The Joe Rogan Experience - #616 - John Wayne Parr

Episode Date: February 23, 2015

John Wayne Parr is an Australian middleweight kickboxer and boxer, fighting out of Boonchu Gym in Gold Coast, Queensland. He is a 10-time World Champion in Muay Thai and runner up in The Contender Asia.

the Joe Rogan experience yes ladies and gentlemen yeah my phone shit the bed officially iPhone 6 done I think I dropped it too many times or it got scared when it saw John Wayne Parr. My phone decided to just give up. What's happening, man? Welcome back, my friend. It was very fun working out with you today. That was very enjoyable. John Wayne Parr, for those of you who don't know, multiple-time Muay Thai champion,

very famous in the world of combat sports, both for your accomplishments in Muay Thai. And a lot of people in the UFC know about you for your work with George St. Pierre you did a lot of training with George For some of his MMA fights and got to show him some of your Muay Thai techniques, which I really learned a lot today Watching you Explain how you do things you have a very specific style that is very uniquely your own Yeah, I was lucky enough to go to Thailand to live for four years. So I took the Thai concept and then I retired from Muay Thai

and went to boxing for a year. And then I just concentrated on my hands and then I liked boxing, but then it sort of got a bit stale because the crowd's a little bit older and the Muay Thai crowd really pumps you up. So I decided to come back to Muay Thai again and I sort of blended the two together with the top half of the boxing, the bottom half of the Muay Thai again, and I sort of blended the twos together with the top half of the boxing, the bottom half of the Muay Thai, and then just sort of created my own concept.

And, yeah, it's been very cool. I've been very successful with it. It seems like you also, like we were talking today, you incorporated a lot of the way Ramon Deckers used to throw combinations, who was a Dutch guy who became probably one of the most famous ever foreigners to fight in Thailand, one of the most successful in the lower weight classes especially. Yeah, he was a Dutch guy who became probably one of the most famous ever foreigners to fight in Thailand one of the most successful in the lower weight classes especially yeah he was a beast um and then because he was the first white person to to beat the Thais he was such a role model and and

I wanted to follow in his footsteps still to this day I still try and emulate everything that he's done and uh just to to be that guy that that went to Thailand and beat the Thais at their own sport, it's something that I look up to him even though he's passed. I still, yeah, he's still my hero. In the world of Muay Thai and the world of fighting, there's guys who have gigantic names that, like, if you were thinking about a sport like hockey, it would be like a Wayne Gretzky or like a Bobby Orr.

That's where like Ramon Deckers was. Most casual people, casual fans, they're not aware of like some of the greats in this sport. It's really unfortunate. It's because America, like kickboxing, for whatever reason, never really caught on. And Dana White has a really good theory. And he thinks it's because that in, the 1980s and the early 19— I guess it wasn't even the 90s, like, mostly the 80s, they had that PKA kickboxing on TV, which is where Rick Rufus came from, who turned out to be a great fighter.

But a lot of those guys were, like, sloppy boxers who had to throw a certain amount of kicks per round. Like, they would make you throw, you throw six, seven kicks per round. I forget what the number was. And so they would throw these little flippy kicks with no power, and then they were just kind of sloppy box. Yeah, Benny the Jet and Peter Cunningham. Who else? Well, Peter Sugarfoot Cunningham, he became successful outside of PKA.

He did Muay Thai. He fought a lot of different styles. He was a more complete fighter. I think there was a lot of fights that like they had on an espn at two o'clock in the morning you watch these two white dudes kickboxing you're like what the fuck am i watching it just it just wasn't at the level that it's unfortunate that people some people still have that in their mind when it comes to kickboxing or to muay thai because in other countries like especially in holland and Holland, you were one of the guys who carried

it over to Australia at a very young age. It's very popular over there. Yeah, like in Australia, Fox Sports, we were showing the fights at least once a week. And that was from 1996 and up until last year. And then they've just stopped showing the broadcast now. And now UFC's flooded the market and there's no exposure for the kickboxers anymore. It's hard for us to shine now. Really? Because of MMA?

Yeah, well, UFC's, they're doing the pay-per-views, and they're doing the roads through the UFC, and they're showing all the replays. So every time you put the Fox Sports on, it's just saturated the market, and there's no real... If I was a young fighter now, and they said, what would you want to do do you want to kick box at em UFC that's like UFC for sure because look at the superstars right where's Muay Thai there's there's no there's no there's no elite sort of place to go anymore the k1 is dead before was k1 the k1 was the dream right and now that's disappeared so in glory glory but glory glory is amazing but it's not what k-1 was, if that makes sense. Not yet, no.

And still, look at UFC. You look at the George St. Pierre's and the John Jones' lifestyles. It's like, holy shit, that's a different league. That's pretty cool. Yeah, well, the world champions, that level is very different. The Anderson Silvers, and they're rocking the sports cars and they're on there. They're amazing Well, you could look at it that way. Yeah, I guess so. I think that

technique wise The the kickboxing world is at a very high level though. Yes with the Muay Thai world very very high level Yes, which is what was missing like when they were putting on ESPN, which is too bad It's because it's like the if you watch glory like the level of fighters there it's a very high level of fighter you know but it's the just that people just not aware of it yet yeah we need the media exposure say for the the Joe Schilling six for example if you need the to go to his house and seeing what him is like a person instead of just seeing the bell ring, how does he fight, put his hand up and then he disappears.

Whereas the UFC, I know everything about George St. Pierre without even meeting him. I know everything about John Jones without meeting him. I know everyone. And then when they fight, I feel I have that emotional connection. And I really want to cheer for that guy because I feel like I'm emotionally involved. Whereas the Glory guys, like I can't tell you who's who and how many daughters he has or what kind of pets he has at home. Yeah.

One of the things that I really love about just striking, I'm obviously a big fan of the MMA, but when you've got to think about takedowns and when you have to think about submissions and there's so many different things that a fighter has to consider they're not as open with their striking they they don't have as many moments just freely exchanged without worried about being taken down so and when you watch like real high level muay thai real high level kickboxing you get to see this next level fluidity and this next level technique. You see it in boxing as well.

I had conversations with people that say boxing is better. You never see people land those combinations in the UFC. I'm like, well, it's because they're going to take you down. You can't stand sideways with your shoulders like that against a really good wrestler because they're just going to shoot in and take you down. But that style against someone, if you make that agreement like it's only going to be stand up it's only going to be hands you get to see the really high level the Manny Pacquiao's the Floyd Mayweathers you get to see this just next level technique and I feel that same way with kickboxing I feel like

with Muay Thai and with kickboxing you don't get to see the real high-level stuff unless it's just two straight, pure strikers in a Muay Thai match. When I got the opportunity to work with George, for instance, the first time that we sparred, I think George is so used to throwing one-twos, one-two-threes, and then I was literally chasing him from one side of the cage to the other, doing a U-turn and then going straight back at him again. And then after the spar, he told me, he goes, it felt like I was sparring four guys at once because it was just relentless.

That's what I felt like today. We were playing around today. There was no pause. It just continues because there's no fear of being taken down. So I can stand in the pocket and just keep punching and punching and punching and punching. I've always equated it to like a conversation. Like if you have a very crude grasp of the language

and you try to have a conversation with someone, it can be very frustrating because you're searching for the words. You don't know exactly what to say. You're trying to figure out what that person's saying. But if you're like you or me who speak English very fluently, you and I could have a conversation. We could be rattling back and forth.

Well, you're that way with striking. You could tell like striking is like a part of your body's language so you're it's so normal to you you're so used to it that the combinations just flow like water whereas like you were trying to teach me some things today about the the really the unique style that you have of like when you were trying to teach me that uh that crazy uh power jab and then the setups to those knees like you have a very specific way of moving that i was trying to teach me that crazy power jab and then the setups to those knees, you have a very specific way of moving that I was trying to emulate. But to you, this is ingrained in your nervous system.

For you, it just flows out of you, you know? Yeah, I've spent my lifetime. That's why I can't go to MMA because I've spent my whole life learning stand-up. And I'm in fear that I have to spend another lifetime on my back if I want to reach the same sort of level. And I wouldn't do it unless I had that perfection on the floor too. So yeah. It's 10 years. At least. Yeah. It's 10 years of jujitsu. I've invested 20, 25 years of standup striking alone and I don't have any other hobbies. This

is my life. All I do is go to the gym and come home. And then what do you do for fun? Well, that is my fun. I don't have to do anything else. I don't surf. I don't ride motorbikes. I don't do anything besides watch UFC and train myself. It's my life. And I love it.

And I wouldn't change it for nothing either. Do you have any desire to train jiu-jitsu just for fun, just for a goof? No. That's why I come up with the cage muay thai idea. Because I want to fight in the cage and I want to experience the little gloves, but I didn't want to learn the ground because as much as I respect it,

I'm not good in it and I want to be at a high level. So we do promotions in Australia already between me and my wife. And I said, well, instead of hiring a ring, why don't we just hire a cage? So I studied a little bit on the YouTube, and I'd seen it done before,

and they wore boxing gloves. And I thought, well, how am I going to get the respect from the MMA crowd if I wear boxing gloves and they wear little gloves? I'm going to look like a pussy. So I thought, well, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it properly, and I'm going to wear the MMA gloves just to show that I'm just as a warrior as the MMA guys are. So far, we've done five shows and it's

um it's it's amazing that's interesting that you say that because I can't imagine you would have to feel like you at this stage of your life with all your accomplishments you still feel like you have to prove yourself oh every time I still now I still don't believe I'm there yet that's hilarious that's actually hilarious I mean I mean you ever look at your own resume yeah but want to pull it up real quick let's pull it up real quick so I'll just let you know what you've done just so you feel better yeah I'm quite content where I'm at but it always feels like I want to be more famous sir if that's a word yeah no well definitely makes it makes sense I mean

just I get that i mean all high level athletes will tell you that they're never satisfied yeah yep and i guess when you see guys fighting with striking with little gloves and you see that you're using the larger gloves maybe that just makes you feel like you have to show that you're capable of doing that as well yeah i have the highest because because like i said before every weekend I'm invested in the pay-per-view on UFC I'm watching the reruns I'm I can tell you who like last night for instance who was fighting who two years ago who won that fight out of such-and-such like I'm so involved with it's sort of taken over my life the UFC even I'm a Muay Thai guy UFC is sort of

such a big part of me now yeah it's it's hard to explain when you read off your titles it's almost ridiculous yeah this is hilarious WK world middleweight title WK BF k1 middleweight world champion WK a Thai boxing world middleweight championship W WKN Thai boxing world super welterweight champion international kickboxing magazine champion WMC contender Asia runner-up W, Thai boxing, world super welterweight champion, international kickboxing magazine champion, WMC contender Asia runner-up, WMC Thai boxing middleweight world champion, K1 max.

This is hilarious. K1 max, world final eight. KBA, K1 world welterweight champion, K1 world max, world final eight, Thai boxing world middleweight tournament champion. It just goes on and on and on. Australian boxing middleweight champion, King's Cup tournament champion.

It's like over and over and over and over and over. The fact that after all these accomplishments, you still feel like you have to prove yourself. Yeah. Like I said, with the UFC, I see the Georges and the John Joneses, and it's like, I could be that guy. I want to be that guy.

You mean that guy, meaning getting the respect or getting the adulation or getting the focus on you that these guys are getting? Yeah, that's what I'm pretty much... It's crazy because if you watch... I've always said this. It's not like the product isn't there. If you watch high-level Muay Thai, and I watched a lot of your fights last night. After we did the podcast together, I went back, and this morning I watched the documentary on your life, which was amazing. And I watched some of your fights and you know, the product is there. That's what's crazy. It's like, it's a dynamic, exciting product. I'm a boxing fan, but if you give me a

chance between watching a choice rather between watching high level boxing and watching high level Muay Thai, I'll take high level Muay Thai all the time because the possibilities are more. The knees, the elbows, the high kicks, the leg kicks, all those things together. It's more dynamic. There's more things going on. So there's no reason why people shouldn't know about who you are. I mean, that's what it's weird. It's weird.

Yeah. Yeah. My popularity on the social media didn't explode until I started training George. And then everyone started, oh, hang on a second. Who's this bloke? Why is he teaching George? And then from there, it started to open up avenues. And then before that, I was just, yeah, just, I don't know.

The exposure's not there, I guess. They're like, yeah, there's no opportunities. Well, it's exactly where the UFC was at one point in time. There was a time in the 90s when the UFC was banned from cable, when the UFC could only get it on direct TV. And fucking nobody knew who it was. I mean, I was on news radio, which was a sitcom in America, and I was starting to do the interviews, the post-fight interviews.

And I would tell them that I-fight interviews, and I would tell them that I would do it and people would look at me like I'm ruining my life by being involved in this nefarious adventure to go and watch people fight in a cage like I was going to go watch lions fight to the death or something. It was weird. It was like you were talking about porn or even worse than porn. It was like animal porn or something. It was strange.

But now it's a normal, like if you tell people the UFC, oh, I worse than porn. It was like animal porn or something. It was strange But now it's a normal like you tell people the UFC Oh, I've seen that even if the casual person is aware of it's it's gotten into the public's eye enough where the casual person Is it you know, it's a it's a part of the zeitgeist Muay Thai is not I am I had the opportunity to fight in Thailand and it was a eight-man tournament said So I had to fight three times in two hours. And it was live on Thai TV. And it was a massive build-up. And I fought three times.

And I beat the Russian, the French. I beat a Thai in the final. I won a world title, a million baht, which is about $35,000. And I won a trophy from the prime minister of Thailand. And I got back to Australia. And I rang the Brisbane newspaper. There's a big newspaper in Brizzy. And then they've come around and then I said,

I've just won this. I've done this prime trophy from the prime minister. And the lady on the other end said, um, well, it sounds like you're exaggerating all this. Um, why don't you just try your local newspaper and hung up on me before I even got a chance to say goodbye.

She was like, and it's like, we only deal in football and cricket here in Australia because it's not a mainstream sport. Yeah, just try your local paper. Hopefully they'll do

something for you. That's hilarious that cricket is a mainstream sport but Muay Thai is not. Welcome to Australia. I don't mean to be rude if you're a cricket fan

because I like a lot of stupid shit. I'm aware. I'm a big fan of Professional Pool. I like watching Billiard. People go, you're not even playing it, you watch it? Yes.

I watch stupid shit, but cricket. Australia, we play India probably once a week, every weekend. It makes the back page, the front page, the 6 to 30 news. It's the main story every single day. Such and such as the bowler michael clark's got a sore leg and then well let's interview michael clark let's interview this oh this is and then one game lasts four days so you could imagine the cricket game last four days yeah how many hours do they play for oh all day yeah they rock up in the morning and they go and if they're not out

they just keep going and going and going and oh, it's tedious. What? You know what? I know how to fix it. Incorporate Muay Thai and cricket. So like if you strike out

you just fucking duke it out. Take off that stupid fencing helmet you wear. I don't get it. Well, so is baseball. Baseball's kind of silly too and it's our national pastime but when you start using that paddle you know like that fucking boat oar that they smack that ball with, I just, I don't know, I don't get it. But then the guys in the suits, the politicians in Australia too, the cage is

still illegal in Melbourne and still they've just banned it in Perth in Western Australia. They just banned it now? About a year ago. It was okay, and then they've just come around and they've banned it. I have a cage in my gym, and it's like just step into a cage to realize how safe and protected it is compared to a ring. Once you step into it and appreciate what it is for what it is, you'll understand that it's so much better than falling out of a ring

that's a meter and a half high. Yeah, the ring is not the best for MMA, for sure. But I think for striking, it's good. Even in Muay Thai. Even in Muay Thai, I think so as well. Because of the clenching and the throws and all that stuff. I've seen more people fall out of a ring than, well, never at a cage, of course. But, yeah, there's guys falling out all the time.

Well, Dylan, last time you were here, he's not on camera right now. Hey, Dylan. What's up, buddy? I don't know if he'll turn that on. Dylannick off. I said that right right I said right that's how you see was brother Liam while back was like a year ago You guys showed a video of this dude who? He was like running and attacking and he went flying out of the ring, right? he was running and attacking, and he went flying out of the ring, right?

Denver's Rainbow. Was it? Yeah, Lumpini. Was you guys that showed that video, right? Wasn't it? Maybe. Might have been. Damn, I had so many fucking... So as he's falling out of the ring,

he puts his hands out, the brace he's for, he puts a hand on a chair, and each hand, the chair's split. No! It falls straight on his neck. Oh, no. And then I think he was in a coma for like a month or two. Because he fell from about two meters high.

He fell over the top rope. So incorporate that from the ring to the concrete floor. Oh. Do you remember back in the day, they used to run events because the cage was banned in New South Wales. Oh, you're in Queensland, sorry. And I think it was Tony Bonello's show. And then they used to have not had a cage. So what they did is they had the platform,

and they had all the big boys like Tama Tahuna and Jamie Tahuna and all those boys standing around with the kick shields. Oh, the catch guys. Yeah, and guys were getting, like, dropped, and their heads were hitting the side. It was madness. In pride, they used to physically push guys back in. They used to physically push guys back in.

And I think it was Paulo Filho once caught some guy in a triangle through the ropes. He had his... The guy was somehow or another trapped in the rope. There was a limb out of the rope and a limb in the rope. So the rope of the triangle was involved in the triangle. I mean, the rope of the ring, rather, was involved in him securing the triangle. It was like the guy was tangled in it. That's not good. That stop, start, stop, start, drag you back in the center,

and hang on, your arm was here, this is your, and go. I've been talking about this for a while, that if they can have a big room for basketball, a big flat surface, why can't they have a big flat surface for fighting where everyone can see what the fuck's going on? Because you don't see what's going on a lot of times with the cage, even me. I'm right there when I'm calling UFC fights, but sometimes a post is in the way or it's around, they're like sideways. I have to lean up to try to see because it's like, kind of like I'm looking sideways through the cage i think that

a flat surface would eliminate a lot of the stalling and a lot of the uh you know the pressing the clinching up against the cage like clinching in the center is a totally different animal and when you're leaning on someone pressing someone against the cage that it takes out a large factor yep um what do you think about that? Do you think that's possible? I reckon that's fantastic. You wouldn't be able to cage walk either with your shoulders in the center of the air. You get taken down. You've got to fight for it.

You've got to actually fight for it. Or learn how to fight off your back. It'd be hard. Yeah, I mean, there's guys that are really dangerous. Like, Charles Oliveira is one of the best in the UFC at fighting off his back. You saw his last fight with Jeremy Stephens. I don't know if you're aware of him,

but he's got a vicious guard. His guard, he's attacking all the time. So when you take that guy down, it's no fucking picnic. You know, he's constantly threatening your arm, your neck. And those guys are going to excel in a world where you can't just, you know, you can't just hold a guy against a cage. Or if you take a guy down, he can't just wall walk. A guy's going to have to fight off of his back.

I feel like that's more more honest You know I mean the cage is a real element of MMA and guys trained for it And therefore you should be able to utilize it if you're a professional you should understand it But it also puts a weird taste in people's mouths like oh, they're fighting cages There are animals it's awesome Even even thought we do with the the cmt the cage stuff um as soon as they close the door it just seems like it's you and your opponent and the the the black of the fence just makes it like a black wall so you can't see the crowd you can't

see the judges and then it it just feels like the the arena it's just just you and him yeah that is cool that aspect of it too um but i just feel like visually like as far as like for being able to see it's not the best ring is better to see 120 fights in a 115 fights in a in a ring and then in the cage it just feels like you're it's all new again it's all fresh it's all exciting so that's interesting that's why I love it. So just changing the environment made it all totally different for you. And little gloves. The forehand gloves. Little gloves make it more real. Did you ever do kickboxing where there was no elbows, like Glory style? No elbows, no knees, no clinch? I fought K-1 for a couple years in Japan.

And then when I first started out as an amateur, of course, I just started babies and baby steps. I did the eight count rule back in the day. We had to do eight kicks above the waist. Oh, the PKA stuff? PKA. So you did that with no leg kicks? Only once.

There was leg kicks involved, but the leg kicks didn't score. They had to be above the waist to get the count. Oh, really? They didn't want boxing to... There were so many guys that were doing karate that changed over to kickboxing, boxing that changed over to kickboxing, so they wanted to eliminate the hands and make more guys kick more. So it had to be at least eight kicks above the waist. But you still let kick.

That's interesting. So you could still debilitate a guy and it wouldn't count point-wise. Yes. That's kind of crazy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Australia. So what is the rule of glory? Like they let you throw knees but you can't clinch when you throw a knee?

Or K-1 had it for you could only clinch with one hand for a while? Yeah, 2004, as long as you were busy in the clinch, they'd let it go. And then Borkow came along and just dominated everybody. He was throwing them around like ragdolls. And he busted up Masato. I don't know if you remember Masato. Yeah, I remember Masato. And then so the very next year, they said, okay, we've got a new rule, one hand, one knee.

And then that gives the guys that are proper, more boxing-orientated, an opportunity to fight guys like Borkel, where they had no chance before. Well, Alistair Overeem, too, used to just clinch guys with those gigantic fucking tree-trunk arms. Just hold on to your neck and you're Dunsville. He'd just blast those knees into you. Yeah. You ever seen that fight that he fought? I forget who it was. Teixeira, where he hit him.

He clinched with both hands behind the neck and hit him with a knee, and it looked like he got shot, like someone hit him with a sniper bullet. Boom, he just goes down. That clinch, though, is such an effective weapon. It doesn't make any sense to me to eliminate that. When I see it being eliminated in kickboxing or making guys use one hand or something like that, I'm like, that's so foolish.

It doesn't make any sense to me. It's like you're eliminating a really exciting aspect and a crucial aspect of the art of Muay Thai. Yeah, the Thais are so efficient in it. They're so good and so powerful. And you can see the shots and you can hear the noise. But when Westerners get into the clinch, it's sort of like two dogs that are trying to make puppies.

It's not quite as good. They just hop on each other. That's hilarious. The referee gets a bucket of water, get off each other. Two male dogs. That's funny. The referee gets a bucket of water, get off each other. Two male dogs? So, yeah. That's funny. That's why I limit it because the Westerners aren't very good at it. The tires, when they get airborne as they're throwing knee for knee.

But, yeah, so they made it more entertaining for the crowd, I guess. Yeah, I don't know, man. I think even the crowd, like, that's one of the things that drives me nuts about modern MMA is stand-ups. When guys get taken down and they're fighting on the ground and then they get stood back up. I mean, I just think it's ridiculous. Like, if you only have five minutes, especially me coming from a jiu-jitsu background, if you have five minutes and you take a guy down, a lot of times it's a slow progression to a submission. And, you know, you can't be like, come on,, come on, guys, let's work, let's work.

Like, they're fucking working, okay? But sometimes when guys are working, it's a stalemate. Like, sometimes you're trying to pass, the guy's trying to stop you from passing, you try to advance on the other side, the guy tries to stop you from the other side. Like, there's a lot of shit going on. There's a lot of shit going on.

And unexperienced referees or referees that are unexperienced in grappling or referees that are easily influenced by the crowd. Like sometimes they'll hear booing and, you know, you just, what are you going to, is this show for assholes? You know, people who don't understand fighting? You're going to, so stand them up, stand them up, stand them up. Okay, stand them up. No, these guys are trying to fight.

Elite XC was the worst example of that. Big country, Roy Nelson had Andrei Orlovsky down inside control, working at Kimura, and they stood him up. It was fucking ridiculous. They had like a 15-second thing where if you went to the ground, if something didn't happen in 15 seconds, they stood you up. Yeah. Sometimes when the UFC is born, they press against the cage, and there's this stalemate where absolutely nothing's happening at all. I think that's the same as the Muay Thai. If you push someone against the ropes and you're

holding, holding, and you're not throwing anything, alright, then you gotta do it. But if they're busy, for sure, let it go. Keep it going. Yeah, I don't know. I just don't think you ever see that with high level guys. I think that's just a part of being a fighter who's not that good. Or a fighter who's learning. You see a guy like Cain Velasquez.

Cain Velasquez never gets warned to keep moving you know he's punching you in the face he's taking you down it's like he's constantly in motion and that's why he's one of the elite of the elite you don't see that stalling that really you know that kind of stalling on high level guys i just think you gotta let him fight it's ridiculous enough like five minutes is a small amount of time for a grappler, you know, and sometimes guys just are trying to work techniques and they're getting they're getting, you know, stalled to keep hammering at him until he can't keep the rhythm up and then you advance and then eventually you catch him But sometimes you'll be a guy will be defending like a wizard like if you watch two guys roll two high-level guys Like it is like we were expressing before it's like a conversation They're they're arguing about shit and they're trying to find holes in each other's game

and it'll go on where it looks like as a stalemate for five minutes, but Save like it's like a Marcelo Garcia character He's fighting a guy who's really athletic and you think you go man is how long can this guy hold Marcelo off? And that's really what the question is. It's not a matter of all this guy's just as good as Marcelo Not really No eventually

He's gonna figure out the right combination of things to do to this guy, and he's going to have his back. And then once he has his back, that guy's fucked. But it's like how long does it take to get him there? And in MMA, halfway there, you're like, boo, stand him up, stand him up. Well, you're never going to see the most high-level practitioner succeed if that's the tactic. You're never going to see it get to that point. I think that's unfortunate about MMA today, is that they still have that stand-up thing.

I think stand-ups are, I think it's a travesty, I really do. Even in Thailand, say we kick three rounds on the pads or five rounds on the pads, that's 15, 20 minutes. But then every afternoon you're spending half an hour on the clinch, just working the knees non-stop for half an hour. So they're spending more time working on that than they are actually kicking and punching things. And then when it's time to come to a, when the ties go to Europe and stuff, all of a

sudden it's like a one knee combination before they break it up. So they're taking away 90% of their tools. That's an interesting thing you were talking about last night about Muay Thai scoring, that the clinching is like a big part of the scoring, whereas we look at clinching as stalling out or like, you know, something that they're doing where they're trying to like wait, buy their time, figure out what to do next. Like in Thailand, it's a big aspect of the fighting.

Yeah, this morning we mentioned it as well. The round one if they don't get in the clinch no one bets no one bets until halfway through round two all of a sudden I get into a clinch and then it's like boom you see that just the hands go crazy because everyone's their own bookmaker in Thailand so so everyone's doing their own odds and then they won't bet until they know the other guy's got a solid solid base or a solid knee game that's so wild that's so wild the difference in their culture is so amazing.

It's just, I really have to get over there. One of the things I want to do on my bucket list is go and watch a stadium fight in Thailand, like a real high-level fight. Watch the, you know, be there for the whole night and check it. I'm almost willing to take a family vacation to Thailand and talk my wife into going to Thailand, but that's probably a fucking terrible idea. So the boxing hardly score. Leg kicks don't score. Mainly body kicks, knees, and elbows.

Body kicks, knees, and elbows. And leg kicks don't hardly score. Legs don't score. Because it's so easy to throw a leg kick. Anyone can throw a leg kick. But it takes a high level to land a solid. Even if it kicks the arms, that's considered a point as well. Really?

If you get kicked in the arms without attempting to try and block it, that's a free point. How many guys get arms broken in Thailand? Is that common? I haven't seen many, no. That's amazing because it's really common in MMA. I've seen a guy get his thigh broke. That was pretty crazy. Whoa.

That was hectic. I've seen he hit the ground and then he was on his side and he went to roll over and his hip went first and then his leg went second. And I was like, oh, and he went to roll over, and his hip went first, and then his leg went second. And I was like, oh, that's broken for sure. And the next day, sure enough, completely snapped in half. Had to get the pins. It was all in the magazines. It was very nasty.

Not only that, he had to get the pins in Thailand. Yeah. Thailand's really good. Thailand, the hospitals are more hygienic than they are in Australia. Oh, well, that's not good for Australia. I'd eat off the floor at a hospital in Thailand for sure. Really? So they have really good, I'm just being prejudiced.

Yeah, yeah. Fucking American asshole. American asshole that I am. So what did he get his leg broken with? It was a kick. Biking. Wow. Yeah, the guy just, boom, just chopped it hard. God damn, man.

Yeah, just snapped. It was very... Do you remember Stan Longinitas versus Dennis Alexio? Yes, I do. Yeah, the guy just, boom, just chopped it hard. God damn, man. Yeah, just snapped. It was very... Do you remember Stan Longinitas versus Dennis Alexio? Yes, I do. Yeah. It was the big hype in Australia. That was massive. Fuck, yeah, man.

In the last 15 seconds. Stan the man. He had a motherfucker of a leg kick. Jesus Christ. Yes. God damn. He used to work with my friend Shuki. Shuki from Majiro Gym.

Okay. Shuki had a, he was from Israel, and he had a gym out here in Encino. And he was set up for a hip replacement from fucking holding the pads from Stan Longinitas. Ha. Holding that thigh pad. He said that motherfucker would kick me so hard that it was like jolting his hips. It fucked up the inside of his hip. That's amazing.

Yeah. Ow. Fuck, heavyweight's kicking you, dude. Fuck all that. Stan, he's a big guy, right? He's not very tall. He's only about my height, but big boy. Yeah.

And then that was his main weapon was the leg kicks with the hands. That was a first round kick, too. I mean, that was amazing. Yeah. That was amazing. The whole too. I mean, that was amazing. That was amazing. The whole... Snap a guy's femur with one leg kick. The whole hype and the movie kickboxer coming out and then Dennis Alexio, he was the king back then too.

Yeah, he was. This was Stan's hardest fight and the big lead up and then the sold out arena. And then Dennis Alexio came out in the grass skirt. Yeah, that Hawaii thing. Yeah. He was thinking that was going to help the impact for the thigh kick, so he had a bit of cushioning, but it sort of reversed on him. Because he checked it.

It was a check kick. He checked it, and then he went to put his foot down. That's when his shin snapped. Wow. It was his shin? It wasn't his thigh. Oh, interesting. It snapped through both his shin bones.

God damn. Yeah. Wow. I didn't know. Why did I think it was the thigh bone? That's it was so long ago, but I they did a story on it because as he put his check check up He's put his instep of his foot on his knee So there was no give instead of having the leg floppy and then he's locked it into his other leg and then as he's kicked

Through it's like kicking through a baseball bat. Oh I see Done Anderson Silva blep Wow Oh, I see. Oh, okay. And then I just put it down. They've done the Anderson Silva. Wow. That's amazing.

It's rare that you see it on two high-level guys like that, where you see a leg break like that. Maybe protein, injectable protein. Injectable protein? I don't think you really mean protein. I think you're using euphemisms. Did you see his fight, Dennis Alexio's fight with Don Wilson? That's when he got schooled on leg

kicks. Did you ever see that? No, no. Dude, back in the day when Dennis Alexio was a young man, he wasn't schooled in the ways of the low kick, and he fought Don the Dragon Wilson, and Don Wilson fucked him up with low kicks. Defense and low kicks. There's a guy that doesn't get enough credit. Don Wilson had sort of like

a weird sort of karate style, but he knew how to throw a good low kick. You know, he was a very crafty fighter. Yep, yep. Geez, we're going back in time now. Oh, fuck, yeah. Now we're in the 80s, I think. And then you go before then, you go to, you know,

you got to go to what we talked about earlier, Dennis... Superfoot. Oh, yeah. But there was something, not just Dennis Lex go, you go Don Wilson, then you go Benny key does Benny or key does was fucking shit Yeah, I trained at his gym when I first moved to LA that was the first place I went to I was like I'm going to the Jets and I wanted the way long pants so bad

What about the foot things did you want to wear the foot cushion my first fight was the shin pads with the foot cushions Ah, I'm we suspect with the foot cushions too So that they were they were in back then. When Chuck Norris had that World Combat League and he was doing a very similar thing to what we were talking about, where they fight like kind of in a small bowl, like a saucer, like they didn't have a ring

and they didn't have a cage. They had just this sort of slightly elevated platform that had a lip to it. So when they get to the outside edge, you know, the referee would bring them back in. I thought it was a very smart way to do it Did you think about fighting in that at all? I was still a puppy. I'm only I was only a few years ago Yeah, I'm only You're only 20. I didn't know

You're 38 now right 38. Yeah, we could tell people you're not a chick But that wasn't that long ago you had to be That was a while ago. I don't think it was 10 years ago. I think World Combat League was like, I want to say it was like, I know I was working for the UFC at the time because I went to see one live.

Okay. And I got a hug from Chuck motherfucking Norris. Back in the day, I was so mad that I didn't get a picture of it. And you lived. Yeah, I did. I lived. I felt different though.

It was like I touched a lightning bolt. And you got pregnant. I might have. But so you didn't think about fighting. K1 was the dream. K1 was the pinnacle, if you'd say. That was a bummer that that kind of folded under. I was trying to get the UFC to buy K1 a long time ago.

And the number one thing that I talked to Dana White about, he's like, ah, people don't like kickboxing. That PKA karate ruined it for everybody. And I was like, that's so crazy to say that. Because that's like saying that UFC 1 ruined it for what we're seeing today. Because this is so not related. Like, the product itself, the kickboxing product itself is so high level. When you go to the fights, the classics, the Peter Ertz fights, the Andy Hoog, the Mike Bernardo, those fights, those fucking Jerome Labanner, those were crazy fights.

I mean, if you look at that product, I couldn't imagine anybody not wanting to put on those fights. Yeah, the production level too. Everything was high definition. The slow-mos's the the the highlight packages that make up you you couldn't help but feel like this was the i was lucky enough to fight there in 2004 2005 and we were pulling 40 000 people every show that's amazing and then we had a live 40 000 people yeah and you'd walk out to the arena and then you'd check out the stage and sometimes you come up through the floor for your walkout or you'd walk out to the arena and then you'd check out the stage and sometimes you'd come up through the floor for your walkout.

It was just unbelievable. Oh, they had like some elevator that would make you rise up through the floor? I remember in the back room once I was trying to find the stairs and I've asked the lady, where do I go? And she goes, oh, stand on that thing. I was like, no way. And she goes, oh, yes. I was like, fuck yes.

And then I remember coming up through the floor and then all of a sudden there's 40,000 people right in front of you. It's like, this is amazing. Wow. And then we had a TV audience of 20 million people in Tokyo also. So it would be delayed broadcast by about an hour. So by the time we finished our fight, we'd have a TV on the bus and pretty much watch your fight

as you're on your way back to the hotel. Wow. But Thailand was pretty cool too Thailand would have crowds song try who was fighting for he'd have he'd make all his money from the TV production so he do live shows in the middle of nowhere and people would drive for hours to be present for a live event and we'd have 40,000 60,000 there's this one big event once a year called the Kings birthday and we'd have 40,000 60,000 um there's this one big event once a year called the king's birthday and we get 100,000 people plus every year on the 5th of december oh i was lucky to fight on that uh four years in a row so the first time i went on the ring it was the first

time that i my knees went weak because as far as i could see was an ocean of heads and i started trembling and then i've come out in the first round I've tried to finish him and then by the fifth round I sort of spent my pennies I fell over a couple of times and then and losing on points and then the next year

I got invited back and I said oh no I'm not going to get spooked out this time this time like the UFC jitters like you talk about all the time I had the jitters the first one

the second time I was like no I'm not going to this time I'm going to love it I'm going to absorb it I'm going to run with it. So I've got out there, big breath, and 100,000 people. And then I had the greatest fight of my life.

There was 10 Westerners versus 10 Thais. And I was the only Westerner to win. I'm getting high five from the Thais on the way back to the change room. And then the last time I did it, there was probably only 95,000 people. Ah, a little tiny crowd. And I was looking out the back going, ah, jeez, what's going on? Where is everyone? This is sad. Yeah, a little tiny crowd. And I was looking out the back going, ah, jeez, what's going on? Where is everyone? This is sad.

Yeah, it was nuts. You could tell the difference between 95,000 and 100,000? There was a little spot near the hot dog stand where you could have fit another 5,000 people easy. What is that like? 100,000 people. And then sometimes you'd have to get a police escort. So you'd have three policemen either side of you and they'd push people out of the way for you as you make your way towards the crowd.

Just to get through. And you're the Westerner. So imagine you're the one of three or four Westerners that are on the show and you're just surrounded by Thai people. And at that stage, I couldn't really speak Thai very well either. And they're just looking at you like some sort of freak that you're dead. You're dead. You're fighting one of us.

And then you go and beat one of them And then all of a sudden they're high-fiving you and shaking your hand and want a photo with you and it's just really Amazing so you didn't experience much racism over there No, no, if you go out there and fight as hard as you can win lose or draw even if you if you lose But you fight like a like you're a man possessed They love you. There's no hatred. As long as you show heart.

It's all about heart in Thailand. That's true with a lot of Asian countries, right? That's the same as Japan. The samurai spirit. If you go out there and give it your all and you go out in a stretcher, they prefer you go out in a stretcher than you lay down from a knee and say, Oh, it hurts. Well, that's one of the major complaints from a lot of fighters. Like Rampage said that many times about the difference between fighting in Japan and fighting in America

is that in Japan, they appreciate effort. They want you to fight your best. And if you fight your best, sometimes you fight someone who's better than you and you lose. And that's just the way of fighting. It's a way of learning. And that's how guys get better.

That adversity from loss and going back and regrouping and watching films and realizing where you have to step your game up, that's how guys get better. That adversity from loss and going back and regrouping and watching films and realizing where you have to step your game up, that's what creates champions. I mean, that is what creates a real champion, is you have to be able to fight people who are better than you or as good as you. It's got to be a really high level that you're aspiring to. And along the way, sometimes you lose. But in Japan, they treat the losers

in those really high-level fights where it's just incredible action and heart. They treat the losers the same way they treat the winners. That doesn't happen in America. In America, that's the number one complaint is that people look at you like, oh, you're a loser. You lost. You loser.

I find Muay Thai and MMA, ufc especially um the crowd i think is a lot better than boxing if you have one loss in boxing you're done um you can have it you can be 26 and 0 24 knockouts one loss oh he's has been he's he should retire he's done and then uh you have if you have two losses in boxing oh you don't talk about it anymore. You're out of there. Especially KO losses. KO losses. Yeah. But in MMA, or in Muay Thai especially, as long as you fight hard and you lose to a good guy, your crowd base is still going to be there next time around.

You're not going to lose anybody. As long as you fight hard and if you get knocked out, going out in your shield, there's still going to be next time to still support you. Well, there's a few fighters that still have that kind of support just because they're so exciting. Like, Vanderlei Silva is a perfect example. Like, Vanderlei's been knocked out quite a few times, but he still has a gigantic following because there's no such thing as a boring Vanderlei Silva fight.

Every Vanderlei Silva fight, it's like, ready, ready, chaos. Yes. You know, are you ready? Are you ready? Fucking mad violence until that guy's last heartbeat i mean every time he fights he fights like a man possessed which is why he has so many people that love him but a lot of guys they felt like like quentin rampage especially i had to keep bringing him up but he experienced a lot of hate after you know after beating chuck liddell you

know and and he was like i can't believe people are upset at me for being good you know because I beat their hero you take all these people would say horrible shit to him and I think in that sense the United States crowds like there's there's something to be desired about some of the people that are excited about fighting MMA crowd I noticed with with George especially hang with George and he when we were training together put a few photos up and then I was more I'd go to his page and I was

astonished by the amount of hate that George has on his page he has like 4 million people that follow him and his Twitter and then all is

when you gonna finish a fight George or if I need to go to sleep I just put a George St. Pierre photo and I fall asleep half way through the first round and it's like

fuck man this is one of the greatest fighters of all time. How can you not appreciate him dominating someone for five rounds? Why does he have to knock out someone

every single time he fights? Floyd doesn't knock out everybody and he's the highest-paid athlete in the world. Why can't the same be for MMA guys? If someone dominates someone, why can't you appreciate

his skills instead of, oh, it has to be a knockout. It has to be a knockout. Oh, believe me, if you go and watch Floyd and see him interact with the public, that guy gets fucked with as much as anybody Oh, really? Yeah, they showed it on his the 24-7 like one of his last those HBO things for 24-7 Like when he was out at a burger place people were heckling him

Oh, yeah heckling him at a cheeseburger place because the cameras on in in his in front of us because he's a little guy it's like It right in front of his face. They were fucking well, didn't he get punched by T. I didn't know someone supposedly punched Yeah, you know I have a hard time, but yeah, I'm stupid fucking rappers gonna punch Floyd Mayweather You know and if he did he knew that other people were there you know you put those two yeah, okay? You want to hit him okay? How about we do this? How about we lock the two-unit conference rooms here? Just let's just shut the door and see what the fuck's going on without your buddies in the room.

Getting punched by a rapper. Could you imagine the indignity of being one of the greatest, if not the greatest boxer of all time? A lot of people give that guy shit and say he's not the greatest, that Sugar Ray Robinson is the greatest. I had this conversation with Max Kellerman about it. I respect Max Kellerman very much, but I don't think that Floyd Mayweather would have lost to Jake LaMotta. What about Julio Chavez? He's amazing.

It was time. 97-0 before his first loss. But Meljic Taylor was beating him until he got tagged. And I don't think Meljic Taylor is the same boxer that Floyd Mayweather is. I think Floyd Mayweather defensively is the best ever. Yeah, true. We've seen him get hit like three times in his whole career.

Yeah. You know, Maidana cracked him in the last fight, but he only cracked him at the end of the round. And you could see he got rocked in that fight. He got rocked by Shane Mosley. But he's just so good defensively. He's so good that he just never really experiences much danger in his fights. You know? I mean, you go back to all the other greats, and they were in wars.

He's never in a war. He's just never in a war. And you can talk all the shit you want, but look at the guys he's fighting. You know, he's fighting Juan Manuel Marquez. Look what happened with Juan Manuel Marquez and Pacquiao. I mean, they're in a war, and Marquez caught him and knocked him out. Dead. Yeah, four wars.

Good luck trying to catch Floyd like that. Good luck. He's just never going to make those kind of mistakes. And one of the things that's so exciting about Pacquiao is that he throws himself into danger. He's so aggressive, and he's so fast, and he's willing to, he tries to finish fights. He tries to put himself in the line of fire in order to achieve victory.

Floyd doesn't do that shit. Floyd's shoulder rolling and popping you with jabs and moving on you, and you see guys like Canelo Alvarez just look so flustered. They don't know what to do with him. A lot of guys look like they're giving up halfway through the third round. The first round, they're like, I i'm gonna make a statement today watch this no one's gonna be able to do what i'm gonna do and then by the third round they just come out like beginners and they're too afraid to throw because floyd's already a step ahead of him

yeah if he had strong hands if his hands didn't break all the time you know like floyd he's had quite a few like broken hands he's a serious serious problem with handbrakes if he didn't have that man Goddamn, you know if he had punching power as well as that an insane defensive technique Yeah, he's in my opinion. He's the most masterful of all the boxers I've ever watched Bernard Hopkins right up there Andre Ward is another one He doesn't get enough credit It's like a lot of Americans or for whatever reason are not aware of how good Andre Ward is. But God damn, he's a good boxer. Another one, just brilliant defensively.

Very rarely see him in trouble. And he's so different, too, because Andre Ward fights different styles for different fighters. Like some fighters, he'll fight on the outside. He'll fight long range, and he'll box them. And then on other fighters, he just fucking gets right up in your grill, and he's throwing these combinations and cutting angles on you and never letting you breathe.

He's very versatile. Very smart, too, man. Yeah, yeah. I miss the 90s. I miss the boxing in the 90s. Do you? I miss the Oscar De La Hoya's, the Shane Mosley's.

Back in them days, when men fought men, it was... Men fought men? Yeah, it was crazy. What are they doing now? What's going on now? They're sort of,

I don't want to fight you because you might beat me, or I've got that zero that might now? They're sort of, I don't want to fight you because you might beat me. Or I've got that zero that might disappear if you beat me. So I don't want that happening. Do you think a guy like Floyd Mayweather, because he's 47 and 0, that it contributes to that? Because he makes so much fucking money. Him being 47 and 0, I mean, that guy, the money team, and rolls around and rolls Royce. Does that drive you crazy?

Why hasn't it taken so long for Mr. Pacquiao to get this fight to be done in this five five five year old fight that should have been done ages ago well probably because floyd is smart which is why he's 47 or no and he wants to fight him when he knows he can beat him yeah true and make 120 million dollars i mean that's what's up i mean what's up at the end of the day look if they fought in their primes and i'm not saying pacquiao let's be real about this let's be totally real about this pacquiao went up eight weight classes and retained his punching power and there was always all sorts of allegations of special proteins that came in needle form mexican supplements if you were i don't know what the fuck was going on, but that's one of the things that Floyd always was saying, and a lot of other fighters have said it too.

I don't know if it's true. But if it is true, and Floyd wasn't doing those same things, and they did fight, and Pacquiao did have that unnatural advantage, you know, a few years ago, like back when he fought Margarito or, you know, back before Marquez knocked him out you gotta wonder like maybe it's intelligent to not fight a guy like that at that time if you know something that that you and I and the regular people that aren't involved in the deep deep in the boxing world maybe smart might be smart just you know nobody wants to see

a guy cheat his way to victory. That's something that drives everyone crazy. There's no doubt about the fact that Pacquiao works hard. I mean, Pacquiao's disciplined, he's focused, he's an amazing fighter. I mean, no doubt about it. But, man, there's a lot of fucking allegations connected to his camp. That Alex Ariza guy, the guy that left and was, who the fuck was he training with? He was training with one of Pacquiao's opponents. I forget which fight it was.

But that guy has got a lot of weird shit attached to him. There's a lot of these guys that have a lot of weird allegations that may or may not be true. But if you're smart and you're a guy like Floyd Mayweather, why not avoid those guys? And that's something that we were talking about earlier today because george um when he was talking about when he left the ufc and when he said i'm gonna take a break and i'm gonna relinquish my title one of the things that he talked about was the problem with peds he talked he said this is a huge problem in mma and a lot of people poo-pooed him we don't need to name names a lot of people said that oh he's exaggerating We don't need to name names. A lot of people said that, oh, he's exaggerating.

But now, man, it's now with these more stringent tests that are being performed, fucking Anderson Silva pisses hot. Yes. I mean, everybody, look, Hector Lombard, who saw that coming? Who saw? I can't believe Hector Lombard. That doesn't make any sense. He doesn't look like a guy who was on supplements.

But, you know, it's a part. It's a part of the sport. It's very unfortunate. In Thailand, if we wanted to pick me up, the only thing we would get from the chemist was ginseng. Ginseng? That's it? I'd go down, I'd get 20 ginseng for 20 days. And that was our...

For 20 days, and they cut you off after 20 days? Let's not get crazy, foreigner. I only had a small budget. I'd have to wait for my next fight to get prize money to buy another 20 for my Next fight. How much is ginseng cost on the eyes 20 baht or something that I tablet know what is a bot in American money? 50 cents 50 cents. Oh, maybe that's maybe ten bucks for 20 ginseng tablets. Yeah, I was poor I was only making $30 a fight back then Jesus 20 ginseng tablets. Yeah, I was poor. I was only making $30 a fight back then.

Jesus fucking Christ. And then I'd have to give 50% of that to the camp too. What is the cheapest you've ever made for a fight? $30. $30? Yeah. And I was fighting ties with 100 fights. And you had to give how much back?

50%. So the deal with my camp was I live for free, train for free, and eat, train train and live and then every time i fought i'd give fifty percent to the camp and then so if i made a thousand a thousand baht five hundred if i made ten thousand baht it was five thousand and then i was lucky enough to win a million baht so then i have to give the camp five hundred thousand baht and that was like oh my god that's like four lifetimes of prize money right there That's insane. Yeah a million baht would be how much American money? It was 35,000 Australian so about ten dollars Australian a ten dollars American No

What is a million okay? I think the Australian dollars about equivalent to a peso. I don't know 35,000 so a million baht is 35 000 probably about 35 now yeah that's ridiculous that was the most you made there that's insane no wonder why you're angry at floyd mayweather yeah and then and then i had to give i had to give 50 to the camp too 17 000. well at least you're living for free yeah yeah but sometimes i wouldn't fight for ages, too So I needed the and then eating for free and had somewhere to roof over my head I want to talk to you about your journey because as a young man as a teenager

You chose to move to Thailand. You didn't know the language and you immersed yourself in Thai culture And became a Thai fighter I mean that is an incredible adventure for a young man to take part of and a very rare and brave one that not a lot of people ever, not a lot of people really stick their neck out like that and do something along those lines.

The movie Kickboxer came out, the Van Damme. It's like, I want to walk in this guy's footsteps. I want to be this guy. So I had 13 fights in Australia. I won an Australian title, a South Pacific title. And then I had 13 fights in Australia I won an Australian title a South Pacific title and then I had a relationship with a guy called Richard Vell who was it owns a Thai restaurant and he said you fought amazing tonight I want I want to know do you want to go to Thailand and learn

from the best I'd love to learn from the best I'd be amazing he said if you can organize your passport I'll do everything else I'll do your plane to get I'll find you a camp or training'll train so when got a passport and then sure enough he bought me a plane ticket and he said you must promise me you can't come back for six months um if you come back before then me and you are done done and dusted wow so you got to promise me your stays okay stay so i went to the i went to thailand um moved to bangkok i know i could speak english i had the one of those ones where there's a hole on the ground and you had to pull in the uh in I had one of those ones where there's a hole in the ground, and you had to pull in the little shit on it.

And then there was no toilet paper, so you had to pour water in your hand to wipe your bum. You had no hot water, so we had to rinse on, soap up, then rinse off. It's hilarious that that is what you would complain about when people are kicking you in the fucking legs, body, and head all day. It's like, yeah, you've got to wipe your ass weird and then and then sleep on a wooden floor next to 10 other dudes and then there's no no beds and then wow and that's not including the seven hours training it's high boxing too so when you finish your your three and a half hours and at night you've got a wooden floor to look forward to to go to bed on wow no cushion at all i put it uh

like a big blanket down as a like a bit of cushioning between that and the wood how much snoring was involved the worst one was the arms and legs the ties would throw an arm over you in the middle of the night and you have to try and get it off in case in case they took advantage of you and then um yeah so i had five fights for five wins uh four knockouts came back to australia and then the thai camp rang my sponsor and i said hey he looks like he's got a bit of promise can you send him back again so he rang me up and said you want to go back to thailand i said i'd love to go back to thailand i don't want to work i want to live this thai boxing dream so i said okay this

time you got to promise me 12 months don't come back within 12 months you got to commit your whole life so sure so i went over and then uh i was fighting on the little shows back then and then Promise me, 12 months. Don't come back within 12 months. You've got to commit your whole life. I said, sure. So I went over. And then I was fighting on the little shows back then. And then the opportunity, the main guy that was at our camp, Sang Tan, he was fighting on a big show. And then I went to support him. And then a guy called Danny Bill from France,

he was supposed to fight one of the big ties. And he never rocked up. He disappeared somehow. And they said, oh, Danny Bill's not here. Who's going to fight this guy? My trainer put his hand up and said this guy will he'll fight him and i've absolutely pooed my pants i shit myself and uh how many fights did you have at this point uh 13 14 uh about about 16. and he said he'll fight him he'll find this guy's had like 250 fights and my young teenager here he'll fight him and then uh he said, oh, he can't fight him.

I'll let him fight, though. Does anyone in the room want to fight the white guy? And I kid you not, about 60 hands went up in the room. They said, we'll fight him, we'll fight him. So they said, oh, you two, you're about the close size. So I ended up fighting this guy in front of 40,000 people. I got cut in the fifth, blood streaming down my face. I ended up doing enough to beat him every round.

And then the number one promoter in Thailand said, okay, done. From now on, you're going to start fighting for me. And then the next minute, I started fighting at 60,000. I started to fight at Lumpini Stadium. I'm fighting on TV, all the fights. I'm the first Westerner to make the number one selling Muay Thai magazine in Thailand. And all the Thais started calling me the dangerous kangaroo.

And then, yeah, then I started reaching the A-class guys, which was a bit of a shock. I fought a guy called Orono. And I had 20 fights, and he had like close to 300. And he was like the household name. He was the Anderson Silva almost of Muay Thai in Thailand. And then a third round he cut me 21 stitches the fight gets stopped so I went down a few pegs and

then from then on and backwards and forwards backwards and forwards and then the year 2000 I got to rematch the Orono again and this time was on the Kings birthday in front of a hundred thousand people live on Thai TV and then I schooled him every round and won his world title in front of all these Thais and then from that moment on all of a sudden I started becoming a sort of a celebrity in Thailand, not a celebrity but in the Muay Thai

world I was a somebody now Wow, that's amazing and then from there I come back to Australia open the gym and then I had no trainer and then so I got a few of my friends, even to this day I get my friends, hey can you hold the pads, and then I had no trainer. And then so I got a few of my friends. Even to this day, I get my friends, hey, can you hold the pads like this? I watch the fight.

The promoter ring, hey, do you want to fight this guy? Okay, so I'll tell my friend, hey, can you hold the pads like this? And then I'll go and fight. Hey, do you want to come and give me some water in between rounds? So when you were training in Australia, you were self-trained? Self-trained. To this day, I'm still self-trained. To this day?

Yeah. But your time in Thai, in Thailand, you were training with the best thai trainers so the thais they said okay you pretty much after being here for five years you pretty much know our system now all you have to do is get fit and then come back to australia and that's what i've been doing just help them get my friends to help me do you feel like there's anything that you miss when you do that as opposed to like training in Thailand like with those guys? Like if you had your druthers like if you had a choice Would you have like a world-class Thai trainer come and train with you in Australia? Yes. Yes

Yes, but at the same time it's been working what I've been doing is working I've been quite successful the last 15 years but doing it by myself and there's no middleman either I don't have to worry about a manager or someone telling me what to do. I push myself in my training to a high standard where I'm, I guess, doing okay because I've won another eight world titles doing it by myself. I've been lucky enough to travel the world too, going all over Europe and fighting in Japan 16 times and beating everybody in Australia already except for my last one. the world too um going all over europe and fighting in japan 16 times and um yeah beating

everybody in australia already set for my last one but um yeah no it's been good i like it you fought some legends too man i mean your your your record if you look at all the the names like the legends of muay thai you fought quite a few of them man yeah it's been cool and um like you're saying before to to be the to get famous you got to fight the famous guys i don't want to be one of those ones oh like uh i'm not afraid to step up and if i lose to him at least i had to grow i i tried but the majority of time i'm winning it's like yes i can't believe i beat that guy i'm not i myself for the last six weeks getting ready for you and i've won so how good is this this is awesome so yeah and then sometimes I'll match myself as well with someone.

The crowd's going, why are you fighting this guy? You're old. This guy's going to wipe the floor. And then I win again. It's just such a self-satisfying feeling to know that I can still compete with the elite. Do people give you a hard time because you're old? Well, you're not that old. You're younger than me.

You're 38. But 38 in combat sports. Yeah, yeah. It it's definitely but i've been getting told i've i've been old since i was 27 28 even when i was in the k1 that was i was the old guy then being 28 years old it's like 28 was old and came yeah well really yeah they were going when are you going to give it up and then i've been it's one of those ones i want to ride it to the last wave until once you're dead, you're dead. And I don't want to regret not doing what I'm doing and just holding pads. I'd rather be in the limelight and still trying to reach that pinnacle than the Mount Everest of fighting.

How many more years do you think you can do it at 38 years old? Do you have a number in your head or do you just do it while your body is healthy and while you enjoy it? I just want to keep going. Bernard Hopkins is 50. He was supposed to retire when he was 40. He promised his mom he was going to give it up when he was 40, and he's lasted another 10 years, and he's still fighting the elite and still winning world titles. Did his mom die?

She's like, well, I'm good. Yeah. Some guys are like that, you know. Well, I promised her, but she didn't even hear anymore. I don't know. He's so good defensively. You know, he's another one. Yeah, he's a killer.

Yeah, he's a great guy. It was amazing. He was willing to fight Kovalev at this stage of his life, at 49 years of age, fights one of the best knockout artists, like, in the last decade in that division. Yeah, it's crazy it's um skills yeah it's just skills having skills you know having the ability to know what to do in any given time step know where to step know know what's coming you know and like we were saying know that language he knows the language of boxing so well you don't get famous holding pads you

don't get famous writing cool Facebook posts. I've tried, but it doesn't happen. You're repeating that. You've repeated that many times, like the getting famous, like the getting famous. That's a big part of what motivates you. Since I was about five or six years old, every time I look into the sky and see a single star, I wish I can be remembered and when i blow my birthday candles out i wish that i can my legacy once i die i can be that guy that people go yep wayne parr wow that's interesting man that's um that's a weird drive

for a young man to have what do you what do you attribute that to like to want to want to be remembered yeah my whole my whole life that's my only goal winning a world title was always i didn't want to win a world title i wanted to win a world title in thailand against the thai against a genuine i don't want to win against someone down the road i always wanted to take it to the next level and once i did win the world title i ended up winning two in bangkok but now it's about the legacy now it's about the the the yeah it's like any human being once you pass you just turn into flowers i want to be i wanted people look like dicker like the amount of respect that i show him after he's passed away for the last couple years i want people to look at me in exactly the same light, hopefully one day.

He died of a heart attack while riding a bike, right? Yeah, in the park by himself with no one to give him any CPR. He just passed away. That's so crazy. Do they know what was wrong with him? It doesn't even make sense. Yeah, who knows? I'm 42 years old, and then dying of a push bike is crazy.

You were talking to me earlier about the injuries that he had suffered that he he had his foot fused to his ankle yes yes he's broken his leg that many times um this is what i've seen from the documentary i could be wrong um i'm sure bass would have a better understanding for being dutch but um yeah from from the the stories that he told me his leg was uh they were gonna amputate it It was got to the stage where he said, well, what else can we do? Oh, we can fuse your ankle to your shin. So he used to say, I used to just do pads. I wouldn't spar and just save it to the fight.

And then if it broke, it broke. But I just, or I changed the southpaw and then hopefully not use it. But then he was so adamant that he had the win. He just go back to orthodox and just start using it. Wow. Just that crazy mentality. They kept breaking it. If you kept breaking it, they were going to have to amputate it yeah that's what that's what the documentary said anyway and he's still kicking it yeah so nuts i remember when he

fought in the um dwayne lugwig on the his last fight on k1 uh we caught an elevator together i said how you feeling how's it all going you feel good and he showed me his arm and his arm was black from his wrist to his um shoulder and he said i've pulled my bicep i can't punch right but it's okay it's okay i win no problem and sure enough he dropped duane legwig um three or four times i don't know if it was one point so by knockout but um he won by points by points yeah but that's yeah with one arm yeah that's incredible, that's him. And then you see something like that and you think, fuck, I want to be that guy. I'm so torn on that.

Because on one hand, I admire mental toughness. I mean, obviously. I mean, that's just the ability to block that out and say, it's okay. I'll win. No problem. I mean, that's incredible. But on the other hand, he's an example of what happens when you are really mentally tough. His legs were shot, his ankles were fucked up, his body was falling apart.

It's like you redline your body, because that's how he fought. He fought redline. I mean, if you've never seen Ramon Decker's fight, if you're someone who is, you're not aware of Muay Thai, just do yourself a favor and Google Ramon Decker. I mean, there's a lot of people that folks will talk up and, you know, and you watch it and it's like, well, they kind of exaggerated. You can't do that guy justice. You can't do him justice. You got to watch how violently he fought.

Just so hyper aggressive and vicious knockout power beautiful combinations and everything he threw was a hundred percent everything he threw there was no setups everything was just so exciting to watch man and but look his body just eventually just deteriorated and fell apart and the ways where's the line though because where's he did it but the legacy is shot past the longevity so he'll never be forgotten for how tenacious and how crazy and how violent he was so that's what i want i want to go until i can't go anymore and then if i pass i want to be a member for that guy that it seems interesting that it's sort of maybe only the only way to be great is to kind of like break your body trying to be great.

It seems like, like look at Cain Velasquez. He can't get through a training camp. I mean, he's fought two times, I think, in the last few years. And it's because everything keeps breaking. His knee keeps fucking up. His shoulders keep fucking up. And it's because he's so mentally tough. It's because any injury that guy has just goes in the back of his brain,

and it's just, he's a champion. It's just juggernaut, press forward, you know, attack, attack, attack, attack. And these guys that have that ability to, you know, Chris Weidman is another one. He just keeps injuring himself. He's had knee surgery. He just fucked up his ribs. Dominic Cruz. Yeah, Dominic Cruz another one it's like they're there this is just drive to attack and succeed oftentimes

forces their body to just like their body says listen dude you're you're being crazy here you can't keep doing this we're just gonna check out how about we give you a little knee injury here and take it take six months off you know it's like it's that adrenaline drug adrenaline drug getting in front of that crowd of the the five thousand ten thousand twenty thousand you can't buy it i've tried you just cannot buy it anyway do you worry about like being in it past your prime or do you think that you'll know when it's time to stop? I retired three years ago. Did you? And then I thought, I'll go in on top.

I was on a 506 fight winning streak. But then in six months, it was driving me insane, just not being the famous guy anymore, not being in the magazines, not being on TV, not people coming up and not giving that recognition anymore. And then I came back, and I went on another firefight winning streak and it was so good to be back amongst the mix and to be in front of that crowd again. I understand why people can't give it up and they keep coming back out of retirement

because it is the most exciting thing that you could possibly do on earth is to stand in front of someone and try and knock each other out when you're done do you think that you will become a trainer i mean do you think yeah i've already have i got my gym for the last 15 years and then i've been lucky enough to tour the world doing seminars and teaching which i get a kick out of but yeah it's not fighting it's not it's not it's not punching on do you ever think you would run a gym in Thailand? No. No?

No. There'd be a disrespect to the Thais. The Thais are so good and they have a Western. There'd be a disrespect? I believe so. Really? Even calling myself crew. I cringe when people call me a crew.

Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why is that? Because I'm not a Thai and I don't deserve that honor of being called a crew. I'm a white guy trying to be the best possible version of a Thai person. That's very interesting because Americans use that term all the time. Like, Crew Mark De La Grata is a good example. It was my friend Mark De La Grata.

Yeah, I know Mark. And then so many people that I've met that I know I don't respect. And I call someone a crew, I'll call them a crew. Crew Mark or Crew this. I'm going to cover my t-shirt up now. What does it say? Crew rhino? What does crew rhino mean?

Crew is teacher. I know what that means, but why does it say crew rhino? Oh, this is my fight name. Oh, how dare you? I was literally putting my jacket on then. I was like, oh, my God. Why did he say that? So the term crew is like a deep term of deep respect in Thailand.

For me, yeah. I've spent five years there. I've been a monk. I've done the whole business. You've been a monk? Yeah, I was a monk for seven days. I went to Thailand. Oh, that's a long time.

Lived in... Every Thai male has to be a monk once in their life. So even if it's seven days, you're still a monk. Really? Every Thai what? Every Thai male has to be a moment I'm male. Yeah. Yes. Really? Yes. You have to be a monk for for how long? Seven days a month three months six months one year two years

But whatever you commit to you must stay there for that amount of time. You can't Give in so and you were you were a monk for seven days Yes, what did that I had all my possessions taken away. I had my head shaved, eyebrows shaved. I lived in the Thai town. Your eyebrows shaved? Yeah, they shaved your eyebrows too. Why did they shave your eyebrows?

To make you look like a monk. What about other parts of your body? Did they shave your legs? No, no. So you have this bowl, and then every morning you walk this track, and then there's Thai people on the side of the road giving you offerings. So they give you rice, they give you meat, they give you this, they give you that. And then you say a chant to them and that's helped to give them good karma for either that day or that week or maybe in a future life.

And then every morning we had a blind lady and her sister would come out, hold her hand, put the spoon into her bowl would say this chant and it just was so special that every day we said this thing to her to help her have this good energy because life must be shit not been out of sea so and it just meant so much so I suppose for us coming around and then every day we had Buddhist studies and then they were saying how the Buddhist is the most oldest religion out of everything it was 500 years older than Christianity, which is a few hundred years older again than Muslims. And then they took everything. There are five main things with Buddhism. Don't kill, don't steal, don't cheat, don't do drugs,

don't lie. And then Christianity took those and they added a few things to them as well. But the best thing about Buddhism, there's no supernatural guy. It's just an old prince that was stuck in a kingdom. And then he didn't see the real outside world, didn't see poor people, didn't see sickness. And then one day he went out of the kingdom and he realized that his whole life was a lie. So he went out of the kingdom and he realized that his whole life was a lie. So he went out into the forest and started doing meditation. And that's when all these different things come to him, different aspects of. So and then from those from the meditation, that's when he made these five basic principles. If you don't drink, you're not going to tell lies and you're not going to get in trouble and you're not going to kill anybody.

So if you stay away from those things, you should be, life should be okay. That's hilarious. That's so incorrect. There's a lot of people that don't drink that are full of shit. So yeah, and if you don't, if you don't screw your neighbor or you don't steal or nothing, you don't have to. Yeah. So all these basic, just easy stuff. Just the idea of doing good behavior and being a good person, keeping your karma clean.

Yeah, for sure. So did you have a desire to do it for longer than seven days, or did you do it just because you lived in Thailand and you did it out of respect? My Thai sponsor, his two boys were doing it, and he said, they're going for seven days, do you want to join them? He said, you've done everything Thai, you speak Thai, you live like a Thai, you fight like a Thai. The only thing you haven't done is being a monk. And then once you've done the monk, you're the complete circle.

You're the white version of one of them. Wow. Yeah. It was amazing. It was so cool. So when you went there, you'd shave your eyebrows, you'd shave your head, they'd give you a bowl. And then what do you do during the day? What is the day spent doing?

So after we get the, we have breakfast in the morning, we do Buddhist studies for about an hour, two hours after that. And then we're either sweeping around the temple, keeping everything clean. And then afternoon we do Buddhist studies again for another hour and a half and two hours. And then we sleep in the temple and try not to get attacked by ghosts. Yeah, the ghosts were scary. Because, yeah, Thailand, the ghosts are so full on.

They really had this thing where they'd really believe in them so the thai the ghosts have a more of a tendency of showing themselves or coming to you in dream form and then it's so realistic they it was life changing i had a few different dreams where i came out of the temple thinking i'm changing the way that i do things from now here on in. Why is that? Just making me a better person for just basic things. The ghosts were making you a better person? Yeah. Yeah, they just give you deep inner thoughts while you're dreaming. And you wake up, you think that it was real life, but it was, yeah, it's hard to explain.

No, please do. So you saw ghosts as well? I used to get attacked about three or four times a week um they call it a p um uh so it have you ever heard of sleep paralysis yes so in thailand they believe it's a ghost sitting on your chest and then if the ghost doesn't like you the ghost puts his hand across your mouth and nose and suffocates you in your dream in your in your sleep and that's why you're you're dying asleep they're wrong though do you know that yeah it's not fucking so so so when i told the the tires i had this crazy dream last night i was i felt like i was getting held to the floor i couldn't move and they said oh that's just a pm so what's that mean i was just a ghost

sitting on your chest oh no worries just makes me feel better ghost trying to fucking kill you it's so crazy that they would be like, no worries. And then you say I'm sleeping right beside someone, and then the coach would sit on your chest. You want to scream. You want to reach your hand out so someone would wake you up, but you're just stuck, and there's nothing you can do. And the harder you try and scream, the more you get stuck to the floor.

So this would happen on a consistent basis? Four or five times a week. How old were you at the time? 19. 19. 19 to 23 so if i had a guess you're you're a young man you're in thailand for the first time you're experiencing this incredible culture shock you're also experiencing the anxiety of preparing for fights

this whole new world that you're living in and you probably have a lot of questions and doubts about life and you know you're you there's a anxiety a lot of built-up stuff and then you're hanging around a bunch of people that are telling you the ghosts are trying to kill you yeah and so you're experiencing these these ghosts too regularly now did you see anything did you physically see something yes would you say um one night i was laying in bed and then uh one of those ones where the eyes were closed it's been about five minutes and uh i heard that there was only me in the room at the time too. So I heard the door,

the fly screen open. Boom. I'm thinking, and I heard footsteps. Doom, doom, doom, doom,

doom. Immediately think ghosts. No, I'm thinking, hurry up and close the door before the mosquitoes come in. And I'm waiting, waiting, waiting.

No one's going to close the door. I roll over, open my eyes, and there's this person standing at the door. And then he looks at me, and then he turns, and I hear him walking down the steps. Doom, doom, doom, doom. Mother the steps motherfucker he didn't close the door mosquitoes so i get up i'm awake i get up i close the door go back to sleep i'll get late close my eyes within another couple minutes

the door the door opens again bang no one's closing the door no footsteps this time i look over there's a cat sitting at the door and it jumps up on the shelf and jumps out the window. I think, fuck. So this is the second time I get up and I close the door. This time I go back to sleep. Next morning I go and see the Thai train. I swear your brother was here last night. He must have come to the room, but he couldn't, I don't know.

He left the door open and got up. He said, no, no, he's not here. He's in Chiang Mai. He's about a 12-hour driveway. I said, no, no, I've seen him. He was here 100%. He said no no he's not here he's in chiang mai he's about 12 hour driveway so no no i seen him he was here 100 percent um he said no watch her ring he's hey hey brother where you at he said i'm in chiang mai it's like oh so yeah so that was yeah that was my seeing the ghost uh firsthand the ghost of a dude who's alive and lives 12 hours away yeah sorry wish i was there it's really common in Thailand.

This is not about me, it's all about John, but it happened to me a lot as well. And I think it's because we're around the Thais as well. So the suggestion, the power of suggestion, the culture. Do you know about the ghost houses? Ghost houses? Every Thai house has a ghost house. So say your house looks this nice,

and they have a little house in front of their house, and they decorate it more so it's more attractive for the ghost to live in there. This is a true story. And then they put food, little bits of rice, little bits of drink, and then little bits of whiskey sometimes. And then before you fight, you pray to the ghost house that the ghost will hopefully give you good inner strength for when you go into battle. Well, it's easy to ridicule. It's easy to ridicule, and it's easy to make fun of. But I think that when you look at things like the power of suggestion and the placebo effect, what that means, what it really means is that the mind has incredible

capabilities. The mind has the ability to heal you if you're sick. The mind has the ability to do all sorts of things that you think you need a drug or medication to fix. I mean, the mind is amazing. And if you're around a bunch of people that really believe these things, your mind is almost preparing you for these things being real. I don't know if ghosts are real or if they're not real. I've never experienced it. But everyone I know that has, like, studied it,

there's two types of people. There's either, and maybe I haven't met enough of them, but there's charlatans who are just the guys who do those shows where they've got night vision. They're in a basement somewhere and they're like, did you hear that? And then they cut to commercial and you don't ever hear shit. Those ghost hunting shows, you want to talk about a show, a genre with the least amount of success. It might be ghost hunting shows. Those motherfuckers have never seen a ghost like there's never a goat like you see it you go oh shit that's a ghost I got held down in Australia once held down so so my Thai trainer came and then I had him out for sure a couple months so he's saying he's got his

borders in his hand he's saying this big prayer before sleep I said I don't be worried there's no we're not in a thailand now there's no ghosts here we're sweet so you got held down by thai girls so i've gone into my room and then it's one of those scenarios again where i'm just drifting off and i hear the door open i'm thinking oh someone must be coming in to get something out of the room and then I hear footsteps and then boom I'm held down as hard as I can like into the mattress and I've got enough energy to open my eyes and uh there was nothing there but I heard I could hear the breathing and then um I tried to relax I tried to relax I felt the the pressure come off my chest and then as soon as it let me go, I grabbed my towel and my blanket and I went and slept in the tireless bedroom for two weeks on this floor

because I was too petrified to sleep by myself for about two weeks. I shit myself so bad because I had my eyes on it. I could hear it. Again, if I had to guess, one of the things that I would say is not only are you young and the power of suggestion and all these things are a factor, but also the fact that these things are happening to you while you're sleeping. Yeah. Yeah. When you're sleeping, your mind produces all sorts of crazy psychedelic chemicals.

It's very possible that what you're experiencing is some semi-dream state. And then in this semi-dream state, especially if you're convinced that ghosts are real, your brain starts, your imagination starts flooding your consciousness with all sorts of physical experiences He's all sorts of physical sensations for ghosts are real. That's possible, too I mean, I don't know. I mean I might be wrong. It's just It's there's so much fuckery in the air ghosts You know when you will you look at the people that are telling you about them and the people that say that they've seen them It's just it's so it's such a weird subject. It's a big big part of Thailand though When you look at the people that are telling you about them and the people that say that they've seen them, it's such a weird subject.

It's a big part of Thailand, though. I work for the rescue team, like we spoke about last time. And it's actually quite nice hearing you say this stuff because I'm like, oh, my God, I'm not crazy. One of my heroes, John Way, I had this too. But, yeah, everyone I know in Thailand has had something, and they're so superstitious. It's not even funny. It's ridiculous how superstitious they are.

They believe the ghosts live in trees. So when you chop a cherry down and then build your house, the ghost comes with the house. The ghost comes with the wood. Oh, great. So then there's certain poles that might be a bit more crazy, they're more powerful. Even the ring, the ring's made out of wood. So we used to decorate the the ring with ribbons and um powder and perfume and then we'd pray to the ring just before a

fight because it helped get us fit for that six weeks eight week prep and then just um so and then we've decorated with flowers by flowers just the day before the fight to say thank you for my preparation so just just little tied to traditions more so than anything, I guess. Even if it's not, like, I'm joking around, obviously. I really don't know if ghosts are real. But even if they're not real, there's something to be said for eliminating a certain amount of anxiety just by having this ritual, having this process that you go through in your mind

where you believe you've appeased the ghost Yeah, so you believe that you will have good luck. So you believe yeah, you have good karma that you have good spirits with you I mean if you believe in ghosts and you're you know You're like you're worried about the unknown and you find a ritual that appeases that and then settles that fear I mean there's benefit in that this bit this benefit in a lot of crazy beliefs even with them The ram way before often before a fight So you're down there praying and you're you're thinking of the people of the past the people in the present The people don't know what you're talking about explain what that means the pre fight dance that we do in Thailand

So we should put up a video of that so people could see it is pretty fucking cool Yeah And it doesn't exist in any other combat sport and most combat sports mean the the most you get is someone walks around touches each corner of the of the ring and maybe bows or puts their hands up and then in thailand it's a live type band too so they have a guy on the drums a guy on the cymbals a guy on the flute and then uh while you're dancing you just uh you might be a000 people there, and then you just turn it all off, and then you're just praying for your... asking permission from the earth, the wind, the fire, the water,

from God to give you all this inner strength. Myself, I think for my mother, my father, my grandfathers, my grandmothers, past, present, future, former trainers, every single person that helped you get to that present point in that particular second that you're thanking for helping you get right there in that time. And then you take a big breath, and all that energy just fills up your whole body. And you get pins and needles, and the hair stands on the back of your neck. And then once you finish the dance, it feels like you're invincible.

Wow. And these guys are doing it right now, and they have the traditional hand wraps. We're starting to see that come back. You're seeing a lot of bouts that are being made today with really hand wraps and no gloves. Yeah, it's pretty hectic. Once a year in Thailand forever. They have Thailand versus Burma, and they have two referees. And then what happens, you can only win by knockout or cut.

If it goes the distance, it's a draw. No matter how much someone's winning, it's always a draw. So you have to win by violence. How many rounds? Five. Five rounds, wow. And you can't win by any other way by knockout or cut. That's crazy.

It's brutal as well. And then there's not many kicks or knees because, you know, you're wearing two weapons on your fists. So it's just hell for leather. Technique goes out the window. Really? More so survival. Well, weapons on your fists meaning that it's just, it's like rope, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's rope. Because it's not, those are not like traditional hand wraps where it's like soft and cushiony. Yeah. What is that? It's, yeah, it's like rope, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's rope. Because those are not like traditional hand wraps where it's like soft and cushiony. Yeah. What is that? Yeah, it's proper rope. And it goes all the way down the forearm too. Why is that?

Is that like to protect you from kicks? I'm not sure. It's just traditional, I think. Tell me a bit about the bedding with the Waikoura as well. Yeah, so a lot of Thais will make judgment on who dances better also and who is more relaxed and who has a better rhythm and style with their dance as well so they can see who's, if you're stiff and fucked up or another guy is just flowing like a ballerina,

then you go, ah, this guy's got this for sure. And when you're watching this, like when they're doing this dance, is there a specific routine they follow, or are they just going with the flow of things? Some gyms have their own style. The majority of the time it's pretty much the same thing, but, yeah, different. While you're praying at the start, that's my biggest thing,

is getting connected to the universe and trying to get good energy. And then the rest of the stuff that they're doing now, it's more so of a limber. So as you're going from rope to rope, you're warming up your body, you're stretching out the shoulders, you're stretching out your legs. A guy explained to me once also that when he did it, he would relax because he was sort of performing in front of all these people as he was doing it and it helped him perform better in his fighting because it wasn't just like, are you ready? Are you ready? Go. He'd already done something in front of all these people and then

it sort of loosened him up. Before I ever did commentary for the UFC, I got to commentate on one of Coban's fight. Coban Luxum Toychai. How do you say it? He's in New York, I think. I believe so.

This was way back in the day. It was before 2002, which is when I started commentating for the UFC. I was the post-fight interview guy in like 97 to 98, and then I commentated from 2002 on. But in between then, I was working at... Not working. I was working out at uh john jock

machados and me and richard norton uh you know rich he's an australian guy yeah martial arts guy we showed some stuff together yeah he um he and i did uh we commentated on koban's fight it was amazing it's amazing to see like a real thai legend who said who knows how many hundred fights you've got to get the fight you've got to get gotta get the Bangkok Bangkok's amazing no eventually maybe let's do a UFC out there but is it UFC even legal there okay trying I think they've tried to ban it a couple of times I think they're the tires a little bit funny about the cage because it's taken away from there they don't want to taking over the sport of Muay Thai right like it's taken over every other country in the world must have been an amazing experience for you.

Just, I mean, just to go there as a young man, as a teenager, and just get immersed in this life. It's so different than just like taking a Muay Thai class at a gym or even getting obsessed with Muay Thai in Australia or in America where, you know, you're working out all the time and you love Muay Thai. But to be living there in Thailand. working out all the time and you love muay thai but to be living there in thailand the best part that i look back upon upon is not just the the the training and the fighting but um the ghosts becoming a white thai oh white time because i was the only westerner for i'd go months and months on in without seeing another white person wow so i was like the freak if you will and then i'd go to the shops and every single person would stare at me and I'd love it. And then I could speak Thai.

So I'd start talking to them and they'd freak out. And then I'd start going to the nightclubs. And for instance, sometimes I'd have a live band and then I'd go up to the band and say, hey, do you know this song? And then they'd give me the microphone and I'd sing Thai songs to the crowd. And the crowd would bounce. Everyone's like dancing and stuff. That's crazy.

It was awesome. It was such a good buzz to live like one of them. That sounds insane. It was awesome. It was so cool. Wow, this must have been such a whole new universe. Yeah, you come back to Australia, and you blend in with everyone else,

and then you go back to Thailand Thailand and you're back to being that special person in the suburb again and then I used to run on the road and everyone used to flash the lights at me and took their horn because I was the fighter kid the Aussie Aussie guy that you so I was I was special it was really amazing it's who you really enjoyed that aspect of it just being yeah yeah unique getting in a taxi and talking to the taxi driver. I could just have a conversation wherever I was going and just talking about... Everything would be about Muay Thai, of course, but wherever I went, it was just so cool.

In a sense, is that place like your second home? I don't go there anymore now. The last time I went there was probably three or four years ago when I fought Yodzinglai. But yeah, because now the fights are so hard for such little money. Like if I went back now, I'd be lucky to make $1,000 a fight. I'm better off fighting Westerners and I can make 10 times the amount of money for

an easier fight, if that makes sense. It's just amazing that you get paid that low amount to fight in front of 100,000 people. If I live there, the currency is quite high. But then as soon as you transfer that over to Australia, and then you can't even buy McDonald's. Talk about taxis.

I was actually in a taxi about six, seven years ago. He goes, oh, what are you doing here? I'm like, yeah, I'm doing Muay Thai. He goes, oh, you know Raymond Decker? I'm like, yeah, I know Raymond Decker. He goes, where are you from? I'm like, Australia. He goes, oh, you know John Wayne Park? I'm like, yeah, I know Raymond Decker. He goes, where are you from? I'm like, Australia. He goes, oh, you know John Wayne Park?

I'm like, no shit. That's awesome. That was a long time ago. How long did it take you to learn the language? Three months before I could hold a conversation. So I remember the very first, I used to learn, okay, eat, kin, drink, dum, nam. And then I got my first sentence. I still remember it.

They said, okay, we're going to send you to the shop. We want you to say, I would like one bag of ice. Pom dong gan nam kang nung tung. So as I walked down the street, in my head, pom dong gan nam kang nung tung, pom dong gan. And then from there, I worked, okay, instead of saying ice, or rice, and then I started getting sentences, and then I'd start asking questions, okay, what's this, what's that, what's this, and then before I knew it, all of a sudden I was one of them. Wow.

I can't read or write, but I can hold, I started watching the soap operas on the TV, I could watch the news, I started picking up the can start watching the soap operas on the TV. I could watch the news. I started picking up the songs. Now the songs had meanings besides just noise. Right. Yeah. That's got to be bizarre when it sort of starts revealing itself to you. And then I started thinking Thai.

I was there for that long. I stopped thinking English and I started thinking in Thai. That's when it got scary because I came back to Australia and I start my sentences in English and I finish them in Thai, but I wouldn't know that I was finishing them in Thai. And people were looking at me going, what the hell did you just say? And then I started speaking Pidgin because the Thai, I started, me hungry, me thirsty. I was doing that to Westerners and I was like, oh, what am I doing? But it was just normal because that's the way I lived for so long.

Wow, just trying to figure out how to readjust. Yeah, yeah, it took a while. It took a while. That's so bizarre. It was cool. That's fascinating that you did it without any books. No, and there's no internet. So if I wanted to talk to mum, I'd have to write a letter.

It would take seven days to get to Australia, and then she reply so it'd be a seven day return so it was a two week two week waiting period between no Facebook no no Google no no no idea if you were okay uh if every now and again she might ring for my birthday or ring for a special occasion or if someone passed away hey bad news such as if the phone rang and it was for me they'd be either really good news or really bad so did you have any desire to try to learn how to write it or how to read it i tried but there's like a 27 vowels and one if you put one letter at the start of a word it's a completely different noise if you put an end of a word and it's all tones so one word means five things. So the word cow cow means rice white mountain news knee So if you say if you say in a different tone, I'd like to have a plate of knees What's the to look what are the different ways of saying cow cow cow cow?

Yeah enough you don't go So and then yeah, it's all tone. So the whole time you're talking. It's almost like you're singing Asian languages are so fascinating to me, but a lot of the words are the same words like the word cow for instance cow or Luck so you just it's the same word just a different meaning So I try and I try and learn five words a day. I go to bed and lay on my pillow All right, got it next day okay now five new more things okay and then you you can only kind of keep those things in your head if you're you know you're practicing it on the regular basis right yeah and because i live with kids as well

those kids in the camp um and then you could joke around with them and if you said something wrong they'd laugh and go no stupid it's you say it like this but if you said it to an adult you'd feel a little bit sort of shy and embarrassed. But to a kid, you just slap them on the back of the head and they don't laugh anymore. Child beating by John Wayne Parr. This is how you learn a language properly. Speaking of beatings, Thailand.

So back there, they still beat their boxers. It's still pretty, there's no, no one looks down upon it. So if the tires, if they're not training hard, it's nothing for them to get a slap across the face or a kick in the leg or a punch in the mouth. Yeah, they want their boxers to exceed everything else. So child cruelty is still pretty normal. So child cruelty meaning um that's

one thing that maybe people aren't aware of they start fighting very young yeah so if you fight and you're afraid of your opponent they have a thing called round six and then that might include you getting bashed by one of the trainers after you get home and then it's like okay round six meaning you fight five rounds five rounds and then you come back and they kick your ass. And then you get your ass kicked. And it's like, what are you going to be scared of? Are you going to be scared of the trainer kicking your ass when you get back? Or are you going to be scared of your opponent?

Someone your size and weight with rules? Or are you going to be scared of me? So they get a lot more scared of the round six than they do their opponents. And then they turn and they'll be men very fast. Wow. That's crazy. They used to make kids walk home. I've tried to pick up a kid that I knew from my camp

a couple years back, and the trainer shouted at me for giving me a lift home. I got in, like, a lot of trouble with the camp because he lost and he had no heart, and they just said, no, he's got to walk home. It was like a 30-minute drive, let alone, like, a walk. It's like one in the morning.

It's weird because they don't get a chance, or, like, they don't get a choice, rather, whereas, like, if you have a young kid and they really aspire, there's some young kids that aspire to fight at a very young age, and that's what they're driven to. These kids, a lot of them don't get a chance to decide. They're just kind of pushed into these camps. Yeah, so imagine the average salary is $500 a week.

If you're a famous boxer, you might make $5,000 a week. So there's this drive that I can be just a normal Joe Bloggs cooking rice on the side of the road, or if I'm a famous boxer, all of a sudden I could be the next Thai version of Floyd Mayweather, like Sancho, Yod Sengklai, Bokau, somebody. So there is a chance to get out of poverty through fighting. A guy like Yodson Klai, how much does that guy make?

What's the equivalent American? Not money, but I mean, what is... He's a rock star. What it's worth in Thailand. Yeah, he's a rock star. A rock star. He has a nice house, nice cars. Who knows?

With Thais, I don't know about that generation, but most Thai fighters I've known over the years, they don't know how to spend the money. There was a fighter, I think he fought here in America the other day, and I know him very well since I was young. I'm not going to say his name. I've known him actually since I was about 20. And I saw him, he's fought in America.

He'd be making, let's say, $5,000 a fight. That's a lot of money in Thailand. And he still lives in just like a little shed. Like, who knows what they do with the money? Yeah, you give him the camp, 50%. You might send your mom and dad, 30%. And then you just live off that 20% until your next fight. And then you might drink that.

You might drink it and smoke it. So when you say he's a rock star, he's not really a rock star. I mean, he's just famous. He's comfortable for now so who's making all the money over there the promoters from the camp promoters yeah and the gambling is fascinating that's a huge aspect of it so good so good you love it good yeah yeah well everyone's their own bookmaker so you're watching two fights and watching red and blue and then after the

first round it might be two for one for the red. And then he's still winning. Round three, it might be five for one. Five for one. What does that mean? So if you bet 100 baht. Oh, five for one odds. Yeah, five for one odds.

And then round four, all of a sudden, blue starts dominating. And then the odds start changing. But you've already locked in your five for one this way. Who is deciding all this stuff? Everybody's their end bookmaker. So you're in the crowd. He's offering four for one, but this guy's offering five for one. I'm going to go with him.

I'm going to kick this guy's ass. And then once you've got your bed on, you lock eyes. Yep, locked on, done. And then after the fight's done, you walk over. Yep, got the money. Cheers, mate. Thank you. Wow, that's interesting. So it done, you walk over. Yep, got the money. Cheers, mate. Thank you. Wow, that's interesting.

So it's completely unorganized. Yeah, it's chaos. It's amazing. It's control chaos. That's what sounds fascinating. It's brilliant because, sort of brilliant, because it's like going to the horse races. Nobody cares about the fights. Who cares who wins?

You're seeing crazy matches. And then once you've got your bet on, too, now you're this guy home, like the last final couple hundred meters for horse race, go, go, kick, and then they hear the, boo, and it just raises after every kick, every punch, and then they have a thing called a money injection, so say you're losing the first three rounds, and then they call it a cheed-ya. So I'll give you a 50,000-bar bonus. End of round four. Tell him I'll give him a 50,000-bar bonus if he wins by knockout.

And then, hey, you want another 50,000? Hold on a second. What happened? That thing froze again? Yeah. Did you call them after the last time it froze? I looked. I'll call them.

Call them. This is bullshit. This is two out of ten podcasts that thing's crashed on us sorry it's we'll get the audio of it we'll sync it all up but the the u stream is down yep um so i'm sorry i don't mean to interrupt so they're they're screaming cheering 50 000 bonus so if you're if if you're losing and then someone says i I'll give you $50,000 if you win by knockout this next round, all of a sudden you're tired, you're losing, and then $50,000. It's a long one. Yeah, all of a sudden you've got this second win and you want to go out there and hurt him.

And then you knock him out and then the guy comes up and he's your $50,000. I've just made $200,000. You can have $50,000 of it. That's incredible. So when this is all going on, that's also why the ties tend to fight slowly in the first round. The first round, they kind of pace themselves. Yeah, so it's almost like you want to lose the first round. So the odds go to the favor of the other corner.

You put the money on your guy, you might get your three for one or let's just put ten for one. He's losing bad. He's getting his bash. There's no way he can come back. And then boom. Once he gets the red light from the trainer and then he's on full steam ahead, boom. Knocks the other guy out and you've just won. It's so strange that the culture of fighting, like the sport, the art itself is so influenced by gambling.

And then what you have now is, well, forever, the Marfle influence. So they might say, look, you're earning 50,000 baht for a normal fight. We'll give you 300,000 fight if you happen to lay down round two by a head kick.

Really? And then, so some, you might be, today, you're unbelievable. And then the Marfle might come along and say, okay, do this. And then next round, you don't know then the mafia might come along and say okay, do this and then next round you don't know how to hold your hands up

and then you get a head kick and then the referee will go stop, stop, stop mate, I've seen you fight 400 times you're a legend, there's no way in hell you don't know how to throw a jab, this fight is now considered a no contest this will go to the tribunal and you're looking at 6 months

and that could be the worst possible thing for any Thai boxing camp because now you bought dishonesty and distrust and your camp his name is now mud did you get forget hold on does that does that happen all the time all the time all the time at least five six seven times a week five six seven times a week how many times does that happen to you to me? I've never been offered money because they know I'm a Western so they know they can walk over me if they try But I've seen it happen on toy TV so many times half way through the flight. You know, they can walk over you What do you mean? Oh just just the Western if they know I'm

Beatable where you got to? There's so many ties in Thailand that there's so many guys in the waiting line that know they can like you're single eyes they haven't got a name that is just machines it's hard to say yeah yeah I know I know I'm not elite that I'm never gonna be beaten so the tires just believe they can just walk over you so because you're a westerner they believe that they can beat you so they don't offer you bribes to lose. I've never been offered a bribe, no.

Because a guy like Yodson Cly who's such a heavily favored fighter, that would be the type of guy that they would try to influence. Yeah, they'd probably ask Yodson Cly to lay down before they'd ask me because he's such a favorite to win. So I'd be the long shot. And then if I won, all of a sudden,

yeah, it's crazy crazy so for fighters like that is it super critical to be involved in a very influential camp so that you don't get asked to lay down yeah if if you're if you're one of the the big gyms mate let's pretend tri-star and all of a sudden george goes down from fighting someone that he shouldn't and then all of a sudden tri-star and i don't want to put triistar guys on my shows anymore because they're obviously mafia influence so we don't want to deal with them anymore. Wow. Yeah, it's crazy. The system over there is so full on.

That's so crazy that they have to think about that as well as fighting the best fighters in the world in muay thai yeah and then they have to worry about being influenced by gambling and by the mafia yeah what without saying any names or any camps um i know of two i know of a camp in thailand that two of the guys did happen to lay down and bought this respect to the camp and um they might have passed away yeah and then uh for a certain amount of money um to the patai police though that file goes missing and then it's just a warning to the other boxers that um it's not a good idea to lay down on from my gym otherwise you could also go missing wow yeah yeah and and I'm not great I'm not I'm not talking any rubbish either that's true stories oh I'm sure I mean it only

makes sense if you're talking about that amount of money you're talking about the trainers invested so much money in these fighters he's fed them he's looked after him he's given places to sleep and then they discredit him by by doing that to fill their own pockets and that they go oh fuck you I'm gonna I'll teach you a lesson the one you'll never forget so what what kind of influence does the mafia have over muay thai in thailand other than that i mean there's obviously they're going to try to get people to fix fights but is there any other influence that it has i mean how prevalent is it over there oh imagine imagine the um uh sometimes they're on the front of the thai tv and then a guy will have a clipboard with Velcro.

He'll have 10 phones on a clipboard and he'll talk to everyone at once. Okay, it's now 741 for the blue corner. And then some guy will have a marker on his top pocket and it'll be blue. And then the red starts turning around. He'll take his marker out and change it over to white. And all of a sudden the betting starts changing. So there's all these different. Oh, it's amazing.

It's so full on. Unless you know the game and how to do it. And I'm still learning. I'm still watching things going, holy shit. This is in, it's a different league of sport. Do they ever have issues with people not paying? Like their debts? Like people look at you and five to one or whatever the fuck they do.

Yeah, yeah. And then big money so you might be a hundred thousand and fifty thousand or five hundred thousand and all of a sudden yeah they they might possibly go missing also here so fascinating yeah that aspect of it and gambling in Asia seems so prevalent I mean all throughout the casinos here in America like see a lot of people from asia a lot of asian people gambling there and in macau obviously they have the macau they say is like way bigger than vegas yeah they say the gambling there is just off the charts and people who are just stupid wealthy gambling ridiculous amounts of money but they have a toy a muay

paper that comes out every day and they'll tell you that okay What's the odds are for each fighter tonight? What the odds are tomorrow? Who won big last night? It's it's all about gambling. It's not about the fights or the matchups. It's about making making money. And gambling is illegal I think in Thailand. Thai boxing they turn a blind eye to it. If you're playing if you're playing poker at home with six of your mates from next door, one of the other neighbors could look through the window, ring the police, and then they'll come in with six SWAT cars and erase everyone in the house from the kids to the grandparents from playing

poker indoors in their own lounge room. That's insane. And that happens on a regular basis? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. They come in and arrest people for gambling with their family? Yes. That's insane. And that happens on a regular basis? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. They come in and arrest people for gambling with their family? Yes. That's insane.

But you can bet on the fights. Wow. And what's the logic behind that? There just seems to be, for some reason, there seems to be a turn of blind eye. And it's run by the army, too. The big stadiums are run by the army, too. So, I don't know. Wow.

That's so fascinating. It's crazy. So that, to me, has always been one of the most bizarre parts of Muay Thai is watching all those people screaming and betting and throwing their hands up in the air. Me, as someone who's never been over there, I never understood what was going on. But it's crazy that you, being over there,

didn't know what was going on either. You're still trying to figure it out after all these years. When I fought my first fight at Lumpini, I was losing the first two rounds, and then I started landing a few kicks. I must have been like 10 for one, 20 for one even. And then I started landing a few punches, and then the crowd just changed, bang.

And then it got to the stage. It was so deafening that it gives you that second win. Every time you land a shot, all of a sudden, it feels like you're invincible now. And then I ended up knocking the guy in the fourth round. So I made every single, well, not every single, but all the guys in the stadium so much money.

Put down $1,000 and you get $20,000 back. It's like, this is, yeah, it's pretty cool. So that is probably one of the reasons why it's so popular over there. So it's almost like their version of horse racing or something like that exactly wow lumpini is gone now you you were back then lumpini like is the most famous stadium in the world you were pretty much the only main western that was fighting there back then heaps of westerners the deca was there and um danny bill and even uh manu entos you know manu he was fighting there

regularly also but the the tires will come into the change room and instead of looking at, they'll come and feel your arms like a horse, see how fit you are, look you up and down like you're just a piece of meat. Should I put money on him? Yeah, sure. He looks pretty good.

Or he looks a bit flabby? Nah, nah, I'll bet on the other guy. So they'll just check you out and talk and tie? They'll come and feel you and everything. Touch you? Touch your belly to see if you're the Strongest I'm these are just gamblers just gamblers and then fucking weird and then at Lumpini The change rooms next to the Thai toilets as well says they're coming in for a piece

They might come in and fill your ass while you're guessing. See what kind of quads you got pretty much Bizarre yeah, did anybody ever get angry angry when people were touching them like that? It's just so normal. It's not even frowned upon. It's just like, oh, yeah, how you going? They still do it today. Yeah. They just still do it today, eh?

Yeah, it's just normal. It's just Thai culture. Just they're allowed to squeeze you. Yeah, pretty much. How strange. Do they have women fighting over there? It's just started. Just started?

The last 10 years or so. Before the Thais ties the women even to this day they're not allowed to touch the ring on the main stadiums in in the in the country and the smaller stadiums they're allowed to fight but they've got to go under the bottom rope they're not allowed to climb the top rope because what yeah when they get into the ring they must go up on their belly and roll under what yeah because and and then the lompini and the rajadam dunes they um they're not allowed to touch the ring yet because they give girl germs. Girl germs.

Girl germs. And then so in case you get cut. Oh, so you want to hear a funny one. Periods. So as a Thai male, you're not allowed to go down on a girl before a fight. Otherwise, there's a chance you'll get cut by elbows. Good call. Yeah.

What? They think that you get cut by elbows because you've taken your head down past their waist and the head sacred and below the waist is considered dirt so to go down on a girl is considered like really bad and really unbad luck but I've had 290 stitches mmm to eat a lot of pussy you've got 290 stitches that That's a real number? That's a real number. You look great. Oh, cheers. Thank you.

You made a fucking good connection with some doctors. They stitched you up properly. Yeah. I would have never guessed. I have a rubber band in the back of my head, and I just pull the skin back. Pulls all the wrinkles out. That's crazy, man. 290 stitches.

It's crazy that they won't let the girls touch the ring. What do they do when they're fighting? On the outside ones, they used to make the girls fight last, so there was no girl germs when the boys fought. Wow. But before, they couldn't touch the ring at all. Everything's back up, Jamie?

Been up for a while. That's bizarre. That's so strange that they have such ancient, ridiculous, superstitious ideas when it comes to women. Yeah. What about Nong Tum? What happened then? Nong Tum was the lady boy.

The lady boy that used to fight at Lumpini. Oh, the lady boy. They made a movie about her because she used to save all the prize money. And then she eventually saved up enough to get a sex change. And then she started doing the hormones. Then it was all over the news because she started taking these injections to make boobs and then she wouldn't take her shirt off when she fought and then she was a big spectacle she was making main events in japan but she stopped

fighting in thailand because she didn't want to fight other thai boys and they were paying like thousands of dollars just to have dinner with her because she was such a freak oh he was such a freak and then eventually after they said we've got to give you injections grow the boobs make sure you paying like thousands of dollars just to have dinner with her because she was such a freak or he was such a freak. And then eventually after they said, we've got to give you injections, grow the boobs, make sure you want to sex change first before we chop your doodle off. And then they eventually chopped the doodle off and now she fights chicks. But because she's had all the hormones, now she doesn't hit as hard. Well, not as good as she was.

She's lost that testosterone. What'd you say? She's a beast. She's still fucking up. Oh, not as much. No, he's not as much. She's not as tough as she used to be Well, she's too old. Yeah She's to be fucking totally different. So she's allowed to fight females. Yes. Well, she has to fight females now. Does she lose? Sometimes Wow, but yeah, I wanted to fight her back when I was in Thailand lose sometimes Wow but yeah I wanted to fight her back when I was entirely back when she was a he yeah but she wouldn't fight me because I was a little bit of a threat so he'd fight and then he got to the stage where he'd only fight

Westerners or Japanese because they were a bit easier than other toys Wow so was that the first person that's become a transgender fighter over there I believe so the most famous anyway he and then he started going on catwalk models because he had the the jiggle in his bra. Mm-hmm the jiggle in his bra Yeah, well, that's a rap song. Yeah Wow, yeah I thought only so he was not like world-class before no, it wasn't wasn't a class definitely probably be class Yeah, and how am amongst women, what class is she now? When it was just before the operation, big star in Japan.

They used to main event a lot of the big shows. Before the operation. So one time they made her fight a female rock and roll wrestler that had never thrown a punch before. And they put boxing gloves and then she had them the the face painted up in the wrestling staff and had the the get up they get up with the lycra and then the bill went the rest of that coming charging across that the transgender grabbed it by the back and neck elbow to three times in the face and the knocked her out

unconscious for about two or three minutes it didn't go well and they elbowed her three times in the face and then knocked her out unconscious for about two or three minutes. It didn't go well. And the dance before, the white crew, like John was talking about, I think she does the lipstick on the mirror as well. Oh, that's pretty funny. It's cool, yeah. Combs the hair and does the lipstick. So she fought a woman that had never fought,

never done any training, and beat the shit out of her and knocked her out. The tie was about 66, 67, and the female wrestler was about 80 or 90 kilos. So looking at it, it looked fair. One was big, one was small. One you had to fight, one you had to wrestle, but in a Muay Thai match.

Oh, God. Yeah, it didn't go well. Was that Japan? That was Japan. Japan's crazy like that, man. Yeah, Japan's amazing. They love putting on freak shows.'s crazy like that, man. Yeah, Japan's amazing. They love putting on freak shows. They love doing that, man.

They love having people who have never fought before fight someone who's a world champion. They do weird shit like that. They always did weird shit like that in Pride and K-1 and Dream. Bob Sapp and the Hongman Choi days. Yeah, man. That was fun. They had a lot of crazy matchups. Bob Sapp was a part of a lot of them, but they loved putting that guy up against...

I mean, they put Bob Sapp against Ernesto Hoost. Yeah. And he beat him twice. He beat him. Twice. Just with steroids. Yeah. Just with steroids and a lot of momentum.

Yeah. And, I mean, he's tough. Look, he took some fucking beatings. Yeah. I mean, Ernesto Hoost hit him with some bombs. Nogueira and Pride. Yeah. That was a good fight. That was exciting with some bombs? Nogueira and Pride. Yeah. That was a good fight.

That was exciting. Fucked up Nogueira's neck forever. Oh, really? The pile driver, he hit him with a pile driver in the first round. He was 370 pounds with abs. Yep. And Nogueira, you know, to this day, his neck's probably fucked up from that fight. Yeah.

I remember Crow Cop was the first person to beat him in K1. Yeah. Hit him with a head kick. Well, he broke his eye socket. Oh, really? Yeah. He hit him with straight left and fractured his eye socket. It wasn't a head kick.

Oh, okay. Yep. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he went down and he crumbled. Yeah. Yep.

I remember that one. Yeah. His eye was never the same after that. He had like one of those weird eyes after that. You know how some dudes get? Some dudes, if their eye gets, their orbital gets so shattered that they have to repair it and do Reconstructive surgery on it. Whatever you doing is picking up on the microphone over there fella. Yeah, you eat nuts Yeah, but just push it away from here

But he he's like he had one eye that was always like really weird after that and because of that like he pretty much never Was willing to take a punch after that. From then on, all his fights, he started kind of laying down. Whenever he got tagged, fight was over. There was no comebacks. He made a lot of money. Fuck yeah, he did.

He made a lot of money. He was a superstar in Japan. Yes. They made a bobsap dildo. What? They did. They molded it and the Japanese loved it.

They thought it was the greatest thing ever. They molded it after his dick or did you just take a guess? Apparently so. Serious. He said. They had a book.

They had a book of 50 bobsap facial expressions. Here's Bob happy. Here's Bob sad. Here's Bob raising one eyebrow. And it was like a number one seller. He was, the dolls, the Bob Satt was a big deal. They're so strange.

It's such an unusual, unusual culture. Did you have any weird things happen in Japan? Just men crying. That was probably the weirdest thing. When we used to go to a hotel, there'd be people that would camp in the foyer for like um three or four days and every time we come out of the lift that'll sort of rush up to the thing trying to get pictures and um signings and um sometimes walk on the street i had a one male guy he just broke down in front of me and just started bawling his eyes out and then um

he pulled out a watch out of his pocket said i, I was coming to the hotel to give you this. I can't believe I'm meeting you on the street. Here's this watch. Just, yeah, it was bizarre. And then women crying too. Like women would cry all the time. That was sort of normal. That's normal in pro wrestling circles.

If you follow American pro wrestler, they'll start crying if they meet you. Fanatics. It's just fanatics. It's just Japanese fanatics are different than any other fanatic. They're very strange It's cool, but it's it's fun. It's Japan was fun. I got the fight there 16 times. So Yeah, it was awesome. Well, the culture is very bizarre when you're walking around there and you would just walk around Tokyo It doesn't feel like any other city anywhere else. Yeah, it's very modern It doesn't feel like any other city anywhere else. Yeah. It's very modern.

It's very advanced, very technologically advanced. Like everything is like neon and big screens and high def this and that. But everybody's like super polite. Everything's super clean. Sometimes they go through fads too where people would have silver hair. And the next time you go back, everyone would be tan, like ridiculous orange. Well, the next time you go back, it'd be something else where they had the, I don't know. But it was just, yeah, bizarre, like ridiculous orange. Well, the next time you go back, it'd be something else with a head. I don't know.

But it was just, yeah, bizarre, like you said. Well, that's one of the things that happened with fighting over there, right? Yeah. Fighting was a big fat. 90,000 people in Tokyo Dome, down to 40,000 people to pretty much disappeared from, I don't know, how do you mess up a promotion

that's got 90,000 people? How do you screw that up? Well, K1 doesn't exist anymore, right? Yeah, it's done. It's sort of coming back a little bit, but it's not what it was. It'll never be what it was. When was their last event? I think they're doing a 63 kilo now, but they might only get 5,000 people compared to the

old days of the 40s and the 60s and the 90s. So it's never going to have the same appeal. Before, when we used to fight at KOMX, I believe the promotion paid 50% and the TV paid 50%. So between them, they just made this super promotion. So it was the big build-up on the TV and then all the graphics and the highlights. And they fly to Australia, they interview me, like UFC does. So all the fans felt like they knew the fighter before the bill rent.

And that's what the sports needs for the Muay Thai and the kickboxing. Yeah, it certainly does. It's just so strange that in Japan that was like, it achieved this insanely high level of popularity, and then just dumb. Yeah, and then the Bob sat in the Ernest Huss and Peter earth's is there be on all the game shows and then they'd be in all their wheel of fortune Japan sort of stall and they were just celebrities they were not just fighters but celebrities and then that's all just

finished now what's replaced it I mean and there's no combat sports that are particularly popular there right now, right? Yeah, well, the Pride was so massive, and K-1 was so massive, and what's now? I'm not sure. Sumo. The UFC got totally schooled in Japanese business when they bought Pride. Yep. Because they really didn't understand how much different Japanese business is than American business. Like one of the things they did was, it's really kind of interesting how they did it.

The Japanese would talk about selling pride. They'd be like, you know, we would like to sell pride. And they'd go, okay, let's sit down, let's talk, let's go over numbers. And so they'd make this big announcement, the UFC is sitting down with pride, they're talking about buying pride. And then they'd go, eh, we're not going to sell. And they would sit down. They'd reach some sort of an agreement.

And then, mm, not going to sell. They went for a long time. They're like, what the fuck is going on with these guys? Like, they say they're going to sell, and they don't sell. But what they were doing was, I mean, they had Vandale Silva come over, and he got in the cage with Chuck Liddell, and they mean-mugged each other. Eh, we're not going to sell. And what they did was they hyped up Pride through the UFC. And they made Pride more exciting by pretending that they were going to sell Pride to the UFC.

By pretending they were going to bring fighters over and fighters were going to fight in Pride. And they had Chuck Liddell go over and fight in Pride. Remember that? And Rampage Jackson and Chuck Liddell fought. And then Chuck came back to the UFC. And then finally they said they were going to sell Pride, and they sold it for $65 million. Okay.

The UFC got it, and once they went through all the paperwork, all the money's exchanged hands, they realized they'd bought bullshit because all the contracts were invalid. They were all bullshit contracts. They didn't hold up. So, like, they didn't all bullshit contracts. They didn't hold up. So they didn't have Fedor. They didn't have a lot of the stars. And they had a video library.

That's all they had. They got a video library for like $65 million. Then it gets even crazier. So they say, okay, we're going to run Pride in Japan. We're going to maintain the office in Japan. We're going to use these Pride employees. We're going to build up Pride. We're going to start running Pride in Japan. We're going to maintain the office in Japan. We're going to use these Pride employees. We're going to build up Pride. We're going to start running Pride in Japan. So they start trying to do that. And the people that were working for them started Dream. So they're working

for them. They're working for the UFC. And all the while, they're putting together this Dream promotion. And so then they went off and started Dream. And then, you know, the UFC's like, ah, we're just going to close up shop. So now all they had from that $65 million, I think they were going to try to sue Japan. Like the Japanese businessman that sold it to them. It was a big deal for a while. But then they dropped that shit too. And now all they have is like the best of pride that's on like Fox Sports 1.

I mean, that's the revenue source. And it's also something they show on Fight Pass. You can watch all the old Prides on Fight Pass, which is kind of cool. But it's like, fuck, man. It's just different. It's very different over there. Yeah, that's crazy. Did you make good money fighting over there?

It started the bull rolling. It definitely got me out of the... Yeah, it helped start. And then once I started getting the UK-1 money, then it sort of snowballed, which helped me get to where I am now. Did they give you it all in cash like they do with the MMA fighters? It was one of those ones where there's a month wait in between paychecks. Yeah, you'd fight and, OK, where is it, where is it, where is it, where is it?

Well, that's one of the things that fucked Bob Sapp over. Bob Sapp was, they had some sort of a contract dispute and they tried to get him to fight without a contract in the main event of one of their events. Is that in Holland? I don't think it was. It was a Japanese event. I know he walked out of one of the events in Holland

and Peter Ertz was in the crowd after a few beers and he ended up putting his hand up said I'll fight and I'll save the show and he did it too he got beat but he took it up he took it he had to borrow someone else's shorts yeah after a couple beers yeah that's hilarious Peter arts man you want to talk about a dude who's fought the best of the best forever yeah he's the king yeah that guy's had some crazy fights I watched a highlight reel's fought the best of the best forever yeah he's the king god that guy's had some crazy fights i watched a highlight reel of his the other night on youtube and you forget you

forget how many high kick k.o's that guy had i better say the same things because crocop's got the the reputation for the head kicks but then you look back at peter earths well crocop has a reputation for head kicks in mma yep but in kickboxing hit mean there's no comparison between crow cop and Peter Hertz yeah but it's also crow cop had a really good style for MMA because he's like this explosive sprinter type dude like his style for kickboxing he might have not had the best style to compete against like the Anastah who sir the the best kickboxerer guys. They were a little bit more tactical than him. They had a little bit more classic kickboxing training.

He's over in Croatia, but he's just a savage and just had lightning-fast kicks. That left high kick, man. Jesus Christ. He was a good guy for when he went to Prague because we had someone that we could relate to that was doing so well in MMA. It's like, yes, everyone cheered for Crow Cop because he was one of us prior to going over. Well, you got to see with Crow Cop what happens

when you get a really high-level kickboxer and they learn how to sprawl and they learn how to stay on their feet. Everybody was getting fucked up. I mean, there was a period of time when Crow Cop was in his prime where, I mean, before he lost to Fedor I mean he was just lighting people on fire you know you look at some of his head kick victories and prime did just dudes had no business standing up with him they had no business it was like they were blue belts and he was like a

ninth-degree black belt in striking you just fucking head kick everybody to oblivion but he didn't have that kind of success in kickboxing Yeah, it's sort of like what we were talking about earlier where when you're fighting when you see guys that are fighting in kickboxing or in Muay Thai you're seeing the highest level Expression of that art of striking art like the yachts and Klai's the bull cows John Wayne pars Who was you think your toughest opponent he ever fought yes in clay you know it's in class I fought him three times the first time I fought him he kicked me in the head the second round and then like last

night when I told him Brendan I couldn't remember the rest of the fire it went the distance but I have no idea what happened after the head kick and then the second time we fought was the final of the cont. It went the distance, but I have no idea what happened after the head kick. And then the second time we fought was the final of the Contender Asia reality TV show. He dropped me round one, and he dropped me again round two. I did okay three, four, and five, but yeah, he's a beast.

And then the third time we fought was down in Melbourne, and I was just lucky enough to, the punches with the Australian judges scored a little bit higher than the round kicks. If it was in Thailand, I think I would have lost. But because it was in Australia, I was lucky to get the single victory over him. That's interesting, though, because it's kind of arbitrary that they decide that the punches don't score as much in Thailand. The only way you can score, I don't think you mentioned it on this podcast, but you talked about it yesterday in the Fight Pass,

that a guy could box the shit out of a tie fighter And then the tie was kicking his arms the tie fighter would win Yeah, well I fought Borkow in Jamaica and they had three Lumpini judges there and then everyone that watches the fight I get a lot of emails to this day that just watch it on YouTube and say ah I think you beat Borkow that time but because it was the tie influence for the judges and the tie scoring That's how I lost but it would have been nice to have that one victory over ball cow as well that would have really sort of Shot because he's the man now He's more famous than you had single even though I think you had single I would beat book here if they ever fought

Well, he yeah, he's still so I got to see a chance to see him fight once in Los Angeles They I forget the name of the promotion, but they had a really high level. Artem Levin fought, Buakaw fought, but to see him fight live was beautiful. He doesn't hit very hard. Compared to Yud Singla, he's very fast, but Yud Singla is very powerful and sapple.

Yud Singla's punching and defense is world standard too. His punch is crazy. Whereas Buakow is realizing that fast left kick and that fast teep. It's one of those Floyd Pacquiao fights. The Yod Singalov versus Borkow fight.

I'd put my money if Yod, if they ever did happen to meet. Is it too late for those guys to fight? Different promotions. Different promoters, sorry. Too much support politics. Like Bob Arum, Don King type shit. It's never going to happen. God damn it.

And then Borkhouse signed a contract now where he's not allowed to fight other ties apparently. What? Yeah. He's got taken over by Singha Beer. They've taken over his management and they've made some contract where he can't fight other ties anymore. That's ridiculous. How come he can't fight other ties? I think it's got to the stage now where he's become a brand.

He's not just a fighter. He's a brand. He's sponsored by Singha, Thai Airways, Thai Tourism. He's the face of the Thailand for the Muay Thai. That's amazing. How did that happen? Because he got ripped off by his old manager. He had about 200 fights for Popamuk.

And then he won the K1 um two or three times two two times won fifty thousand dollars a hundred thousand dollars both times and then um he kept asking his trainer so how's my money going oh don't worry i've put in a bank i'm investing it for you and he went out and bought five houses for himself and then bought the manager the manager did and then he said, okay, where's my money? He said, oh, you have nothing.

He had a pillow and a suitcase of clothes after 200 fights to show you for his name. Wow. So he quit. He quit the camp. He said,

that's it, I'm done. And then the manager was going to sue him. I went to court and they told, yeah, it was big time. The manager's going to sue him? Yeah, because he and I told yeah was big time. The manager's gonna sue him Yeah, because he still wanted his 50%

Oh if if if Borka if Borka went to fight for Japan again And he's still making big money and he still wanted his cut even though he was ripped him off Even I ripped him off the entirely and the manager was still right. He still had the rights That was his horse remember how I told me the horses that still he that was his horse. Remember how we were talking about the horses? That's still, that's his property. Borcao's his property. Borcao didn't have any claim to all the money that he got ripped off from? Nothing. Whoa. It's Thailand. It's Thailand. Okay, so he leaves

and then somebody else manages him? Yeah, so Borcao, he made a statement, remember, the fight night and he brought the king in and said, you know, I fight for my country, I fight for the king and he brought the king in. You're holding your hands up like you're holding a photo. Oh, he did. He was holding a photo of the king in and said, you know, I fight for my country. I fight for the king. You mean brought the king in? You holding your hands up like you're holding a photo. Oh, he did.

He was holding a photo of the king up. Okay. He didn't say the king. He wasn't actually holding him up. Yeah, no, no. And then I think he announced his retirement too. He said, oh, I'm done. I'm just going to open my own gym.

And then I believe Singha Bir, they had a friendship with him, and they said, hey, we're going to take you under our wings. We'll counter Sue. They got the money to do whatever. And then Borkow had permission to all of a sudden start fighting again. And then they have a lot of influence. So the entire tourism come in and said, oh, we'll give you a hand as well. And all these other sponsors.

And then all of a sudden Borkow is driving a BMW and owns his own place. But he's a good face for it. Yeah, he's a good man. Okay, well, where does he live? He lives still in Thailand? He's got his BMW and owns his own place. But he's a good face for, like, he's a good man. Okay, well, where does he live? He lives still in Thailand? He's got his own camp now. In Thailand? In Thailand.

He's on a farm. I always see him with farm pictures and stuff. He's got a massive gym. Well, that's a great story, you know, that this terrible tragedy and this horrible theft turned good. Yeah, yeah, definitely. He's still young. I mean, how old is he?

Oh, he must be nearly early 30s, probably. So that age where it's like almost, you know, he's got enough time. Yeah, it was the full Rocky story. His whole possession's taken away, and then to come back and now to be where he is is pretty cool. And is he only fighting Westerners? Like, how does it go? Yeah, Westerners and Asians, but no ties.

That's so weird. Why no ties? Dangerous. Dangerous? He could lose? Dangerous. Dangerous, he could lose. That's so weird. Why no ties? Dangerous. Dangerous. He could lose. Dangerous. He could lose. He's a brand. Oh, I didn't think of it that way. I thought it was a nationalistic thing. Like, you know, you don't want to beat it.

Like, a lot of Brazilians do not like to fight Brazilians. There's a handful of ties that are there that are quite dangerous as well and then could take away that. And then that reputation in one fight has disappeared. Oh, wow. wow oh that's a terrible little velvet prison to be living in yeah you know that does that make him lose faith in in thailand or in the muay thai community he's a god he's a god doesn't matter he's a god every time he fights there'll be 20 000 people in a park somewhere cheering his name how many oh just for

instance like we were talking about before how if you can do a promotion outside people will drive for hours to be amongst to be amongst the promotion and then um i think he's on tight commercials he might even be on side of buses and billboards and he's he's the man he's the he's the what could he be he's the michael jordan of thailand so does johnsonlai sit around looking at him on billboards and go, that motherfucker. I dare say he would. He'd have to.

He'd have to. Damn, because those are the two big names that people talk about in Muay Thai in America. I mean, I don't know what it's like over there, but when you talk to people who train Muay Thai that are fans of the sport, those are the two big names. Yeah, Borkow had the opportunity to fight for K1 which blew his career up before that he was just fighting on channel 7

just a small time and then got in front of the the K1 world scene and then he blew up and then Yacht Single never had the same opportunities as Borkow did well Yacht Single is fighting for lion fights right yeah and they're putting that on access tv it's it's it's just not that much uh coverage yes it's too bad because access tv has amazing fights and lion fight you know like they have kevin ross yes who's uh american that does very well as one of their champions over there he's a bad he's really exciting to watch fight yeah kevin's cool he's so good and his muay thai it's such pure muay thai you know what I mean? It's not like a boxer or a kickboxer. There's some guys, no disrespect, because he's a very good fighter, like a Wayne Barrett. He's a very good fighter.

But you see he's got more of a boxing style, and then he's adding the Muay Thai techniques to it. Whereas you see Kevin Ross looks like your classic Muay Thai style of fighter. Yeah, Kevin's sort of like the version of me. classic Muay Thai style of fighter. Yeah, Kevin's sort of like the version of me. He's gone and lived and breathed and done everything in his power to make that transition, so his whole life's consumed. Yeah, I love Lion Fights, man. I went to see that live in Vegas.

I really hope that promotion takes off. Yes, it'd be good for the sport. It'd be so good. Well, this is the only one. I mean, that's the big promotion in America that's the promotion with TV coverage is showing full Muay Thai yes yeah so you got brought in to work with George you got brought in to work with George st. Pierre before which fight was it Hendrix Hendrix yeah and what was that camp like what was it like like how did you guys make this connection so I had the opportunity to come to Canada and I did seven seminars all around Canada and there was about

three days left on my schedule before I had to flow back to Australia and then the gentleman that brought me over said hey would you like to travel to Montreal and get a try star I meet George so holy shit that was pretty cool get up get a photo with George and Facebook status and that'd be amazing. So we drove, we drove to, um, Montreal. I said, Hey,

um, Perez was so nice. He goes, Oh, I know who you are. I'm happy to put you up in a hotel for tonight. And then tomorrow is Muay Thai sparring day. Would you like to spar a few of the boys?

So, Holy shit, that'd be pretty cool. So the next day, um, brought on my gear and then, uh, we're,

we're stretching out and say, all right, John Wayne, you go and spar George. I was like, whoa. And then I touched George's glove, and then I was like a little school girl. Oh, my God, I can't believe I sparred George. I was like, George, you know, like I did with you today, exactly the same way I did with you today.

And then the first 10 seconds, I was so of george's jab and then i've waited waited and then he's throwing something i counted he threw something else i counted that um he threw a jab i come over the top and i placed my shin across his neck and i just left it there just long enough for the whole gym to stop and and stare and then um and then george's eyes lit up and then uh and then i chased him from one side of the cage to the other side of the cage. And it was pretty, I felt pretty good. And then next round, hey, all right, John Wayne, you go to Rory. So I sparred Rory.

And I said, holy shit. I said to Rory, how are we going to go light? Because I thought he was a pretty psycho. And he was really cool. He was a really nice guy. And then we sparred him and did really well against Rory as well. All right then we sparred him and um did really well against rory as well all right back with george sort of did really well against george again so i took some photos and then um i thought that was that was it i thought we were done and then about two months later faraz gave me a call he said hey um george is getting ready

for hendrix we're at about two months any chance you want to come back to montreal and train george personally for muay thai so holy fuck yes wow so i've jumped on the plane george picked me up at the airport and he took me to the hotel he said oh this is the the hotel in uh saint catherine's uh this is where i like to keep freddie roach it's like holy shit this is big time and then um yeah george picked me up every morning we'd go train We'd go eat lunch. We were together every day for two. After a week, he said, hey, do you want to go to New York? New York's like my second hometown. I'd love to show you around.

We'll go and meet John Donahue. So we went to New York, and then we did some training at the Gracie Academy there. And I got to meet Phil Nurse. And then it was really cool. Everyone was really nice. Were you you training jujitsu or were you just training i was training i was george's muay thai trainer personally for two weeks uh for us is you don't have to do any classes or any cinema seminars we just got to train george personally for two weeks so basically every day every day every day we do pads in a spa and just have fun Did you do anything differently the way you train him than you would train any Muay Thai fighter? We had to get ready for Hendrix, who was a Southpaw.

So I'd become Hendrix when we sparred. So I'd throw this overhand right and trying to rush him a little bit. Overhand left. Overhand left, sorry. Yes, very cool. That's why you're on the big bucks. Got it. That's all it took.

So, yeah, I'd becomeendrix and we sparred and then uh i had george just doing basic stuff as you would have fighting any sample but uh unfortunately i think phil nurse my stall didn't compliment phil's style phil was more about the spinning kick and the jumping elbow and and the spinning something or other. And I just wanted to keep George one style just to keep it inside right hands. You just wanted it to be, like, more conservative? Yeah. And then so after two weeks, it was still 12 weeks before the fight happened,

so George probably went back to his style. Because it's so hard, you've got to stay with someone that whole time you can't just train them for a couple of days and hope they they stay that that way um and then so i got back to australia and this is cool so this lady she sends me this email she goes um just want to know are you going to go to george's fight i said oh unfortunately no if i go on the the team they're gonna have to kick someone off and I don't want to cause any controversy I'm just here for George in Australia she goes no no no you deserve to be there I want to pay for your plane ticket to go and watch George fight live you deserve to be

there who's this lady it's just some lady that I'm crazy lady from from Facebook some cash and then uh wow so she just flew you so she goes what would you like Isla window and I say holy shit this you? So she goes, what would you like? Isle of Window. And I was like, holy shit, this is really happening. She goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll send you over there. You deserve to be there. Wow. And then she goes, good news.

As I was looking for flights, a deal came up for MGM. So I've got your three nights at MGM also. So you just got to rock up and go. That's so crazy. It was so cool. And did George know you were coming? No, I don't think so. Then Goyo from Mexico that trains at Albuquerque, he seen I was there, and he asked me if I could walk him to the scales on the night.

And then I got to see George in the back room, and he's looking at me, how the hell did you get that? That's funny. It was pretty cool. That's when we met. Yeah. So that's how I got your tickets. That's how you got into the fights.

So everybody hooked you up. Yes, yes. It was amazing. And then, yeah, watching George fight from the grandstands, he fought the complete opposite fight to what we were training for. He fought Hendricks like he was going to fight an orthodox fighter instead of a southpaw fighter. So he was throwing outside left kicks instead of inside right kicks

and big body kicks like we're working on. But I thought he won. It was a very very close fight i thought going into the fifth round it was anyone's fight it was two two and the fifth round i believe george just did it slightly enough to get the edge so that's my theory but you didn't enjoy um the way he was doing it you like did it bother you yeah it did a little. Considering what we worked on and then how we fought was a complete contrast. So I think he could have won a lot easier if we had stuck to our game plan. But yeah, I was too far out of camp to make that game plan stick. I didn't know that Phil Nurse liked a lot of spinning techniques.

What kind of spinning techniques does he emphasize? He's more about the spinning elbow and the upward elbow and the spinning back kick. He's more about the crowd-pleasing moves instead of the stickings of the basics. That's interesting. I wouldn't have thought that. I thought he was like real traditional Muay Thai. More flashy. More flashy.

But he's the one that gets the crowd standing up. When people do his stuff, it's the, oh, yeah, that's pretty awesome. Oh, I see what you're saying. I'd rather punch someone in the face really hard with a jab than I would a spinning back kick, if that makes sense. I keep everything low-key so I can win instead of risking it. Well, you have a real power-based style, which is really unusual. I've worked with a lot of different guys over the years that are training MMA fighters or train Muay Thai, and your style is completely unique.

Your style of standing, your style, that power jab you have is ridiculous, man. The only guy who I've ever talked to that had a similar philosophy but slightly different was boss rootin okay boss rootin also believes that your your jab should be as hard as your left as your right hand you want to he's a fucking psycho you want to hear a best written story so so we're you have a boss rootin story everybody has a boss rootin story i was in i was at disneyland and then i was with the family and then I've gone to go to the toilet and I've seen bass with his family. And then I was wearing a UFC shirt and then out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he's seen me. And I was sort of this little fan, this little sparrow, this little annoying little bug.

How long ago was this? Maybe two or three years ago. Oh, annoying little bug that happened to have ten world titles in Muay Thai. Whatever. But I had the UFC shirt on, so I stood out like dog's balls. And then I finally got the courage to go up and ask him for a photo. And then he said, just a minute, just a minute. I have to buy my son an ice cream first.

I'll come back. And I felt this big. I felt like a little midget. And then sure enough, he come back over. Hey, I'll get that photo with you now. And I felt, he didn't know who I was. I introduced myself, but he's just sort of, just a polite smile. Took the photo, wished me on my way.

And then he come to Australia. And then he did seminars here. And the guy that organized the seminars got him to give me a call. Hey, talk to John Wayne. And then I told him the story. And it was pretty funny. But, yeah. That's hilarious. Yeah yeah yeah how did you

say your name to him i told him yeah you said i'm john wayne parr mother he gave me a polite something more though you gave me a polite small boss rooting out of the loop yeah yeah he was the first guy to bring like real technical striking to mma he's amazing he's he's the man the bastard is the man him and then ma the man. Him and then Maurice Smith was the one who, you know, brought like real high level Muay Thai

to the UFC. Yes. You know, like you watch Maurice's leg kicks were just fucking brutality. Yeah,

he gave Stan the Man a touch up too. Did he? Yes. Maurice was a bad motherfucker in his day. Yes. He won a fight

recently at 50. Whoa. He's 50 and he won a MMA fight by head kick. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's still going at it, man.

It's amazing. Yeah, Maurice just decided. He took a few years off. He decided to fight one more time. And that was MMA? Yeah, MMA, yeah. He fought some dude who had no business in the world, by the way. But, I mean, hey, he's 50. You don't know, you know? I mean hey I mean he's 50 you don't

know you know I mean there's guys that have come back after all those years and you know but Maurice was in great shape he did it the right way he was always known for his discipline in his cardio yeah yeah he's when we're talking about pioneers just before he's definitely one of the men oh yeah that brought the sport up well he was one of the first guys that showed how important cardio was in MMA when he fought Mark Coleman. Because Mark Coleman came at him like a fucking bat out of hell in the first round. But Maurice just showed poise and discipline and stayed calm. And then after the first round was over and Coleman started to gas out, then Maurice starts landing those heavy leg kicks.

You hear that thump. that fucking thump, that disgusting baseball bat to meat sound. Yeah, it's been very interesting to see the evolution of the stand-up striking in MMA. Now, for a guy like you standing on the outside and watching this, it's got to be really interesting for you, too, coming from that pure striking background and seeing all the things that MMA fighters in the stand-up aspect, what they do wrong. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, what works in my sport doesn't work in MMA either. You can't throw body kicks really in MMA. Otherwise, they catch it and take you straight down.

There's a lot of guys winning by body kick now. True, yeah. A lot of guys are stopping guys, especially with that left kick to the liver. Man, that left kick to the body, when they're standing in the southpaw position, you're seeing Liotta Machida won by that. A lot of guys are winning by that kick.

The Steven Seagal teeps in the face? No. That's rare, but man, that fucking shit works. You know, it's weird. Teeps very rarely knock anybody out in Muay Thai. No one teeps in MMA. Yeah, well, we were talking, well, a few guys do, but we were talking about it last night that the stance is so different in MMA

and you're still worried about the takedowns and, you know, the grappling aspect. You might open the door to front kicks and things along those lines. Yeah, and it's one of my main weapons. I wouldn't be able to throw it hardly as much when i come over to america to try and learn a little bit of mma i had um i had a fight back in 2007 against a gentleman called tony banello and then i got over here and then everything i i tried to do they said oh you can't do that you can't do more than three or four punches otherwise you're gonna get taken down you can't body kick they'll catch you take it down this is

a coach's tone yeah yeah and i got to the stage where it's like what's your coach who's the coach telling you that uh thomas denny okay yeah so he's a good dude yeah but you you should have been with a guy like for us you know like a guy like for us would have figured out what to do looking back looking back i was i was just um he was closest to my wife's family so it just seemed makes sense um actually uh actually training with um the guys down at uh orange county i'm not orange county uh uh no no uh uh what's um eric polson okay eric polson a lot of crazy grappling he's got a a lot of catch wrestling history. Do you want to hear a funny story? Sure. So I meet Cub Swanson.

Cub Swanson's a cool dude and we're hanging out. And then my first day at Eric Paulson's gym, it's Muay Thai day. And I'm the new guy. I know nothing. No one knows who I am. And then Eric Paul it's like, Eric Paulson's like, okay, Muay Thai guys, put your gear on guys.

Okay. So, uh, Josh Barnett, you spar this way. He points to me. And, uh,

so we start and I'm moving around. Okay. Inside kick jab. And then, uh, Josh throws something. I'm like out. And then I'm in boom,

boom, boom. And I'm gone again. He throws a kick. Whoa. Yeah. And then, and then. Boom, boom, boom. And I'm going again. He throws a kick. Whoa. Air. And then he's a big dude. He's a big dude.

He's quite a big dude. So I'm in and out, fearing for my life, just tapping away. And then we do two rounds. After two rounds, he takes his glove off and he throws it across the room. He takes his shin pad off, throws it across the room. He packs his bag, he storms out. And then they go on to Tokyo the next day to fight on the New Year's Eve Pride tournament. I forget who it was against.

And then about a week passes, Josh loses his fight. I get a phone call from Eric Paulson about three or four days later once I get back. And I said, oh said oh hey this is Eric how you going I just want to let you know that we blame you on Josh's loss because he was fine right up until he spied you and then some kid that he'd never seen before owned him in the sparring and took away all his confidence so when he got to Japan he was a mess and no way this is a true story I kid you not. Well, first of all, how ridiculous are they to take a guy like you where they don't, you know.

I was just that new guy in the gym. It's like, oh, yeah, you spot him. That's ridiculous. Why would they do that? That's one of the problems with high-level MMA as opposed to, like, high-level boxing. Could you imagine Floyd Mayweather preparing for a fight not knowing the training partner? Training partner goes in. It turns out to be some fucking unbeatable world champion,

boxes him up and fucks him up right before a big fight. Yeah, yeah. It never would happen. An 80-kilo kid versus a 130-kilo guy. Yeah. And then he's fighting on pride, which he shouldn't. Yeah, it didn't make sense to me. But I found it quite amusing, it is kind of amusing but I mean I can see it from

Josh's point of view too he had no idea no no no idea I mean imagine you're expecting just some average guy in the gym that's smaller than you and then you just run into some multiple-time world Muay Thai champion just happen I think sorry the day before might have been jiu-jitsu day So the day before I hadn't there was my first ever This is not day about my finger, but it's like so you were there getting strangled So I went in I think Cubs guard and then Eric's like hey go Go where he goes try and do something to him. I don't know what to do And then I'm putting now I'm getting tapped every 30 seconds

And the next day is Muay Thai day and all of a sudden I put my cape on, I take my shirt off, I've got a big S on my chest. I turn into Superman and I light up Josh Barnett and then all of a sudden, yeah, he's very cranky. Yeah, I would imagine. That's one of the things that a lot of fighters who are really good at one style have a huge issue with

is learning, like a lot of wrestlers they never really developed the ability to strike because they would start sparring and they would get up and they'd be like i hate this i just want to take these guys down that's what i do or a lot of jiu jitsu guys they didn't want to learn how to kickbox a lot of strikers they just didn't want to learn jiu jitsu it's just like you were saying you're a world champion and then you would go in there and you wouldn't know what to do, and you didn't like it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it wasn't mine.

And then the whole thing, for me personally as well, was in between another gentleman's legs, it's okay, push your hips in. It's like, oh, I don't know, I can't push my hips in. Go get some. It's only one way. I don't know. You've got to fuck your way to victory. Yeah, I know it's weird well also dude sweat in your mouth sometimes that's sometimes people are mounting you and

The 69 position thing that's rough north-south. Yeah. Yeah, I remember my brother was telling me one of the camps He went to One of our boys, the guy had dip in his mouth. While he was training? While he was training. I'm not saying his name. Kevin Randleman.

Was it American wrestling camp? I think it was Kevin Randleman or someone. I'm not sure it was. Randleman had dip in his mouth? I don't know. I don't know. Okay. But, yeah, they had dip in, and they were just, I was doing a little private lesson with them. The dip was just going all over.

Jesus fucking Christ. That's so disgusting. I don't know who it was. Yeah. Well, that's the thing about MMA as opposed to, like we said, boxing. Their camps are incredibly organized and they bring in people to mimic a very specific opponent. Yes. They would never have a situation where they just have a class and a world class fighter

is just taking a class with a bunch of strangers. Yes. That still exists in MMA, you know, and some people think it's a good thing. You know, some people think it's cute. Yeah. But I just think, you know, what you were saying before about George preparing for Johnny Hendricks, very specific style. And this is the things that will work best against this very specific stance and style.

I mean, I think that's the future. I think when you're dealing with the highest level athletes in combat sports in MMA, you're going to have to have these really meticulously designed training camps. Yeah, yeah. Well, for me, I watch the road to UFCs, and they're coming up, and they spend so much time hitting the

the tire with the hammer and they've got the ropes on this and they're doing all the the sprints with the parachute but they can't throw a straight jab yeah all those hours spending getting fit when you could have spent in the gym just perfecting that that stall and then I'll go back to Thailand and that the tires don't lift weights all I do is hit pads run like cavemen and it's been for 2 000 years but it's they're they're so everything's so perfect and their bodies are ripped up and i think to myself i'd rather look like a thai um fully ripped and fit than a than a half bodybuilder trying to trying to pretend i'm a rock on a wrestler with them well there's a lot of fighters that believe that there's sort of a point of diminishing returns

when it comes to strength and conditioning, but there's a balance that has to be achieved. When you're dealing with grappling and you're dealing with takedowns and the ability to explode and shoot a double leg takedown, I think a certain amount of strength and conditioning is necessary. I think it's different, though's striking I think what's striking efficiency of movement you know the also your body becomes accustomed to those techniques so you have with more efficiency of movement you have more you lose use less energy yes and you don't get exhausted whereas you're seeing a lot of these guys that are in great shape great strength and conditioning

programs like they're fit they're physically strong they have a lot of these guys that are in great shape, great strength and conditioning programs. They're fit. They're physically strong. They have a lot of muscle. But they don't have a lot of physical efficiency in their movements when it comes to striking. And they're emphasizing strength. You see them fucking, fucking, everything is like wide punches. It doesn't look as fluid.

Doesn't look as fluid whereas if you're watching like you know like yachts and Clyde or like you or like Bullock how you're seeing like a really relaxed like the execution is very relaxed. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, and The the excess muscle mass that it makes you more tired as well. Hmm. Whereas you'd rather be like a lean greyhound That's a but then you got these motherfuckers to take you down you know and you can't get back up and you get exhausted from the takedowns and you know that grappling is a different it's so different when you add the grappling because like with the way George beat BJ Penn was so clever because BJ was a very good striker and he's very he's wicked with his hand speed so George just tied

his ass up and made him exhaust his arms. He just tied, and BJ was not known for a guy who concentrated on strength and conditioning until really after those fights. After the fight with George is when he got down with the Marinoviches. And the Marinovich era of when he was at his best, I think, was when he was doing, maybe, why don't I think he fought George after that?

I might be wrong. The best BJ Penn, though, was BJ Penn who went through that Mark Marinovich strength and conditioning program. Because it was just unbelievably brutal. They would show it on the countdown shows. You just see all the shit that he was doing. And he was talking about he couldn't even hold his kid at night he was so sore and exhausted his body was just broken down but marb burnovich put him in like this insane he had he was famous as like a strength and conditioning guy because his son was like his prodigy and his son kind of went crazy

because he disciplined him so hard he was so like into training him. But his son was like a football prodigy from his dad's strength and conditioning programs. And he instilled this program on BJ Penn that he just was fucking unbelievable. But what happened out of it was you got this BJ, you didn't get tired. And BJ Penn had so much skill. He had so much talent and so much heart and determination. But all of a sudden he has this never-ending gas tank which you never saw from bj penn before so in mma man it's like sometimes it's necessary and sometimes it's like trying to find that balance though of how much skill training and how much strength and conditioning because all the skill training in the world if you get exhausted because you're wrestling with a guy who's just shooting on you and taking you down all

the time it's just yeah they're not gonna stand it's almost like MMA has too much going on yeah yeah it looks like that on the road to USC shows it looks like someone's they're training here then jump in the car for four hours and something over there then they're back over here for two hours from in on the pool yeah yeah it's crazy it's almost like there's too much going on in a fight too it's a but that's also what makes it so crazy it's like to be the best at that you know you be the best at that and but one of the things you're seeing is the guys that are the best they're good at certain things you know like like you don't see anderson silva shooting double leg

takedowns mounting guys spinning for arm bars mean, he's caught a few submissions in his day, but usually catches them after he fucks somebody up, like Dan Henderson. He fucked him up, and then he got his back and choked him. Or like Chael Sonnen, where Chael Sonnen just fucked up and laid in his guard, and he caught him with a triangle. But what you're used to seeing him do is kickboxing guys. Yes. It's like Rumble Johnson's a perfect example.

He's one of the top contenders at 205. You're not going to see him guillotining anybody. He's not triangling anybody. He's stepping forward and blasting people with punches and kicks. I mean, that's what he does. And it's almost like to be like the very best is really hard to be good at everything. You know, there's only a few guys that are dangerous everywhere. Like Anthony Pettis is so weird because he's dangerous everywhere.

He's dangerous standing up and then you catch him on his back and he's fucking catching you in armbar. It's weird. It's like he's one of the few guys who's dangerous everywhere. Cerrone's dangerous everywhere. Dangerous off his back, which is one of the reasons why he's so willing to kick.

Not worried about getting taken down. Yep. You know, his triangle, his armbar, all his guard game's vicious. Yep. That fight with Miles Jury, it was unbelievable. Oh, dude, the end when he's throwing those kicks to his legs. But the first 30 seconds when Miles went to take him down and he turned it into a shoulder lock.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was like, whoa, that's pretty high level right there. He's no joke. Yeah, he can do everything. I mean, I think he's only got a brown belt in jiu-jitsu, I think, like on paper or whatever. But the way I see him move, it's black belt level.

He's very razor sharp on the ground. But again, it's like how many of those guys can do everything? Like what would happen if Johnny Hendricks is fighting off his back? Do you think Johnny Hendricks has a triangle? Do you think, you know, how many times has Robbie Lawler caught a guy on an armbar? You know, it's like the guys, like some of the really best guys in the sport, they're good at a certain aspect of it, and then they just concentrate on their strengths,

and they use that, and they get through, and they win. I wonder what's going to be what what mma striking is going to be like five ten years from now i wonder if you're going to see it ever achieve a level that you're seeing in like pro muay thai yeah i don't know do you see yourself working with more mma fighters i hope so i i really enjoy working with everyone and doing moving around training different people um and then meeting celebrities like yourself and then and doing stuff with you even today was so much fun dude i wish you lived close i'd do it with you every week that was fun man yeah i learned a lot today it was really i mean it was a short amount of time but uh especially that style of uh of punching and movement and in combination with

kicks and knees yeah i believe i've got a lot to offer when it comes to just broadening people's idea of how to execute different strikes. I want to try and maximize the power out of every single thing that I throw. So whether it be a hook, uppercut, a knee, or a head kick, I want to try and destroy anything that I land on. Let it be a forearm, thigh, nose, face, neck. That's a very different approach than, say, like a modern boxing approach. Whereas, like, you're seeing, like, guys, like, in corners, they'll come back to the corner and the corner will say, just touch him. Touch him with the jab.

Touch him with this. Touch him with that. There's a lot of, like, guys, maybe like Nick Diaz is a good example, who's throwing, like, a lot of punches. He's just touching you. 30, 70. Yeah. But also that intimidation factor also.

If I hit you hard, you don't want to get hit by me again. Right. So I want to just keep chipping. If I hit you with a jab, that hurts. Okay, I'll go this way. Now if I hit you with a leg kick, okay, I want to make that really hurt also. And it gets to the stage where I'm in your head now. And then once I know I'm in your head, then it makes it a lot easier for me to start picking things.

now and then once i know i'm in your head then it makes it a lot easier for me to start picking things is there a different approach to fighting in a muay thai fight where it's three rounds with no grappling as opposed to mma which is five rounds with with grappling and then maybe that sort of style of like so much fucking energy and hard hard to maintain conditioning for that michael johnson last night fuck yeah yeah that was amazing damn he looked good that was awesome and he maintained the whole three rounds too. 15 minutes was just crazy. Michael Johnson, man, he's really looking good

these days. That was cool. Last night was probably his most impressive performance because Edson Barbosa is a very good striker and he just attacked, attacked,

like right from the beginning. He's a wrestler. He's another guy. Just a great athlete who has immersed himself. Yep. Have you ever trained with Henry Hory hoost the guy who's uh the head coach of the coach of the black zillions no no be interesting to see uh he's got a lot of guys down there that he's really improved in in big ways he's got that dutch style the the holland moita holland kickboxing style

he's uh teaching these guys so showing big improvements too in a lot of the fighters. Yeah. I'm here for just the one week and I'm lucky to do a few seminars around town. Where are the seminars if people want to go? You have one on Friday night, right? I know you have Friday night. So tomorrow night...

Step into the ring. So tomorrow night we've got one at Faction MMA which is Gracie Hamaita, Carlsbad. It's at 6.30. Carlsbad, California. 6.30. Carlsbad, California. And then the next night is at the Art of Eight.

The Art of Eight. Art of Eight limbs. Yeah, Melcher Menor. Eight weapons. Yeah, that's it. Melcher. Where's his place? That's in Miramar.

So the Art of Eight. Sort of convoy road area. And then that was Wednesday night. Thursday night is at Elite Training in Redondo Beach, I think it is. And then Friday night is at Joseph's, which is the Sub Factory. Which place? Sub Factory. Sub Factory, where's that at?

Which is the North Hollywood one. It's one of Eddie's gyms. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, okay. And then Saturday morning is with Muay Thai School of USA Saturday morning the day of the fights yep at 10 a.m. oh great where's that where's the it's in North

Hollywood too okay cool yeah that's a big gym out here right yep yeah really big they've got a lot of guys coming is there a website where people can go there to listen to this didn't didn't get a chance to write it down? We'll just put it on. John Wayne Parr's fan page. Okay, John Wayne Parr fan page on Facebook and John Wayne Parr's Twitter account. All the dates will be up on there and all the times and all that stuff.

Yes, yes. Beautiful. Anything else, brother? If you get an opportunity, I have a documentary that I've just released on YouTube. It's called Blessed with Venom. It's a 90-minute documentary. When it was released in Australia, it had two weeks in cinemas. And then the company that put it out for me, once it was finished, they sort of lost my phone number.

And I didn't hear anything from them for like three or four years. So now I thought, you know what, fuck you. I'm putting it on YouTube for free. So if anyone wants to see it, it's up there. They lost your phone number? Literally lost your phone number or they just stopped calling you? They stopped calling me. They were going to do DVD sales.

I don't know what happened to that. I was getting messages from people in Brazil saying, we've just watched a documentary in Brazil with subtitles, absolutely amazing documentary, and I'm thinking where's all this money going They're surely wouldn't they gave it to the Brazil TV for free I didn't I didn't make one cent from from the documentary, so I thought it got to the stage Who are these people just so nobody else has to I don't want to they don't want to do that They know who they are yeah, but it was amazing amazing

I can't thank them enough for making the documentary. So, but now it's on YouTube for free. So if anyone wants to watch it, it's called Blessed with Venom and it's going to Thailand, visiting my old camp, interviewing Yod Sing Lai and other Thai opponents,

San Chai, the traditions about going to fighting at Lumpini Stadium and just lots of highlights of old fights. I watched it this morning. It was pretty fucking badass. It's really cool.

It's got to be cool having a documentary on you like that. Yeah, and when you're still alive too. You know it's not bullshit that way. When it was released in cinemas too, the first night that premiered, it had a red carpet and we had 450 people in the cinema and then I flew my mum and my nana and the family together and my head was and the family together and it was uh

then my my head was uh three stories high it was it was such a such a cool buzz wow and one of those things where you pinch yourself you can't believe this is happening so but now it's on youtube so it's it's pretty cool it's um and then if you don't know much about muay thai and you want to find out about the culture it's uh this is the perfect documentary to realize that we're not bad guys we're not th thugs. We're just, just everyday guys trying to make it in a sport where it involves

punching other people in the face. Well, you're people that are involved in a very unusual quest. Yes. The quest to get excellent at using your limbs

to fuck up other dudes who are really good at using their limbs to fuck up other dudes. I mean, it's, it's about as exciting a sport and as exciting an endeavor as you could participate in.

It's beautiful, man. And it was an honor to have you on here, honor to train with you. I mean, in my world, you're a huge star. And you've always been a big name in Muay Thai and kickboxing. So it was cool to meet you, and I met you at the UFC, and it was cool to do this man i really really appreciate it no you have no idea how much it means for me to watch you on um from the ufc every single weekend and then to talk to you on twitter you i think a little bit of we come out when you replied to me for the first time it was so cool and then to have a relationship to have a relationship we to have a relationship and to I've traveled

all the way from Australia to arrive here yesterday to actually sit across from you and to be in this room is so surreal and so amazing let's do it again man

let's do it again tell me when you're going to be back here again beautiful I'll be in touch yeah let's set it up let's set it up and try to set up

some seminars too maybe we can connect with some people that would like to do more seminars out here in America. Yeah, let's make it happen. John Wayne motherfucking Parr,

ladies and gentlemen. His actual name is Wayne Parr, just so you know. That's my secret. They made him go by John Wayne Parr, but they call you John Will in Thailand, right? In Thailand.

All right, brother. Thank you very much, man. My pleasure. Thank you very much, man. My pleasure. Thank you.