. That's when they start going a little crazy. They've been waiting. They've been contained for so long and you get

the Anthony Wieners up there. Well, this fucking shit that's going on with Clinton, you know, this thing that this guy who had an island and essentially had these underage sex slaves. Do you know about this whole thing? No, I didn't hear about it. Clinton visited this island. Oh, fucking Christ. Google that, Jamie. Bill? Yes. I got in a ton of heat in social media because I said yesterday, you know, the John Jones thing

comes out and I don't want to get too far off subject, but I said, you know, they asked, you know, will he ever be able to overcome this? I said, look, in a country where Bill Clinton can do what he did and then become one of the highest paid public speakers and the hero of his political party, yes, John Jones can be forgiven for snorting cocaine. Yeah, he's a 27-year-old kid. Well, people went nuts, and on social media, it was all, Stan compares John Jones to Bill Clinton. Well, you did, but but it's correct it's a good comparison it's the scenario but look at this man this this is really fucking crazy this um especially if hillary is running for president right now which apparently looks like it's going to be hillary versus jeb bush

this guy jeffrey epstein uh was accused of luring underage girls to his... He had some retreat somewhere, and Clinton went there several times. So it's just fucked. Bill Clinton. I mean, he's a fucking wild man. Bill Clinton was a goddamn wild man. We know that for a fact. I don't want to divulge his name,

but I spent time with a guy who's worth $2 billion. He's one of the most successful CEOs in the country. And he told me a story where he hung out with Bill Clinton one time when he was president. And they're at some establishment. And Bill says, hey, we should buy those girls down their shots. And the guy, the gentleman I know goes, you know, Mr. President, I don't think that's a good idea. If you want to do that, let me order them and send them down. Oh, no, no, no.

I'm going to go ahead and do it. And he said that his personal security, his secret service members, used to call Bill Clinton, used to call him Elvis. That was their code name for him was Elvis. Wow. Yeah. He was a wild motherfucker.

Look, he had that sickness. Yeah. He had it. He had it full blown. I mean, his IQ is supposedly off the charts. He's one of the brightest guys. That's why he likes pussy so much. He knows.

Mike Tyson said it best. He said, if God made something better than pussy, he kept it to himself. You know, I've got a phrase that I use to all married men. You know, I tell them all the time, I say, listen, you know, and I tell it to a lot of fighters when they're married as well, because they travel,

there's going to be a lot of temptation. I said, look, pussy is undefeated. It's never lost. It's never lost. If you go head to head with it, you are going to lose and you need to avoid those situations. You need to avoid those situations.

And, you know, I've got certain protocols. If I go out to call a fight, you know, and if I'm going to go out and it's Vegas, like last weekend, you know, I'm not going to go out and have more than two drinks out in public in an environment where I am not with my wife. And then once the second drink is up, I'm going back to her. I'm not even going to put myself in that situation. You know, when you've got a Ferrari at home, you don't go out test driving Cadillacs. You know what I mean? Cadillac makes a good car these days.

CTS-V, you ever drive one? Goddamn hell of an automobile. Probably more reliable than a Ferrari. You're ruining it. I know what you're saying. I'm just standing up for Cadillacs. I'm a car guy. Sorry.

Sorry, Cadillac. I like what you're saying. Look, Ferraris will fucking break down on the highway. That's what I'm saying. There you go. But either way, don't take it on head to head. Don't go head to head with it. You will lose.

It's never lost. Yes. I like what you're saying up to that point, up to the Cadillac-Ferrari thing. Completely derailed the comparison. Yeah, I mean, look, you're fighting fucking thousands of years of DNA, essentially. You're fighting all the DNA that existed that kept human beings alive when 50% of the babies would die, when most people never lived to be past 30. I mean, you're fighting that.

I mean, that urge that men have to procreate, that's the reason why there's people. We were lazy about procreating, about having sex. If having sex was, ah, it's as all right nobody would have no kids no none of I mean you have children I have children you would never know what a great experience it is to be a father how fantastic it is how enriching it is if you just looked at it from watching some guy and his wife with the kids crying at the movie theater or someone at the airport like fuck that I'm young. I'm single. I like waking up when I want without someone yelling at me,

without some fucking kid that I have to clean their diaper. But then you have kids. You understand like, oh, this isn't somebody else's kid. This is my kid. This is a part of me. This is love that's indescribable. And then it becomes this sort of new level of your life that it's very difficult to explain to someone who doesn't have children.

Yeah. I have a lot of single friends. I have a lot of comics that are my friends that, you know, that don't have kids, and they're all fucking willy-nilly, crazy, slinging dick all over the world. They're fucking wild men. And I try to, they're like, man, you know, I would hate to have kids. I'm like, yeah, you say that. Yeah, I yeah, it's the me to me. It's the meaning of life

I couldn't imagine You know I had my first daughter and it wasn't that long after I'd gotten back from Iraq the second time and it was such a Powerful one of the most powerful experience of my life You go from an environment where you see so much life taken. And then I'm sitting in a room and I see, you know, life given. And, you know, for me at that time, I was already thinking about getting out of the military. And there was a lot of guilt inside me for doing that because I was so good at being a Marine officer. I loved leading Marines.

You know, I didn't love going to war. I loved leading Marines. And you feel guilty because you know these guys are going to keep going back and what you should do. But when my first daughter was born, it was just an absolutely life-changing experience. I mean, for me, the rest of this is a puppet show. I mean, we do all these things so we can get home to where we want to be. I can get on my living room floor and just be with my three daughters. And they bring out the best side of me.

They inspire me. They're by far my best accomplishment. I mean, I absolutely live for them. And you can relate. When you sit down and you lay next to a girl that you may have just had random relations with, that's nothing like laying down next to your child as they fall asleep and they lean over

and just tell you, I love you, Daddy. It's very different. But if the chick's really hot, it's still awesome. I'm just saying, if you're not married and the chick's really hot, it's pretty goddamn good, especially whatever. But yeah, there's just a different level. Like, you know, I visited my daughter at school today and she didn't know we're going to be there. And she turns around and sees me, you know, she's six. Her eyes light up and she runs over and gives me a hug. There's a warmth that comes over you that no one will ever understand

unless you have a kid. I'm not saying that it's a better life. I'm not saying that I'm a better person. I'm not saying that everybody has to go out and have a kid because I hate those arguments. I used to hate those arguments when I was single. People would say, you're not mature until you have a kid. I believe there's a lot of people that don't need to have kids

I believe there's a lot of people that they can contribute to this society to this culture to this world without ever procreate Absolutely, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that for me though. I'm such a selfish person I'm so I shouldn't even say self I'm so self obsessed with my my own goals and I'm always a selfish person. I shouldn't even say selfish. I'm so self-obsessed with my own goals. I'm always in my head. I'm always concentrating on my thoughts and my emotions that having a child made me rewire. It rewired all of my thinking because everything I do now, I think about my children. I think about them as little human beings that I'm responsible for.

Little human beings that I... You know, I can't do anything too crazy. I can't do anything that's gonna risk my life. I have to take care of them. I mean, it's just, there's a thing about that. I never used to think or worry about... I mean, I certainly didn't want to die before, but I never used to think about it

the way I think about it now. Because now I think about leaving behind my children, and that's a horrific idea. It's powerful. You couldn't say it any better. I mean, it was at the time I had my first daughter, I had zero fears. I mean, I took a lot of risks in my job at that time and did not care. Then all of a sudden you have this child and this fear is introduced to your world. Not just about you dying and leaving behind, but what about the child you know they're gonna drive one day they're

gonna get their heart broken one day or what happens here you know i had a i had a friend of mine who lives right up the block and he his firstborn son 11 years older on a ski trip in colorado and someone was towing a paraplegic down the slope, and the wire they were using to tow him hit his son in the neck and killed him instantly. Oh, God. I mean, it was, and to be there for him, and not that I was able to do much, but to see him have to recover from that is, you know, look, I've been on the battlefield, and I've seen a lot of things I would never wish on anybody, and I've seen a lot of things I would never wish on anybody. But losing your own child is just brutal.

It's brutal. Yeah, it must be indescribable. Jeremy Stevens brought this up when he was on the podcast about fighters having daughters, all daughters. You've got all daughters. John Jones has all daughters. Mark Coleman has all daughters. I mean, this is like a long list of these savages that only have daughters. John Jones has all daughters. Mark Coleman has all daughters. I mean, this is like a long list of these savages that only have daughters. Is that the universe trying to balance

itself out? What is that? There's something with it. Your natural testosterone count is so high. I don't know. I've read different articles about it. I remember before I had my third, Chris Weidman was trying to give me some tips. Oh, you got to eat this. Then you got to do it just like that. I mean, he gave me the play by play and he says that's how he had his boy. That's exactly how he did it and he followed the step scenario. Of course, I wasn't patient enough to put in the amount of time he did. I don't believe it. It was dumb luck. I think it know the fucking zigzag you know the the right fucking sperm gets to the right egg but bam jed's a millionaire i don't think there's any logic or science to it it's a bunch of old wives tales yeah i mean i go home and i am surrounded by

estrogen me too surrounded it's in it's an incredible it's it's a weakness it's yeah i get they get you oh yeah i got a bit i'm doing about it in my act right now. It's just because it's so, like, when you're around a bunch of people who think completely different than you, you really understand the troubles that men and women have tried, you know, this thing

where we're trying to figure out how to get along together. You really understand it at a base level. Yeah. Oh, this is like a totally different animal This is like a kangaroo trying to live with an orangutan like you guys are fucking there's so different It's so different and then you have these weird Traders that sort of like cross the barrier and try to meet in the middle and like mineral assholes I'm different and they try to like sell the middle and like, men are all assholes. I'm different. And they try to like sell themselves as some alternative to men.

But meanwhile, they are men. And then your wives are using it as an example in an argument with you that, oh gosh. Some fucking creep. And then they always get caught doing something fucking gross. They always get caught raping somebody or something. I'm like, oh yeah, there you go. Like Bill Cosby.

Perfect example. Bill Cosby forever was telling comedians, don't tell dirty jokes you should never tell dirty jokes crushing eddie murphy for it he was oh and not just eddie murphy he did it to chris rock he did it to a host of especially black comedians meanwhile if the stories are true if 30 women aren't liars it's getting a little ridiculous but that's that's exactly what you find out i mean ted haggard that fucking that preacher who was uh always like uh railing against gay people

and against you know god says that gay men should not be married it's an abomination he's always doing meth and fucking getting gay hookers it's all the same shit it's like these these fucking traitors that cross this this this line where they're trying to betray themselves as the alternative to to reality they believe they're the enlightened one yeah it's fucking gross it's a scam it's disgusting male feminist that's what we're talking about you hear me out there you creeps you need to do deadlifts all of you it is funny because there's been a couple times where i've started to get pretty serious on the podcast here. And then Joel, when I talked about the Ferrari and the Cadillac, he completely turns it.

It's important. Or, hey, you know, you lay index to my daughter instead of another woman. He throws that one in there. It reminds me. I did the Howard Stern show once. And this is back in 2000. I was an active duty Marine Corps captain Was that when you were in the WC? Yeah light heavyweight champion. Yeah, and so the versus Network

God rest their souls rest in peace They somehow get me on the Howard Stern show and I go what am I going on for and I'm worried It's an active duty cat in the Marine Corps I can get in a lot of trouble for saying the wrong thing here, right? Right and so they tell, oh, don't worry, you're just there to present a check from the WEC, but if he will start asking you questions, try to stay on as long as you can. Okay, cool. What's the contest?

The hottest chick with the ugliest scar. Oh, God. I mean. The ugliest scar? What the fuck? But at one point know there's actually still i think the video is still somewhere but uh we're doing this interview and and howard was being very serious and he was asking me what it's like for these young men and women that deploy and how

difficult it is and i'm getting into it and and i could see his wheels turning like he's getting sympathetic and everything there's really serious and this isn't his brand so he thinks on his feet and he's nimble and right out of nowhere he comes wow that is so many how old are you 25 years the pressure you guys you must be jerking off what seven eight times a day where do you do it and here i am i mean i i knew you know i got i was warned you know hey look this guy's gonna throw a curveball or two at you, you know. I wasn't ready for that. I forget how I tiptoed and tap danced around it. But, I mean, it was, it wasn't easy.

It wasn't easy. Yeah, there's no easy way to tiptoe around that. No, no. And you know there's Marines out there just waiting. Hey, did you hear that damn captain on there talking about jerking off on the Howard Stern show? Yeah, isn't that weird? He can't admit to jerking off. That's a very strange thing.

It's like, I don't understand that world. I'll never understand a world where someone gets angry at you for talking about jerking off. Well, it's like women and shitting. Yeah. It doesn't happen. Some chicks will get down. They'll tell you. You know, they'll let you know.

I appreciate that. You know, a guy who can't, you know, I had a friend. He was over this girl's house. They're about to get busy. He went to use the bathroom. She forgot to flush, and there was a floater in there, and he said it killed his boner, and he said he left. And I go, was she hot?

He goes, she was really hot. I go, you're a fucking pussy. I go, you flush it, you man up, you erase your memory. Shake it up a little bit. Give yourself the fucking Vulcan neck pinch. There's no way he was an alpha male. He had to be a Bravo. I don't know what he was.

You know, I mean, he's a good guy. He'll definitely have boys. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I just don't understand that. I just think, you know, there's a reality to this world. Food comes in, shit comes out. Deal with it.

It's pretty simple. You know, if you can't, you know, you're going to miss out on some opportunities know if you can't you know you're gonna miss out on some opportunities if you can't close those doors of perception it's it's amazing how funny that stuff is to kids by the way too i mean it's you say poop in my house and you'd swear oh yeah you'd say it was your level of comedian dude my kids love to say poop my kids will i'll read stories and as i'm reading stories like they get you, there's a lot of times there's pauses in the story when you try to read the story right, and they're like, and he pooped his pants!

Ah! You know, you get a six-year-old and a four-year-old, they think it's fucking awesome. Anytime you can say poop. Is that how old your girls are? Yeah. I've got seven, five, and one and a half. They're so cute.

It makes you really understand and appreciate, really understand and appreciate really understand and appreciate the differences between men and women on a like a base level having a baby grow up to be a little girl and you go and and also see the variations between the two of them you know and when i say like that i i get angry at male feminism i don't mean that i'm i don't think that everyone should have equal rights because that's not what I mean at all. I just think there's a lot of pussies out there that are passing themselves off as a better alternative to a masculine man. And that masculinity for whatever reason is under attack. It's wrong. Yeah, absolutely. It's wrong to be strong.

Toxic masculinity. I've heard this expression many times. Like, what are you fucking talking about? Like, there's nothing wrong with women being feminine either. And that's the other thing about women being feminine is that somehow or another, a lot of these women who are like pro equal rights will get upset if a girl wants to dress sexy, if a girl wants to wear what's considered by our society to be sexually attractive high heels short skirts that this is playing into men's hands now guess what some women like it they like dressing absolutely there's nothing wrong with a guy who wants to dress like that either who gives a fuck like this live and let live for whatever reason it only works for some people if it suits their purpose or their ideology as soon

as it doesn't any guy that likes to compete in an aggressive sport must be a piece of shit. Oh yeah. That's not true. I know it's not true. I've experienced it. I know a lot of guys that are really nice people that also like to fight. Absolutely.

Plenty of them. And this idea that that's incomprehensible, that these things are mutually exclusive, I reject that. i think it's i think it's preposterous and i think that idea is perpetrated by people who are trying to present this alternative to the norm that they they know they can't compete as men and so they want to pretend that somehow or another all the things that we associate with men muscle cars sports you know whatever having a big dick all those things are terrible and that what what they are this this guy who cries every time he sees a fucking a commercial

in it with a puppy that's that's the better choice and you're you're wrong for being the other way you know it's it's envy and insecurity can can can make any one of us i mean really ugly and you hear you know the green Heavy makes you ugly and everything. But I think a lot of that is what creates that intolerance, you know? I mean, people ask me all the time, you know, oh, you're white, you're in the Marine Corps, so, oh, you must be, you know, fully against all this, you know, homosexual stuff and the marriage.

I don't give a shit. Don't care at all. With as much hate as I've seen in the world, what do I care about two people who love each other? Yeah. I have no issues whatsoever with that. Whatsoever. Yeah, my issue is with people that have a problem with it. I have a real issue with people that have a problem with people who just love each other.

I don't know what it's like to want to love a man. I can't believe my wife loves me. I can't believe any women love men why would you want dick i don't get it to me it's like having dick is like having a magic trick like like i can't believe this works like i can't pull a rabbit out of my head i can't believe you want to see this like i don't understand it but the the idea that somehow or another it's evil that a man wants it but it's not evil that a woman. It's fucking It's ridiculous. I don't care if men wear high heels. I don't care if women dress like a fucking biker I don't give a fuck as long as you're nice

I mean I've I have had friends and relations with some of the weirdest fucking people across the full spectrum of humanity And all I care about is are you nice? Are you interesting to talk to? Are you intelligent? Can I enjoy my time with you without feeling like you're judging me or you're being aggressive towards me or passive aggressive towards me? And I mean, I've had some of the weirdest, most aggressive conversations with people that are supposedly progressive, you know, that decide before they even get to talk to me that I'm the enemy You know because I got tattoos or I lift weights or I you know

Compete in martial arts or do you know whatever the fuck it is that they decided was? What wouldn't put me into this enemy bracket? But those these these these insecurities that we have like the live and let live Ideal is is one of the best ways to live your life. Just live and let live don't create any enemies That aren't really your enemy. Yeah, well and you know, we we make it harder on ourselves, you know When you look at that, I mean the live and let live means hey Look be concerned with your circle and be tolerant of all those around and try to understand. Right. Which we all we all make mistakes. Certainly I do.

We make it harder because then you look at all these these new things that we have that really bolster insecurity. If you look at Twitter, for example, Twitter is this universe full of all of us that are really, really insecure looking for other people's approval. all of us that are really, really insecure looking for other people's approval. You know, how can I think of the next statement that's going to get as many favorites, likes, retweets, and get other people to then, you know, befriend me and follow me? I mean, everybody's trying to one-up each other, and it's this environment where we go out there looking to make, I mean, how many times we get sniped for everything you say.

I mean, I can't call a fight card. I mean i mean look we're talking for seven and a half hours seven and a half hours is how long we're talking it's impossible i challenge you to find somebody who's going to talk for seven and a half hours and not piss you off at least once not only that you're calling a live fight well where shit is going down on the spot and sometimes you're incorrect yeah there's nothing there's no way around it You're talking about two guys throwing fucking bones at each other in a cage I mean they're slinging at each other and you make mistakes and you you you you don't see a choke you miss a position You know you you you it's gonna happen

But there's so many people out there that are just looking to point a finger, and that's where Goldie gets in trouble. Goldberg fucking engages with these people. I had to pull him aside after the NFL thing. I go, dude, I fucking told you about this before. You can't argue with these people. Why are you arguing? You don't even know them.

Who knows who they are? Who knows what they're doing? Some of them, they don't even have an avatar. It's an egg. And even if it is an avatar, who the fuck are you? How do you know if it's them? It could be anybody. They could have taken a picture out of a fucking magazine,

taken a camera photo of that picture, used that as an avatar. You're a fat fuck. You don't even know them. Yeah. You don't even know what they look like. You have no idea. You're arguing with fucking ghosts.

Well, and the thing is, too, is the people that will engage like he does in a lot of instances they tend to be very passionate and care a lot about what they do so it's easy to lure them in there so while you're trying to destroy them and you're trying to break them down at least understanding knowledge like that they really do care about their job and the product they're putting out there they They're trying to be good. And obviously maybe they made some mistakes and you were able to lure them into saying things they didn't mean.

But there are guys out there, you know, I don't want to name any names, but there are guys out there that do commentary for MMA that should not be doing it. And I can't listen. There's guys that I can't listen to, that I literally have to turn the fucking volume down in other organizations because they just drive me crazy. They don't know what the fuck they're doing. They don't know what they're talking about. And I get crazy. So I understand it. And if you think I'm one of those guys, I get it. I think you're wrong, but I get it. I

understand. But I think this ability to reach people and to express your opinion, it's way more valuable than it's negative. I get a lot out of it. I get a lot out of the underground. I get a lot out of criticism. And sometimes they're right. I mean, I'm not perfect. Absolutely. I fuck up calls sometimes or I'll miss things.

One of the things that people need to consider, you don't need to consider, but when you're watching fights, you're watching in the octagon, when we're're watching there's oftentimes like i think a punch landed but really a guy tripped and it's because the guy's back is to me and you can't tell if someone's standing and your back's to you and someone throws a punch and you see the guy fall backwards you think the guy got hurt and then they're the people that are watching at home have the benefit of watching it from the side and they're seeing a punch not land. All that kind of stuff happens. You could watch the monitors, I guess, and sometimes I do,

but, man, I want to watch it live. I don't want to watch those fucking monitors. It's so much better to watch live, you know, as a fan. I try to stick to the monitors because I remember the first card I called was in Rio when Phil Davis fought Liotta Machida, and Machida threw a whole bunch of his blitzes going away from me and into Phil Davis, and it looked like they all landed. When I watched some of the replays, not all of them landed.

So it was one of those difficult things where with the monitor, I think I can see more, but there's times when they're close to me, I can't help it. I want to look through the cage because I need to get enwrapped into that fight and feel the crowd, feel them. Because, look, it's our job to be provocative, to break things down, to make it entertaining. And all while we're trying to do that, there's also a voice in our ear, multiple voices in our ear, telling us all kinds of wild, hey, look, I got the replay. It was a headbutt.

So there's lots of things going on during that seven-hour period that can also lead to a distraction or lead to a misstep. Those voices in your ear are brutal when you're in the middle of talking. Especially if it's like a big point you're trying to make. And then someone's like, we got a replay on, look at your monitor, look at the B monitor. And you hear someone talking in your ear while you're talking. And you know that a fucking million and a half people plus are hearing you. And then who knows how many fucking people are going to hear over the course of time. Yes. They're going to listen to that broadcast.

I watched that Phil Davis-Leota Machida fight the other day. It was way closer than I thought it was. And I could see Phil winning. I mean, Phil did get takedowns and did do damage on the ground and like you were saying like a lot of those shots that Machito is very very very close fight but a lot of people were calling it one of the greatest robberies ever but man I watched it again I was like oh I don't think not so much I don't think it's one of the greatest robberies it's no very fucking close fight and even Machito will tell you and you know when I talked to him

before his fight uh with CB Dalloway you know he's had to adapt his style a little bit because he had a whole bunch of really contested decisions. You know, his Rampage Jackson fight, his fight with Phil Davis. He was leaving a lot of fights where he felt like, okay, look, I was in total control. But he made it confusing for the judges. And when you do that, look, judges are human, too. We've talked all tonight about how flawed we are as humans, how we all make mistakes. And that happens there. You've got to do the things.

He's had to get more aggressive. He can't just counterpunch. He's had to get a little bit more offensive with his style to ensure that he's going to get those decisions. Because if he doesn't get them, he can't be totally disappointed when he's got a little bit of a passive style. Yeah, I'm glad he went down to 185. I think he should have been there all along. But Chita's one of those guys who would weigh in at 203, 204. Didn't cut any weight.

No. It's crazy. And he's not a huge middleweight. I mean, he walks. He'll be, you know, 197, 196. When I fought at middleweight, I would show up to the venue at 207 on Tuesday, make 185 Friday, fight back at 207 on Saturday. That's crazy. And I was big then.

Now I look at these dudes now, I mean, they're almost all like that anymore. Well, look at Weidman. Weidman's enormous. He's a big fucking guy. Walks at 225, 230. He's a big, thick guy, and he's strong as shit. And that's one of the things I think Machida realized in that fight. Like, wow, I'm not a big middleweight.

No. You know, when you're fighting Weidman, you unload everything but the kitchen sink, and then he waves you in afterwards. I mean, he unloaded on Weidman, and Weidman was still there. And the fact that Weidman, I mean, who thought round one, Weidman gets right in Machida's face and starts outstriking. First three rounds, he outstruck Machida. Now, it's not a pure kickboxing match.

The threat of the takedown certainly opens up your arsenal more and limits Lioto's, but it was still, we've never seen someone go in there and take that route towards beating Machida. Well, he's very confident in his chin and his knockout power, and he also has a really good sense of distance. That's one thing that people don't give him enough credit. They think he's just this face-forward attacking guy. No, he moves in and then he moves back

and he moves in and he moves back. He's throwing feints a lot. And Bray Longo is such a good fucking striking coach, especially with wrestlers. You know, he really understands how to teach those guys how to fight with the constant threat of the takedown and then attack off of those off of those opportunities you talk about controlling distance i mean when someone knocks you out with a counter elbow yeah how often i mean that is really hard to do to time an elbow

on a counter strike and knock somebody out i mean that's understanding the range of your opponent how far they're coming a feel feel. It's a feel that not every fighter has, and Chris definitely hasn't, yeah, long ago. Longo's also one of those guys, technically, but he also, I think he makes his fighters feel like they're better than they should be. He makes them feel like they're ready to run through that brick wall. He's just that tough,

northeast, gritty dude. Like, hey, Ray, how do you think he's going to do against Weidman? And he told me two days before the fight, oh, he's, Brian, he's going to smoke him. This will be, he's going to run right through him. It's so funny to hear his confidence and how tough he is. Well, he told me, it was one of Weidman's earlier victories. I think after he fought Tom Lawler, I was in the cage with him,

and Ray Long goes, he's a motherfucker. I'm telling you, this kid's a motherfucker. And the other thing he said to me about Weidman, he goes, we're all lucky he's fighting. Trust me. We're all lucky he's in the fucking cage fighting. Because if he was out there, if he didn't have an outlet, oh, Christ. No shit. He goes, I've seen some shit with this kid in the gym.

That'd be a great Reebok. He's the gym. That'd be a great Reebok. He's an animal. Be a great Reebok t-shirt for Wyman. We're all lucky he's fighting. That or he's a motherfucker. When you look at him, too, he's so handsome and looks so nice. He's a respectable-looking young man to be such a fucking murderer in there. He did the desk show at this one time.

He's got his wife, his kids up there. It's like you said. Just because someone's a fighter doesn't mean that they're this aggressive atrocious human being i mean exactly frankie edgar is one of the greatest guys ever and probably the the pound for pound or forget wait toughest guy in the ufc he's a savage yeah i mean gritty like the the heart that that guy has and the pace that he puts on you I mean he goes I think that guy pace for pace is like there's almost no one

who could beat that there's almost no one who has a work ethic like him and pain doesn't register the same with him you know and he's totally sane we've had some fighters in the afternoon that I don't think pain registered with but I don't think they were all there you know Frankie's a guy that when he feels it hurt his heart's burning, his lungs burning,

he just tells himself to go forward. He just keeps going. And the other thing, you know, when you see him out in public, none of it's gone to, I mean, he's still the same kid that'll go eat, like, a bowl of pasta down at the local, you know, the corner store with everybody. And that's, I mean, his whole community just loves that guy. Yeah, he's a great guy.

He is. And he is a perfect example of what you were saying. Like, you think of a cage fighter, especially a champion, a championship level UFC fighter, and this nicest fucking guy you ever want to meet. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of those in this sport. There's a lot of those guys in this sport that defy the stereotypes.

And that's one of the things that I love about this sport. And one of the reasons for that, think is that so many fighters they develop this understanding of who they really are in the gym this you can't have you can have an unchecked ego and be a basketball player you know you could really think you're the fucking greatest thing since sliced bread you're slam dunking people because you're not getting strangled every day you're not getting guys where they run a fresh guy in every five minutes and they're all murderers and they're all just on on top of you smothering you kneeing you in the dick you know you're not you're not getting that you and that humility that you get from training and tapping and losing and and

getting it all beaten out of you also the aggression that you expend in the gym to just blow it all out of your system you don't have any need to get in fights outside. And you know what I've noticed too, for me at least personally, it helped me a lot. When you go through those really hard workouts, you get almost this, when it's over, you get this moment of almost euphoria where you gain perspective. And for me, you know, MMA, fighting helped me with a lot of demons that I carried over that I never had issues with in my personal life, you know, because I had fighting as my outlet. And, you know, you would finish these workouts or you'd finish a fight and have the high of winning a fight.

And it would give you this perspective on your life. And all of a sudden you have more of this clear thought process to make decisions and not rush decisions or see things a little bit more clearly and not get angry about X, Y, or Z because all of a sudden now you're seeing them a little differently and you get that when you're exhausted. Yeah. Yeah. When you've expended all your biological need for aggression, which men, you have testosterone, you have a dick, it works. I mean, this is a reason why people go to war. All this stuff is a part of our genetics. It's a part of our DNA. And to expend it, to just get it all out of your system, creates this balance. And that balance doesn't exist in a lot of people. There's a lot of people out there that have this unaddressed aggression inside of them. That's why I see people that would never get into a fight. Fuck you. They're in their car.

They're fucking fingering people and laying on a horn, screaming. It's like this is their release. Like they don't have a real release. And so since we're not living in a world where you have to worry about barbarians running over the hill with broadswords every couple of weeks and you're not fighting off jaguars that are trying to kill your babies and eat them, we go through this life with all these genetic needs that are never met you know i mean in many ways it it's just the downfall of our culture that i've always said if you want to get rid of bullying teach people how to fight and a lot of people think that that's like that's counterintuitive that's ridiculous like you're going to make bullies that know how to fight better the stronger bullies are going to emerge they're going to kick everybody's ass i bet not i bet not i bet what you're going to make bullies that know how to fight better. The stronger bullies are going to emerge. They're going to kick everybody's ass.

I bet not. I bet not. I bet what you're going to do is you're going to get people that have a greater understanding of where this aggression is coming from, where their bullying is coming. They'll understand this is... A lot of it is insecurity. Yes, exactly. Confidence is the number one deterrent for bullies. Bullies don't bully confident kids.

They just don't. If there's a possible threat that that kid may hit you back or, or may actually beat you, they're not going to bully you. And so I would talk to parents, you know, when I would teach kids, um, all the time that look, you know, learning to defend yourself as a life skill. Yeah. It's a life skill to learn how to do that. And it gives you, it bleeds into other areas. You you know if you can push yourselves and get comfortable in these really uncomfortable situations it's gonna help you when you have to go and maybe speak in front of the class you know the first time you grapple against somebody with all that prime you

get kids get nervous I would train I would train Marines and the first time I would make them grapple I had I had one that threw up right after there's so much pride they were afraid I got down from all up right after. There's so much pride. They were afraid. I got tapped out in front of all my other classmates. And it's such an alpha male, you know, play. And they got so nervous. A couple weeks later, I mean, they're all in. And they're comfortable in that environment. Maybe now public speaking comes more, you know, more naturally.

I mean, they get that fear and they get over it. That bleeds into other areas of your life. No doubt. No doubt. I mean, I've seen people in class for the first time hyperventil like guys have done all sorts of sports but someone mounts them and all of a sudden you see them like they can't fucking breathe and you're like calm down dude think of this as a game you're playing pool here you're playing basketball it's a game it's just it's a game of arm bars and chokes you know you mess around with some of these pro football players you know

i've spent some time with glazer who trains a lot of those nfl guys you mess around with them and you start dominating them and they start to panic. Their egos are so big and they're so, wait a minute, why is this smaller guy than me doing to me what he's doing? And they begin to panic and hyperventilate, just like you said. Well, it's also football players. They never really go. I mean, they kind of go one on one, but for these brief moments and then whistles are

blown and flags are raised five seconds yeah it's you don't have to have that dig down deep frankie edgar type heart and very few of them do that's why it's so rare when you see a guy like herschel walker subjects himself to that shit in his late 40s what a fucking stud that guy is he's the scariest guy of all time 48 years old smashing people in strike force and you just go what i mean he probably would be like john jones if he started into his you know his young days i mean the athleticism he had and look at his physique at that age he just does push-ups and sit-ups i don't believe him i really don't because he says a lot of shit that's just not

scientifically possible like he says he only eats a salad and a bowl of soup. Yeah, one meal a day. That's impossible. Get the fuck out of here. You'd be so skinny. Well, and I don't think he's lying. This is what I think. He has trauma-induced issues that he's had from football where he has multiple personality disorder. I mean, he's spoken openly about this, that he has more than one person inside of his

head. And I know he's dealt with this in a variety of different ways, therapy. I don't know if he's on medication. I don't know what the deal is. But if you have multiple personalities and they're all living inside of your head, you might have one guy who just eats soup. There's another guy doing deadlifts and eating fucking steak. That guy just doesn't talk to you. There's another guy doing deadlifts and eating fucking steak. Okay. That guy just doesn't talk to you. Here's a guy you don't, I mean, I just don't, I mean, I think for sure he definitely did a lot of his exercises, just doing chin ups and pushups. And look, if you do enough of them, you can get pretty fucking swole. Yeah. There's a lot of guys who calisthenics build them a great body. You were getting all set.

I'm waiting on this really serious scientific response. There may be one dude who eats soup inside. Yeah, I think that's what it is. I think. Yeah. But it's kind of crazy that he went into MMA after this trauma-induced multiple personality disorder. And not necessarily trauma physically, but i think there's a lot of emotional trauma and mental trauma as well but then again also a lifelong career of getting hit in the head

yeah i mean the collisions that that guy was a part of are on record you can watch them and nobody rides for free they're all just fucking crashing into each other super athletes sprinting full blast and fucking elbows and head-to-head collisions. Back before there was this concussion protocol, by the way, where guys get them now and they're out for weeks. Weeks. You're back the next play back then. What do you think is the number of times where a person can be knocked out

before the Athletic Commission steps in and says, hey, this is enough? Three. Three. I think, yeah, in my opinion, I think that the athletic commissions need to have a limit to where once you, if you get knocked out three times, then I think you should have to go in front of a board to get your license, in my opinion. And I'm sure that, you know, I haven't fully thought through this to cover also before

people start bashing me for it. But look, and you can defend yourself. Hey, look, you know, I've got three, but in this one, I'm not out. The ref stops this. I was exhausted. You could visually. And then you have a panel, the organizations involved to make a decision on whether you can be commissioned again. Do you think if this is the case, and if we're really going to be careful about this,

do you think that fighters should be required to film training sessions so that we can review so that we know exactly like if you're sparring like you like you know how many times a guy's been knocked out in the gym yeah you know it'd be tough because they don't think they have the capital to put in the right kind of equipment i don't think so either but i mean if if you can do40,000 for a fucking blood test, and they have 500 fighters that are possibly subject to this, if they make it to, I mean, most guys are just going to get urine tested up until a certain point in their career, but then they get to a certain point, and you're going to have to go through the full WADA testing. If that's the case, I mean, how much does it cost to put GoPros in gyms?

I mean, how much does it cost to put GoPros in gyms? I mean, how much does it cost? I mean, there's ones that we have now that are Wi-Fi enabled. They can all be linked up to a UFC database, and the UFC could be monitoring or at least storing all of the footage of all these gyms and then make them sign contracts. Like saying, look, you have to let us know if you're sustaining a concussion in the gym. There's so many fights where you see guys get knocked out, you go, well, that doesn't even look right. Oh, yeah. Because you know that that guy got knocked out in the gym a bunch of times. Like Travis Luter versus, who's the guy that Vitor fought?

Marvin Eastman. Remember that fight? Marvin Eastman, the word was that he got knocked out not once but twice in camp leading up to that fight. Once by Tito Ortiz. He got hit with a knee or something. And once during a takedown, he got knocked out again. So you're dealing with a guy who had some serious trauma. And Travis catches him with a punch, which is a pretty decent punch.

But he catches him on the end of it. And Marvin goes down like he got shot by a sniper rifle. And the jiu-jitsu guy knocks out the striker out of nowhere. Travis could hit hard. He was a tough guy, but it was just a weird KO. Yeah, same thing happened to Rashad Evans when he fought Liotta Machida. His last sparring session, he got rocked bad.

I mean, dropped, and he got hit in the same exact spot Machida would eventually knock him out of. By who? Oh, gosh, who the heck was it? I don't think it was Jardine. I'm forgetting who, but I mean, he could tell the story better than I. Well, I'd heard that Forrest Griffin, leading up to the Anderson Silva fight, was knocked out pretty badly, too. The way he used to spar, I'm not surprised.

I used to, you know, I've sparred with him. The way he used to spar, I'm not surprised. I've sparred with him. I sparred with him three days after I got back from my second tour in Iraq. I still had sand in my ears. And remember Scott Adams, the matchmaker for the WEC? Sure. He was like, hey, look, I need to get you out here real quick. I need to do a photo shoot.

We're going to promote your fight. You're fighting in six weeks. All right, I'll go to Vegas and bring my wife, sightsee a little bit. Nope, we go straight to this gym, and I'm in six weeks. I'm just, all right, I'll go to Vegas and bring my wife, sightsee a little bit. Nope, we go straight to this gym, and I'm in a ring. I had to borrow all this gear. I have no mouthpiece. He's like, hey, I want you to spar this guy. You need to get back in the gym and get in shape.

I have no idea who the guy is. I just know he's way bigger than me. Turns out it's Roy Nelson. And the coach goes, we're going to do five-minute rounds. I had never done five minutes before. I thought you only did that in fights. I was like, that's crazy. Nobody does five rounds.

Roy's hitting me with these overhand rights, and, dude, sand is still flying out of my ears. I mean, it was bad. It was literally survival mode. Two times he almost knocked me. I mean, I went, you know, like the Rocky IV up and over the ropes, and then he threw me back in. And then as soon as we finished there oh hey no no that's morning sparring here we're gonna go to sparring over at Randy Couture's new gym so I'd go down there and it's Forrest Griffin I've got no mouthpiece and again the coach said hey he's

got no mouthpiece Forrest he's in the military he's got free dental chips my teeth I mean but he used to get after it I mean spar as hard as humanly possible yeah look at him now yeah fucked up now because of it. His shoulder is so bad he can't even brush his teeth, supposedly. Holy shit. Yeah, apparently his right shoulder, it's just not working. Yeah, I mean, he's lost a lot of mass when you look at him. You can tell that he's had a lot of atrophy in his body.

I mean, that guy fought fucking hard and trained hard. I mean, Randy Couture always said nobody works harder than Forrest Griffin. But it's not always work hard, right? It's work smart. Guys are getting so much smarter about that now. I mean, you look at, like, you know, a guy like Anthony who's been, you know, he's been injured frequently, but he's had to change his whole training regime. He said yes.

He gets himself there healthy. Cowboy Cerrone, for as crazy as he is, I think it was, you know, three fights ago, he got dinged a little bit in practice, so he just eliminated sparring. And he just stopped doing it that entire camp. Really? He does a lot less now than people realize. And everybody he spars with is someone hand-selected that understands. And this is a wild man, but he knows.

Look, things are changing. Coaches are finally starting to realize. Because back when I was fighting, I mean, none of these coaches actually fought in the octagon. Right. They were playing jazz at that point. Nobody really knew the formula to how to win. And they acted like it, but now they're finally starting to learn. And now we're starting to have guys like Ludwig who grew up doing it and now has switched to the other side and become a coach.

We're seeing more guys like that as well that understand, you know what? You've got to hold these guys back from themselves. Pull them back, train less, less rounds, deliver them healthy to the fight, and they'll be way more productive. Yeah, it's really going to be interesting to see what Duke Rufus does with CM Punk because Duke Rufus is essentially taking this guy. I read this article today where they're interviewing Duke, and he said, you know, I'm going to build this guy up from the ground up,

and he's not going to spar with anybody but me. He's like, I'm going to have him spar with me because I know that no one's going to hurt him. I'm going to have total control, but I'm going to correct all of his mistakes. It's a great call to have a guy like Duke do that because he is a master striker and a master instructor, and you couldn't get a better coach for MMA, for striking in MMA. I put him right up there with Dwayne and with Firas Zahabi master instructor and you couldn't get a better coach for mma for striking in mma i mean i put

him right up there with duane and with faras sahabi and you know all the matt hume all the great guys yeah but i think that a guy like that is a like an interesting sort of a test ground i mean first of all for the the public's just i mean just credibility i mean you're talking about a guy who has no amateur wrestling bouts no amateur karate bouts no amateur kickboxing bouts no amateur boxing bouts no sumo nothing just pro wrestling yeah which is you know entertainment so he's some sort of an athlete he looks like he's in good shape done a little jujitsu training I mean I don't know how much he wears a white belt I I mean, that ain't good.

Nope. And he's getting there. He's going to fight in the UFC. And a lot of people have issues with it. I mean, Jon Jones said he hopes he gets knocked out. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of people that find Ben Askren pissed as all hell with a good right to be.

And he's going to be coaching him now. Yeah, absolutely a good right to be. I mean, they were saying Ben Askren doesn't have enough experience. And the UFC hires a zero and zero guy to fight in the fucking UFC and against who though another guy that they're gonna handpick for that zero and zero guy who also doesn't belong in the UFC which is gonna be really fascinating yeah how do they make a compelling match for CM Punk I think him by himself is that compelling. He has such a draw in that

people want to see him come out of character who this real guy is. In the WWE, he was a straight-edge guy who had iron balls and blah, blah, blah. Is he really that way? Does he show up in the octagon? Is he scared? Is he afraid

to throw a punch? Is he leaning back with his chin held high? Does he get demolished? Does he fight up in the octagon? Is he scared? Is he afraid to throw a punch? Does he lean him back with his chin held high? Does he get demolished? Or does he fight hard? I wonder if he tests positive for fucking PEDs. Oh, jeez. Twitter would absolutely just break. It would be hilarious. It would be hilarious.

It would be Cosby-esque. It would. It would. And he's an extremely intelligent guy. Yeah, he's very smart. When you talk to me, very bright guy, and he's on this journey. And you can't fault him. He just said, I wanted to fight.

You can't fault him that organizations go and sign him. And I get where they're going with it as well. But the good thing for him, and when I spoke to him actually this past weekend, there's no timeline for him. He can go train as long as he wants to train and when his coach when duke says he's ready that's when they get to match him up what i want to know is at what point do they start getting impatient tapping their toes saying hey look it's been eight months are you ready to fight yet or not right with the ufc what yeah yeah that's a very good point yeah i mean as long as he does that i mean that's a smart thing

to do i've always said that that if Brock Lesnar did that, he would have been one of the greatest champions of all time. If Brock Lesnar went to a Matt Hume or a Farasa Hobby type dude and had someone just analyze his physical movements and you're going to do everything half speed for fucking months. Yeah. When I throw a kick, I want your knee to come up and I want you to check it. When you throw a left hook, I want a right leg kick just to be coming out on instinct. When

someone throws a punch, I want you instantly to roll with it. I want it to be a part of your anatomy. I want to be a part of your DNA. Drillers are killers. And it never became that with that guy. He was just this fucking brute force super athlete. It's like someone giving you a Corvette ZR1 but never teaching you how to drive. And you get on the fucking highway and you got a few moves. You know how to turn left and you know how to turn right. And for most cars, it's going to be enough to beat them. But then you get this Cain Velasquez car that knows how to do everything.

And you're like, ah, fuck. Dude, that's an evil car. That's an evil car. That's a scary car. After John beat Daniel Cormier, you know, and he said he would fight Kane in a heartbeat, boy, did I get excited about that fight. I'm excited about that fight as much as I'm excited

about a Gustafson rematch or a Rumble Johnson fight. Almost depends on what happens in the Gustafson-Rumble Johnson fight. If Gustafson knocks out Rumble Johnson or if Rumble Johnson knocks out Gustafson, if one of those guys finishes the other guy in a very definitive way then i want to see that fight yeah but until that john versus kane would be fucking crazy too you know how long kane's been out over a year how does he i mean you we expect because he was so dominant that he he comes back true to form

but you gotta wonder does he i mean that, he's had a lot of injuries. And certainly, you know, Verdum, he gets overlooked time and time again. I mean, I certainly did when he fought Travis Brown. I thought Travis Brown was gonna have a lot more success. Man, Verdum, I mean, he made him look mediocre.

How about that double jab? Where the fuck did he develop that fucking Lennox Lewis style double jab? I mean, he looked great standing up i mean his stand-up has improved in a really dramatic fashion knocking out mark hunt with a fucking flying knee like what you know hafell cordero got a lot of love from the past guys he's trained but honestly some of his best work has been recently what he's done with verdum what he's done with hafell dos anjos been recently. What he's done with Verdum, what he's done with Rafael dos Anjos. I mean, he's starting to bring up... Son of a gun, I'm missing...

Dariush. Peniel Dariush as well, who's undefeated in the UFC so far, has had some very good fights, who's a black belt. He's a grappler that now has turned striker and being successful. He's starting to produce guys

that shouldn't be good strikers and really showing some depth in the technique too. Not the crazy shoot box style people are accustomed to, but a lot of traps, trickery, setup, very technical, lots of volume striking with a lot of depth to it, different looks, different styles. And Cordero, you can't get a nicer guy. And that's the other thing is that these fighters

have this bond with him because he's such a lovable guy. He's so great. They want to win for him. A lot like the Ray Longo thing. They love Ray Longo. They want that guy there for them. They want to make that guy happy. Rafael is just such a nice guy. He's such a nice guy.

And, you know, was a great fighter himself. Really understands. And really becoming a part of, or because he's a part of Shoot to Box, the history of MMA. I mean, he's legacy. Absolutely. Where that comes from. Imagine calling a fight and having Ray Longo

come in for a fight and grab a headset. I think Ray Longo and Matt Serra should have their own fucking reality show. I agree. Just those two guys cornering fighters. It would be absolutely incredible. Absolutely. They're hilarious. And they're like my favorite

kind of East Coast guys. That East Coast sense of humor. Humble, self-deprecating. I mean, they're great. I spent a week in Fort Hood with Matt Serra during one of the fight for the troops. I mean, you couldn't find a funnier guy. I mean, the whole great human beings. I spent a week in Fort Hood with Matt Sater during one of the fight for the troops. I mean, you couldn't find a funnier guy. I mean, the whole time Dana's texting him telling him how fat he is.

And then we go to, who's the big puppet guy in Vegas? Terry Fader. Yeah. Dana gets his front row tickets to this Terry Fader show. And so Sarah's texting Dana, look, I may have put on some weight, but I sure as hell didn't ask for tickets to a puppet show, Dana. I'm 30-some years old. I could have passed on it. I could have seen this by staying home with my kids.

Thanks for nothing. That's funny. He's fucking hilarious. They're funny guys, man. That East Coast mentality, that there's just a different sort of sense of humor that comes out of Long Island. This fucking guy over here. Jesus Christ. They're funny, man. Listen, man, that comes out of Long Island. This fucking guy over here. Jesus Christ.

They're funny, man. Listen, man, we're out of time. We just did three hours. Holy shit. You're the first ever HD podcast we ever did. How many gigs is this going to be? Is it too big for Ustream? We'll see what this happens, but you're the first one.

Listen, man, run for president, please. You going to run? No. You going to do it eventually? Maybe. No? Maybe. Maybe one day if I get pissed off enough.

Maybe, ladies and gentlemen. I think you could win. I'll get behind you. I'm not going to be like a vice president or anything, but I'll be a- Oh, no, no, no. You, Tate Fletcher. I got a whole bunch of people that got to come in the cabinet. Yeah, I don't think you want Tate in your fucking cabinet.

Let me tell you some stories. I know. You want to talk about skeletons. Both of us have some fucking graveyards. Listen, thank you very much, man. And please, do your own podcast. You'd be fucking fantastic at it. I appreciate everything, Joe.

Thanks for having me, man. Do it, Brian Stan. You're awesome at commentary. You're a great fighter. You're a great dude. You're very intelligent. You're a great speaker. You'd be awesome at this.

I'm definitely looking into doing it. Hey, if some of the listeners here enjoyed me, you guys let me know if you think it would be worth listening to. And if you didn't, keep your fucking mouth shut. Alright? Dirty bitches. Send Ray Longo to your house. Brian Stan on Twitter. S-T-A-N-N. Thank you, brother. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me, guys. Alright, fuckers. We'll see you soon.