The Joe Rogan Experience - #714 - John Wayne Parr

Episode Date: October 28, 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.

Yes! That's my ode to Brodie Stevens. What's up brother? How are you? Great to see you. Mate, I can't believe I'm here again. This is awesome. I can't believe you're here again too. I can't believe five days ago you were in a world title fight. Look at you, you look great. Yeah, I was straight after the fight. I had to go to hospital. I spent about four hours in hospital. I thought I broke my foot, but luckily all the x-rays came back clear. Swelling's going down a lot now, so at one stage, yeah, I didn't think I was going to be able to fight December the 5th. But it looks like I'm on now with Saurus. Oh, wow. Okay. So did you kick an elbow or something?

Do you know? Who knows? I think I kicked his knees about half a dozen times. Yeah. And then it didn't hurt because my face was so jacked up from all the cuts. And then it wasn't until I was getting stitched up that I noticed my foot was starting to go elephantitis. Expand. And then once the stitches were done,

I saw a boy come into the change room to get a photo with me. And as I stood up to get a photo with her, then I realized the pain was rushing to my foot. I was like, okay, I think my foot's broken. So luckily there was an ambulance there. We got straight into the emergency. And then, yeah, it was good on to the painkillers, which took me into a different dimension.

What did they give you? What stuff? I don't know. It's different names here in Americaica to australia but uh okay like oxycodones or something like those illustrating with an injection oh probably morphine yeah good stuff uh this pink elephant came into the room and started chatting to me saying hey i don't think the your foot's not broken but uh you are in a different galaxy now, so welcome. That was pretty cool.

Was it really a pink elephant, or are you just fucking around? I could be possibly fucking around. So you've had 300 and how many stitches in your face? 15 now, 315. 315 now. I broke 300 about four weeks before I got to America with an accident in the gym sparring. And I thought, okay, 300, you beauty. And then Cosmo was polite enough to give me another two cuts with another 15 stitches.

So now I thought my plateau was 300. So now my next goal, I guess, is 400 because I've already passed the 315. Oh, my goodness. Who's got the most stitches on their face ever in Muay Thai? Oh, mate, that's a good question. I reckon I'd have to be close. You've got to be up there. I'd have to be.

But I'm starting to... Now, my doctor, he said... Because I bring my own doctor with me when I come to fight everywhere around the world, and he said it's just scars breaking on scars now. I've got the Nick Diaz sort of eyebrows. So this one's had at least maybe 80 in it alone, this eye. One left eye, 80 stitches.

Well, that's the main, because that's the right elbow too coming down. Yeah. Well, that's the knock on Muay Thai as opposed to Glory, which unfortunately they just lost their deal with Spike TV or canceled their agreement with Spike TV. I don't know what happens, but they pulled Glory off Spike, which is really very disappointing for me as a fan of kickboxing. And I was just hoping that that would translate into just people getting more understanding

in this country of high-level kickboxing. Yeah. I was lucky. Glory was the one, and then you had the Lion Fight. high level kickboxing. Yeah. You know? Um, I was lucky, um, Glory, Glory was the, the one, and then you had the lion fight. So I reached out to Scott Kent with the lion fight and I said, oh mate,

is there any chance you can put me on? Um, I seen how much exposure they're having with AXS TV and, uh, and with their, with their deal with every, everyone in the world is paying attention to the lion fight right now. And because it's pure my tie as well,

I thought, this is, this is definitely the show to try and be on to raise the profile. So I jumped on board and then I'm so devastated that I lost. It was such a tough fight. But at the same time, even though I'm lost and I'm sad, I knew that I gave 100%. And hopefully the crowd was entertained enough to hopefully invite me back and hopefully Scott was happy with my performance. It was a great, fun fight.

But what I was going to say is that Glory doesn't have elbows. And the thing that people worry about with Lion Fight and pure Muay Thai is that there's a lot of cuts. And a lot of people get cut and primarily get cut by elbows. But the way I look at it is that that is a it's it's an excellent weapon and if you should be able to kick or if you're able to kick and you're able to knee to the face and you're able to do all the things you can in mma why can't you elbow in in muay thai you know and why can't you clinch you know exactly the same as mma how can you how can you take away the

the rules and water it down into one sort of category and then and then call yeah I think it's it's hard the same when the same deal when Nathan Corbett came over here yes um he's the elbow master um and then when he came over here to fight for glory um he got beaten by Spong he got beaten by Saki and everyone's saying well but if he had his elbows that would have changed the maybe who knows you never know but you certainly it's it makes you think and you know when you're thinking that's bad in in the cage or in the ring or wherever you're competing the idea is to train so hard and train exactly how you're going to fight so that it all comes out automatically and when your automatic instinct for Nathan I mean how

many fights has he had I think close to 70 yeah I mean mean, how many fights has he had? I think close to 70. Yeah. I mean, think about all those fights that he had throwing elbows. Think about all those training sessions throwing elbows. And then all of a sudden he's in positions where he's like, okay, don't throw an elbow. Because that's normal. You're getting in the clinch and it's just normal for you. Yes.

And then all of a sudden they tell you you can't do it. I mean, it's problematic. I mean, it's nice for these guys to be able to have another outlet. I mean, it's problematic. I mean, it's nice for these guys to be able to have another outlet. I know Tyron Spong is doing some boxing now, just some straight boxing, which I think probably at least he has shoes on, so he'll be just thinking that it'll help him not throw kicks and not thinking he can throw elbows and things. But the guys who are the best and the guys who are the best

at that particular style of Muay Thai, it'd be great to see them use all their weapons. It'd be great to see them utilize all the techniques of Muay Thai. And you see how technical Muay Thai is. I don't think people from the outside that are watching it appreciate it for what it really is.

It's incredibly intense and technical martial art yeah well thailand's uh how many hundred years old so it's already perfected to the to the rule set and then everyone's trying to water it down to them to make it their own specific sort of rule set and then um yeah but it's not the authentic when you keep it as it is it's already the the product's already there you don't have to change it. It's already fine and perfect enough and fast. So it's a shame that different organizations are trying to. But I suppose people don't like the clinch as much.

Sometimes they think it's getting a little bit boring. Plus, when you get two guys that aren't at a certain level, it does seem a little bit dull and entertaining. But in the early levels. But so does grappling at a very low level. So does a lot of things at a certain level, it does seem a little bit dull and entertaining. But in the early levels. But so does grappling in a very low level. So does a lot of things at a low level. But I don't think you should ever make rules that are dictated just to make people that are at a low level fight in a more fan-friendly, enjoyable way.

I think you should just allow the people that are watching it to see the difference between a novice and someone who's an expert and see someone who uses the clinch to their advantage and see all the different techniques that can be landed from the clinch, the use of the knees, the elbows from the break. There's a lot of beautiful techniques that can be used from the clinch that you don't see because what Glory has done is sort of adopt the rules of K-1, which the Japanese had kind of decided, hey, there's got to be a way to make these guys fight in a more exciting and fast paced way. Let's make the rounds, you know, just let's make the fight shorter instead of having many rounds, like 10 rounds or 12 rounds or something like a boxing match. Let's just do like three rounds and have them go fucking crazy for three rounds. Yeah, when I fought in Europe, I fought in an organization called Super League back in 2003, 2004, and that was the same deal.

Again, we're not going to spend airfare money flying you all the way from Australia and get cut in the first round and have the fight stop 60 seconds in. Otherwise, it's a waste of money for us. So we'll keep the knees, we'll keep everything else, but we'll just eliminate elbows just in case that that does happen Does um lion fight do drug testing? There was no you're on a test after mine nothing. No Wow

and then that I think I think they were in Vegas and Now they've moved to And then I think they're on the other side as well I forget the other place they're on the other side as well. I forget the other place they're at. But no, there was no one waiting for a jar for me. Now, is Temecula, it's a casino, right? Yes.

You guys are at a casino. Yes. Pechanga, is that what it is? Yes. And is that a Native American reservation where they can do whatever they want? They have their own regulations? Yes. You know, they kept martial arts alive, mixed martial arts alive in California. Okay, yeah.

The Native American reservations did because they put on King of the Cage in Native American reservations when you couldn't have MMA in California. It was illegal. Okay. And so we used to drive out to the middle of nowhere to these very small Native American casinos, and that's where the King of the Cage would be. And that was like the primary way that, that's how like Uriah Faber got started,

a lot of guys, Quentin Jackson got started, a lot of guys got started in King of the Cage, and in California because of this loophole that allows Native American reservations to put on the fights, but boy, I would like it if they drug tested guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd definitely feel a lot safer if I knew I wasn't fighting pure animals. Just dudes.

Juice to the tits. Well, Cosmo Alexander's a big fella. And he's quite a bit larger than you. Yeah. The guy that you fought was... He's about 6'3". When they announced him, they said 6'1", but there's no way he's 6'1". When I was looking up at him, when the referee brought us together,

it was like looking at Michael Jordan or someone, I said, holy shit. And then, and then once the fight starts too, just, just trying to bridge that gap to get into his range, it was either,

as you explode into trying, trying to land your combinations, those knees are flying past, past your head, left and right. It's, yeah, it just makes it

so much so much harder when they say and um the funny thing is he can make i think 70 is 155 he can cut all the way down what yeah um his last fight before he fought me was 71 kilos and i know before that he's fought at 70 and um ben he's not a skinny 70 either once he once he feels right out after a weigh-in he's um he's still got the muscles and he still looks like a V so he's and to his credit I beat him back in 2008

and he's just improved lips and browns the way that he fought me on Friday night he fought really well he used his range he used good power his power was so crazy

everything he hit me with was um loaded so yeah good full full credit to him i tried my best um but yeah he was just um on his game yeah he looked very very sharp there were some great moments in that fight it's really interesting man you have a way of moving a very uh very specific way of moving inside the octagon or inside the the ring rather if i watched you like just silhouette if someone someone showed me a silhouette of you move and i go oh that's john wayne parr i could totally tell it's it's so interesting you have your own very specific style of uh of moving and i would imagine that that style is like i mean you do a lot of things that

other muay thai guys do like you're very light on the front foot. But there's a way you have of throwing punches and combinations and so heavy off that front left leg. It's very specific to you, you know. And I think that for a lot of guys, that's got to present them. It's very effective, but it's unique, you know. And in your style of movement, it don't i can't think of another guy like if i watch certain guys i go oh well that guy fights like this guy he kind of moves a little bit like him or tiago alves is sort of like that guy or you know you can kind of do that with with

a lot of fighters but not with you you got this weird sort of unusual timing you know especially that left leg man you're you're like one of the best guys i've ever seen at that front left leg counter like to the body when a guy's throwing a punch yeah no thank you um yeah all that time spending in thailand that was one of their main things was telling me it's so hard to block for the back leg um because that lead leg's so light and the majority of the time 90 of the people are throwing leg kicks so you got that lead leg ready but when that's time to throw the left um it's really hard to block so i've perfected that left on the on the pads i'm throwing that 70 percent of the time and my right leg's my power leg really my left leg's my counter so i'm throwing that more than anything and then uh i started off with a really strong right leg and my left leg was okay

and i just worked at it worked at it worked at it to make it my main weapon. It's like a jab for a boxer. It becomes their main weapon. Yeah, and then as soon as someone comes in to strike, I throw that left leg in. It's not only am I trying to score, but I'm using it as a break to try and stop you from throwing your combinations also. If I don't land on your ribs, I'm hitting your arm, so I'm pushing you off balance, so you can't throw the right hand.

Or I want to try and break that right hand down so that it's taking the power away from your right punch. And you're putting weight into it too and landing with the shin, which also keeps the knee and the thigh bone from you to them. It creates a space. Yes. And there's a lot of power to it. Yes.

You use that so effectively, man. And I should have used it more too because in the after fight speech, Cosmo was saying, oh, he was hurting me with that left leg. Oh, he said to the body, right? He said that, yeah. On the after fight.

That's right. And I was like, ah, damn it. I should have used it more. There was a couple of unique moments in that fight. One of them was in the third round when you just opened up with this crazy flurry. Yes. Like, what was going on there? Did you just have this feeling?

Did you just say, I'm just going to put a barrage on this motherfucker and see what happens? Yeah, my theory is if I can get someone covering up, I'm not going to stop. So if the opportunity comes, it might take me 30 punches, it might take me 50 punches. But eventually, if I can find that gap and I hit you hard enough, I know I can drop you. So I was just trying my hardest to try and land that big one to try and put him down. And I knew that I've done enough work in the gym to throw all night. My gas tank was full. There was no way I was going to gas, so I just kept throwing, throwing, throwing,

thinking, come on, just land that good one to just give myself an eight count to get myself back into the game. But, yeah, I think he wore 30-ish, and then he got out of the corner and then shrugged it off. I was like, damn it, now I'm screwed. Well, you know, it's funny because you see a guy blocking punches and covering up, but guys get knocked out through gloves all the time. Yes, yes.

Especially with kicks, right? And then it's – I'm also trying to get into your head as well to make you – trying to break you down, thinking this guy's a machine, how how can i stop him um yeah but unfortunately it didn't work because it was it was good he's very good yeah there's another unique moment in the fourth round you rocked him with a right hand and then he started like cleaning the bottom of his feet yes yes he was hurt yes he was hurt he's like oh something on my foot like, you just got rocked. First, I thought he lost his mouthpiece. No.

And then as I seen him sort of, I've gone to jump in and whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then I thought he lost his contact. I don't know what was going on. But it was a full like, no, no, no, you're wrong. I'm right. Just a second. Yeah. And then it's like, oh, no, he was fucked. I should have jumped on him.

Yeah. He played a little mind game there. It was effective. That's a veteran move. It's like, stop, stop, stop, stop. Wait, wait, wait. Yeah. Okay, I'm good. Well, there goes my opportunity.

And you tried to move in and the referee got in between you. Yeah, the referee did it as well. The referee fucked up. Yeah. He didn't know what was going on either. He got hustled as well. So to his credit, he pulled that move. Yeah, that could have been my shot.

Well, you could tell too because after that he wasn't the same. And then in the fourth round, or the fifth round rather, you came on strong in the fifth round. The fifth round was all you. I knew. Because I think you hurt him bad in that fourth round. I think you stung him. That's the only reason why a guy would ever do a con move like that.

Like, hold on, man. I man I gotta clean the bottom of my feet like the fuck are you talking about you don't get to clean the bottom of your feet the guy stops there's no timeouts in kickboxing it was very strange and then we were chatting afterwards and you came into the change room and we had our chat

and then he goes oh man you wouldn't believe it the very last punch you threw you broke my nose. You know, I can't breathe. So as I've gone into the hospital to the emergency, he was in one of the other rooms getting his nose put back together. Well, you could see his nose leaking when he was talking to Pat Miletic. His nose was leaking.

But he's a tough guy. And he seems like a really, really nice guy too. We've fought each other three times now. And then we've also fought on the same cards here in Jamaica and Australia and a few other places, and nice as bloke. He's just the most genuine. And then even when we got put together for this fight, we were messaging each other privately on Facebook

and just talking about different things. So there's no animosity. It's just business. He's got to get paid. I've got to get paid. And competition. It's competition, yeah. We beat each get paid. I've got to get paid. And competition. It's competition, yeah. We beat each other up

and then at the end of it, again, we go in each other's change room. We high five. Good fight. Thank you very much. You know, that's interesting because that's a big part of fighting is the camaraderie between fighters

but also a big part of fighting is the mental game when there is no camaraderie when guys are fucking with each other and it becomes emotional and there's a lot of fighters that have been tripped up by emotions like donald cerrone was on the podcast we were talking about his fight with nate diaz and nate diaz talked all kinds of crazy shit to him knocked his cowboy hat off you know called him every fucking name in the book. And then when they fought, Donald was all fucked up emotionally. He was so emotionally invested in beating this guy's ass and not losing to this guy

that he just couldn't perform at his best. He just was so tied up. And Conor McGregor, he does that to everybody. He fucks with you so hard. By the time you get in there, you don't even know who you are. He's got you convinced you're a totally different person. You just want to kill him, and then you can't even hit him. It's such a mind fuck when you wind up hating someone.

So in that sense, it's got to be a pleasure when you meet a gentleman like Cosmo Alexander, who's a great fighter as well, and you don't have to think about all that jazz. You can just be yourself. Yeah, I'm very lucky with the sport i haven't had any uh conor mcgregor's or nick diaz's in uh that i've ever in all your fights uh but there was one time i was on a television show called the contender and then there was a french gentleman that was sort of getting under everyone's skin and he was uh talking talking a lot of smack but at the same time yeah what was that guy's name uh rafik yeah rafik he um and then

everyone was coming up to me saying you gotta knock this bloke out you gotta knock this bloke out and then even the film crew were coming behind the scenes saying oh you gotta knock this bloke out

you gotta get this guy off this show because as soon as you on our show as soon as you lost you went home so I put a lot of pressure on myself

and then again the harder you try to knock someone out the less it happens and then the more mentally drained you get too because why haven't knocked him out yet instead of thinking okay just do the less it happens. And then the more mentally drained you get too because why haven't you knocked him out yet?

Instead of thinking, okay, just do the business. Then if something lands, then it goes down. But the harder you try, the less it happens. Then the more frustrated you get. Then the more tired you get because you're mentally drained. So, yeah, it's a tough gig. It's that way with everything, man. It's that way with everything.

As soon as you get emotionally invested in something like that and just you're dealing with that other thing which is even bigger and more central to your your thoughts than your actual task at hand you're dealing with this like this talk jazz blah blah blah which is you're gonna fight i mean you're gonna you're gonna engage in the most intense form of competition ever and you're concentrating on this bullshit like talking bullshit like what difference does it make what we say if we're gonna fight well the difference is if you can fuck with the guy's emotions he can't fight good it's crazy um uh on the at the way in with cosmo uh on at the airport i bought myself a a little boomerang souvenir and then i presented that to cosmo at the way in and then um we we hugged and shook hands

and took a photo with the boomerang and it was just a gentleman gesture and it's like oh well at least you're going to remember me

and then but then you look at the UFC and then you've got Dana White standing in the middle and they're holding guys back

it's like well 24 hours time you're going to punch each other in the face anyway so why why all this acting and then same with Conor McGregor and all the why all this acting yeah it's not

and then same with um conor mcgregor and aldo every time they get together it's like well you technically you can't really do it now you're both going to get in a lot of trouble or you're going to get fined by either the commission or dane or ufc or so just can't you just be i know it sells tickets too i know it's in it's riveting it's so It's so you can't not watch it. You can't not tune into the websites and the replays. But yeah, I suppose being a gentleman sometimes can be boring when you look at it like that. It's kind of a catch-22, right? It's like because you can make a lot of money by being an asshole.

Yes. Right? I mean, God, people pay attention to you. It becomes this huge media selling point. It's the story. And look, the Jon Jones, Daniel Cormier fight. I think, I do believe that Jon Jones is the best light heavyweight on the planet. And I think he beat Daniel Cormier because he's incredibly skillful and because he's just so good.

But I also believe that Daniel Cormier was fucked up going into that fight emotionally. Because Jon had talked so much shit to him. They got in a fight at the weigh-ins where they literally were throwing punches at each other. They had to be separated. It was a giant brawl. It wasn't a weigh-ins, rather. It was a press conference. Giant brawl at the press conference, knocking people over, throwing shoes at each other.

It was madness. But John can handle that stuff better than Daniel can. John can still perform at the same level under those circumstances. I don't think Daniel did. Yeah, no, that was insane. That was crazy. Well, that's Connor, too. I mean, part of what Connor's doing is fucking with people.

That's what Muhammad Ali did to Sonny Liston. When Muhammad Ali first fought Sonny Liston they he was screaming and yelling him so bad at the weigh-ins that they weren't going to let him fight that they thought there was something wrong with him because his heart rate was so crazy and his his blood pressure was so high they were worried that like this guy's not fit to fight and then he calmed down he's like just relax guys go just relax, guys. Go ahead. I know what I'm doing. I'm just fucking with this dude. And it turned out that he knew that Sonny Liston, although he's terrifying and he's

this massive hard puncher and knocked everybody dead, he was scared of crazy people. Yeah, yeah. And that's what Muhammad Ali did. He just acted like a fucking crazy person. He used to drive to Sonny Liston's house He would park his car on Sonny Liston's lawn and yell out at him in the middle of the night Just yell at him really get up Sonny. I'm gonna kick your fucking ass Sonny He would say all kinds of crazy shit Sonny Liston you ain't shit. Yeah, Sonny Liston. I'm the man

I'm the champ the champ is here He would say all kinds of crazy shit on the lawn like on his fucking lawn. I was trying to sleep He's doing them Shannon Briggs. Yeah, well what Shannon brings does now? Yeah, it brings hilarious You pay attention to his Instagram I was for a while, but then it's on loop. It's pretty much every single day I watch is exactly the same whereas I only had a bit of class about it or sam was connor connor's a genius as well oh yeah the breakout the red panties like that's um that's gold that was pretty cool yeah break out

the red panties yeah if you're fighting me break out the red panties honey we made it yeah no he's a he's a genius connor is the best shit talker ever. How do you even think of that? You're lying in bed, lying on your pillow, thinking, you know what? Yeah, what color panties should my missus wear when we... The red ones. The red ones are probably the best ones. I don't even think he's thinking it. I think that's just him.

I think he's just free and just thinks that way, you know? He's just an amazing shit talker. He's so good at it. Yeah, I talked to Hans a fair bit between the last couple of days, and he reckons he's such a good guy. Hans Mollenkamp? Yeah, yeah. Hans said, when you talk to him one-on-one, he said he's just the nicest, politest gentleman you'll ever meet. And then you put him in front of a stage, and especially in front of those crowds that they're pulling at the weigh-ins and press conferences.

And then he just shines and just becomes this different different animal which is a marketing genius at the same time too they're just a brilliant entrepreneur that's going to be set up for life and he wasn't like that earlier in his career you know he became like that really when he got to the UFC I mean he had a a hair of that before he had a little bit of that before where he was confident he would talk well and I've been following Connor for years. I tweeted him a long time ago, like, uh, several years ago, back when he was, uh, fighting in England, I believe it was, I think it was England. I'm not sure. Fighting in some overseas organization. I watched it on YouTube and I was like, this guy's fucking talented. He's talented. He's got a clean left

hand too. His, uh, his, his left hand power punch. Woof. That's a fucking good night. Irene punch, man. From this Apple. Yeah. He, he, he's so good at measuring guys too. Very good at measuring. And he has a very off speed movement. His movement is unusual, very difficult to time. That's one of the things I was thinking about when I was watching you fight. Unusual movement. It's a very difficult thing for guys to deal with. A lot of fighters will tell you that sparring with a person who has a very traditional style is almost comforting sometimes. But when you spar with a guy who might not even be as skillful, but is doing things all wrong, but has a lot of power.

Does things real weird. Like, the guy who just fought Sugar Shane Mosley, that crazy guy who smokes cigarettes from Nicaragua. Yeah, Ricardo Mayorga. Ricardo Mayorga is a perfect example. When he used to fight the late, great Vernon Forrest, he beat that dude because Forrest couldn't deal with his weird weird crazy punches coming from everywhere it was madness those punches were coming from like behind his calf and over the top and hit you on the nose like what the fuck like everything was winking and wild and with murderous intentions

it's it was so street you know everything it was it was not like skillful it was not like fighting uh like a Roberto Duran who was like incredibly skillful but also not like fighting uh like a roberto duran who was like incredibly skillful but also like raw too you know with ricardo mayorga everything was awkward it's like you didn't know what the fuck you couldn't get into this rhythm like we see like two very skillful boxers fight you know you you see they're looking for openings they're probing but you see like a common rhythm or a rhythm that you've seen before, you know. It's a conventional way of moving. Yeah, same in Bangkok.

You watch two professional Thais and they train identical. So when you put them against each other, now you're watching a chess game. And then, well, back in the 90s anyway, then you chuck in your Raymond Deckers or luckily for myself, you throw in the hands because they weren't really boxing back then. And all of a sudden you've thrown out the rhythm because all of a sudden they're like, what the hell is going on here? Yeah, Ramon Deckers used to do everything hard. Everything hard. Every fucking punch was murder.

Every kick was murder. Yes. But see, the difference between you and him was that you've fought smart enough to get to 39 years old and still can fight in world title fights. Yes. Whereas by the time he was in his late 30s, his body had just been destroyed. Yes. He destroyed his ankles. They say that by the time he had his last few fights, his ankles were so bad that his doctors told him, if you break your ankle again, we might have to amputate your foot.

Yeah, yeah. And so he switched his stance. He started you break your ankle again. We might have to amputate your foot Yeah, and so he switched his stance He started kicking with his other leg But then the fight was to get heated up and he go fuck it and he would go right back and hot Throw that same kick over and over again. Just slamming the guy's arms slamming to the knee slamming to their shin Yeah, he's a guy and he's a king. I said that last time too. Yeah, he's still the king I still I still think he was amazing man the greatest ever he was the man he's someone i'm trying to implement still and i said that last time too yeah um yeah my whole every single every single time i have a fight i'm trying to emulate trying to walk in his footsteps to become the next him so now how how have you gotten to

39 years of age though i mean with all your cuts and all that stuff? But you don't have any injuries that have stopped you from competing at the world-class level. Just luck. I've been so fortunate to have good genetics, and I still have the passion. I still wake up every morning at 5.30. I'm on the road at 6.30. I'm still running 12Ks. I'm still hitting the pads just as hard. I'm still the road at 630 I'm still running 12k's I'm still hitting the pads

just as hard I'm still doing massive rounds for this last prep I was running 100km a week I ran for 10 weeks I worked out

I ran 1000km for this camp so that's morning and night all together what is that in American? 600 miles 600 miles

so 600 miles for the over 10 weeks that's a lot of fucking miles, dude. Nine rounds on the pads. Sounds better when you say 1,000, though. Yeah, yeah, it sounds cool. Kilometers are better.

I should go to meters. Nine rounds on the pads. I was two boxing, five Thai, two or three leg shields. Wow. And then I'm still running with the young kids. I'm still sparring the young guys in Australia. I've got a couple of of young gentlemen jake lennon elliot compton to come to the gym on saturdays um they're in their early 20s i'm still holding on with them and they're like the best prospects australia has and i'm and i'm i'm not losing so do you think that that's because of

your passion do you think that's because of your enthusiasm that you truly love muay thai and i know you do i mean it's to you it's just like it's so exciting and invigorating and fulfilling and do you think that that's what happens to fighters um first that the waning enthusiasm even before the body starts to fail uh I'm not sure my no because I've had other students that I've because I run the gym I've had guys that I had 30 40 fights that are world beaters, but the shoulder pops or the knee goes or their ankles goes and then it's not, they have to retire. It's not a, not a case of they want to, they have to.

Where I've been so fortunate that my knees are intact. My shoulders are good. My, my, I've had a few problems with my hands, but no, nothing really to stop me. I'm just. Surgeries with your hands at all? No, no, nothing. Just a few breaks? No, no surgeries. I've just had stitches, just surgeries with your hands no no nothing i don't know no surgeries i've just had stitches just lots and no surgeries lots and lots and lots of stitches but um besides that i'm i'm just so blessed that um yeah no and then besides good genetics and and

the passion that's um i just i just wanna my life from the time i was four years old all i wanted to be was a martial artist. And now I'm getting older and I know that my time is coming. I don't want to stop. I want to ride the wave all the way until I pass. But I know I can't, but I want to. If I had my way, I'd fight to the very day that I go to my grave. Are you more careful now that you're 39 years old?

Are you more careful now about your diet about rehabilitation about those kind of things i'm more more aware about losing weight before a fight before i was trying to do it to highway i was trying to lose 10 kilos in three four days and now i'm doing over a 10 week period so i'm only losing those last few kilos and the two days prior to the await the way in do you think that though when you're fighting a really big guy like Cosmo Alexander? Who most likely lost a shitload of water weight the day before the fight and then IV? Rehydrated which is legal in Muay Thai still not legal in MMA anymore At least in the UFC. Do you think that that is that that it's a detriment to you though this one?

I went upper weight division also. Right. I usually fight middle. Well, still, the boxing. 160 middleweight. The boxing weight division. And this was 168? 167.

67. Because I was flying to America, I didn't want to starve myself on the plane. I didn't want to get here, and I didn't want to have to put the sweatsuit on. I didn't want to sauna. So I only had to lose 2 two kilos six pounds so there's nothing so and then um and then come what come come weigh-in time i felt comfortable but then come fight time the size difference was like oh my god it was different but it's interesting that you were the one who was coming on in the fourth and fifth round you know my fitness i i wanted it

so i this is the i can't remember how long it's been since I've won a world title so bad. I've been very fortunate enough to win 10, but I wanted this one. Because like I was saying last time I was here, I want to try and reach. I've been lucky enough to be famous in Australia and be famous in Thailand and make my name in Japan. But America is like the last frontier where I haven't really sort of excelled. I wanted that title to say, America, this is me. Right. And then I lost.

But I hope I put an entertaining fight in. Oh, you definitely did. You definitely did. How many titles does Lion Fight have? How many divisions? Do they have a 160? 160, yes. I believe Yotsengai holds that.

Oh, no, it was that other young Thai kid that I forgot his name. Joe Nanawat? Possibly. I think that's... Yes. Well, he's one of the stars in Lion Fight. I personally think that Lion Fight has some of the best skilled kickboxers in the world today. Yeah.

I really enjoy watching those shows. I mean, especially they'll bring in some some ties that are just murderous and they they they'll level of Muay Thai that they show you get to see this beautiful execution of the style and I know Jarena that just fought on the same image yeah from Holland she's amazing she was and then that her fight were against cyborg I didn't hear about her until she fought Cyborg. And then I was really intrigued to see how Cyborg would fight against pure Muay Thai rules. And then the Dutch girl came and said, who is this?

And then it's like, whoa. She's a beast. There's the difference of pure Muay Thai against pure MMA. It was beautiful to watch. Jorina Barsh is her name. And she's tall and long. Dutch people are among some of the tallest Europeans. The average height is six feet tall.

They're very big people. And Jorina is probably one of the most technical women in the world when it comes to Muay Thai. You got to see that in that fight with Cyborg. When she push-kicked her in the face and knocked her down, she's a beast, man. She's a beast. Do you believe it has anything to do with the nutrients that are in pancakes? Pancakes? Dutch pancakes?

Don't the Dutch people like pancakes and smokes and pickles? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think so. I think it probably has to do with marijuana marijuana is making them grow no i think it's just you know probably hardy people you know hardy it gets cold as fuck there you know the strong survived it's like vikings why are they so fucking big like those people in iceland that always win those strongest man

competitions why is that why is all these iceland guys that keep winning when you see them you go oh yeah i get it it's a fucking viking that's a that's a viking that made it to 2015 with some viking jeans they've got nothing else to do besides pick up big boulders and put them 100 meters down the road but it's interesting what you said though about jorina when she fought cyborg because i'll tell you what you know i was super impressed with her technique and super impressed with her skill level but i was impressed with Cyborg's grit and determination because she was getting her fucking ass kicked and she hung in there and she kept trying to win that fight. She kept chasing that girl down and she was getting beat. She was getting beat and she was losing

and she was technically outmatched. You know, I think there's a difference in, um, someone who's really good at hitting things hard and someone who's really good at hitting things hard and someone who's really good at muay thai someone who's really good at setting things up yes you know i think that what she can do better than cyborg is set things up technically you know and it's not that cyborg can't learn that she certainly can but when you see someone who's used to like takedowns and submissions and dealing with little gloves and dealing with Fighting people that are nowhere near her technical level that was without a doubt the best striker cyborgs ever faced Yes, she's been fighting girls that literally there been assaults

You know you've seen a lot like the toughest girl she ever fought was Gina Carano Yes, and you know she that was a good fight It was a good fight up until cyborgs started beating her down But the level of Muay Thai Like in something like lion fight like the girl who was the girl who fought Jorina this this past weekend She's very good from Czech. Yes. Yeah from the Czech Republic. She All apologies. I forget her name, but she was very good as well very tough But that was a pleasure to watch that fight because those those girls were very technical you know and what drina brought to the table with the cyborg fight was um a lot of front kicks to the face which which i don't think mma people use um

as as effectively because they can't use it because of the catches and the takedown and also the straight up knees because drina is so tall yeah what what a normal person would throw to the body she can throw to the face no problem whatsoever so all of a sudden you have those two different elements coming at you and then and that's what kept landing over and over they kept dropping her especially when she was holding the ropes and teeping in the corner and so I was rushing in to try and knock her out and straight into those front kicks yeah she throws it to the body well too she did that in this fight too yeah that she throws that front kick to the body real well and she follows it up with nice straight

punches and she's so long so long she keeps you at the end of her punches yeah i i man i get frustrated when i see that muay thai is not more popular in the united states i really do you know and i know i know i'm not the only one because the big thing that everybody always says about mma which of course i disagree with because i have a background in jujitsu, but that when it goes to the ground, that it's boring. I don't think it's boring because I understand what's happening. And to me, it's fascinating. I want to see like a guy like Damian Maya, when he takes guys down and strangles them to me, that's beautiful. That's art. I want to, I want to see like how he's setting things up. You know, when he fought Neil Magny in his last fight, I couldn't wait to interview him

because he made some adjustments on the ground and took the guys back. And the guy was defending in the first round. I was like, what adjustments did you make? And he was explaining it to me. And I could see the technique and the art in his words. To him, it was a problem to be solved. And I see that in Muay Thai too.

And I think for everybody, like the meatheads that watch MMA, oh, I hate when it goes to the ground. Well, why don't you like Muay Thai, then? Why isn't Muay Thai the biggest, most popular combat sport in the world? Because it's all stand-up. And if you watch Lion Fight, man, you might see five, six knockouts a night. Like Dream Killer Bolanos, that fucking kid with his spinning elbow KO in his last fight. Holy shit.

Wild stuff, man. You know, it's just, I think also like AXS TV is one of those weird stations. Mark Cuban owns it. It's at the end of the dial on DirecTV. You can't fucking find it. You know, I mean, I think that it's one of those things where somehow or another there has to be a consciousness shift where people have to be able to appreciate it. And I don't know what that shift is.

I don't know how to make that shift. I don't know what it would be that would cause it to get on some big event on television. Yachting Clyde, maybe you and Yachting Clyde again. Again. Again. You're trying to get me killed. Come on, you beat him. I was lucky.

I was very lucky. Australian judges, I was lucky. You are. You're too kind. Too humble. I think I just need exposure because what I've realized is, like I think I said this last time as well, the UFC is so good at making superstars.

And then when you, instance I'm Gloria Lion fight you can say it's spot tyrant Spong is fighting Kirk and Saki for instance amazing nobody knows who they are besides the hardcore might more tight guys but amazing because MMA is so big everyone knows the the Cowboy Cerrone's everyone knows the George St. Pierre's so when when they fight you already know the history you already know this guy is a killer this guy is this guy is gonna talk shit this guy is gonna it's yeah but you know what that's only been the case for for 10 years yeah true in 2005 when Stephen Bonner and Forrest Griffin fought on Spike TV nobody knew who the fuck those guys were yep they they were they were fighting so hard that at one point in time

I believe the statistics was the statistic was 10 million people were watching that fight Which for a cable TV fight was fucking insane and the reason why so many people watched it is they they started watching it It was like 3 million people or something like that because it was the finals of Spike TV and during the fight the numbers went up like TV and during the fight the numbers went up like substantially and they believe that people were literally calling people up and going you got these crazy white motherfuckers are beating the shit out of each other on Spike TV go turn this on right now and they literally believe that it was through word of mouth during the fight that changed MMA history because during that fight

because it was so crazy and so wild, and those guys just put the pedal to the metal and went nuts for the entire fight. And they were so evenly matched that after it was over, a sport was made. I mean, a sport was made by one fight. That's not an exaggeration because to this day, although it was a great performance by Diego Sanchez, nobody talks about Diego Sanchez versus

Kenny Florian yeah Diego Sanchez fought Kenny Florian for the 185 pound title on that same night and Diego took Kenny down and beat the shit out of him stopped him yep but nobody talks about that fight it was the fight between those two guys between Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner that literally made MMA and from then on, the numbers just started going crazy. Everybody started tuning in, and it just picked up. And then the Ultimate Fighter took off, and then it picked up more and more and more and more. And then it became a huge sport.

But it literally was born out of one event. We need something like that for Muay Thai. We need something like that for kickboxing. One big thing where people go, holy shit. And if that can happen, I and you also need a promoter like dana white and uh you know owners like the fratitas you need some some powerful organization that's got balls and money and really gets behind it and then you need a lot of luck yes well that's it i don't know how kate went fucked up because um they had everything they They had the...

Yakuza. Sorry. Sorry. I coughed. They had the money. They had the TV. They had the slow motions. They had the highlights.

They had the walkouts. They had the missing fingers. They had the dudes with the body suits. The body tattoos. I don't know, man. They were gigantic in Japan. Since they've disappeared, it's like, where do we go? Where does the kickboxing go?

If I'm a young kid and I'm watching the TV, UFC is the only way to go. It's like, hey, do you want to be a Muay Thai fighter? Why? I can be on a cereal box. Now it's gone so far that you can be a legitimate household name whereas in Muay Thai oh you might get a few little medals or trophies to put on your your pool room but yeah there's no there's no no one driving Mercedes Benz's as a Muay Thai player there's no there's no there's not even a hundred thousand dollar payday for a Muay Thai guy if you

if you get 10 grand you're're like, yeah, 10 grand. Yeah. But I still got to go to work Monday. Yeah. Same. And for women, it's even crazier. I mean, think about the small group of talent, the depth of talent in women's MMA. Like, there's a perfect example.

The UFC 115-pound strawweight champion, Joanne Jacek, is a Muay Thai champion. Six-time world Muay Thai champion. And she's just murdering chicks. Just murdering them. She's nasty. She is so nasty. But other than her, you have a bunch of people in her division that are really, honestly, there's a few with some experience that are

getting better but they're not world championship level yes you know they're just and if you're a girl who wants to make it in fighting and you look at the pool of talent that's in the ufc right now in the women's division especially 115 pound division you're going to be compelled to try to make it there yep at 135 you get that murdereronda Rousey, flipping bitches on their heads and shit, snapping arms. That's a tough one because she's so advanced. She's so advanced that she's just smashing everybody they put in front of her. That's a tough one because you would have to learn how to grapple at a very high level to even be able to hang in there with her. And now her striking is getting way better too.

So it becomes problematic. But what is the one thing that no one's ever done to Ronda Rousey? Kick the shit out of her legs. Strike, keep her away, keep her away, stuff the takedown and kick the shit out of her legs. We haven't seen that at all, like at all. We've seen no, how much would you like to see a world championship level Muay thai fighter like joanna

and jay check who's fighting at one a natural 135 who fights ronda rousey someone who comes out there and you see this like super high level striking game with good takedown defense and sprawls now you gotta fight now you got some crazy shit happening that's what we were supposed to expect with kate zagano that was supposed to happen in February. Yeah, but Kat Zagano is not world class in Muay Thai. She's tough. The bell went

and she ran in and she dove into her arms. Okay, what did you... She fucked up. She's going to be laying in bed for a very long time

going, what did I do? Well, Kat Zagano also, you have to think, has never fought in that stage before. That stage itself is just such a mind fuck. Yeah. Like, you're fought in that stage before that stage itself is just such a mind fuck yeah like the you're standing in that octagon the bright lights the cameras are on you and you're

like you know i mean that's probably half the reason why she made that mad crazy bum rush across the octagon and just want to attack her yeah yeah um i heard the same thing uh from faraz when i was training with george he says people don't understand that they they fight in the prelims and then you get because george has done it so many times he's so used to the pressure but then you get the guys that are fighting george and then all of a sudden it's five fives you're you're on the posters you're doing all the all the media and then the the you have to walk out in front of that 25,000 people or whatever, the MGM or... Or how about when you find Toronto?

Or Toronto. 60. 60,000. And you're the bad guy. Yeah, in Canada. And then, yeah, the pressure just breaks them before they even walk. Well, breaks them probably weeks in advance.

And then the day comes, you think you can handle it and the day comes and then you implode on the inside. Or not. Or you're like Jon Jones. You fight Shogun in your first world title fight. You're 24 years old and you beat his ass. You stop him and everybody goes, holy shit, look at this guy.

I mean, I think Jon was 23 actually now that I think about it. He was the youngest ever UFC champion. And I believe that Josh Barnett won the UFC heavyweight title when he was 24. So I think, I might be off by this, but I think John was 23. But that's a special guy. You know, John

just a special competitor. And I think that for someone like Kat Zingano that media pressure is just as much pressure. Having all those people ask you, what's it like? What's it going to be like when you get in there? How are you going to win? How are you going to beat Ronda?

What are you going to do about her armbars? I mean, think about that. What are you going to do about her armbar? Oh, I'm not worried about that. Fucking 15 seconds in, you're armbarred. The only question. The only question. The only question.

Yeah, and then you get armbarred. Times that by 10,000 times every period of three months prep. Yeah, it's a three months prep. Yeah. It's a mind fuck. Yeah, it drove me insane. But I think someone like Joanna, who is a world champion already, she's so used to competing at an incredibly high level, and then she had to get her bearings in the UFC.

She had that one really tough fight with Claudia Gadea, where it was neck and neck, very, very close fight. And then from then on, she's gone to just dominate. And I think that a woman like that, like if you could find someone like that at 135, it would be very interesting because although Ronda is getting better at striking, you very rarely, if ever, see her throw kicks. It's very rare. Yes.

And for someone who's a good Muay Thai fighter, man, that is. And also Ronda has notor has had problems with her knees. I think you're going to have to find someone that can fight going backwards as well. Because as soon as that bellwings Randa charges across the cage, and then anyone that's silly enough to stand in front of her and think they can strike standing on the spot, they're going to get taken down straight away. So you're going to have to be mobile.

Otherwise, she's going to grab you and flip you upside down on your head and inside out. You're also going to have to be world class as an athlete and i think that she is but i don't think anybody she's ever fought is except maybe sarah um you could say well who is um um not alexis davis but uh sarah mcmahon who's is that her name? The Olympic gold medal, the Olympic silver medals in wrestling. Yeah. Yeah. She was obviously an excellent wrestler, you know, so you've got that.

She was obviously an excellent wrestler, but as an MMA fighter, she just, there's like some holes in her game, you know, and she's, she's not very good off of her back either. She gets put on her back and she doesn't do so well. But I think ronda's she's a winner overall like that's like the most important thing like that person like the john jones mentality the person who just knows how to win and is not going to get rattled by the pressure is not going to get rattled by all the hype and all the bullshit talk is going to be able to go in there and perform at their at their maximum level Ronda obviously can do that.

And she even said, recently she said, the more fucked up and crazy her life is, the more fucked up and crazy things are, the better she fights, which is just nuts. Her last fight with Beth, that right hand you landed, you've never seen another girl knock out another girl with a single punch like that. That was insane. Not in MMA, at least. The only time I've ever seen another girl knock out another girl with a single punch like that. That was insane.

Not in MMA, at least. The only time I've ever seen that in kickboxing. Well, you know what? Holly Holm has knocked some bitches dead with head kicks. Head kicks, but a single right hand. That was nasty. It was nasty. It wasn't like she just flash knocked down either.

She was out. Oh, she was dead. She was dead. She was hurt already. And then, you know, she tagged her. It was fucked she was dead she was hurt already and then you know she tagged her was fucked up as she tagged her with the right hand then as she's going down ronda was already throwing the left yep you know and the left landed too as she was her body was already given out yes that was nasty that was a wake-up call to a lot of people that she's like

learning how to strike too but all with all due respect betch kohea is a brawler like her technique is it's not that good she throws like kind of arm punches and she's like physically like bulldog ish you know she's tough and strong but she's not you know she's not moving like like you know jay check you know i'm saying like she's not moving like an elite striker she's throwing barrages of punches and the pressure for her must have been off the fucking charts in Brazil fighting Ronda Rousey talking so much shit and then she fucked up and talked about Ronda's dad and suicide and all that and oh and the Brazilians kind of turned on her for that and then at the weigh-ins the Brazilians were cheering Ronda, which never happens. That's how much she's transcended.

She can go to Brazil, and then the Brazilians will cheer her. I've never seen that in my life. Wait till she hits Australia. She's a global phenomenon. She's amazing. I think once she hits Australia, I think the amount of support she's going to get there is going to be off the charts as well.

I just wish Holly had more fights in the UFC. I was going to ask you on the side what you think about that fight. I think a little bit early for poor Holly. But she's an amazing boxer. She's thought to win so many world titles in boxing. Oh, yeah. And then that head kick's a killer too. Well, it's not that I don't think that Holly is capable.

And that head kick's a killer, too. Well, it's not that I don't think that Holly is capable. One of the things I said is I don't think that's a smart fight because I want to see her fight some more people. I want to see her fight Misha Tate. I want to see her fight, you know, fill in the blank, Amanda Nunes. I want to see her fight some tough girls and put on a show and then have everybody clamor for it. I believe you've mentioned Amanda before.

She's a terror. She's awesome. She knocked out Sarah McMahon in her last fight. She was awesome. She's a beast, dude. Yeah, yeah. And you can tell she wants it, too. She's not in there to be a statistic.

She wants that title built bad. It is Sarah McMahon, right? Am I saying that? Make sure I'm right. I'm almost positive I am. But for whatever reason, I see her face in front of me. And for whatever reason, Sarah seems like I fucked up. Hey.

I have too many names in my head, man. I really do. Yeah, it is? Right. Thank you. But I think Holly is physically very capable, without a doubt, and technically very capable. Without a doubt, she'd be the best striker Ronda's ever faced.

Yes. No question about it. Yes. It's whether or not she can keep the fight standing, she can keep Ronda off her, whether she can deal with the pressure. When she goes out there and there's 70,000 fucking people. That's 10,000 more than we've ever done before.

And it's already almost sold out, I think. It's crazy. From fighting main events in Albuquerque to coming to Australia and fighting in front of our biggest football stadium in Melbourne. And to look across the octagon at that blonde demon coming out to that fucking Joan Jett song. Jesus Christ. I don't think I've ever heard anyone call her the blonde demon before.

She's a demon, dude. There's no question about it. When you're locked in that thing with her and she goes after those girls, that's a demon. So after we did the podcast in february um i was lucky enough to go to the ufc here in the stable center and then uh we went to the way in and it was very cool and then uh so so edmund and ronda were walking down the driveway to come into the hotel and as a fan boy i had my my iphone i was like oh should i go ask for a photo should i ask for a photo oh fuck it why not and then and then then i i've shimmied over like a little scared little boy and

said oh oh excuse me ron did you mind if i get a picture and she goes oh sorry no photos until after the fight and then um edmund had his aunt ariana and he's looked at me and then he stopped her and he goes hey this is the guy this is the guy. This is the guy. And she's looked at Edmund and gone, oh, so this is the guy. And he goes, this is the guy. So he's pushed her into my arms and said, oh, you've got to get a photo with him. This is the guy. Well, Edmund knows who you are for sure. Yeah, he was amazing.

So then we took a photo and she's amazing. She's such a cool person. I was so scared. I was so starstruck. And then she was just normal. She's such a cool person. I was so scared. I was so starstruck.

And then she was just normal. And then afterwards, I come down and got a couple of drinks at the hotel bar there. And Edmund was there. And he made his way over to come and have a chat to me. And then we just talked like we're long-lost friends. He was such a gentleman as well. He was such a nice guy. Yeah, people get a – they have a – for whatever reason, there's a misconception about what he's like.

You know, I think part of it's the Armenian thing. You know, Armenians are just so, they're so masculine, you know, and they have this certain way about them that a lot of people, they misread that, you know. They're just, they're fun people, man. They're very proud, very fun people. I'm a fan of Armenians. I really like them. Because I've seen The Ultimate Fighter, too, so I was expecting a certain sort of presence. But then when it was just... Oh, he's a gentleman.

He's awesome. He was so cool. Yeah, he's a gentleman. And then we just started talking about Muay Thai and fighting. And then actually my wife used to fight on the same cards as him back in the day when he was competing. So, yeah. Where did he compete? Did you ever see him compete? No, they fought on the same cards as him back in the day when he was competing. So, yeah. Where did he compete? Did you ever see him compete?

No, they fought on the same cards here in Cali. In Buena Park? Buena Park. That's when you know you're fucked. Fighting in Buena Park. Just kidding. Buena Park. He's done some great things with other fighters, too.

Like, he's really improved Travis Brown's hands. Yep. You know, he's done some real good work with him. Like, you saw in Travis Brown's fight against Brenda Shaw, you saw some sharp combinations. But then again, he got knocked out by Arlovsky in the fight afterwards. But that was just great chaos. But I'd heard that, like, in the gym, it's an interesting dynamic between fighters. chaos. But I'd heard that in the gym, it's an interesting dynamic between fighters. Sometimes fights, when you look at guys on paper, Travis was ranked number three in the world and Arlovsky

wasn't. Arlovsky was a guy that everybody thought was at the end of his time. But Arlovsky has been a world-class striker for a long time. Arlovsky had been a heavyweight champion in the UFC, had a nasty power in his punches, a nasty right hand. And in the gym, there's no pressure. In the gym, he could be himself. And in the gym, he had been used to bullying Travis around, apparently. He had been beating Travis up when they had sparring sessions. That was what the word was.

So when they'd gotten into the octagon together, like for everybody else it was like man harlovsky's got a tough fight but for him he's like i just bought this guy a hundred times i'm gonna go after him and so they went after each other and one point travis had him down man had him down and hurt bad and harlovsky came back from that and knocked him out and like that was one of the craziest rounds in heavyweight history. That was mad fucking madness It was so cool wild wild round and then a loss key goes and fights a Mia and I was expecting the same a loss key The rock up and same I was expecting the same

Expecting the same fireworks and unfortunately it was a little bit of arm Not quite the same enthusiasm in that one I think in that fight I think one of the things that happens in really high pressure fights, and I think this correlates with what we were talking earlier about pressure and about like, you know, we were talking about guys that put too much pressure on themselves from shit talking and get too much emotionally wrapped up in it. When a fight is a fight where they say the winner is going to be the number one contender and will next fight for the title. Those fights suck at least 50% of the time. Because at least 50% of the time, everybody locks up and nobody wants to do anything stupid.

Because a win virtually guarantees you a shot at the title. But the fight wasn't good. Because neither guy pulled the trigger. And it was very lackluster. Both guys were hesitant. And even Arlovsky, even though he won the fight when I was interviewing him was very lackluster. It's like both guys were like hesitant and and even our Lofsky Even though he won the fight when I was interviewing him. He wasn't happy. Yeah He was devastated. He's crazy one. He won he he thought he was gonna have the next shot at the title But then you know then the fight was bad

So that's one of the weird things about the UFC that people don't like is that there isn't any like clear structure Like when Misha Tate won, she was virtually guaranteed a shot at the title. Beat Jessica. I, you got a shot at the title. She beats Jessica. I was like, yeah,

listen, surprise. It's not, you're not ready for that. Like what? So she's, she's actually, she made some interview recently,

but she said that she should probably think about what she's going to do when she retires. And she should probably at least consider that. And I was like, whoa, she's like thinking about retiring. And that's an interesting thing when you look at the number one person in the division, which is clearly Rhonda, who's made, I think she made like $6 million last year or $7 million, something fucking crazy like that. And that's in fighting. Forget about all these ads she's doing. She's in a million different fucking commercials. I mean, she's probably made that much on top of that

with just ads and endorsements and movies. She's done two big movies. She's making fucking truckloads of money, right? And then there's Misha Tate, who's the number two girl in the division. Arguably, I mean, even though she's lost to Ronda three times, she's the number two girl in the division, right? Yes.

And how much do you think she makes? I mean, it's a fraction, a small fraction. And it's not like she's not hot. She's hot as fuck, right? She's got a beautiful body. Great ass. Sorry I said that. Sorry, Misha.

I'll do respect. She's a great fighter, too. She's very tough. I believe there's photos of you at the Wayne, possibly. I don't. Sorry, Misha. I'll do respect. She's a great fighter, too. She's very tough. I believe there's photos of you at the weigh-in. Possibly. I don't know if it was her. I think it was looking at Rhonda's ass. I've looked at a few asses at the weigh-ins.

It kept bored. It's nothing to do. I'm standing there. They're in their underwear, feet away from me. I'm not being a creep. I'm just doing my job. But, you know, Misha probably makes a very, very small fraction of what Ronda makes. And she's elite.

She's an outstanding fighter. She's tough as shit, man. And, you know, and people love her. It's weird. Yeah. I believe she's into the movies now as well. Yeah. Her Cyborg and Holly did that last one on her Instagram and Facebook as well.

Yeah, but who's making that movie? Who's going to see that movie? Yeah. What is that movie? That movie's some fucking 3 a.m. Cinemax fucking zombie movie kicking zombies' heads off or something. You know, it's like when people would tell me, oh, he's doing movies now.

I'm like, look, I know a lot of people doing movies. Like, what kind of movie? Yeah. You know, are they doing a... I think BJ Penn did a couple movies. Yeah. Well, even Gina Carano's done, like, she's done some big movies, Like what kind of movie you know they doing a BJ Pender a couple movies and now Yeah, we even Gina Karana's done like she's done some big movies, and she did that that one movie What was that movie that was she was a star haywire? Yeah, nobody saw it and then because nobody saw it nobody gave a shit about it it faded away

And then you don't hear about her as a movie star anymore me She was she was that close that close to being this runaway train movie star. There's Fast and the Furious and there's all... I don't know. Fast and the Furious? Rhonda was in that. Rhonda was in one of those. And then also Deadpool. I think that one's coming out. She's got a major part in that as well. Gina does, right.

Hopefully that might skyrocket her career. The ads for the previews for Deadpool look bad. My point is, it's a tough racket. The movie business is a tough racket. Yeah, yeah. I remember Frank Shamrock saying to me once, like he said he was going to get into acting. He said, I'm going to take over the world of acting the same way I took over the world of fighting.

I'm like, good luck with that, dude. You can't even control that. It's not like you can run hills better than anybody and kick people's asses. When you're fighting, you can be undeniable. You're fighting. They lock you in that octagon or you hop over the ropes into that ring. And when the referee says fight, there's nothing that can save that guy. You storm after him and knock him out and you're the fucking king.

But in the world of acting, my God, there's so many hoops and ladders and so much bullshit and it doesn't matter if you're the best coming from you you know exactly what's going on you're sort of and i've done some acting but i've been very lucky to be like on the outside of it all looking in you know because i was always a stand-up comic i always had like that as my real career and then this acting thing was something i did when they offered me money to do it but it's not something i really chased after that much and so when i watched other people that were chasing after it, I got to see like the psychological aspect of it. You see people kissing people's asses because you want everybody to like you because you want to get cast in these movies and you got to make friends with

the right social circles. You got to be on the right red carpets. You got to support the right causes. You have to have the right political affiliations it's a mess man it's a fucking mess you can't say anything controversial can't can't do anything too fucked up you know there's like there's certain things you can get away with as an athlete you could never get away with as an actor because if you did they would just write unless you're like some fucking johnny depp style huge undeniable movie star you can get away with a lot of shit but that's just you become undeniable movie star. You can get away with a lot of shit. But that's just, you become undeniable. You have so much fan base.

Yeah, he's already there, so he can do what he wants now. It doesn't matter. But even like Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise fucked up. And he started, he did a bunch of wacky interviews where he was talking about Brooke Shields and Scientology. Antidepressants. Yeah, and antidepressants. And dude, his fucking movie ticket sales dropped after that.

And it took a while for them to rebound. It took a couple of years for them to rebound. Didn't help things at all? No, that's wacky fucking shit, dude. But it's, again, it's that weird world of acting. And, you know, when Frank was telling me he was going to take over that world, I'm like, Jesus. I mean, not doubting you, but good luck. It's a fucking different.

It's not the same world. It's not like I'm going to take over the world of being a marathon runner. Well, no one can stop you. Everybody's at the starting line. Ready? Go. You get an equal shot. You're running the same road.

Yeah, yeah. You're not running the same road when you're acting, man. Anybody ever talk to you about doing some fucking karate movies? Kicking some John Wayne Park style kicks in movies? I've dabbled a fraction, but only for free. But not only just like shorts for the YouTube, but nothing. For fun? Just for fun, yeah.

Australian stuff or American stuff? After I did the documentary with the Bus of Venom, we played around a little bit. And then we went to Thailand. And then I was lucky enough to work with some Thai stuntmen and they'd work with Tony Jha and it was amazing. That guy's incredible. So these stuntmen that I got to work with, you'd throw an inch, a punch, an inch past their face and they literally throw themselves back 10 feet onto concrete, onto their back.

And you think that's, And then they lay there dead. They lay there dead for three seconds, open their eyes. Okay, do it again. This time we're going to cut in a bit shorter. And then they throw themselves again and again and again. You've got to really know how to fall, man. Shit. This isn't...

You don't have to do nothing. They sell it. They make it look amazing. I mean, the guys who fall, they've got to really know how to fall and not hurt themselves. Yeah, different league. It's like... Yeah, I'd rather punch someone in the face. It's a lot easier. I'd rather make my money through violence instead of pretending to be violent.

And the documentary that you were talking about, if people didn't understand you through your thick Aussie accent, it's Blessed with Venom. Yes. And it's a great documentary and it details your life and learning Muay Thai and moving to Thailand and living there and fighting there. And it's a really cool documentary, man. Thank you. So many people were messaging me saying, Joe Rogan sent me here on the YouTube comments saying, thank you very much for Joe Rogan.

Great documentary. So it's, I was saying before, when it got released in Australia, it was lucky enough to be open in cinemas. So we had cinema release and then, yeah, it just went nowhere. So it's on YouTube now. So if you want to have a look a bit, not only about my career, but also about Thai culture.

So about an Aussie going to Thailand and learning the Thai customs and culture and learning how to speak Thai and eating on the floor and sleeping on the wooden floor and training seven hours a day. It's pretty. And then fighting the killers, too. I wasn't just going in there and making up numbers. I was lucky enough to start at the bottom and then work my way up to winning two world titles in Bangkok. So it's a happy ending.

Yeah. It's a fascinating documentary, too, because, like, culturally, it's such a unique thing for someone to do to immerse themselves in the world of the thai and of these muay thai fighters and live like they live and train like they live and a guy coming from australia and moving there and doing that it's like a it's it's it's always to me amazing to watch someone just enter into a world that's so completely different than theirs and you barely had a grasp at all of the language and you know you're training with these guys that have been essentially preparing for fights the way they have the way they did it with you for hundreds

and hundreds of years before you were ever born yeah it's um and then what happened was so say i've moved into this camp and there's about 10 10 fighters there and then uh one night i've had my fight i've won i've gone to patio with all the westerners hanging out uh for a week's holiday and i've come back and all the other kids had run away so then there was only me and the superstar so now that i was giving them 50 of my prize money after every fight so now it was in the camp's best interest to try and make me as good as I could, as fast as I could. So I could win more fights and make more prize money. So they get 50% more income.

So the only way they could survive is for me to become the best that I could. So they could get more money, if that makes sense. Yeah, that's what a fortuitous roll of the dice for you. Yeah, so I was thrown under the, not under the bus, but into the meat grinder. Looking back, looking back, it was like the biggest blessing that could happen. Because if there was 50 people there, I would have been stuck in a bag by myself. But because it was only me and the superstar. And then the superstar, Sangten Noi, he had no one else.

What's his name? His fight name was the Deadly Kisser. The Deadly Kisser. The Deadly Kisser. Why is that? Because there's so much gambling in Thailand. So if he thought he was beating his opponent, at the end of the round, he'd give him a kiss on the cheek. And that would show all the punters, okay, I've got this.

So they'd all bet on him. So they'd all bet him. So if you're being kissed by him, it means he's kicked your ass. Oh, no. So, yeah, the deadly kisser. Did the opponents know his nickname was the deadly kisser? Oh, if they gave, yeah, because after the round, the ding, he'd walk up and just give you a kiss on the cheek. They were like, what the fuck, man?

You're not kicking my ass. Did people try to take away, they try to move away from the kiss? Raymond Decker. Did he? He fought Decker three times. Oh, really? Decker's like, no, get away from me and get those filthy lips away from me. How did the fights go with him and Decker?

It was 2-1. Decker won the last one. Sankt-Ten won the first two. The first one was Japan. The second one was Lumpini. The third one was in Holland. It was very, very close. But yeah,

Sankt-Ten was about 36, 37. It was like me versus Cosmo. Now Sankt-Ten was a little bit older. Decker was still in his prime. So he finally got one in his home country that was live on thai tv and dutch tv so again making decker the the legend that he is and how old was decker at the time uh possibly about 34 35 um but yeah so that was towards the end of his run too right

he had a heart attack he was only like 42 or 43, right? I think 44. 44, was it? 44 in a park. What the fuck, man? Yeah. How crazy. He was riding his bike. Riding his bike in a Dutch park. And then, yeah, he has a memorial there where they come and lay heaps of flowers. And I think they've spray painted the little tunnel that is with a big memorial of Decker.

And it's very, yeah. What a crazy way to go for a world-class athlete world championship kickboxer riding a bike yeah and at a relatively young age yeah he was the king we came he came to australia and he hung out with me at my gym because uh he was fighting a friend of mine he was fighting uh he had a he was training a guy that was fighting fighting nathan so they needed someone to train for the week to prepare so i was lucky enough they the promoter rang me said do you mind if rainham and comes and trains at your gym for a week it's like oh yes so um yeah i hung out with him morning and night and

was he like the just the dude he was just uh an animal uh and so many stories like me and you i could just sit here and just listen to you all day like a little school boy just asking stories what's about this fight? What about that fight? Do you have any injuries? And then he'd just go on. He just, yeah, it was just a little boy just listening to greatness. Yeah.

So it was really cool. He gave me a pair of shorts that I have up in my gym that I'm so proud of that he's fought multiple times in. But, yeah, just the wars. Muhammad Ali of Muay Thai, pretty much. He was the first one to put it on the map to say, look, there is a possibility for white people to beat Thais at their own sport in Thailand at the big stadiums. And not only win, but knock them out in devastating fashion.

His style was so aggressive too. God, it was so exciting to watch. He's one of my all-time favorites. And then Rob Kamen, who was different because Rob was so aggressive too. God, it was so exciting to watch. He's one of my all-time favorites. And then Rob Kamen, who was different because Rob was a bigger guy. Yes, yes. But very technical. God, he has such a system. I had the honor of training with him quite a bit. Oh, nice. And he's so technical, man. His system, he has such a system for Muay Thai, for kickboxing, for putting combinations together and placement and movement.

He's a fucking interesting guy, Rob Kamen, man. Very interesting guy. It was hard for him to get the same accolades as Raymond because Raymond was fighting the Thais at their most craziest weight, the 63s, the 61s, the 63s. You say that, you mean kilos, which is like, what is that, like 135, 140 or something like that? Yes, 135, 130-ish. And then, whereas Rob was a little bit bigger

and he was fighting ties a little bit smaller, so he was knocking him out, but at the same time, he should have been knocking him out because he's a big man. And then when you're fighting Westerner versus Westerner, you're not going to get the same worldwide sort of... Right.

Whereas Raymond was, he was fighting the pure killers at their at their weight and um not just beating him but knocking him out so and then when the when the tires are paying attention and the country's stopping to watch a westerner come to their country to to knock out their their best then you know you've made it yeah he was a real phenomenon and for and that's one of those things that for people that don't know the the sport or aren't aware of it like you can go right now to youtube and go on a journey through the world of of one of the greatest combat sport athletes ever and ramon deckers has so many fights on youtube

you can go and watch them and you'll understand what we're talking about when you just watch to that guy just slam those kicks in and attack with a barrage of beautiful punches yes he was a monster and then his pressure too he'd push guys into the corner and onto the ropes and then it wouldn't matter if he got hit 14 times in the way in he just give me one yeah give me one bang bang bang and then boom and then just knock him out unconscious my style is so hard It was such a hard style. He did a seminar at my gym. He said, just have three or four of us. We'll just keep it tiny.

We'll just keep it really small. That's what he wanted? Three or four person seminar? Yeah, he didn't want the big 100 people. He just said, let's keep it six people max. Wow. No, he said, let's keep it an odd number so I can join in. Oh, so like five. And then he took turns going one by one

with us and then uh he'd say okay put your hands up i'm going to demonstrate a demonstration and he'd go one two hook leg kick and then you're thinking he's gonna tap and it's like boom boom boom and then chop and then your eyes would go bink and what the hell was that and then he hit you hard it's sort of look at me as if it was he was shocked that he hit me so hard in my reaction he goes what i said oh yeah that was crazy and he goes oh in holland this is normal this is what we do because on the ring there's no surprises so if we train like this on the ring there's there's and i'm just looking at him going dude there is no way in hell i'd like to train with like this for especially every day for a couple of hours, every single day.

That'd be detrimental to my health. Well, ultimately, do you think that's part of what broke him down as he got older? He was devastated physically. By the time he was done, his ankles were gone. Yeah, possibly, possibly. I think he got to the stage where his body was so destroyed where he could only do pads. He couldn't even, I don't think he could spar. I remember him telling us at lunch, he said, hey, I'll just do pads, pads, pads.

And because he was fighting so regularly, he didn't have to spar because he was fighting possibly every two weeks or so. So, yeah, he was, yeah. That's the eternal debate. Because like in MMA as well, Joe Duffy was supposed to be fighting Dustin Poirier this past weekend in Ireland in a huge card in Dublin. Sold out in like an hour. Just Irish love fights, right? And Joe Duffy's the last guy to beat Conor McGregor. And he's an Irishman.

So everybody's excited to see him. The Saturday before the fight, a week before the fight, he gets a concussion. Hey. Yeah, sparring hard. Sparring hard, going after it. And they pull out of the fight, a week before the fight, he gets a concussion. Hey. Yeah, sparring hard, sparring hard, going after it, you know, and they pull out of the fight. So he pulls out of the fight the week of. They gave him some examinations, and the doctor looked at him and said, Listen, man, you got fucked up.

You need a lot of time off. You need a few months off. You can't fight. Yeah, count back from 10, apple, orange, lemon. So when you, that's the eternal debate. Do you spar like the Dutch? Do you fucking go crazy like Melvin Manhoef and Mike's Jim? You know, you just fucking attack, attack, attack and just take your lumps and deal with it.

And then when you fight, you'll fight like that because you fight you fight that all the time or do you take a more intelligent approach like many fighters do like the ties do where they spar and they don't spar hard at all yes well the ties don't even when i first got there there was no shin pads or um yeah it was no it was just it was and then you could almost wear bag mitts and it was just tap tap tap, tap, tap. So it's just, you're just working on movement. No shin pads. So it'd be shin on shin. It'd still be fast and then you'd pull out that,

like karate, like point karate style. Right. But it was Thai boxing and then you still know if you got it or not. So if the shin landed across your ribs,

it'd be pulled. It'd be just a tap. It's like, damn it. And then you'd spar with the kids that were 10 years old and say, do you want no shin pads? And then no one got hurt and then after three 10 years old and say, do you want no shin pads? And then no one got hurt.

And then after three hours, you're still smiling, you're still joking. But you've learned so much. You've learned that you've just got your ass kicked by a 10-year-old without getting beat up, if that makes sense. When we box, we spar about 80%, 90%. But when we kick and play and clinch, it's a bit more controlled. The clinch is harder, I suppose, but longevity. Because you can do that play and clinch, it's a bit more control. The clinch is harder, I suppose. But longevity.

Because you can do that in a clinch. The same like jiu-jitsu. You can go full blast. Yes. And you don't have to worry about it because you're not striking each other. Yeah. I've had 122 fights now. That's fucking crazy.

I'm sweet. Well, listen to you. You're talking. You're fine. There's no dementia. There's no slurring words. Have 122 boxing fights Yeah, Jesus Christ

Yeah, so and then you hear about MMA guys and then if they have more than 30 flights It's something it's a big deal because but yeah, but then Jeremy Horne had over a hundred fights But very intelligent fought real smart. Yep, very bright guy very technical didn. He's not like an athletic, powerful, super freak athlete. Everything he had to do was proper technique and intelligence. And to this day, over 100 fights, Jeremy Horn, you would never know it, talking to him or looking at him. He looks great, talks great. The majority of the ties have had 250 fights,

and then, yeah, it's just normal. 250 fights, that is fucking crazy we had a 10 year old kid in our camp that had 100 fights as a 10 year old he'd fight monday tuesday rest wednesday fight thursday sad day possibly rest sunday and then every time he fight he was making 500 baht 500 baht so then his parents didn't have to work almost. He was making enough money as a junior fighting four times a week, five times a week, where he could support the family just as a 10-year-old. Wow. So, yeah.

So for them over there, it's a necessity. As a 10-year-old, if you're 25 kilos too, you're not whacking with 100% power either. You're scoring. You're playing the game. Right. It's not until you get into your 13s, 14s, and then you start using a bit more force and you're starting to get more damage on the shins and a bit more, you've got to be a bit more wary of the punching power.

But as a junior from, say, 7 until 10, you can definitely get away with fighting three, four, five times a week, no problem. Well, some people say that that's the best way to teach kids too because they learn before they can hurt each other. Yes. And you learn like how to move properly and your body develops like that. Yes. You know, your body develops like there's people that are, that started out like they had like a martial arts background when they were young.

And then they started putting on weight, like muscle weight, but they're still like super flexible. And it's because their body sort of developed throwing kicks and their body developed doing those motions and if you can learn like there's a lot of people that believe that as as a boxer that if you don't start when you're young you'll never achieve like a floyd mayweather level or roy jones jr level like it's not possible they say it's not like your body has to develop doing that yeah in australia there's a big controversy right now because the athletic commission and the government's not there they're all talking they're talking um they don't want juniors to compete in any form of combat sport whatsoever until the age of 18 which i which i think is ludicrous because

if that happens you've got the dangerous the rest of the world that have already excelled to a certain level. And if we don't start competing until 18, we're already behind the eight ball. We're so far behind. But that's so ignorant. That's ignorant on their part. That's people who don't understand combat sports because that's the time to learn. Yes, yes. And then it's also you're not learning.

It's not about the fight. It's about the culture. It's about the lifestyle. It's about living healthy and training and training the body and getting flexible and it's about getting over the fear of getting in competition as well yeah it's about experiencing what young people are terrified of getting your ass kicked and um and experiencing it in the gym right my daughter was lucky enough to start fighting at the age of eight that's hilarious how many people say that my daughter was lucky enough to start fighting at the age of eight and That's hilarious. How many people say that? My daughter was lucky enough to start fighting at the age of eight. And then, uh, from the, I remember she walked in as,

as a, as a little baby girl. And I was, I was so petrified as a father, but then she walked out like a woman. She walked out as a warrior, as eight year old warrior. And then ever since she's had this passion for the fighting, she loves collecting trophies. She loves making, um, for the fighting she loves collecting trophies she loves making the magazines and and doing interviews and it makes you become a better person I believe I think it makes you evolve yes sure yeah it definitely um people that never thought will never understand what it's like to have that bond against someone to compete for a couple of minutes. And then after that, no matter what happens, I've always, with 122 people, I can say,

I'm not just a friend, but I've shared a moment in time where me and you, we've went into a different dimension for that time that we fought each other. Does that make sense? It does make sense. You know what I mean? There's nothing that can erase that memory of me and you standing toe-to-toe and exchanging blows. So, yeah, I think this is why I love the sport so much

because I have such a deep passion for it. Well, when I was watching that Cosmo Alexander fight, I was actually thinking that. I was like, these guys are sharing a crazy... Because I was also thinking, like, you're 39 years old and I don't know how much longer you can compete at this elite world-class level. You're fighting in a world championship fight. And I'm watching this.

I'm like, man, this is an intense moment that these two guys are sharing. And afterwards, you guys are smiling and hugging each other. And I was like, wow, those guys really did just share a very, very intense experience and a very intense moment that very few people will ever understand. Yeah, it's such a... And then to erase that from childhood memories, like for young kids not to have that experience, I think that's so sad because what's better, especially coming from myself,

if to go to school fighting on Saturday in a tournament and go to school on Monday and tell all the boys, oh, yeah, I've got a gold medal for whatever competition they've played. It could be Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, Taekwondo, Karate. It doesn't matter if it's Muay Thai. It could be anything. Or even soccer, football. You've gone out on the weekend and you've excelled at that sport that you've put your life into.

And the boys come over to your house. They have a sleepover, you've got four or five Trevies up on the shelf. Nothing can make you more proud than to be in, oh yeah, they're from my fighting days. I think it also teaches you how to overcome very scary moments, very difficult moments. And I think when you don't overcome difficult moments, you always have that fear. Like, how would I do under pressure? What would happen to me under pressure? I mean, how would I do when the chips are down, when I'm nervous?

And people who compete, they have the experience of doing that. And I think that's where character is built. Character is built through adversity. And I think to deny young kids the opportunity of that, especially out of ignorance, because if they don't understand that young kids don't get hurt the way adults do. You see a guy like Gokhan Saki fighting Tyrone Spong. Those are big boys, big, heavy, throwing guys that are throwing fucking bombs. There's a big difference between that and two six-year-olds that are fighting Muay Thai

with headgear on and big gloves and shin pads in an amateur fight. What those kids are doing is they're learning how to do something that's very difficult. Yes. And overcoming that moment. The same fear but with the protection. So it's almost the same. I like what you said. I shared one of your quotations on my Instagram the other day that absolutely killed it about people that have never been in a street fight.

It's that same thing where you're people that are – you always say, oh, I'm just – that guy pisses – he's pissing me off. I'm just going to knock him out. It's like, no, you're not. Yeah. No, you're not. You have no idea. If that guy hits you back, you know how much it's going to hurt. Well, what I said was that I don't understand how people

who have never had any martial arts experience at all are willing to fight. Yes. Like, they're crazy. Like, they're fighting. I've seen people fight in the streets that you could tell

when they're fighting that they have no fighting experience at all. They don't know anything. And yet, they're willing to take a chance and fight some guy they don't even know and they're going to somehow or another think

they're going to kick this guy's ass. You don't know anything. They're just flailing. I've seen it happen. It's terrifying. I don't understand it. I don't know how people are willing to do that. I'm so mad right now.

I'm just going to walk over there. I'm just going to knock him out. It's not that easy. And then once that confrontation starts, if you hit that person and you don't knock him out, you're just going to piss him off. Or you break your hand. How many times have people done that? Throw a punch and hit a guy in the forehead and just smash your hand open?

Or they break a bottle or they pull something out of their pocket. Oh, Jesus Christ. And then it gets to this next level. It's life or death now. Great. You don't know how to fight at all. And you're in a life or death situation where you just hope this guy doesn't kill you. You know, let's hope somebody that rescues you beforehand. It's terrifying, you know, especially because the different, there's a,

there's a big difference. And I think that's where a lot of people get confused when it comes to martial arts and they equate it with violence. The, the, the, the, the competition of a fight or of an event like a martial arts event is a very, very different thing because you're preparing for a skill contest. And the skill contest may be dangerous and there's possibly violent endings to these things. But it's not violence in the sense of you're not like trying to go out and find someone and make them your victim. What you're doing is you're trying to compete. You're competing. And in doing so, you learn something about yourself and you develop a confidence that for someone who's never competed like that, you'll never totally understand.

Yes. A violent game of chess. Yeah. And even more crazy than chess, especially MMA, because there's so many more, there's so many moves. There's so much going on. There's like, if you're playing chess, you have so much time to think about it, unless you're playing that speed chess shit where they're hitting the clock. But when you're playing chess,

and you're overlooking this board, I mean, not taking anything away from chess, because chess is a fascinating game. And there's so much complexity to it. And there's so many different moves, so many different possible combinations. believe it or not there are more possible combinations in fighting there's more possible combinations the outcome is more terrifying more is at stake your physical health is at stake you're gambling your health on discipline you have to get up in the morning you're're, you have to overcome your body being tired and sore, and you've got to get up when you don't want to, when that warm bed is calling you, you got to put on your fucking running shoes and you got to go do your road work

and you got to do your strength and conditioning and you got to spar when you don't want to spar and your body's starting to get run down and you got to make sure you get the right amount of sleep. You got to make sure you get the right amount of nutrition. There's all these variables, emotions, the physical fear, the fear of your own demise. Not the nerves of a... I'm sure chess players

get nervous before they have a match, but do you think they get nervous the way a fighter gets nervous? I don't think it's possible. They don't have to go to the hospital after that. Yeah. And there's no fear,

oh, am I going to get knocked out? Am I going to get cut? When I compete, I try to tell people that are coming up through the sport oh what's it like to have your first fight it's it's like we're saying before once that the bell rings everything goes numb and you don't have time to think so you have to take yourself everything's on that muscle memory so so many times i've been punched at or kicked at or an elbow shown and i've and i've blocked it with a quarter of a second to go and I'm thinking in my head if that had hit me flush I would have been knocked out but somehow or other my body knows the blocking time to counter in time

and then I don't hear anything I don't see anything besides my opponent I can't yeah I'm just in this different world and then the end of the end of the fight, the bell rings, ding, and all of a sudden it seems the world opens back up again. I'm back on the chair. I can hear voices again. And then I can't remember the fight. The fight's just a blur. It's not until people say, hey, do you remember this or that,

or until you watch the replay on the phone or the internet or the replay. But, yeah, you're just into a different realm completely. It's such a unique experience to turn off your brain and just rely on pure instinct. Again, that's why I love it. I love it so much. Well, it's got to be an intensity that no one else could ever understand, and that's probably a bond that you share with those people that you get into the ring with like Cosmo Alexander that the average person would just

never be able to understand what you guys have gone through yeah and then the idea you've been cut and you can the one eye is blurry from the blood and you don't want to wipe it because that's a tell from your opponent that the blood's starting to annoy you. So you've got to try and stay there with one eye all red and bloody and yucky and you can feel the stickiness in your eye and you can feel the pain. You can feel your eye throbbing and then you've got to turn off. It's such a – you've got to take yourself such in the – you've got to go so much soul-searching to keep focused on being violent and trying to win no matter how even though you're losing you know that you have to try and come back and still still knock this

guy out and make adjustments and make adjustments and just and turn the pain off yet still trying to focus on how am i gonna this what i'm doing is not working so i have to try and up the ante and try something else and that might get me in more danger again where I might get even more cut or more beat up or another knee to the face. Do you ever work with a hypnotist or a psychologist or a sports psychologist or anything like that? I know Vinnie Shulman. Yeah, I know Vinnie.

I'm good friends with Vinnie, but I never work with anyone. You should try it with Vinnie. I was wondering. I was like like what is this yeah hypnosis and vinny put me under yeah but i i knew i was under but i was like whoa this is a strange state he puts you in yeah he's a very interesting cat vinny's vinny's cool he came out to australia with a friend of mine andy hallison and then um they were hanging out for a week and we're good buddies but uh and then in australia as well there's a lot of mind coaches

as well that i've noticed that i'm starting to appear out of somewhere but because i've been in thailand so long i don't believe i i need mind coaching i believe i'm already at that stage in my life where i know exactly what i want same with this world title with cosmo i know i wanted it i didn't need someone to tell me that i wanted it i know i want it and when i lose it i'm just fucking pissing me off but i think um a lot of people have that thought about what it is and i i did as well like oh well what you're gonna do is it's gonna solidify what you want and you go after it i don't necessarily think it's that what vinnie instead of hypnosis what vinnie likes to think of it as like you're optimizing the pathways for your focus.

And instead of like saying, I know what I want, I'm going to go get it. It's sharpening that to a razor's edge. And I think that, I think you should, I think everyone should look into it. Not necessarily saying that everyone should implement it. Like, like here's a perfect example. Like Roy Jones Jr. in his prime, I would say just do everything you're doing don't change a goddamn thing you know i'm saying i mean when he was fighting and just moving like no one has ever moved before knocking guys out with combinations that were just ridiculous like

how could you say that guy needs to go to a mind coach you can't right but i really honestly believe that even though i would say just do whatever you're doing, if he did go to a mind coach, it would probably take it to an even different level. Probably take it to an even higher level. I think that everything you do, everything you do, as good as you're doing it, you could do it better. I think everything can be optimized, you know, and I think everything has layers and levels to it and to say this is good enough this we're done here i just think honestly it almost like it disrespects the process of evolution it disrespects the process of getting getting better at it of greatness like for every

roy jones jr there's a guy watching roy jones jr and thinking i gotta figure out a way to beat that motherfucker and training harder and maybe he has just as many physical gifts, and maybe he has just a slight edge in some sort of a weird, strange way because he's been watching Roy Jones Jr. compete. I don't know, man. I think that this sport is all about minute differences, like all combat sports. Do you know who Nick Curse curse on his strength and conditioning coach

Really a highly highly respected trains Rafael dos Anjos who's the UFC lightweight champion and trains? Ruslan provodnikov famous boxer and a bunch of other elite athletes done some work with Joe Schilling now to doing some work with Joe Schilling and He says something really interesting when Rafael Dos Anjos beat Anthony Pettis. And he said, you know, one of the things that we did with him, all these strength and conditioning drills, it's about executing and getting there just slightly faster. And he's like, even though he dominated that fight, think about those exchanges.

He dominated those exchanges by maybe a half a second like he landed a half a second quicker He was a half a second work up his recovery was just a little quicker He was able to reengage just a little quicker and those little tiny edges little tiny edges Means he lands first and it means he's dominating and even though his advantage like physically his advantage of execution was so small it was enough those little advantages are enough to win a fight and it's incredible when you think about it that way that this sport is just it's a matter of like these incremental increases in ability incremental advances yeah it's so fascinating to me. I never grow tired of it. I guess I'm sort of in the caveman era too

where I believe that I think what the mind coaches are doing are awesome, but at the same time, I don't need someone to pat my back and say, hey, you're doing a good job. Right. I don't think they're doing that though. Yeah, yeah. I don't think they're doing that.

Talk to Vinny. I mean, maybe he can give you a bit of an insight on it. But I think you're right, too. You know, I'm not saying he's right and you're wrong. I think you're right, too, because you're a proven champion, you know, and that mindset, the steely determination that you've developed, like nobody needs to tell you how to do it. You know, I firmly believe you're one of those guys

who can wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and say it's go time. And you put your shorts on, wrap your hands, and you don't know what the fuck to do. You're just going to fall into it. It's your thing. You've been doing it forever. Because there's a gentleman in Australia that's doing it. And then if someone's having a bad day, I know they call him and say, oh, man, I had a bad session. What do I do?

Oh, mate, don't worry. Tomorrow's a new day. Yeah. Where I know, okay, today I fucked up. Tomorrow I'm going to train harder and make sure that doesn't happen again. Yeah, you're on mind coach. Yeah, yeah. And then I've got no one else to blame but myself too.

Right. So I'm very lucky in Australia that I own the gym. I'm my own trainer, my own manager. I do all my own negotiations with promoters. I have my friends that come in, like Kevin from New Zealand here, that comes and helps me. And we work on different, we talk.

I give him ideas of what I want to do on the pads. So everything, I'm in control of my own destiny, if that makes sense. I've got no one dictating me what to do. I was the one that reached out to Scott Kent to try and get a line for it. I'm the one that reached out to scott kent to try and get online for i'm the one that's reaching out to all these different guys so you like that but some people don't right some people like their they just don't want to train they don't want to think they want

their manager to tell them who to fight yeah they want everything set up for them and they just want to concentrate on training yeah um yeah well because i finished tyler when i moved back to australia from thailand there was there was no one for me there so i opened a gym because i finished thailand when i moved back to australia from thailand there was there was no one for me there so i opened a gym because i needed somewhere to train so i had to teach classes to pay the rent so i could still have somewhere to train and that sort of blossomed into the gym started being successful so then i started having more guys training underneath me that wanted to fight then all of a sudden i'm working their corners and learning how to wrap hands and and now i'm trying to do everything and then also at the same time trying to create my own career as

well so i've been yeah so lucky that i've been yeah there's it just it just sort of happened um it's not that i wanted it's not like i wanted a coach i'd love to have a coach but at the same time it's what i've been doing is being working and i've been lucky enough to be successful so where would you train if you if you didn't have to run your school and if you didn't have to where is there a place in the united states or in thailand or anywhere in the world where you would train thailand was perfect for the um four or five years and then uh definitely definitely grew out of that and when it was time to come to Australia it was perfect and then but where would I train? You grew out of it

how so? The fights were so hard for so small money so So high level fights very dangerous fights Very dangerous fights again with guys

with 200, 300 fights and then your prize money is enough for a happy meal Fuck So it was crazy and then by the time you convert that happy meal money to australian money

um yeah you're buying a pack of chewing gum god damn it what's the cheapest you ever fought for uh the cheapest i fought for was a thousand baht which was 25 dollars oh my god yeah but then then you have to pay money to the gym and then you gotta think about training expenses and food you're losing money a lot of money. Yeah, it sort of sucked. But then I worked my way up, and then my last fight in Thailand was for a million baht, which was approximately 35,000 Australian. That's not bad, right? Yeah, if that's okay.

But it was probably like a super elite, world-class fight. Yeah, and then from there, I've been on the 30s, the 40s for the last 10 years. Yeah, and then from there I've been on the on the 30s the 40s for the last 10 years So so I've been very fortunate that way that I've enough to survive and live comfortably and only have to train and look after the gym and We're a lot of other people that I'd manage and then if they're lucky to if they get $3,000 is that they've hit the jackpot So it's such a hard sport to try and become a superstar. It's so hard.

So there was one place where you would train. If you had, you know, it was totally up to you. I guess Holland. Holland. Which gym, do you know? Good question. I'd probably train with Cor Hammers. Cor Hammers is a legend. He's got the riding on the board with Raymond.

And then what's the gentleman now that trains at Glory that's doing this? Nicky Holson. Nicky Holson. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if he's with Core Hemizu. He was for a while. I don't know if he is anymore. I believe he's still with that circle of guys.

He's a beast, though. God, he's so good. He's amazing. He's excellent. He's one of my dream fights. I'm probably a little bit older fighting now because he's in his peak and I'm a little bit older. But he was one of the guys that I always thought that we'd cross paths, but we never did. Wait, is he Glory?

76, I believe. 77, George's weight, Walter. Okay, so it's 170? I believe so, yes. A little heavier, a little more like Cosmo Alexander Cosmo Yeah, in a killer to dynamite nasty left hook nasty nasty punches. Just like just like Raymond Yeah, very similar. Well, we'll use a Raymond Decker Mini me. Mm-hmm. So well, he has a very technical style though very intelligent, you know, like when he fought Raymond Daniels

Good high knee as well. Yes, neither the face killer when he fought Raymond Daniels a good high knee as well yes knee to the face he's a killer when he fought Raymond Daniels Daniels throws all those wild combinations and crazy shit you know he just walked him down figured out how to

keep the pressure on him throw a lot of leg kicks throw combinations rip that left hook to the body and eventually he took him out and once he presses him

into the corner too there's no escape and he's got that nice switch knee to the face well Raymond Daniels is an interesting case do you know who he is yes they fought twice yeah they fought twice and he's got that nice switch knee to the face. Well, Raymond Daniels is an interesting case You do you know who he is? Yes. Yeah twice. Yeah, they fought twice and he stopped him both times

You know Raymond Daniels is an interesting case because there's a guy who was Elite at a very odd style of fighting. He was elite at point karate Yes and if you watch this point karate fights online you realize like God this guy just blitzes in with this crazy shit and then they Would stop it and point karate for people don't know is like a really high level game of tag with karate Because once you touch the guy like literally touch them they stop it and they score the point so It's very difficult to transition from that into continuous fighting like When you fight in kickboxing or in Muay Thai or in MMA when you

hit a guy once he hits you back you hit him again and it's all about hitting and not being hit and movement what what karate what they get really good at is this blitz where they jump on you and attack but they have to get used to you hitting back and the referee not stopping the action so credit to Raymond Daniels He went from doing this one style of jumping in and hitting a guy once to this continuous style. And then also factor in leg kicks. Because in these karate tournaments,

you can't kick the legs. So he's jumping in with all these wild kicking and punching techniques. And then he goes from that to this incredibly difficult, grueling style of fighting. The guys have their hands up very high. They're throwing a lot of leg kicks.

And he's excelled at it, except at the very elite level. When he's fought the very best guys, like Joseph Valtellini stopped him. Same thing. Attack the legs, attack the legs, get him to block the leg. He goes up high and head kicks him But it's utilizing the Muay Thai style to defeat this style where he just he's got so many tools But he doesn't quite have all of it together at a world-class level But let the guy fight on the outside man. He's got that blitz.itz that blitz and those wild kicks it's really

interesting yeah very unorthodox added the spins yeah and the jumping but you gotta wonder man man with a guy with those type of skills if he could get his hands at the same level as like a nikki holtzkin or a valtholini and get those leg kicks at the level that those guys have like poof man yeah no it's crazy he's um yeah yeah but but nicky holson he's uh i don't know who anyone can fight him right now he's probably the the king at that weight division yeah there's uh there's a lot of talent and glory it's it really drives me nuts to seeing seeing that them leaving spike tv it really bums me out i don't know what's gonna happen now now because without them and the prize money,

again, without the exposure, what happens now? What happens to the Lion Fight? The only channel to go now, I suppose. And now Bellator is doing the kickboxing version as well with their last show with the ring in the cage. So that was interesting. But that was combined with Glory.

Yeah, I suppose, yeah. Yeah, I think that was what they were doing. with glory yeah i suppose yeah i think that that was what they were doing you know i mean they were just trying to have like a big crazy like japanese style event you know i don't know man it just bums me out it just bums me out that it for whatever reason it didn't catch on yep yep you know and spike is obviously where the ufc took off so it's not like it can't happen there but whatever reason it just didn't yeah it's hard it's hard it's hard for us strikers we have to get the steel cup on the corners in between fights and changing any got any change pass the hat around what about in Holland is it they

make money in Holland fighting I uh they shut down all the big shows there's a massive show called showtime where they were half a football stadium and i believe they had like 30 to 40 000 people um that would come to these events three or four times a year and then apparently the the hell's angels were involved with uh a little bit of washing washing this and that and then um they got banned from doing the big shows. So that's why there's nothing happening in Holland now. Fuck. Yeah, again, again.

That was the place to go, Holland and Showtime. And Cosmo was a former Showtime champion also. And Badahari. Badahari. Badahari. Love watching that guy fight. He's fucking crazy. Sammy Shield, all those crazy killers, all the Dutch.

It was such an amazing show. And then because they knocked it on the head, now there's, where do you go? That was the, besides Thailand, Holland was the place. And now that's dried up. Now it seems that. Maybe the Japanese can fucking pick up the slack and come back with K-1 again. Because I know they're trying to do a new MMA promotion. They have Fedor for New Year's. Yes.

But here's the problem. There's no heavyweight talent out there. They can't find Fedor an opponent. Someone said his opponent's four fights or something with two wins. Oh, that guy. They pulled that guy out. Apparently, he's not in shape. That was an Indian gentleman, I believe, from India.

I know who he is, but he's just not world class. He's not for a guy like Fedor. You're talking about arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time and you're gonna have him fight a guy who's just nowhere Near his league for a New Year's Eve show. That's crazy. You need world-class talent There was so much excitement when he Announced that he was coming back and then there was that's all he's supposed to fight in the UFC That's what he's supposed to do Let's talk with UFC then there's talk of but to Bellator, then he was going to make the big announcement, and then

okay, we're going to Japan. Well, I think at least Spike TV's going to air the fight. I think they did something in conjunction with Spike TV for this event. So I believe, I don't want to, I'm just pretty sure, that it's in conjunction with Spike TV.

Okay. The Fedor. But who the fuck is he going to fight? There's no one out there. Unless Randy Couture comes out of retirement. Yeah. And Randy's 50-whatever years old. And you're going to need a strong undercard to support it as well. And everybody signed.

Everyone signed with either Bellator or UFC. It's crazy. Or World Series of Fighting. Between those three shows, they have everybody. Yeah. I mean, Bellator doesn't even really have a heavyweight champion. You never see their heavyweight champion fight. I mean, who the fuck is their heavyweight champion?

You know what I mean? It's like, I don't think the guy has fought. I don't think their heavyweight champion has fought in like two years or something crazy like that. It's a mess, man. It really is a mess. It's very unfortunate. I would like to see him fight a quality opponent if he's going to come back. Yeah, definitely.

Like the pro days, that would have been amazing. Yeah. Well, you know, they did it before. Why can't they do it again? You know? I mean, I think it's got to be. There's got to be some upstart, some young up-and-coming fighters out there all over the world that are very talented. It's a matter of having a quality talent scout who really is deep in the game, who understands fighting,

who can go out there and recruit those guys at a young age and then have... Well, the Japanese also, there's another angle that must be considered, is that the Japanese became big, the organizations, by having pro wrestlers fight in MMA matches like Takada. When Takada fought Hicks and Gracie, Hicks and Gracie was the man in the fucking Brazilian jiu-jitsu world, right? And he was the man in the Gracie world. Like when Hoist Gracie was winning the UFC, he always said, listen, my brother's 10 times better than me.

And he always said that. And then his brother goes and fights for Japan Valley Tudor and becomes a superstar in Japan. And then his brother, people don't know, Hickson fought in the very first Pride. Hickson fought Takada. And so when Hickson was fighting in Japan, Hickson was a superstar. Takada was a pro wrestling superstar. And that's what made Pride take off. And then, obviously, they were doing these gigantic arenas, Saitama Super Arena, and these huge fucking venues and New Year's Eve shows. And they have to figure out how to rebuild that.

But I don't even think pro wrestling is where it's at anymore in Japan. I think Japan, they get fickle. These young kids, they dress like Elvis, they dye their hair purple, and then next year, you know, they become accountants. And, you know, that's the new thing. They have, like, these weird fads they get into. What's the gentleman? Genki Sudo.

Yeah. He turned into the singer, rock star, robot dancing. Yeah. Exactly like you were saying. One day he had MMA, Muay Thai. Well, he was MMA as well. Yeah. He was everything. robot dancing yeah exactly like you're saying what one day here MMA super saw my toy yeah well he's MMA as well he's yeah he was everything very good grab one MMA and all of a sudden he's doing yeah Rockstar yeah he's a character he's the man he was he was a what can't he do that but that was awesome

well he's also butter bean in MMA he thought he got him in the butter bean yeah heavyweight boxer. He did the jumping back kick off the top rope and then got him in a heel hook, I believe. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, that was nuts. And he was outweighed by like, fuck, man. That's crazy. At least 150 pounds, right?

Yeah. Butterbean's got to be 300 pounds. Yeah, yeah. Plus. Madness. Pure madness. And then I don't know how the promoter can say, they go, oh, I got a good match. What it was so how do you

even justify putting that on and then sitting back and going this is going to be awesome well they put on a lot of freak shows in Japan

a lot of freak shows that was one of the other things they did to attract attention they had guys that were fighting guys way smaller than them

you know like oh the Thai remember the Thai kid Mighty Mo and he fought uh fuck what's his name uh calcly yes calcly calcly did the jumping jumping right now kick to the head and then and then brought the leg back and hit him with the heel on the way down yeah i think he was outweighed by at least 70 kilos.

At least. At least. Mighty Mo was a bomber, too. That was like you were going to see someone get killed. Yeah. I thought Mighty Mo was going to put him into his grip. Kankai would fight with his hands down, too. Yeah. Almost like a Taekwondo fighter.

He was crazy. And then he was fighting them regularly. He fought Hong Man Choi from Korea. Yes, he did. That's right. The seven-foot-two blue- monster and then uh and then should have beaten him too but they wanted to create him then they tried to build hong man choy up so he'd become the next k-1 star but in theory if you watch the fight um calcola should have won that one yeah a 70 76 kilo five foot 10 tie versus seven foot two korean beast beast and then landed a head kick too.

You see one of the photos where his legs completely vertigo. Completely split, yeah. What happened at K1 Max? They had some wild fights over there. Remember when Masato was over there? I was on K1 for two years. And cool Vince Phillips came over,

the former boxing champion, and fought Masato in a kickboxing fight. He got his legs destroyed. He um the handsome MMA guy as well he fights for UFC also what's his name can you please tell me his name handsome sexy Yama Oh what sexy I'm a really so what happens Phillips did yeah how does Vince was it Vince he fought one of the boxers from America. So he's come over. He fought MMA, huh?

He fought MMA for the first time. And then we were catching a lift together in the hotel. And I asked him, I said, oh, I say, what's your game plan? Have you been doing much MMA? And he goes, I'm just going to treat it like a street fight. I'm just going to punch that motherfucker in the face. And once he realizes my power, and it's like, oh. That always works yeah it's like i gave him a tap on the shoulder it's like oh good luck with that and then and then and then after the fight we caught the same lift back to

the room and those motherfucking japanese set me up man they knew they knew damn right i had no chance in hell in that fight that's like what did you expect of course you're gonna get and then the funny thing was, he was talking a whole lot of shit at the press conference. Oh, Francois Botha. Not Botha, no. No, he fought Botha, though. He submitted him, and Botha was a

former boxing champion who fought K-1, right? He came from, he was an American boxer from, I believe it was Texas. He fought Tixiama, I believe it was Texas. He fought Tixie Yama, I think it was 2005. I don't know who the fuck it was. Yeah. So anyway, he had the press conference, he was talking all this stuff.

So during the fight, there were so many times that the American boxer was giving his arm, and then he just pushed the arm out of the way and just ran down punches more and more and more. He wanted to punish him instead of tapping him out. Oh, really? It was quite crazy. I don't know who the fuck it was. I'm looking at his record, and I don't see anybody in there that I recognize as a...

As a boxer? Michael Lerma? I don't know who that is. Yeah, it was like a special... Because it was K-1 card as well. It was K1 Max card. And they threw in an MMA fight there just for shits and giggles. K1 Max.

It was Michael Lerma. I don't know who that dude is, though. I don't know. Let me Google him real quick. Is there an American flag beside it? Yep. Yeah, he's a boxer. Yep.

Visit page. K1. Yeah, that's who it was. That's who it was. Iron Horse Boxing Club. Yep, that's him it was. That's who it was. Iron Horse Boxing Club. Yep, that's him. I'm just going to kick his ass, bro. I'm just going to kick his ass.

Yeah, that shit doesn't really work. And then they do it all the time. Also, they had a Japanese boxer versus Masato as well, and the same deal as well. He didn't learn how to check And Masato just went in there And just destroyed his legs Masato was an excellent fighter Yeah Masato He was very very good

He's He's He was the man that Every single person Wanted to fight Because he was the one That was rocking up to the Wayans in a Ferrari

He was the Conor McGregor Of MMA Back Of K1 sorry But he wasn't talking Was he talking shit? He didn't have to Right

He was doing all He was actually silent He was like this You mean Conor McGregor May back of K1 sorry but he wasn't talking was he talking shit he didn't have to right he was doing all he he was actually silent he was like this you mean Conor McGregor mean they was stylish nice clothes on suits he was doing the Rolex commercials and he was driving like the Ferraris and he was he had the hairstyle where he had the blonde tips and every single girl, every single 40,000-seat arena. Hi. And all dressed pretty much. And then the little golf clubs when they come out, just the pure excitement of just being in the same room as him.

He was a beautiful man. He was. He retired young too. Yeah. And then once he retired, K1 collapsed probably a year later because they didn't have the star anymore. Without that one fighter, he was the pinnacle. And I wanted to fight him. And then every single person wanted to fight him because if you beat him, that was going to launch you to the stratosphere of just becoming an overnight phenomenon.

He fought Borkca, right? Yes, the same year that I fought Borca. I fought Borca first in the first fight, and then it was Masato-Borca final. And then Borca should have won after three. They called it a draw, and Masato's eyes closed. He had a limp. I think he started urinating blood the next day and they called it an extension. And that was a draw one more round.

And Masato's looked at Borkow's going, Oh no, this isn't going to be good. So then, um, Borkow's gone out there and done the business for another three minutes. And then they've awarded the, the,

the KOMX title to, um, Borkow. But, um, then the next day you heard, yeah, Masato wasn't healthy.

Yeah. They should have stopped it but because he was Japanese they wanted wow they wanted to give him a chance to win yeah

wow yeah that's not good and a guy like that it's interesting that he never came back but Masato ended up winning

the K1 Max twice so to his credit he'll be undeniably the greatest because in the heavyweights, they had... What was the heavyweight champion's name? Not champion, the heavyweight.

Musashi. Musashi? Musashi, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And he never sort of excelled to their level where Masato did. So for Masato to win the K-1 against uh legit uh world killers um yeah he's uh well he was a real world championship caliber kickboxer and really probably the only japanese that fought at that level i think if it wasn't for k if it wasn't for masato there would have

been no k1 max yeah he was he was the kid that shined that said yep we need to make a 70 kilo division because um this kid's gonna take us all away and put us on the world stage as legitimate as a country. But it's unique in combat sports that he decided to stay retired. Yes. You know, and I wonder what that was. It was just probably the punishment from some of those fights just got to a point where... Yeah, money, fame.

I think he got to the stage where he'd already conquered the sport and there was nowhere for him to go anymore he'd already done everything and had money in the bank and then I think you get to the stage where you don't want to wake up at 6 in the morning anymore, you don't want to have to put ice on your knees and your shoulders after every session

so yeah everybody that fights in MMA or kickboxing there's always that one person in every sport that has that life whether it's ronda rousey in women's mma you know and then the other girls are looking at her and they you know they're they're struggling or whether it's masato or whether it's conor mcgregor there's like this one person. Yes. There's a few outliers that sort of figure it out. Yeah. And then Holly Holmes even come out and said, I want what Ronda has.

I wanted what Masato had. Yeah. I would love the… Ferrari. Doing the… I remember one commercial. He's in a Ferrari. He pulls up.

You see that pull up and the door opens like a spaceship. And then they focus in on his Rolex watch. And it's like, damn. And he's in a suit and he's looking stylish and he's got, yeah, he's got just the king. It's like, oh, look at this guy. This is, what a hero. And because you're both playing the same game, it's like,

how come I can't be him? I'd love to be him. That'd be so cool. Did the guys in K1, the heavyweight division K1, did those guys make good money? well they had an 8 man tournament once a year and when it was at its peak they had the Tokyo Dome

90,000 people and it would sell out in 2 hours and then you'd have to fight 3 times in approximately 3 hours and the grand prize was 500,000 US do you know how much profit they must have made? in approximately three hours, and the grand prize was 500,000 US. Do you know how much profit they must have made?

If you have 90,000 people in an arena, and you're selling those, just think about it, even if it's only 10 bucks, that is a fuckload of money. That is a goddamn fuckload of money, and you're only paying out 500 grand to the winner, and you have pay-per-view. And Mr. Ish, he might have forgot to pay taxes

for a few years in a row. So then he had to do, I think he believed he had to do a little bit of... Time? No, he got... Home detention.

Oh, that's it? Home detention for a few years. Oh, that's great. Just get pizza delivered on TV. It's better than jail, man. But yeah,

and then the other gentleman took over K1 and that's when the sideshow started happening. That's when the bobsap started coming in. The Hongman Choi started coming in.

Oh, is that what happened? Yes. Oh, wow. So she had this platform where everything was 90,000 people and then everything was perfect and then it sort of started declining from that moment on that's too bad because in the glory days of k1 you know back in the Ernesto who stays Peter

hurts and yes God Mike Bernardo it's like those fights were so technical so high level so great Jerome LeBanner I mean, oh my God. We had Sam Greco that was fighting for Australia. So he was the Australian hero. And then, yeah. Sammy Schilt. Yes. Oh, but this was before the Schilt era. Yeah, it was before.

Yeah, this is the golden era. Maurice Smith. And then just seeing there'd be those eight guys that would just keep knocking each other out year after year after year for about 10 years in a row. And as a teenager, there was just someone would get a VHS of the latest Grand Prix and then you'd sit there and you'd watch it and it'd be so, yeah, you couldn't move. Yeah, all the boys would sit around with the popcorn.

Remember Andy Hug? Andy Hug was an undersized guy. Andy Hug. Remember those days? Yeah. The spinning heel kicks to the thighs. Yeah. Wheel kick to the thigh.

Yes. Nobody was doing that, man. No one was doing that. Yeah. Well, he was a Kyokushin, right? He was Kyokushin, yes. Yeah. Same as Sam Greco.

Threw a lot of wild kicks. Sammy Schilt, Sam Greco, Andy Hug, they all had that Kyokushin, yeah, just that mentality of walk forward forward throw leg kicks but andy hook was only like 5 10 or something like that right he wasn't a big guy and he had to put on a lot of muscle yeah in order to fight those heavyweights very undersized when you see him fight yes a lot of those guys in that division and um it would yeah today i'd knock you out and then a month later i'd knock them out and then how crazy is that they fought like that yeah everyone would fight each other

six, seven, eight times and it'd be a 50-50 split who was ever on that day was going to win and whoever didn't get knocked out in training whoever who got knocked out

like the furthest amount of time from that tournament yes because those guys were destroying their chins yes if you think about it

I mean how could you get knocked out and then get knocked out again a month later that's fucking crazy uh the mark hunts remember back when he was uh him and ray sefu standing toe-to-toe oh yeah dropping their hands letting he's taking taking pot shots at each other's chin and just standing there and smiling and then another rally it was uh yeah that's the sort of stuff that i made legends and that was when merco merco cro-cop start first started fighting K-1. He was so skinny. Yes.

Remember how thin he was? Yes, yes, yes. I guess he wasn't lifting weights or anything back then, maybe. Or just wasn't as much. He had to put on weight as well. Poor old Jerome Labanna was always the bridesmaid. Yes. Always doing the business.

And then when it always came to the ape eight man he'd never quite successfully get close. Get close. You remember when he almost won but he broke his arm against Hoost? Ooh. Shattered his forearm?

Yep. Fuck, man. Those were some amazing, amazing fights. And again, that's something that a lot of Americans just never experienced.

Yeah. It didn't air over here. Before the UFC era came that was the pinnacle. That was the combat. That was combat air over here. Before the UFC era came, that was the pinnacle. That was combat sports, pretty much. It was before the UFC because it was before Pride. It was before the UFC.

That was the big martial arts event was the K-1 Grand Prix. When you'd win, you'd get that big trophy and the fucking confetti would come from the sky and the giant check. You remember that shit? Remember the giant checks? Yes.

Where'd the giant checks go? I got a giant check. I would like to see a giant check come back. I got a million baht giant check. Oh, wow. I got it from my gym, which I'm quite proud of. From Thailand? From Thailand.

Wow. A million baht. It looks good. Yeah, it looks good. All those zeros. Someone says, how much is it? Nah, don't ask. That doesn't matter.

It's not about money. Look at all those zeros. Who cares how much it no don't ask that doesn't matter it's not about money look at all those zeros who cares how much is worth and it's in thai so you're missing the point son it's not about money it's about giant checks yeah so back in the yeah k1 was cool is a but you think of k1 the only paying out 500 grand to the winner yes fuck man that's a lot of money they're making at 90 000 seats yes so so i don't know i don't know what's 90 000 times 10 is that 9 million 90 million no no no just add a zero oh right okay so it's more than 10 for the gate though like what's the gate it's usually i don't know probably 20 30 40 bucks a ticket plus concessions and parking and all that extra right so 90 000 times 10 is only 900 000 but it's way more than 10 bucks a ticket right yeah it's probably 100 which is a nine million

dollar gate but then ringside is probably way more than 100 bucks like ring ringside at ufc could be as much as like 500 bucks maybe even even more, right? Oh, for sure. Like a big boxing match, I know that a lot of it's like scalpers too, right? You never know. Well, MGM, I paid to watch Joyce and Bear vs. Hendrix. I paid $500 and I was up in the bleachers. My nose actually bled. That's how high up I was.

Your nose actually bled? Yeah. I have a feeling that was because you probably got punched in that nose fairly recently. I bet if my nose was up there, it wouldn't have bled. The oxygen levels were so low that I started getting dizzy. That's ridiculous. I had to duck under a plane. The nose bleed.

Who the fuck gets a nose bleed on a mountain? Is that shit real? Do you get nose bleeds when you go to a mountain? I don't get nose bleeds. You get a nose bleed on a plane? No. Yes. Pressure. Right. Cabin. cabin right that makes sense yeah but i've never heard anybody get a nosebleed in

the nose when you when you jump out of a plane you don't get nosebleeds really when you parachute maybe you bro not me bro well you didn't know me then man i would have hooked you up with better seats that's ridiculous see that was such an important fight. You wanted to be close. Well, I think I told you last time the lady bought me my ticket for free to go and be part of the – because I wasn't going to go at all. And then, yeah, the lady bought me my ticket. But then I bought the ticket to watch the fight.

So, yeah. But anyway, it was – Fights are so interesting live because you get this energy from being there in that arena. You can't reproduce it watching it at home and i don't i don't think people that see it at home will ever truly know what it's like to see a live fight because also there's something that gets like i remember the first time i went to see a boxing match i remember thinking like oh there's no commentary this is weird like there's something that sterilizes it a little bit about hearing

jim lampley here abc wide world of sports or whatever the fuck it was back in the day when I was watching boxing. And then to go see a boxing match live, you're like, oh, there's no one talking. You know, you're just hearing thump, thump, thump, thump, bang. You know, you're seeing someone like I was there when Mickey Wark, Mickey Rourke, Mickey Ward rather, confusing people. Mickey Ward, rather. Confusing people. Mickey Ward was coming up in Lowell, Massachusetts before he ever had those crazy fights, a series of fights with Oturo Gotti.

I saw him fight when he was a really young professional, and we saw him fight in Lowell. Me and my buddy Jimmy Lawless went to see him fight live. It was just like being there in a small arena with a local hometown guy and see a local boxing match and hear the slap of leather on faces and bodies. It's such a different experience than watching it on television, which is so much more, it seems like it's not really happening.

Even if it's happening, even if it's brutal, you're not there. Same with our local promotion that I'm doing now with my wife, with the CMT. CMT meaning caged Muay Thai. So you actually feel the fight while you're in the room. Not only watching it, but you're flinching as someone gets hit. Your hairs are up on your body and back of your neck you know you got goosebumps you can't not look away from the cage because at any given second someone's going to get knocked out so but you don't have that when you're watching on tv

you're looking at your phone you're looking up you're looking down but while you're there live um yeah you can you feel the atmosphere you can smell the atmosphere you can smell the tile you can yeah it's just it's a different beast when you're um when you're present the tie oil oh that like uh the liniment yeah what does that shit do is that shit do anything yeah it warms you up it's nice and warm so you massage into the skin so that you're nice and loose so when you're shadowboxing your body's on fire so you feel uh instead of skipping for 10 minutes, you put the tile on, you rub it in, and then you're already warm.

My friend who's a doctor told me, listen, man, if that shit did anything, it would get into your muscles itself, and you'd be poisoned. Really? I go, really? He goes, yeah. It's called a topical analgesic. It heats up your skin. It doesn't do a damn thing.

Yeah, if you- I went, really? If you got a light sweat and you put that stuff on, you're on fire. You're going to try and put yourself under on fire you're gonna try and put yourself under a hose okay but let me ask you this if that's the case how can you put that stuff on your skin and then you're clinching and if you're clinching that stuff can get in someone's eyes no maybe it does yeah it does but but you're massaging in um 15 minutes before you walk right so if you're grabbing and you're fighting for the plum, right,

and you've got that shit on your forearms and it's got a turning away and it gets in his eyes, does that happen to you? By the time you get onto the ring, yeah, it's absorbed. I don't know about all that. That's why you can't use it in the UFC. UFC in the early days, man, dudes, which is grease. Yeah, and we can put Vaseline all over our bodies as well, between the liniment and the Vaseline all over.

So, yeah, you come out and you're shining and you're glossy. Oh, yeah, I see. And then we catch in the kicks and you can pull out of the catches. Oh, right. The only thing is if you're the last fight of the night, so if you keep someone in the stomach and then you put your foot on the canvas. You get oil on the canvas. By the time you're the last fight, the canvas is just a ice skating rink it's terrible and then and if you've

got logos on the canvas as well between the vaseline and the stickers and then yeah it's it's a complete nightmare well that's a that was a nightmare in mma for a while that they would have all these ads on the octagon and they would spray these ads down with you know spray paint essentially or like um like an iron-on and it would be it wouldn't absorb like canvas like can't for people who don't know canvas when you get it wet actually you get more traction it's actually kind of nice which is why when you watch mma fights sometimes you see guys pour water on the ground and then they'll move their feet on the water because maybe their skin is dry And they want to get their skin nice and moist and it actually give you like a little traction a dry canvas

Sometimes can be slippery especially a fresh canvas. Yes, but those fucking logos are the worst Those things are terrible. There's stickers and not painting on Yes, if they're stickers that vinyl because it doesn't absorb any moisture So the moisture sits on if you step on it whip and then you're scared to throw a kick so for a kicker who doesn't want to go to the ground oh it's a nightmare it's a mess then you're you're one of your biggest weapons has been removed yeah it's it's good if you've got a lazy eye because then you can watch one canvas and then watch your opponent the same he's joking you can't do that if you have a lazy eye right what the fuck do you have to pick which eye you look through

I used to have a girlfriend that had a lazy eye Oh how dare you a joke's coming I had to get rid of her because she was seeing other people I knew that joke And you fucking got me with it anyway Son of a bitch How dare you I knew that one coming

I knew that joke but I knew First all, I knew a joke was coming because you had a, here's a joke coming, look in your face. And I heard that one, but I forgot it. Fucking marijuana. That's what it is. I forgot. The long-term memory got me. Damn.

So I've got to try and keep my brain intact so I can try and be funny like you. So that's why I want another thing on longevity in this sport. Well, your brain's amazingly intact for 120 fights. That's incredible. You tell most people, what's a guy going to be like 39 years old, he has 120 fights. Oh, a fucking guy can't even wipe his own ass. You've got to hire people to do that.

Look at you. You're fine. Yeah. But do you think that that is just because of all that sparring as well, that very technical, what we call playing, that that is just because of all that sparring as well that that you know very technical what you we call playing where you're just tapping each other not hard you know Ramon Decker Dutch style fighting in the gym every day but instead just like working on technique work it well I've heard different

different theories with with boxers for instance boxers will spar for twice a week, three times a week, leading up to a fight for 10 weeks. And then their brain damage is caused from the sparring, not the actual fight, but the actual preparation, and then times that by 30, 40 fights. Well, how many fighters have more than 40 fights in boxing? So, I don't know. I've been hit with a lot of hard shots where a lot of people say,

how come a normal person would be knocked out and you didn't? I guess it's just luck. I have nothing but... Luck that you have a good chin. Yeah, lucky that it's not gone yet. Yeah, good chin is really for, you know... Cosmo whacked me hard. Yeah, he certainly did.

He didn't miss. He got me multiple times. That flying knee man That one flying knee Was it the second round That he caught you with that I don't remember what round it was Second or third round

He hit you with a flying knee But You know Never had you hurt Never had you down Never had you wobbly Yeah The cuts hurt

But at the same time There wasn't one point In the fight Where I thought Oh I can't go on It's like no no Every time he hit me hard It was more more so I've got to get it back. There's a difference between the phrase, had you hurt, and something hurt.

Like people listen to that and they go, well, of course he got hurt. He got hit. You already said he had all these stitches. When someone says in the fighting world he was hurt. It means his body's not functioning right. You got whacked and all of a sudden you see your legs go rubber or you see a guy cover up maybe to a liver shot and you realize he's hurt. I was never winded or never at a point where I thought,

if I get hit one more time I'm going to go down. There was no point whatsoever during the fight. I was getting hit but at the same time there was never another moment where I thought, I can't not win this fight until the bell rang. And then it's like, okay, now I'm out of time. When you watched the fight in the replay, did that fourth round incident where you cracked him with that punch and he started cleaning his feet, did that drive you fucking nuts?

I haven't watched the fight yet. I'm so disappointed in myself. You're going to be very angry when you watch that fourth round. Build the courage up to watch it because I'm still trying to get over it. It's heartbreaking when you lose, man. It sucks. I can only imagine you preparing like that. You've invested that 10 weeks and then all you want.

I can taste it. I want it. I can feel the belt around my waist. Then when the decision comes and they raise the opposition's hand it's just it's so heartbreaking and then and then look at people's faces that um believed in you as well like hans with um uh he came on board with monster just before this fight come up so yeah again i've got to thank them for coming on the board as well but master energy drinks yeah monster like for them to sponsor a muay thai guy it's great it's like i want to i

want to win to be for them to be proud to have their logo on my shorts and then when you lose i gotta look at hans in the face and think fuck man i'm i'm sorry i let you down oh listen man you didn't let anybody down you fought a great fight against a world-class fighter i mean cosmo alexander is a bad motherfucker yeah you know you fought a great fight but you know you know what i mean it's it's it's yeah so many people and then and then my little girl she's 12 years old she's sitting front row and then my wife said oh yeah she was in tears because when dad she used to see and dad winning so when dad's not only did he lose but he's cut up and he's limping and he's broken it's um it

sucks yeah but it doesn't diminish your enthusiasm for wanting to compete. I'm fighting Cyrus on the 5th of December so once my foot's healed I'll get back to Australia, I'll get back on the roads, get back on the pads and now I'm more determined to make up for this loss. I want to make sure

that I'm not only going to beat Cyrus but I have to go out there and destroy him to get back my credibility as one of the top guys. Are you still fighting that black dynamite dude? Yes. Yes. Soros.

That's his name. Soros. What is his full name? Soros Washington. Soros. Cyrus. Yeah. Cyrus.

Okay. That's where I got confused. Yeah. You were saying Soros. I was saying S-O-R-O-S. Yeah. I was like, who the fuck is that? Yeah.

But Cyrus, it's a goddamn Australian accent. that? But Cyrus, it's a Australian accent. Cyrus Washington is a, he's a wild dude. Who has the accent? If you were in my country, you'd have the accent. Good point. I'll be in your country soon.

I'll be in your country next month. Yeah. So, yeah. So Cyrus, in the cage, in the cage, MMA gloves,

Muay Thai rules. But he's a killer too. He's another killer. He's exactly like the gentleman you're saying from Glory with the Daniel, with the spinny kicks and the hook kicks and the crazy style. But he's more adapted to Muay Thai than Cyrus has. He's a wild guy to watch, man. He does a lot of crazy shit.

A lot of spinning back kicks, the body, wheel kicks. I saw a highlight reel of his on Facebook the other day. And the amount of people that watched it, I'm just like, what are you doing fighting this guy for? Because he's good. Why do I want to fight him? Because he's awesome. He's going to bring such an entertaining fight for the Australian crowd that they're going to be crazy if they don't come along and watch it. Because this is going to be madness.

Yeah, he's an interesting guy. And he's a black belt in Taekwondo as well as being very proficient at Muay Thai at a world-class level. And combining those two things together is very interesting. He's doing the bare-knuckle boxing now as well. He's fighting with headbutts.

Bare-knuckle boxing with headbutts. Where's he doing that? Either Cambodia or Burma. What happens when you get hurt and you gotta go to the hospital in Cambodia?

Do they just give you your own chicken? Do your own voodoo? They give you a ball of yarn and a fish hook? Stitch yourself together, bitch.

We're done. Oh, fuck, man. Yeah, so hopefully he doesn't have his natural instinct to try and headbutt me in the clinch. Yeah, no kidding, right? So, yeah.

But how many fights does he do like that? From his Facebook record that I shared when the match first got made, he was like 70 with 50 wins, 47 knockouts. Jesus Christ. But I believe he's had a few more fights than that. He said, oh, that's actually my older record. It's actually this now.

But when I got off his Facebook, and then people going, what? You're 39. You're not in your prime anymore. Why would you fight someone so dangerous for us? Because I want to give the Australian public and the fans fights that you're going to not want to miss. When people say that you're not on your prime though you still fight like you're in your prime i feel like i'm in the prime you're not fighting like like when i watched you fight i'm watching you fight cosmo who's a big strong guy

and you're not fighting like a guy who's over the hill you're fighting like a cautious smart veteran who's facing a very dangerous, fast guy. Yeah. And you fought very well. It wasn't like a fight like, oh, man, this guy's lost a step. It wasn't like that, man. Yeah. You know, I'm an honest dude. If I see someone losing a step, it makes me very concerned because that trying to pretend that that didn't happen is super dangerous.

Yeah. I don't see that with you. The only time that I feel old is when someone asks me. Because in the gym, I feel like I'm still 25. But when someone says, how old are you? And then when I hear that word leave my lips and I say 39, it's like, fuck. Do you attribute that to consistency? Or I mean, you're very clean with your diet. Like, what is it?

I don't know. I don't know. What's your diet like? It's okay. My wife's half Mexican American so she cooks me

a lot of tacos and shit lots of tacos lots of tacos and lots of Thai food lots of Asian lots of Japanese we

do you avoid anything like do you avoid sugar or alcohol or opium heroin those are bad things try to stay away from those

those are good to stay away from especially right before a fight. Try. I try. Well, they're very compelling, I hear. No, but no, I eat hamburgers. I can't say that I'm a saint.

I'm definitely, but I don't drink. I'm lucky to have five beers a year, so I stay off the alcohol. That'll help. That'll help a lot. That adds longevity. Do you get hopeful when you see a guy like bernard hopkins fucking 50 years old yes i do he's uh probably that guy and then also uh like you were saying before uh randy couture he's also a gentleman that that says proving that you can still fight with the guys that are uh in their

late 20s early early 30s. Yeah, he won at a world championship level deep into his 40s. Yeah, and then, again, another gentleman that can put a conversation together that's had all these fights. And Bernard Hopkins, again, it's just... Randy's completely lucid. When you're talking to him, he's articulate. He's a gentleman. Entrepreneur.

Yeah. He's not silly. He's making money from different avenues. I saw him hitting the pads the other day. He was working out with Jay Glazer.

He's a guy who does the NFL for Fox and Jay was holding the pads for him and Randy was hitting him. I was like, I wonder what the fuck he's doing.

I wonder if he sees Fedor and he's like, you know, listen man, I'll fucking take that one big fight because shit, he could probably make a shitload of money's like, you know, listen, man, I'll fucking take that one big fight. Because, shit, he could probably make a shitload of money.

Even Shane Mosley, Shane Mosley. But Randy might still be under contract. He might, like, still have, like, some UFC contract thing going on. Didn't Dana expel him from UFC where he's not allowed to enter the arenas anymore or something? I don't know. That's sad to me. How do you do that? That guy could do whatever the fuck he wants if i'm running the ufc you're randy couture go go fight your mom i don't give a shit you always get ringside seats you know that's captain america i don't know but if he did come back it would be weird because weird because he's been off for a long time. And the last time he fought, I believe, was in Toronto at the Rogers Arena. And he got jumping front kicked in the face by Lyoto Machida and he got knocked out.

Machida. That was the famous Steven Seagal. That was the first time that anyone has ever won by a front kick to the face in Steven Seagal. Invented it. Well, jumping front kick to the face. Anderson had won by a front kick to the face before when Seagal invented it. Well, jumping front kick to the face. Jumping front kick. Anderson had won by a front kick to the face before when he fought Vitor. Oh, I apologize.

That was the Steven Seagal. Have you ever tried a jumping front kick to the face in a Muay Thai fight? Jumping front kick? No, but I landed a front... I used to try and land one front kick to the face every fight as a trademark thing

back when I was in my early... Really? Yeah, that was my thing to try and land one. Actually, my wife, she was known as... Hang on, hang on, hang on. What is it? So her Thai name translated

was the beautiful face... The beautiful front kick face... The beautiful... The beautiful front kick kick face the beautiful beautiful front kick face uh face tipa i bet it sounds cooler in thai how do you say it in thai wow so her thing was um so much better than beautiful front kick facer. And then she broke a couple of girls' noses with the heel striking to the nose. And yeah, she's awesome. My wife's really amazing when it comes to fighting.

It's interesting because the ties use the teep to the face, almost like the flat part of the foot more, and almost like a push kick. Yes. You know, like to push you back more. Very rarely would you see someone get actually knocked out from a, you could see their head get snapped, but you wouldn't see actually get knocked out. Yeah, they don't throw it like a karate style front kick. No. Like I say, like a semi-shult always used to throw it to the body.

Yes. He would throw it like a thrust kick, a different style of kicking. Yes. I wonder why the Thais never threw it like that, because obviously when you watch Anderson versus Vitor, it's the same kick, it's just done with a slightly different style, and it's very effective. Yeah. It's weird.

It was nuts. And then for Machida to replicate that same kick not long later, I was like, damn, these things, that's pretty cool. And never see it again. I mean, you see guys attempt it, but there's not been a single knockout. And Justin Buchholz got a knockout, I think, in Ring of Fire. I think that's where he fought, which is Sven Bean's organization in Colorado. I think that's where Justin, he's one of the alpha male, Uriah Faber's camp,

one of the trainers there, one of the fighters. I think he has a fight this weekend. He might have fought this weekend. But you very rarely see guys knock guys out with it these days. It was those two fights, Justin's fight, and I can't remember another knockout since in the UFC. People try it, but it hasn't been utilized as effectively. What do you got there for me?

There we go. There you are. John Wayne Parr, Cosmo Alexander. Bam. T. Front kick to the face. Hey. What is that, that thing that they always do when people throw kicks?

They go, hey. In Australia, we call that a high five to the face with your foot. Oh, okay. That's a little awkward. You should try to make something a little more eloquent. Come up with a better name. Monster must like that, though. You highlighted the M on your shorts.

It's perfect. That's a perfect picture for the wall. I was quite happy that Cosmo was kind enough to stand there for me for the photo shoot to let me execute the front kick to that one. Very nice of him. What a gentleman he is. What a gentleman he is. I'll have to upload that one to Instagram later on so everyone can check it out.

So your fight for Cage Muay Thai, you guys are using the small gloves and using the Muay Thai gloves. Are you the only organization that has full striking with Muay Thai rules but with MMA gloves? I believe so.

And then a gentleman, Martin Hogan in Ireland, he's seen my promotion, then he's started it as well. And then he's done three shows so far in Ireland. And his last show, Conor McGregor and what's the other gentleman from Iceland that fights? Gunnar Nelson? Gunnar. Gunnar was there as well

and they were both in the crowd and I think they were both blown away by the adrenaline of the cage because it's so exciting and it's so fast and there's no ground and then if there's no action on the fence within five seconds it's broken up

so it's just continuous violence. Do you like the breaking it up though with the clinch? Because in Muay Thai, in real Muay Thai, they don't break it up. If the clinch because in muay thai you know in real muay thai they don't break it up uh if there's no action so if you're throwing knees and it becomes a stalemate within five two or three seconds if there's no action they break it straight away only if there's no action whereas in mma you can press someone against the phrase and just hold on to them and hold hold hold well the uf the UFC usually will stop it and separate you. Eventually.

I honestly believe that, especially in MMA, since grappling is such an integral part of mixed martial arts, I don't think they should ever break things up. I think if a guy's got you down and he's just holding you down, that's tough shit. You've got to figure out how to get up. I don't think it should score very well for the guy on top, but I don't believe in stand-ups because I feel like,

especially for a striker, right, you have five minutes and every round starts standing up. Every round starts with your advantage. No round starts on the ground. You never start where, like, okay, this round, John, you're on top. You start on top because he was like, no, but every round starts standing up, and that's the advantage of the striker.

The grappler has to figure out how to get a hold of him, how to get him to ground i think once you've done that it's the guy on the grounds business try to get back up oh that's fucking boring you're gay you like we're fucking guys bro i'm just saying there's only five minutes okay and for grappling five minutes is not that long you if you if you say if you were grappling with another guy who was also at your level in grappling and you guys were tangling for five minutes, you're both at the same level, there's going to be a lot of stalemates and it takes little incremental

improvements and advances for you to get to a position where you finally get to a mount or you finally get an arm bar or you finally get a choke. It's hard to do. And you can't do it if you keep standing people up when they stalemate. Yeah. Because stalemate's a part of grappling. It's your job to figure out, if you're on the bottom, how to get up or how to submit

them from your back. It's the guy's job on the top to hold you down and to figure out how to get you in a better position and to dominate you and to figure out how to submit you. Yeah. But it's not enough time. Five minutes is not enough time. Yeah. The same when pressed against the fence when sometimes they're stuck there for more than

two minutes. When the guys get impatient, then they make mistakes. Yes. Like if a guy's pressing you up against the cage and he's kneeing your legs and he's hitting you with short elbows and you're just waiting for the referee to separate. If the referee doesn't separate, you might do something silly. You might make a mistake. And that's what they're trying to do.

Like Randy Couture was the master at that, at holding guys up against the cage. But they didn't separate him very often because he was constantly moving. He'd be constantly punching you, constantly kneeing your body, kneeing your legs. He was working you, and he was pushing on you and wearing you out. That was a big part of his strategy. I just feel like with MMA, they're trying really hard to make it more fan-friendly, and they're trying really hard to make the action more exciting to watch.

But I think in doing so, you water down the art a little bit, and there's an art with two guys trying to figure out what to do to each other to defend and to attack and figure out who can win. I don't know. That's just my feeling. But I think if you're going to have pure stand-up, just pure stand-up striking, I think what you're doing is the best way to do it. I think small gloves and I think doing it in a cage where you don't have to worry about guys falling through the ropes.

Yes. I've seen that in a lot of events, especially when guys start clinching and they get up against a rope and maybe their butt goes through two ropes and they slid back or maybe they're ducking away from a punch and they wind up falling out of the ropes. It happens too much. I've seen – I was at a local Muay Thai show in the ring, and they had two gentlemen, they were clinching away, and the other guys, they've fallen straight through the center,

and then they had the judges table right beside the ring, and they had all the trophies lined up, and it was those trophies where the angel was on top of the trophy with their hands clasped together, and it was like razors, and the guy's head uh missed the trophy by

by inches and it flopped onto the desk and if it had been a little bit to the left he would have pierced straight through his eye it would have been um why the fuck would they have sharp objects right next to the ring so what guys are throwing each other around that would have been horrific it was definitely sickening so i always make sure with our shows now, our trophies are under the table. That was a learning curve. Bernard Hopkins fell. Well, no, he didn't fall.

Didn't he fall over the ring once? Yeah, he fell out and broke his shoulder. Yeah. But in the cage, from a personal experience, I've had 118, 119 fights in the ring. But to be locked in that cage, not as a spectator, but as a fighter, it's such a different atmosphere

and a different arena. And it definitely brings out a completely different beast. And when you know your opponent's wearing those little gloves, yeah, every single sense in your body is tingling because you know if you make a mistake,

you're going to be um completely dominated or wiped out or uh not yeah knocked unconscious so what do you think about bare knuckle bare knuckle i haven't tried it and um i sounds very painful yeah and then and then because my hands too i think the idea of smacking someone in the forehead with bare knuckle wouldn't be healthy for my longevity so i like the idea with having hand wraps and having the small gloves and having the quick – because with my CMT gloves, it's half padding, half gel. And it's almost a six ounce instead of a four.

So it's not like a complete – it's still fingerless. Did you design them? I had them talk with a company in Australia to help design them, make them thicker because as a promoter, I didn't want to have someone dying on my show. So I made it a thicker padding because there's no taking down. There's no holding. It's just complete trauma for five rounds. Well, the argument is, I mean, I see what your point is.

But the argument is that, you know, you're saying you wouldn't want to break your hands on someone's forehead, the argument is that you could throw a shin kick with full power. So shin, which is much more powerful than a punch, shin to the head, right? Knee to the head, elbows to the head. Yes. Why do you allow someone to tape up their wrist and form an unnatural bond, right? And then tape up their hands and make it nice and hard so you can punch full blast. Whereas the reality is the hands should be used judiciously

because there's not a lot of room for error. If you do make a mistake and you punch full blast and you hit someone in the elbow, they cover up like that and you're knuckle slamming the elbow, you might shatter your hand. You might shatter your hand on their forehead.

You might shatter your hand a lot of different ways. And you have to be way more clean with your strikes and it makes it more realistic. And they think, a lot of people think that that would actually alleviate a lot of the brain damage. Okay. What do you think of that? Yeah, just my hands are all sort of, I've had a little bit of difficulties in the past with them. So it's nice. It's reassuring that when I have the hand wraps on that that's keeping my wrist into a nice firm place. So when I punch wrong, I'm not going to break my hand. And just having that cushioning over the top of the knuckles because the knuckles are so sensitive that I've broken them before. So I know if my hands are wrapped properly that I can hit

with full force and not have any repercussions does that argument make sense to you though? it does it does but I think there'd be more

open hand slaps like Bass Bass Rooten and Tom Crace yeah his style was pretty insane the idea

you definitely you wouldn't want to punch with a closed fist you'd definitely be wanting to to the body maybe you would right to high five someone's face with your palm.

But then you'd have a lot of eye pokes. That's a real issue with MMA. Yes. No, CMT. Do you have it? A few pokes as well. Yeah, man. I wish they figured something out to fix that.

Yeah. That's the only danger. What I'm doing with the CMT gloves is with the fingerless because a lot of people are saying, well, why are you doing it? There's so many problems with the UFC and the only danger. What I'm doing with the CMT gloves is with the fingerless because a lot of people are saying, well, why are you doing it? There's so many problems with the UFC and the pikes. Why do you want to bring that same element into what you're doing with the cage?

But at the same time, if you wear boxing gloves in the cage, it just looks so dumb. It does because you spend every single weekend watching UFC and then you're trying to get the same respect from the MMA fans for what you're doing with Muay Thai rules, and you've got these big pillows on, yet the UFC guys wearing the fingerless ones. Well, is it possible that you could do something that's not fingerless,

but that's also very light, that looks like a bag glove? But it's the visual. I think it's the visual that sells. And as a fighter as well, I know when I put them on, I feel like I'm a warrior. It's a weird thing to try and explain, but it's just I know that when I close my fists and then when I clinch, I know that I have my fingers and I can catch the kicks a lot easier and manipulate the guard so I can throw elbows easier as well. So it's a different element of fighting.

I've had so many fights with gloves and then you put these little things on and then the bell rings and then I feel free. Because when I'm training, I train for 10 weeks with no gloves. When I'm clinching, I train when I play spa with the kicks. And then when all of a sudden I'm restricted when I put boxing gloves on

and then I can't execute the same game plan when I'm training to when i'm fighting if it does that make sense you know it does make sense but why wouldn't you just train with the gloves yeah the the boxing gloves yeah uh yeah in in in the cage though in in the cage it's just um i see your point about it not looking right. I definitely see your point. Yeah. I want the MMA people to look at my promotion and say, yeah, fuck yeah, that's cool.

Right. Well, it's everything that they want out of MMA. Yes. Especially people that don't like the ground game. It's everything they want. They want wild, crazy stand-up strikers. I'm not going to get their respect if I wear boxing gloves. I need to make it the same environment with everything the same,

just eliminate the ground so those strikers have a platform to fight in that same arena. Because I get so many emails from people that want to fight on the show because they want to feel that rush of the cage. They want to feel that rush of MMA gloves. But there's no platform to do it besides mine. Yeah. It's an interesting sort of a transition it's like the gladiator days where you're fighting in the coliseum

don't they do that in thailand they do like one where they wrap the hands they are like big crazy hand wraps yes they're they're just out of that in the last few years also um thai fight is called uh the same deal with the the hand wraps as well. But it's in a ring still. It's in a ring, and they have big, giant hand wraps. They're not totally... Yeah. I've heard rumors that there may or may not be an MMA glove,

a similar sort of style, underneath. Or if it's a softer cotton, or it's not pure... Well, it's big. Yeah, it's big. Those are big hand wraps it's not like as simple as like the regular wrap that you would wear when you're boxing yeah and it's not a cage under a glove no it's not a cage you think the cage is a big selling element um i know when i walk into arena i see a ring it's like yeah yeah the fight's tonight you booty i'm excited i walk

into arena and i see a cage and it's like, oh, someone's going to get fucked up tonight. It's a different beast. You walk into that arena and it's a different animal. It's funny you say that because that was always like a thing that people thought was holding MMA back. Because MMA was in a cage and people didn't like the idea of cage fighting, in quotes, cage fighting. But look at it now. It's a billion dollar business. Well, UFC. UFC is not mma in general only ufc you know there was an article that was recently out

about the world series of fighting which has some really good fighters in it the world series of fighting you know there's some there's some super high level guys in in the world series of fighting you watch some real good fights and they're not making any money. They're losing money. They're on NBC Sports, and I don't know how much NBC Sports pays them, but there was some article in the Underground about them losing money and being in dire financial straits. And for me as a fan, I hate hearing that because I want guys to have options because when guys get cut from the UFC, a lot of times they'll go to World Series of Fighting,

one of these other organizations like Jake Shields or John Fitch, and they'll build up, win a few fights over there, and maybe they can come back to the UFC. A lot of times they'll go to World Series of Fighting, one of these other organizations like Jake Shields or John Fitch, and they'll build up, win a few fights over there, and maybe they can come back to the UFC. And I like hearing that. I want to see that. That's what happened to Arlovsky. Anthony Johnson. Anthony Johnson.

He fought Arlovsky in World Series of Fighting. Yes. I like that. That has to be available, and it can't be available if these guys aren't making any money. It's the same in Australia. I love UFC. i love it i'm there every single weekend i'm buying all the pay-per-views i'm watching all the replays i i love your commentary uh i love every single thing about it and then i go to a local mma show and i'm bored shitless uh they got two guys that

and then it's Australia too, because we don't wrestle. So within 10 seconds, they're both on the ground, and they don't have the skill set to stand back up, and they sort of get stuck for five minutes. But when you watch UFC, they're at such a high level

that it's like two worms. The next minute, they're up again, they're down. The jiu-jitsu is so crazy. The striking is so amazing. You've got the Saronis, and it's such a and then what i want to do with the cmt too i've heard dana white say in interviews if any um competition

promotion was it had any brains they'd steal everything that i'm doing in the ufc and try and replicate that for their own promotion because what we're doing is a winner formula so that's what i want to try and do with my show i'm trying to bring internationals in i'm trying to to create the every single aspect as much as i can similar but in the striking world so do you think that that's what you'd be your primary focus when you retire promoting and promoting like cage muay thai uh yeah my life is fighting whether i'm doing it or promoting it or teaching it or seminars or I have no other interest outside of fighting. That is all I do. And then that's my wife's life as well.

Between us, yeah, I don't know. I don't even know if there is a world outside of fighting. I hear there is. When you watch MMA and say you watch like UFC or high-level UFC, When you watch MMA, and say you watch UFC, high-level UFC, what is the one thing that you think that when you see striking, is there anything that bugs you? Is there things that you watch that you see people doing wrong or things you would like to see them improve upon? I enjoy warriors. I enjoy people that are willing to put it all on the line.

Even gentlemen such as Diego Sanchez. His striking, to me, isn't elite, but at the same time, he drops his hands, he calls his opponent on, he screams and he runs in. For me, that's excitement. It doesn't have to be technical or textbook, but to have that adrenaline dump of sitting there and watching him for a whole round just going crazy. He's nuts. For me, that's amazing. He's one of my all-time favorites for sure because of that. And then John Jones, again, like you were saying, different elements.

Elbow strikes, Gustafsson for another example. Everyone has their Anthony Johnson. He's a monster. He's boxing. You johnson again he's he's boxing you wouldn't say his textbook boxing but at the same time if he hits you you're out yeah i love that i love it that's why i love it because i'm on the edge of my seat every single that's what ufc is so good too you don't have to wait till the main event to watch the fights you can sit there from the prelims to the last fight and enjoy every single fight because you know that every single fight is going to be completely different to the last yeah with no question about that but as a world-class striker when you watch guys in the

ufc do you see holes in their their style or do when you watch mma doesn't even have to be ufc like just any mma but do you see like what do you think about the level when you're coming from a world championship muay thai fighters perspective what do you think about the level, coming from a world championship Muay Thai fighter's perspective, what do you think about the level of kickboxing in MMA? If it was pure kickboxing rules, yeah, it's a different kettle of fish. But it's entertaining. I watch it for the entertainment. I can't say it's good or bad because what they do works.

And also you have to consider the fact they're avoiding takedowns and things along those lines there's so many different elements and for me for me to say this is good this is bad um i would be disrespecting the sport so i'd rather i yeah it's in the day uh it's entertainment and that's why i invest my money every single weekend because i love it i think it's amazing and And I'm a Muay Thai guy. I love UFC. So, yeah. I just wish I was a young teenager that was starting out.

Learn some wrestling. I know which path I'd definitely go. You'd go down the MMA path? Yeah. Because it's so big? I want to be the Anthony Pettis on the Wheaties box. Right. I'd love to be the George St. Pierre driving around and living in a penthouse

and being in the NOS commercials and the Ronda Rousey. Do you plan on training MMA fighters? I mean, I know you work with George quite a bit. I've worked with him once for the two weeks. That was pretty cool. I work with a couple of gentlemen in Australia that are coming up. But if the opportunity arose and someone would like to shoot me an email, I'm happy to. Now, all those training sessions that you did with George over that two weeks, which fight was that for again?

Hendrix. Hendrix. His very last one. And what did you guys basically work on? Hendrix was a southpaw, so we're working on keeping everything basic and then lots of right-hand left hooks, lots of inside thigh kicks with the right leg for taking out that lead, southpaw leg, moving away from the power left hand because he's a monster.

And then every time we spar, I replicate Johnny's sparring style. So I throw lots of overhand lefts and just being that craziness exploding in. And then George was John Dennehy. After a week of having George on the pads, he was blowing away about how much power I was starting to get out of George's punches and kicks and then freestyling on the pads that he'd never done before and um yeah it was we had such a good time uh but then i came too late i came i came too early in the camp there was still 14 weeks between

our training session and the fight so by the time i went back to australia uh he he sort of went back to the old training regime. What was the difference between your training? I had the pleasure of working out with you, and one of the things that I found was really interesting is that even when you throw a jab, you're throwing a jab almost like a right hand. You're throwing a jab like you're pulling back with your right hand and fucking thrusting with your left hand. Yes.

Was that the style that you were? Yeah, I had George. When George was double jabbing before, and was that like the style that you were? I had George, George, when George was double jabbing before, it was a long jab, short jab, whereas I had him cocking that shoulder

for both jabs, so both of them were, and they'll make them big cracking noise, bam, bam. Yeah, yeah,

they were, the power. So you were trying to get him to be more aggressive with his power, is that what you were concentrating on? trying to execute,

yeah, a lot more power shots and just um keeping it simple so uh keeping it down to four or five different techniques against the southpaw because against the southpaw you can't do the crazy tricks you got to keep it basic but um smart so you don't want to run into that left power hand either and then i believe uh he fought the wrong fight against Johnny. He was moving into the hand instead of away from the hand. And then he took a lot of damage. And I believe we talked about this last time as well. I believe George marginally just won that fight just.

But I think if I had stayed there for a little bit longer or closer to the fight, I could have got him away with less damage. Yeah. Do you think that he maybe had one foot out the door? Because he was kind of saying after that fight that he's really, you know, he probably wants to take some time. He didn't want it retiring, but he wanted to take some time away and that this was just, you know, it was too much for him.

Do you think that coming into that fight, maybe he had that in his head? Possibly. That's always a bad spot for a fighter to be at, right? Have one foot out the door. Yeah. I was saying to my friend Kevin that it was the highlight of my training as a person. It was training George for those two weeks. And the first three days that I was with him, it was so mind-blowing how famous he was.

People coming up morning, taking photos. We're eating. And then after the third day, fourth day, fifth day, then you realize this thing, this machine doesn't turn off. And then he can't go to the chemist to buy shampoo. Chemist? That's what you guys call a grocery store pharmacy oh he called the chemist you got like where the fuck are you getting your shampoo yeah yeah he might go he might go into the toilets to pass stool and you got people waiting at the side the cubicle to

wait to get a photo with him so he's and then we've got it every time we went somewhere it always had to be through the vip entrance You couldn't walk through the front door. Especially in Montreal, right? So one time we went to a nightclub and then we've gotten in through the VIP and then we're walking to our table and then we're about maybe 15 feet from our table and someone said, hey, just be, just be. And without a word of a lie, the whole dance floor stopped dancing. Everyone's looked at us, turned, and the whole club's walked towards that table.

Oh, no. And without losing a beat, we've turned straight back around and walked straight back out of the nightclub. Because it was like a tsunami of fans that had just come in. And he knew he wasn't going to be able to sit down. Yeah. He said, oh, we'll come back here in a couple of hours later when they're distracted. I can't come in right now because it's like this every day. It doesn't, yeah, this is normal.

And he has these good friends that are his bodyguards that stand around him the whole time because people say, can I get a photo? And the bodyguards will step in and say, oh, no flash. As soon as the flash goes off, then the whole club's going to come. And then George will say yes. And then the body goes, oh, no flash. As soon as the flash goes off, then the whole club's going to come. And then George will say yes. And then the board goes, oh, sorry. Oh, but George said yes. Look, mate, you don't understand.

If the camera goes and we've got a problem. Everybody's going to want a photo. Yeah, everybody wants a photo. And even a red light. We're driving in the car. Me and George got the radio on. Hey, pull over, bitch. We stop by the red light.

And all you hear is GSP, GSP and for, to his credit, the champion ears, he always looks, waves, smiles and then slowly just drifts forward

just a fraction just so he's out of eyesight of the fans but that's every single, he'd rather, from your car park even, he'd catch a taxi from the front gate

to the back gate because from walking a hundred feet would be a half an hour with photos and handshakes and high fives. And people are rude. People are crazy. People just come up and they stick their phone in his face like this. And they don't know what it's like. You're a superstar. You'd have this every single day as well, surely.

Yeah, I don't have anybody sticking their phone directly in my face too often but it's happened a few times but i think with george it's a totally different thing because he's a national hero as well i mean he won sportsman of the year award in canada where hockey is like their national sport yes and he won over hockey players i mean he was on the fucking he was in these Gatorade commercials. I mean, he had transcended the sport to the point where he was

an international superstar and he's from Canada and they're so proud of that in Canada. Canada's such a proud country that a guy like George is probably like a hundred times

more famous than me. We went to New York for one week to train with John Denneher at the Gracie's Academy and even in New York, it was no different. Montreal and New York was one week to train with John Denneher at the Gracie's Academy. And even in New York, it was no different. Montreal and New York was just as insane as each other.

Yeah, I would think Montreal would be probably a little bit more crazy. But yeah, at that level, I mean, George, when he was a champion especially, I wonder if he can get around now a little bit better. Yeah, I hope so. Maybe people just ask him questions. When are you coming back, George? I heard you're going to find Anderson Silva, George. Yeah.

And then even the websites. You notice all the – I read the MMA websites every single day. And then there's always – at least once a week there's something about George is doing this or he might come back or this is happening. So he's still relevant. He still hasn't disappeared yet. They still need him in that circle. Well, he's still training. Yeah, he's still relevant. He still hasn't disappeared yet. They still need him in that circle. Well, he's still training.

Yeah, he's still a man. I know Sage Northcutt was in TriStar recently, and he had done some training with George. And I think, you know, George still has a little bit of the itch. Yeah. I'd love for him to come back. I think he is UFC, and he's such a great ambassador as well. He's not just a great fighter, but he represents everything good that's about combat sports yeah i agree everything good about martial arts and he started as a martial artist i mean that's really what he is yes and and then that's why he would

always go to the into the octagon with his guillen and you know the whole deal he's uh he's a really unique guy and no better ambassador like in his time to carry the flag. Yes. And then even a lot of people change after once they reach that superstardom, whereas George has always stayed grounded. And then people would come up and people, some majority are great. And then some people, the time I spent with him, hey, every time I get a photo with a celebrity, I get carried, so pick me up.

And he's like, oh, okay, there's your photo. Or just... People are so fucking weird. Every time I get a photo with a celebrity, I fart on them. Come on, George, get over here. I'm going to fart on you real quick. Come on, George.

They might have had a few drinks and there's no politeness. Hey, I want a photo. Give me a photo. Or they just grab him, like that Tyson highlight where they just grab him around the neck. Give me a photo. People, there's no... Out of their fucking mind.

And he doesn't change, though. He's like... He doesn't like it, but at the same time, he does it. Yeah. Well, he's a good man. Yeah. He's a good man. Yeah.

He's very open-minded, too. I've watched him train with people. I think I've seen you in a few confrontations on YouTube where people are a bit aggressive when it comes to asking for your stuff, and you have to give them a slight, hey, just... I don't know necessarily. I don't think there's any YouTube videos of people asking for photos or anything like that. There might be that I don't know of. But, yeah, people get drunk.

Yeah, alcohol is the worst drug in the world. Yeah, alcohol is the worst drug in the world. It's the worst drug in the world for people to make mistakes under pressure too because they see a guy like George and they're like, holy shit, it's George St. Pierre. I ain't scared of him. You know, like whatever the stupid...

Chuck Liddell used to get guys trying to pick fights with him. With fucking Chuck Liddell. Chuck Liddell has a murderer's eye. Like you look in his eyes, there's a killer in there. And dudes get drunk and pick fights with him. People are so stupid.

Donald Cerrone was telling me, some guy on the podcast, some guy punched him in the face in the Whole Foods parking lot. And he's like, what the fuck, man? It's like, Jesus Christ. It's like you just run into the wrong people, man, and booze and whatever the fuck else they're doing with their head. Yeah. It's a crapshoot out there when you meet the general public.

Yes, so about YouTube. Holy shit, me and you had that little spa. Yeah. People are fucking crazy. Why do people get, they stay anonymous, yet they have such an opinion that they have to me and you we we had an understanding you had a sore back you didn't want to spar but you were you said oh fuck it let's do it and then um we had the best three minutes we laughed we had fun it was no big deal i said oh you might have uploaded you said yeah go for it yeah everyone thinks it's

so serious well they also think we're somehow upset at each other or something it was just for me it was fun it was fun to be able to it was fun it was cool it was a highlight of uh we should have probably recorded the whole thing that was a highlight of like an whatever an hour and a half of us training together i was i was really impressed with the lot of the variations of techniques you do like the way you throw the knee especially i never saw anybody throw a knee with like it completely sideways the way you did it and the combinations in which you did it so i think in mma or in any martial art it's always cool when you get a chance to work with people and learn a bunch of different shit and at the end of it like throwing some light kicks and and you know and punches and stuff and moving around with each other.

To me, it was just fun. You had a suspected bulging disc. Yeah, well, it's definitely something fucked up with it. But it's better now. So to take it like we were competing, like a UFC title, it was a play spa in your garage for shits and giggles. You can't read that, though, man. You're reading the comments. You can't read those

Yeah, that's like opening yourself up to the retards of the world like hey retards. How do you feel? govern my life You just can't you can't listen to that I remember I think I sent you A private message About two weeks later I was going Dude how do you

How do you put up with it And you said You said Just don't Don't read it Yeah how the fuck Did that guy get to be A world champion

If he was following me bro I'd open him up bro And then Yeah People were correcting Your technique It was hilarious Like will you just

Please shut the fuck up See there was A segment of you showing me a particular combination and someone was saying that you were showing it wrong oh yeah i was reading that and i was like what am i reading this what am i what am i doing i'm not even taking my own advice and meanwhile if you if you found that guy he probably weighs six pounds he's in his mom's basement shit in his own pants like who knows who you're listening when you read a sentence on the internet and it starts with a letter and it ends with a period it looks

like a normal person wrote it and you just read it like if you wrote a sentence or if he wrote a sentence or some crazy dude who has no fucking grasp of reality at all it still looks the same because it's a sentence. And you don't know, like, when you read someone's opinion, you don't know what the, what's that guy like? Like, that's the thing about opinions. If you, there's always guys and you know them, everybody knows them. There's always guys in the gym that'll see someone

and they probably don't know what the fuck they're doing, but they'll see someone hitting the bag or they see someone doing a technique and they'll come over and correct them, right? There's always those fucking morons. You know, there's a million of those fucking morons. Right. Well, when you meet that guy and you know he's an idiot and you know that guy from the gym, you can just go, oh, Mike is the guy who gave you advice. Mike's half retarded.

He got shot in the head when he was two. You know, there's a difference between that and like seeing the guy's written words. It's the beautiful thing about the internet is that anybody can say anything. You have a full, open, free forum for expressing yourself. But the reality is, if you have a million people, at least 1% of those people are going to be out of their fucking mind. At least 1%. So if you've gonna be out of their fucking mind at least 1% So if you got a hundred people that's one person But if you got a million people or a hundred million people look at the United States 300 million people

How many of those people are out of their fucking mind? It's at least three million at least Three million douchebags that are leaving comments on YouTube and they're getting John Wayne Parr to talk about them I was right it was right he can say it all you want you're fucking techniques dog shit bro I don't know how you got to be a world champion bro

not on my watch you ain't pulling that shit with me I'll tell you what it's what you're going to get, man. It's the world we live in. It's a beautiful world, though. It's beautiful and it's chaos and it's fun. But I think we're all learning how to navigate this world,

the world of comments. I have friends that won't go on the underground anymore. Fighters, they just won't go. They go, I can't. It hurts my feelings. They go, I'll read what people are saying about me and it hurts me But it only hurts you if you don't know that if you if you knew that guy wouldn't hurt you You know if you were around him when he was saying that you'd be like oh

You're a fucking idiot You're an idiot with a typewriter you get the type keys. Oh, okay I get it, but you don't get it when you see just a sentence a sentence It looks like a normal person wrote that um diego sanchez written wrote on twitter saying um you bagged me out but i bet if we met in person you'd be the first one to ask my for my autograph oh it's true yeah they would say that to him yeah they talk all kinds of shit with him how can you talk shit about diego sanchez yeah that guy has given more people the most crazy, holy shit entertainment. Diego's had more fucking wild, chaotic-filled rounds and wild moments in MMA.

That motherfucker wins fights in the third round. When he's losing the first two rounds, he's got his face hanging off, and he doesn't give a fuck, and he still comes out swinging. You have to be a real piece of shit to talk bad about that guy Yeah, piece of shit Melendez that third round was That's still one of my favorite round how he dropped him with an uppercut in the fucking third round after losing those first two rounds Drop some almost has him out same thing with Jake Allenburg. He's back to you. Yeah, drop seems like he's back man Diego's a warrior that guy's got my respect forever Diego's a warrior that guy's got my respect forever

he's so crazy Martin Kampman fight same thing first two rounds losing his fucking face is falling off in the third round

he's chasing Martin Kampman down crazy yeah yeah you gotta gotta respect warriors it's pretty cool I mean it's just

there's a bunch of disrespectful shitheads out there and just do you think do you think it's because with Muay Thai for instance

we have a culture and it's very Buddhism and it's very Sawadikap and everything the whole business of this and that well explain what that means

what you're saying yeah bow and put it most of these people are listening to this they clasp their hands together in prayer it's a way of showing

that I'm unarmed that's the original instead of shaking hands the ties and then the males aren't touching the females either. It's more of a

It's a real humility and a real honest appreciation of each other. And then so they have this century old culture whereas MMA is so

tap out ridden Budweiser. Just so the fans, it's a different sort of culture. Do you believe it's sort of? Well, that bro dude bullshit was frowned upon in Taekwondo. I mean, I grew up in Taekwondo, which is very, I always spoke to my instructor. I called him sir or mister.

It was either Mr. Kim or sir. You know, when he said something to to me there was no question it was always yes sir and it was always there was this bowing respect type admiration that you had for your instructor and for fellow competitors and that was that's a big part of what martial arts is is respect for each other now the other hand I like the shit-talking I like like with Conor McGregor does. I like the just bleed guy in the audience going It's fun too

but I think you lose something where there's a beautiful respect to Muay Thai. Another thing about Muay Thai is the audiences are respectful. When you go to those events you very rarely hear stupid shit being yelled at. Even though people are drinking, there's applause for both the winner and the loser is a

Tremendous amount of respect that's involved in it because because it's not that popular and because it's not mainstream Those people in the audience have a deep appreciation for the art of Muay Thai. Yeah, they had cool They're there for you because they want to see it There's not like this on TV and they're just watching it for the sake of watching it. They're there because they want to be there. Yeah. Yeah, that's the only reason. It's not a scene.

It's like they're there to see Muay Thai. Yeah. And then, yeah, the MMA culture is just so... Well, there's a lot of fucking posing and fake and assholes. I mean, my friends, I'll get my friends tickets friends tickets you know and they'll go to the fights and they'll sit beside some guys like what is he fucking i'm telling him to the fucking kick i'm telling you know the people just yell out advice and they get drunk and they're stupid and they're posing because they're insecure so they're drunk at these events and they're trying to pretend that

they know more than the fighter knows it's overwhelming yeah i'm hoping that the human race survives this era i mean i'm really hoping that we just this internet era enlightens us to our douchey ways and we just we just slowly but surely rise from the ashes of what we've created but i don't know when i read comments i Listen, my brother, we just did three hours. We're out of time. It's already nine o'clock. Crazy. This is the John Wayne Parr experience.

Mate, thank you again. My brother, anytime, man. Open invitation, please. My pleasure. Anytime. And next time we town, let's train some more. Let's do it again. Yes, please.

Let's do it. Let's do it. When are you going to be around again? Do you have any plans? I'm talking to Hans. I'm talking to Scott Kent. Hopefully, I'll be back sooner than later. Oh, fuck yeah. They have to have you back, man. again you have any plans I'm talking to Hans I'm talking to Scott Kent hopefully I'll be back soon oh fuck yeah they have to have you back man have been next time

you come back we'll make sure probably try to get you in before too so people can tune in and know that the fight is coming John Wayne par ladies gentlemen follow him on Twitter John Wayne par on Twitter cage cage boy tied on my twice December the 5th December so fighting Cyrus Cyrus not Soros not whoever that other guy is that he invented Cyrus Washington Black Dynamite

should be a lot of fun and can people watch that online or anything? yes I'm going to have a fightlifetv.com fightlifetv.com I will tweet it

I'll let you guys know about it December 5th thank you my brother I really appreciate it thank you alright folks we'll be back tomorrow. Until then, be nice to each other.

Bye-bye. All right.