The Joe Rogan Experience - #83 - Bas Rutten

Episode Date: February 22, 2011

Joe sits down with Bas Rutten.

American ingenuity at its best. Wow. What are you doing? You heat it up in the microwave? I don't recommend that. I think that could damage your penis. You know what? Did you see they call it like the jerk off cups. They have like cups in Japan. And you... I swear to God. It has a little like cellulite thing on it, you know, so to keep it moist.

And there's a little hole in it and it's actually, you can use it and then throw away. My buddy, yeah, we went up to the room. My buddy goes right away. He says, man,

they were usable. I say, that's, that's, that was not right. The best was that my other friend, he forgot it

in a little paper bag and there were some porn magazines in the bag also. So when we left up, that was at the Tokyo in Hilton, the Hilton Hotel.

We walked up and this little girl goes like, sir, you forgot your, and she looks in there and she looks at my body and she's like in shock and he goes,

yeah, I know. So she knows exactly what it is. Exactly what it is. It's very common in Japan. There are a bunch of freaks over there, right? And they're only this small.

Wow. Yeah. So the whole cup. The there, right? And they're only this small. Wow. Yeah, so the whole cup. What happened? The whole cup. So your penis can only go in. It's for small penises? I guess you have to make a hole in the other side. Yeah, well, how does that work?

It's not designed for American or Dutch cocks, right? For those who don't know who we're talking to, this is a true mixed martial arts legend, a real pioneer. Boss Rutten was a former UFC heavyweight champion. And when I first saw Boss fight, I saw you fight back before there was any real good striking in mixed martial arts. Mixed martial arts was a lot of it was, you know, karate guys that weren't that good. You know, there was a few people that were just wild and crazy that were getting in there and trying it. And there was Pancrase was going on over in Japan. And a buddy of mine had sent me a tape.

And they had said, I forget who gave me the tape, but he goes, you got to watch this motherfucker, Boss Root. And there's finally a guy who's over there that knows how to strike. And you were blasting guys. Like in Pancrase, it was a lot of like they had these shin pads on for folks who haven folks who haven't seen it and you weren't allowed to punch to the face but you could use open palms so what boss figured out how to do was pull his hand way back so he was punching with his palm where everybody else was doing bitch slaps boss was blasting guys with straight right palms and knocking them unconscious and body kicks that they just couldn't believe how much pain they were in.

You were one of the first guys from Holland, that hard Dutch style of kickboxing to enter into mixed martial arts. I used that already, palm strikes, when I was a bouncer because I didn't like to mess up my fists. I always thought you have a way longer reach. For instance, a left hook, right straight. You know, that combination. It's great, but if you connect with the left hook, you're too close for the straight punch.

You see, and the longer the punch is, the more power it has. So I said, why don't I hit with a palm? You know, because then it becomes almost as long as my straight punch, so the straight will have more effect. You know, and then people started thinking. I said, if you hit behind the ear, if you can see when I'm fighting, I'm hitting right here, just behind the ear, at the jaw, where the jaw starts. And if you tap it there, yeah, you'll drop.

Well, you're one of those guys, too. You analyze different ways to attack opponents, and that's why you've got all these videos online of self-defense techniques and bars. If you haven't seen these videos, have you seen them, Ryan? The music video ones, the one I love. Fucking fantastic. No, sorry, I'm not sorry bang bang oh looky look what we got here how did that get started how

did you start doing those it was the funniest thing i i made the big boss routines big books of combat yeah i have that and and then um the i promised that the first 300 people were going to get a self-defense book, a small one, a small book, like a 50-page book or something. But then this guy screwed me over with the books. And when that all happened, you know, I left this guy. But I came back to him. I said, listen, I told the people that the first 300 were going to get it. And I want to keep my word. But I don't want to do anything with this guy anymore because, you know, it took too much from me already.

So anyway, we said, why don't I make a video? We do an instructional DVD and then we give that to the first 300 people. Oh, that's great. I said, what do you want to do? I said, well, get the camera. It was like totally non-scripted, you know, when we started at the bar. How funny was that, you know, that I go around the bar and I see a little, what do you call it, a saucer or something. I say, okay, well, this you can throw at him to distract.

You can break it. Now he's got sharp edges. You can slice him. You know, and then when I go to that thing that holds the receipt, you know, that pin, I grab it and I look at the thing and I go, I don't need to tell you what you can do with this. It was the funniest. We had to stop so many times that we were dying laughing. And that's all one take, no preparation. Nothing.

Well, see, you don't have to worry about things. You think like that all the time. Yeah. And being a bouncer, that is one. I've never been a bouncer, but I did. Well, I actually did work as a bouncer at a concert place at Great Woods. It was a concert center. And there was a lot of fights.

You're constantly dealing with fights. But that's different than a bar. Because a bar is more dangerous. It's more contained. The concert place is big and wide open. It was an outdoor venue. You know, when you're at a bar, you must have seen a lot of shit, especially in Holland. Holland's a fucking crazy place. It is.

It is a crazy place. You have to watch out. And, you know, I wasn't in that era that they really started to come with the weapons. I was always fortunate, you know, to... The big guys would come in and they would actually give their guns to us. You know, we'd put them to the side. Guys would come in with their guns?

Oh, yeah. We stored them for them before they went in. Holy shit. Yeah, it was crazy. You know, one guy, it was high up. It was actually cool because I worked there only for like two weeks. It was a big place, the Galaxy in Sertogenbos.

And a very known place. It was a big place. Had some epic fights there, man. Really cool. And this guy walks in anyway. Something broke out. And right away, the big guy, the guy who was on top of the ladder, he grabbed me from the front and he bear hugged me.

And he says, we're just going to stand like this and i said whoa he says i i just want to take the the worst one the most dangerous one i just want to hold you like this so that was kind of a compliment because all the other bouncers heard it and they go like who's this guy you know and then the world starts to travel you know how it goes so uh holland the fights that happen in ho In bars It seems to happen a lot with MMA guys I know you've been in a bunch of them Alistair Overeem fucked up his hand Badr Hari got in a big one

It's just constantly Kickboxers and MMA guys are always getting in bar fights It's the bouncers The bouncers really think that they can do something And I don't know why Maybe it is because they got more of them And they think So they think you know so they give you shit they want to

test themselves because they know who you are do you find that because you have such a reputation do you find that like guys get drunk and then they want to test themselves with you does that happen I had that till that whole bar fight in Sweden happened and after that

for some reason I never had it anymore and what was the bar fight in Sweden happened. And after that, for some reason, I never had it anymore. And what was the bar fight in Sweden? Because that was very famous. That was all over the internet. What happened with that? Well, I walked in. And what year was this? Oh, God, I don't know.

It was like 96 or 97. So you weren't the UFC champion then? No, no, no. When did you win the UFC? Was it 99? 99, I think, yeah. But they recognized you know, people knew about you

from kickboxing and from MMA. You were already famous in the MMA world and the, you know, the martial arts world. Oh, yeah, yeah. I was there for a seminar.

People knew me, you know, and the bouncers right away when I came in, they say, hey, Rutten, stay calm tonight. And there was a little alarm bell going off

in my mind. You know, maybe I shouldn't go in. But I go, well, I was drunk already. Why not, right? So I go in with my buddy crazy friend from holland not a house and um and sure enough they started um they suddenly asked me because i'm jumping around and having fun you know hey what's up hey what's up everybody you know i mean i tried to make friends with everybody tried to speak

swedish you know and um they said, can you come with us? So we go to these two doors, through these two doors, and there's a big fire stairs, like a marble stairs, giant. And he says, well, we want you to leave. I said, why? I said, well, you're too much energy. You're flopping around. It's not good.

You're bothering the cosmos. I said, sure, okay. But can you tell my friend? My buddy's over here. He's also from Holland. Can you tell him that I'm gone? Because otherwise, you know, he can't find me. So they didn't expect that.

They thought I was going to do something, of course. So he pushes me. And I said, why would you push me? I said, I want to go. It's okay, you know. I don't want any trouble. And he stopped putting his finger on my chest, which is something I really can't stand, right?

So I said, okay, don't touch me because if, you me because if you do that again, it's going to go wrong. And sure enough, they were looking for a fight, of course. He did it again. So I pushed him. And another guy behind him jumped over him and he stabbed the finger in my eye. I said, guys, come on. Let's stop this right now. I don't want to boop my other eye.

And there I went, boom. And that guy went down. He went down like one point. So I've never seen anything. I heard him over the music. I heard that. Yeah, that was the wildest thing ever. And then they had these little microphones, right?

So with, yeah, I don't know, but fast. It was like, it was five guys, four or five guys. And they start fighting. And the guy that I knocked out constantly, because he would wake up right and everything went good and went good and but then i started realizing wait a minute this these guys are going to come back up all the time you know this is going to come to an end i got to get the hell out of here so you're knocking them down so you're hitting them they're falling

down everyone that's coming at you you're knocking out but you're realizing you got to get out of here i had to get out of there and there's one part until this day i have no clue what this was i'm i'm falling against the wall and there's a hole in the wall you know with a little um like bar in front of it and there's broomsticks broomsticks but no brooms on broomsticks just so i'm grabbing one but right away when i grab one i think to myself i said if say, if I grab one, they're going to grab one. So I leave it. But they passed it, and they all took a freaking broomstick. Oh, no.

And I go, oh, you know. Now you're fighting five guys with broomsticks. It was wild. And then I had to get the hell out of there. So I went all the way down. And I remember to this day, it was a door that, you know, one of these copper things that you have to push in and then you open up. So I click and it's closed. And I'm going, OK, now what?

So I turned around and I thought, OK, now I'm going to go only for the eyes. I'm going to hit him in the throat. I'm going to kick him in the balls. That's the only thing I'm going to go for now. And they looked at me and they all stepped back. So I go, whoa, they can see I'm in to kick him in the balls. That's the only thing I'm going to go for now. And they looked at me and they all stepped back. So I go, whoa, they can see I'm in business, right? But behind me is the whole police force outside because there were windows. So they throw me in jail because apparently one of those bouncers was a cop.

And yeah, and I knocked him out, of course, also. But he never told me that he was a cop otherwise I wouldn't have done that anyway we're there and this is also this is actually a funny story because before this all happened I'm talking to my wife and I'm already tanked right and she says why are you laughing why you have so much fun I said honey I'm drunk I'm having a lot of fun she's no you're there with two Swedish blonde girls huh I said honey don't worry about it you know me if I'm drunk you know I don't care about anything, especially not that.

I just want to have fun. So after two days, they allowed me to give my first phone call and I'm calling my wife and she's freaking out. I said, honey, you got to be, okay, relax, relax.

I said, I got some good and some bad news. What do you want to hear first? She says, the good news. I said, I didn't fuck two Swedish girls. She says the bad news

I said I mean Jill you think there's this much you're gonna hate me for this story because every time she says

you should tell us it's not funny I think that's a hell of a story I love that right you can't write it it's like a movie

yeah true story that's an outstanding story so how did did you get out of the country what happened you know what I asked them if they pressed charges And they said no

So I said okay I'm not going to press charges either But apparently they did press charges And then I had to go to court So I get this lawyer And also you know They drive me from the normal police station To jail right

This is like a movie Joe You drive into a mountain and the road stops in the middle of a mountain you get out there's an elevator or like two elevators i don't know but i go in the elevator i go like four stories up i go out take another elevator go like two down go out take another elevator go like six up i go oh my god where am i you know it was some weird jail with i was sitting there with like murderers and rapists it was the wildest thing ever but all the all the all the guards knew me so i had a vcr i had coffee cookies i was playing cards with the guards they actually gave me my phone they said i call oh, I call. You know? Yeah, it was nice. So then the lawyer comes.

The lawyer goes. I say, okay, so where can I go? You know? And he said, well, you're probably going to get like six to nine months. I said, well, back up now. I said, what? He says, yeah, one of them was a cop. I said, you're kidding.

I said, but they started. He said, well, they're five against one, you know? You can't say anything. So anyway, it went to court. And then my friends some friends in sweden they started they talked apparently they talked to those guys and i said man come on take your charges back and that's what they did and then wow yeah so yeah imagine six months yeah that was weird man that was like a movie like that movie with the guy from

highlander remember he he made a movie one time in a jail somewhere really weird. Remember that? The jail was in a mountain? That's crazy. It was in a freaking mountain. That's crazy. And then when they let you out to go your one hour a day, it was like a circle, and it was divided like a pie, like an eight, but with a fence.

Like a UFC fence Like that At 8 So you would You have a piece of pie Let's say You know That space to yourself From here to you To the wall there

Wow And then there's another guy Right next to you That has a piece And you're not interacting with them You're not in the same jail as them You're not in the same cage as them No not in the same cage

Everybody has their own room Yeah How weird That was wild Yeah Scary stuff Because it's funny now but at that moment it's really not Sweden this is where it happened in Sweden in Sweden this is the

place where all this shit is going down with wiki leaks where they're trying to put that guy in jail for for rape because he had sex with a girl and the condom broke and he didn't tell her Sweden is a strange place and they take take violence and crime very, very seriously. The suicide rate is the highest in the world. Really? Yeah. Japan is too, but Sweden is one. Wow.

Wow. Why is that? Why Sweden? Chicks are so hot. Yeah. That seems like that would cut back a lot. You know what actually is sad, right? Brazil. Who's killing themselves in Brazil?

The girls are so hot. Yeah. You know what I mean? The flight over, that was a funny story, too, because I had my crazy friend from Holland, right? killing themselves in brazil the girls are so hot we yeah yeah you know what i mean it's like we the flight over that was a funny story too because i would call my crazy friend from holland right so we uh we we get tanked on the plane and and and he says i got to go to the restroom and i said well go you know but he he sits here the aisle is next to me and he sits on the other side he said well but they just turned the light on because we're landing i said what

are you gonna do they're gonna stop the plane i said go take a leak man so he goes up and he's like walking up you know because we're going down he goes to the rest of my people complaining complaining you know and finally he comes back and he wants to get in this before 9-1-1 okay he wants to get in i said no you can't go in and i i looked at the front and i see the the pilot there this is true story i swear this and I look to the front and I see the the pilot there this is true story I swear this and the pilot

and the door is open I say I want you I let you in if you go to the front and touch the pilot's head and he says okay so he's still walking down yeah

like this oh no and he put his hand on yeah on his head and people like oh you can't do this but not

not as bad so and for some reason they let us into the country. Wow. Yeah, that was the ones. Can you imagine that happens now? What are they going to do? They're going to shoot you.

If you won't shut your cell phone off, they'll put you in jail. Yeah. They'll turn the plane right around and you go to jail now. Wow. So this was, did you say 96, 97? Yeah, around that time. I remember when you could get on a plane with just, you say 96, 97? Yeah, around that time, I think. I remember when you could get on a plane with just, you didn't even have, you had to have a driver's license.

That's all you had to have. You know what? You didn't even have to have a driver's license. I remember when you can get on a plane with nothing. You just go on with a ticket. Wow. That's what I meant. When I used to compete, when I was doing Taekwondo tournaments, we would fly.

Oh, I had a ticket. Wow. I didn't have a driver's license. I was 15. They told me to Canada. For a long time, you could go with your driver's license too, right? To Canada, yeah. To Canada and to Mexico.

But then the United States started being douchebags about it. And they would cut back on Mexicans and Canadians coming over here. And so they made it more difficult. And so Canada and Mexico made it more difficult too. But yeah, when I first used to go to Montreal, when I used to do the comedy festival up there, I didn't have a passport. You got trouble

at the border there all the time? No, never. In Canada? Never. For some reason, they always get me out. I have no clue why that is.

Me too. I have no clue. Well, it's your record. They find your record. I mean, if you have an assault like what happened in Sweden. But what happened in Sweden?

No, that was not because they went to court and they threw it out. It doesn't matter. The fact that you got arrested and you went to court and all that and you were in a jail for a little bit, even if there's no charges that stick, they still have that on your record. Like Eddie Bravo got arrested once for legally having a gun.

He got pulled over for a traffic violation. This was when he was working for a check cashing company and he used to carry around a big bag of cash with him and he had to carry a gun with him. And it was totally legal, but he had done something like not stopping on a stop sign or something like that so they pull him over and he said I just want to let you know I have a gun a loaded gun in the car because I do this they arrested him they released him because you know it was all correct they check his paperwork it's all good doesn't matter every time he goes to Canada every single time he gets pulled aside and they check his shit and they ask him questions

and it takes like an extra hour and a half. I got stuck with him the last time I went to camp. It's annoying. It's really annoying. Yeah. And he had no record. I mean, he did nothing. You know, never stuck as a record, but just the fact that he was even arrested.

Yeah. Yeah. I had this big Reuters guy one time standing there all messed up. And he goes, get any Reuters in the bag? That's where I go. I look at him and I say, roids is for faggots. For faggots, man. That's what you said?

Yeah. Straight in the eye. Oh, that's funny. That was good. Yeah, and I did that same line. Oh, nothing. I did that same line twice, also in America. Really?

Same thing. I came back from Japan. Could be the same guy. Same thing. He said, you got any roids? I mean, why do they ask me? Did they ever ask you? They always ask me. They always ask me. Brian's on roids I mean why do they ask did they ever ask you they always ask me

they always ask me Brian's on roids yeah yeah but you you know but come on he's on roids just to be a man

if he wasn't on roids he'd be a girl who asked that yeah you got any roids in the bag the funny thing is you can say that

roids are for faggots and he won't say anything because no guy on roids ever wants to admit they're on roids even the biggest fucking most gigantic ever wants to admit they're on roids. Yeah. Even the biggest fucking most gigantic ridiculous human beings ever.

They're like, I'm just doing a lot of creatine. I do power lifting. I eat six meals a day. Six meals a day, yeah. How much pork? What was it the guy took? That's Soromsky's?

No, no, no. Not Soromsky's. The strongest man. Puchinowski. Puchinowski? They were saying that he ate like candy and bacon.

Yeah, but 12 pound of bacon or something like a day something he turned purple did you see that guy when he fought Tim Soto he got purple like the weirdest color

yeah it's not good bacon his body your body's not supposed to look like that it's not supposed that is not a

fighter's build when you see these guys there's guys in the UFC a lot of times in their first couple fights you'll see them and they come in and they're just too big

and it looks good and it might be good for the first 30 or 40 seconds. That's it. You could really gorilla fuck a guy for 30 or 40 seconds but then that lactic acid

builds up and boom. Crashing. Yeah. I always said it. I never cared about it. I never cared if somebody said, oh, he's on roids. I said, you know, to me it is that you're insecure already.

You know, there's something wrong with you because you're not happy with yourself. Let's go to that. And that bullshit thing that they say, you know, but everybody does it. I mean, it's insane. I did this for the amateurs. They, you know, did the camo. I'm on the board of the camo. Right.

And they asked me to go. Camo is the, for people who don't know, the California amateur mixed martial arts organization. Yep. And they asked me to speak to the guys, you know, to help them out in the future. Once they're pro, what to watch out for. And then the last, the most important thing. What is the most important thing they said? I said, well, don't do roids i mean if you if you already did roids or are thinking about doing

roids i mean you might as well stop your career because in this particular stage right now if you're already thinking about it you're gonna fail you're gonna be a loser because you you want roids i never got that and how dangerous is it you know what i hear the epo you know people doing that i go man doesn't that make your blood really thick it's very dangerous and very common by the way yeah um guy boxer's been caught with it sugar shay mosley got caught with it you know epo is uh what they always accuse cyclists of using and i had a friend who was a professional cyclist and he was on it and he said that when he was on a tour they were on a tour with a they would ride on a bus

and then they would you know they compete in these tournaments, in these races rather. And you would hear guys in the middle of the night unrack their bikes and go ride. They had to. Yeah, the heart rate goes too down or something. Well, too much blood. Too much blood builds up in your body because what EPO simulates is it's like artificial altitude. You know, like the same effect that happens at altitude where your blood thickens because you need more oxygen because it's a low oxygen environment. So these guys, when they take this EPO, they have to exercise.

Like they'll wake up at like 3 o'clock in the morning and they're like, their heart's all fucked up and they got to get on the bike and go. Yeah, otherwise you're going to have a heart attack or something. Yeah, you could have strokes. It's very dangerous. I know mixed martial arts guys that have done it. And I know guys that have done it that, you know know their trainer found out like after the fight and they're like what the fuck man you you gotta let us know that you're doing this so that if you get knocked out we can tell the doctor hey here's something you should consider this guy's on fucking epo you know

use a pen as a syringe you know you need to evolve like this because it's so thick yeah it's coming out like lava doesn't get out i was talking to a joel mccarthy and i said you know what the new oh no no he asked me says you know what the newest uh druggist like uh for fighting i said tell i said um viagra and he goes how do you know that i say i read an article about it like a week before that and apparently guys are doing that, taking Viagra. And apparently Viagra is one of these wonder things. It's really good for your kidneys, for blood pressure. I mean, I read an article in some fitness magazine, and it was like raving about it.

It's a real good medicine apparently, but can you imagine? Well, what it does is it increases your nitric oxide and all those supplements that people take, you know, nitric burn, all these different, nitric flood, all these different things. This is the exact same thing. It increases your nitric oxide. That's why your dick gets hard so quick. Your muscles fucking flare up.

And veins get big. Stop pumping. Definitely. Yeah, until it goes to the ground, then it'll be uncomfortable. That's what I'm saying, you know What are you doing? The boner is like to keep your cup in place A little tickle tickle Depends on if you have a dick

That could fit into one of those Japanese masturbation cups People might not even ever know Yeah, that was funny You're one of the guys that You're one of the few guys That has gone through A mixed martial arts career

And has successfully Transition transitioned to a broadcasting career. I mean, you're very smart in how you handled it. Because first of all, you didn't take too many fights. You didn't go with your ego and have fights after you were busy with other things or weren't fully concentrated on it. You stepped away in full health. Yep. How did you manage to do that?, you stepped away in full health. Yep. You know, how did you manage to do that? Oh, not full health.

Not full health. My knees were very bothering me. And one of the worst things I have is tendonitis in both of my arms. Yeah. And if that hits, if that starts, then it's... Did you take fish oil at all? Yeah. Did you ever...

You have ever had tendonitis? Yes, yeah, I have. Okay, now I have it both here in the arms upstairs. And if it hits, it's about a 45-minute hour of pain, which is unimaginable. Really? Yeah, you have no clue. It's like coming from the outside. It's like, you can't describe it.

There's no pain like it. And there's nothing you can do. You can't take pain pills for nothing. Wow. And if the right, I would lose weight. You know, so when I made that comeback in 2006, six weeks before, it hit it. you can do you can take pain pills for nothing wow and if the writer i would lose weight you know so when i made that comeback in 2006 six weeks before it hit it you know i had nine weeks to prepare i think two times three times five days i took off that i literally only worked my legs

because i had the tendonitis and then because you lose weight from the pain and then i start realizing okay this is the reason that i stopped because it's weight from the pain and then i start realizing okay this is the reason that i stopped because it's not fun anymore you know you're on the ground everything hurts i was i was rolling with uh in eddie's class and uh with the goliath you remember the big guy there and and i was going to fight leopoldo and um keema leopoldo keemery polo and uh he he very much looks like him like built so man can I roll with you because I need to just get up and just strike get up and strike

and I had the tendonitis and man everything was hurting and I could see everybody look like oh is this boss Woodson you know so I go okay man please give me your number you know so I got his number five days later I said and I took five days off so I come back again and he was like whoa what's going on

now because it's a whole different ball game but so that means that every every time when you train with that it man it it's so much pain that yeah you lose weight you can't eat you know you get tears in your eyes from the pain wow and so what exactly is tendonitis what is it what is it from i have no clue and you know what? I realized that because in the early days when I did track and field, I already had it there. I think that it comes from all the cortisones that I took. I was a very sick

kid. Bad asthma, bad eczema everywhere. And they gave me a lot of cortisones. They always were afraid something was going to happen in the end. And that has an effect, I hear, on your skeleton. It melts, they say. But I guess if it's...

It could have an effect on your tendons. Wow, that's crazy. So you were a sick kid and you transitioned somehow into a martial arts champion. Wow, right. Did you start training really hard because of your sickness, because of your asthma? Is that one of the reasons? Yeah, I got bullied a lot. I was a very lonely kid i was i was in the trees i would i had a really cool skill i could climb in

a tree in the forest and i could like 45 of the forest i go go from treetop to treetop i would start swinging yeah what go to the next one yeah So if they would follow me, if they would come after me. You're a fucking Tarzan. I'm freaking, yeah. Holy shit. And I climbed in a tree. So they would go after you and you would jump from tree to tree like a monkey to get away from them. That's what I did.

And a few of them fell. You know, one was almost, they almost didn't make it. You know, I mean, his head fell like next to a rock. But that scared everybody so much that that was my harbor. That was my safe harbor. You know, every time something happens, I just climbed a tree. And it was it. but that scared everybody so much that that was my harbor that was my safe harbor you know every time something happens i just climbed a tree and it was it but i think that that's where i got my athleticism from just climbing climbing all the time yeah that's fucking crazy it's amazing how

many mixed martial artists were bullied you know i mean people look at a guy like you and they would go there's no fucking way this guy was ever bullied yeah it's it's amazing how much of that happens and what the fuck i mean how do you stop that shit from happening in school i know you're involved in a lot of anti-bullying programs and i've seen you do you know public service announcements and stuff like that how do you stop that in school you can't you um you know and it's it it's hard you have to make sure that the that the whole school knows like I would do, how do you say that? I would tell there, if I would speak in front of those people that they're bullies, that we got to have sympathy for those guys.

I mean, because obviously something's wrong with them. They only can team up to get somebody and they pick the weakest guy. I mean, seriously, if you guys think this is cool, that's the biggest loser of the whole school. It's a weird human nature thing. It really is. It's like you probably got beat at home. And if you start talking like that,

hopefully it rings a bell with the bully, because otherwise you can't stop this. You know, you hear every now and then about guys who are fighters, who are bullies, who you hear about bullying in the gym, guys who are really good fucking other guys up, like young guys. You hear that a lot about Hector Lombard. You know, I don't know if it's true, but you hear a lot of stories about him beating the shit out of young guys and hurting people.

Yeah. You know, and you know that that has to be something from their childhood. It just has to. Something happened there. Yeah. Yeah, it's scary stuff. You would think that a guy who's a trained fighter, though, you would think, well, that's like, that would be my solution.

Like, how do you get bullying out of the schools? I really think you should teach kids how to fight. I don't think they should have to fight, but I think, you know, offer it in physical education. Offer it, because for a man, it's one of the most important things you could ever learn for developing your character, for just being more confident,

and getting out aggression so you can think things more clearly i we we had ktla this morning at a gym and it was uh i was frank your gym by the way for people don't know you have a great gym and thousand oaks and how do people get there what is where's the what's the name of it it's a boss rooting's elite mma it's on 8080 hampshire road in thousand there's a rare opportunity if you live in this area to train with a true legend and a pioneer. And I'm every day there. I'm teaching every day.

So it's not like my name is on the gym and I'm not there. I don't like this. So KTLA was at your gym? KTLA was at the gym. Frank Schemmel was at the gym. My friend, Holt McKellen, he's the guy from Lights Out, the new TV show on FX. Great show. That's a boxing show?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's an ex-heavyweight champion, you know, and now he's got to cope with all the problems, you know. The money is gone. He's got a little bit of Sopranos, meets, Rocky meets, you know, like, series like that. And, yeah, all of us were bullied also. Frank also was a little fat kid, he said.

And then he also, because he went to boarding school in Scotland, his father sent him over there. He was only american there so that went wrong and with me also it's uh yeah because of the eczema and all of my um asthma you know you had asthma and eczema yeah how do they cure that how they fix that i grew over it you know what the weirdest thing is when i when i stepped into the states when i was fighting in Pancras, if you see some fights, you'll see I still have everywhere, have spots. And when I came into America,

I think within a month, everything, I mean, you saw it almost disappearing. It was gone. I think also the climate maybe has something to do with it. California climate? Yeah, I love it here. This is actually, it's not too hot, not too dry. It's perfect. It's a pretty good place to live. Yeah, we just said it, right this is actually it's not too hot not too dry you know it's it's it's perfect it's a pretty good place yeah yeah we just said it right yeah it's pretty awesome when you hear about people in minnesota freezing their dicks off like i said i came into the states

i said why doesn't everybody in america live here why would you live like they do though there's no houses yeah there's a lot of people living here man there's a lot of people so um so you didn't exactly transition out without any pain. So that was one of the reasons why you cut your fighting career short with tendonitis? Yep, yep. That and my knees. I have no cartilage on my kneecaps. Really?

Which sounds as a very easy thing to fix, but in reality, it's the worst problem a knee can have. I mean, cartilage in between the knees when it bounces, they can do something about that. But cartilage on the kneecap, they can't. My friend has his knees resurfaced. He had them resurfaced with steel. They put some sort of a steel or titanium plate over the knee. My friend Steve was on the U.S. ski team back in the 80s, and he fucked his knees up really, really bad. He's had, I believe, 16 or 17 surgeries on his knees and they're mangled.

And they just recently put artificial meniscus in place. This like white padded stuff in between the knees. His cartilage is so chewed up that they actually resurfaced it with metal. So he has like, it's a crazy looking thing, man. It's like metal, like on top of kneecap. I have it here somewhere in my email. I'll find's like metal like on top of kneecap i have it here somewhere in my email i'll find it for you before we leave tonight so you can check it out but so there there is a solution that my friend steve you know it's uh it's hard they can for

instance they can put a kneecap is in constant motion you know so it's not like you can put something on there and then because it gets ripped off right away again what it can do is like drill a hole in there and then um and put a teflon plate in it but then the teflon if you drill the hole the knee becomes 35 percent more weak so you have way more chance to break the knee and once you break your kneecap you know that's why what my doctor said that's why they the mafiosos they break your kneecaps because that's like the worst thing to do to somebody yeah the knees are brutal man i man. I've had three knee operations. I had my left ACL reconstructed, my meniscus scoped on my left knee. Here, I got a picture of it here if you want to check it out.

Check this out real quick. Can you see that? This is resurfacing. This is where they took his cartilage. It was so fucked up. They took it off and they resurfaced it with steel. And this white stuff in this picture this is the

artificial meniscus I'll put this picture on Twitter later on so everybody else can see it it's pretty fucking crazy man the stuff

that they can do nowadays is bizarre yeah it's pretty fucking crazy yeah I don't know I mean this is really new stuff

that they're doing but I mean his knee looks like... But how does he feel? He feels great. He's fucking crazy. He's the wildest motherfucker I've ever met. He was a flight surgeon.

He's in his 50s and he's still trying to fight. He's crazy. It's out of his mind. It's a very hard thing to step away from, you know, to come back to it. It's very... When I have students of mine or friends of mine fighting, I'm way more nervous than they are. It's like... Because you can't control it. It's very, when I have students of mine or friends of mine fighting, I'm way more nervous than they are. It's like, because you can't control it.

It's like sitting next to the driver, you know, and they go fast. You go like, I'd rather have the wheel, so I'm in control here. You know, and that's, now it's hard. There's no feeling like it, like when you win or when you, for six or eight weeks,

you work on like five special combinations, you know, on the ground and standing. And then to see if you can land one of those. And then 90% of the time you do. You know, it's something that you really worked on. And then you land that thing. And then it's like a hole in one, I guess. That's what I always say.

It has to be a feeling like that. Yeah. Well, I think much crazier than that. I think that it's just the ultimate gamble. You know, you're out there throwing your bones at some guy, you know, trying to, trying to hit his vital areas. And it ain't just a regular guy. It's a fucking expert and he's doing the exact same thing. And so much of your success is based on how much dedication you have, how much time you put in, how much you can keep your shit together under pressure. It's the

ultimate high, right? When you win, it's the ultimate high. shit together under pressure. It's the ultimate high, right? When you win, it's the ultimate high. It really is. And what you say, the thing is, can you, I always say, can you bring the dojo, the way you fight and train there, and spar there, can you bring that game to the ring?

Because that's the big problem with guys. That's the thing. That is the big thing. Under pressure. A lot of guys are gym fighters, right? Oh, yeah. And a lot of guys fold. Like, you'll see them. They'll do great.

They'll be, like, dominating. And then the guy will still be there. Yeah. And then you see adversity. You see doubt. You see all kinds of creepy things about, you know, whatever the fuck haunts their subconscious, whatever the fuck is in their personality that they don't like. Yeah.

You see it surface. Most of the time is that you see a guy when they get hit him with a hard shot, you and it's most of the time the muscular guys by the way check it out and uh the big blown up dudes when they hit somebody with their best bang and the guy recovers and comes back then you see him go down or they have him in the submission and they think they had him and then the guy escapes yeah you know that's like a mental break for them. Then they give up. It's like the weirdest thing. You go like, whoa, man, it's so good. I know so many fighters who are like that.

And I say, just do it again. Do it again and make it a little bit more tight. Why wouldn't you do that? But no, they give up. The fear of losing is a tremendous burden that a lot of guys have, and it eventually manifests itself in a fight. It's like they're so afraid of losing, they're so afraid of fucking up, that they make it happen.

But it's afraid of losing in front of an audience because they have to listen to what those people are going to tell them, what you should have done this. And Chris Lieben said it really funny a long time ago. He says he got knocked out by Silva and he said, it's bad if you go to the blockbuster

and the guy behind the desk tells you what you should have done. You know, because everybody knows better. And that's horrible. And that's why I always say, I say, you fight for yourself. You say, oh, Basso, you fight for your family, your wife and your kids? No, I fight for me. Because that takes a lot of pressure off. Because really think about this.

And if you have a fellow fighter and you go both into a room, you lock the door, you guys fight, do you really care if you lose? I don't think I really care. I love to win, but, you know, I don't know. You know he's the best man that day? He won that fight. Now, if it's in front of an audience, you've got to go through all that BS that these other people say

who have no clue what it's all about. But you see what I mean? It's all you're fighting for those people. And it's so much pressure. That's why stay away from the, I'm going to rip his head off. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. Because all that, they will play at the moment you walk through the cage and you hear yourself saying what you're going to do.

You're going to rip his head, right? Oh, yeah. That's why I never did that. Because you put a lot of pressure on you. Now I better do what I said. Yeah. Guys, I don't think guys realize realize it but you see it in their face sometimes when they step into the octagon you see all the shit talking they've said and they're like

here we go like wow what have i fucking done there's only there's a few shit talkers who are actually really good you know chel sonnen is pretty good that was yeah but he's the master josh barnett's pretty good at it too josh barnett is really good at it too yeah yeah there's a few guys if you guys who notice smart guys uh frank shamrock was good at it, too. George Barnett is really good at it, too. Yeah. Yeah, there's a few guys. A few guys who know how to sling it. Smart guys. Frank Shamrock was good at it. Yes. Smart comments make.

And Tito made a whole career out of it also, you know. You know, and everybody's... I said, those are not the guys that you see, you know. They're playing a smart game. Nick Diaz. Yeah. Yeah, he loves it. He loves it.

And he's a really nice guy, you know. I like him a lot. Well, he gets fired up, though, when he fights. When he fights, he's not such a nice guy. Yeah. Psychological warfare is a part of fighting, right? That's it. Who can?

I always say, who's got the biggest balls? Who can keep on going? That's why I always say stamina is the number one thing. That's one thing they can never say for me. My whole MMA career, I never run out of gas. Because that's the only thing you can control, you know, when you train. Go run an extra hill. Do something.

There's nothing dumber than losing. How difficult was that for you, though, when you started to get the tendonitis? Because, you know, there's like, there's stamina from, you know, from grappling that you probably couldn't get. Like, I know for a fact that Tiosha Kosaka fight. When you fought Kosaka, when you won the title, right? That's when you won the title? No, that was your first fight. You won the title for Manaman.

When you fought Kosaka, you had a problem. Like, you couldn't do any grappling for a while, right? Didn't you have a neck problem? A neck problem. I got against Daryl Golar, the wrestler. Very good wrestler. I got him in a triangle at the gym, and he lifted me up, and he slammed me down with my neck into the corner.

That took a long time god knows the whole thing i just had surgery comes from that all the way back and that was the injury what was it was i have no clue but it was so painful i had a daughter at the time she was like nine months old and she could not lay on my chest whoa i was coughing you know and everything was i would it was funny because I had this big syringe of lidocaine and I'm injecting myself in between my ribs.

Oh my God. And the UFC comes in with the cameras, right? And that was at the time with the movie with Universal Soldier. And these guys

are freaking out, you know? I said, no, no, no, no, come in, come in, come in. I said, this is, you know,

the doctor knows this. Lidocaine is dangerous shit. Yeah, but you have to watch out to what you do. But, you know, if they do it, no, no, no, come in, come in, come in. I said, this is, you know, the doctor knows this. Lidocaine is dangerous shit. Yeah, but you have to watch out where to do it. But, you know, if they do it, it always goes wrong because they can't feel where it is. But I had to, between every rip, I had to go. So you have to do it yourself? Yeah. Fuck!

Yeah, that was painful. Lidocaine is like the gay cousin of cocaine for people who don't know. It just numbs things up. When I got my nose fixed, I got a deviated septum fixed, and they squirt lidocaine out there when they're cleaning it out yeah so it doesn't freak you out because they go up in your nose with a vacuum cleaner yeah it's like you know when you vacuum your car at the car wash and they get stuck on the floor mat and goes that happens to the back of your fucking skull like right where your brain is when they're cleaning out you know blood clots and you know, and dried up boogers and shit.

And they spray lidocaine up there. And I felt fucked up for the whole day. Like, I was like, what is wrong with me? I'm like out of it. And then I realized, oh, that lidocaine. So then I go online and I'm like, what is the effects of lidocaine? People fucking die from it. Girls that put it on their legs, when they go to get their legs lasered, they get the,

the hair lasered off their legs. It's painful. So they, they cover their legs when they go to get their legs lasered they get the hair lasered off their legs it's painful so they cover their legs with lidocaine some girl died in her fucking car she covered her legs in lidocaine

and then wrapped her legs up in saran wrap and she just OD'd on them oh yeah yeah yeah and you're shooting it into your ribs in my ribs I used to many times

that I would go to the fight and then when they I had my wrestling shoes because we had to wear shoes at Pancras. They would be open like I had an ankle injury and I would wait until they called my name because one time I broke my hand, the knuckle and they said, Oh, we put the lidocaine in there and it's going to wait for work for like an

hour, but it's not, it's like 15 minutes, you know, especially when your heart rate is up, it goes really fast. So at the moment I stepped into the ring, I go like, oh, no, it's back, you know. They're not going to do this again.

You know, so I did it on them at the moment they would call my name. I would put it in and then hopefully I was not going to feel it. Fuck. Yeah. So you were fighting on lidocaine to shoot it in you and then fight right there. Because you could walk, you know, I made a really bad trip when I was running the day before I jumped on the plane. And it was against Vernon Tiger White.

It was like my fourth fight or something, somewhere there. And it's like, it's unbelievable. He takes me down, and he goes for a toe hold on that ankle. Like, I mean, it's like I'm sending out a signal. You know, take this, take this. It is a weird signal,

because whenever I get a tattoo, somebody fucking slaps me on the arm where the tattoo is. It's always. If you have an injury here where you never get hit, if you spar, you're going to get hit there.

It is what it is. If you hurt your hand, for sure someone's going to squeeze it when they shake it. For sure. Why? A lot of times

you'll go a whole year without a guy giving you one of those douchey handshakes. You know those douchey handshakes where he grabs the tip of your finger and he squishes them all together?

What the fuck is that about? Insecure handshakes. And you'll go a year with that. But if you hurt your hand, it's right away. That's the first thing that's going to happen. Wait, is that it? Fucking strange. It's the same.

You've got two lines. You always pick the line that's the longest way. This one is way longer. You take the shortest, and there you go. This guy goes for a break, and the fucking replacement comes in. They've got to redo the register. And the go. This guy goes for a break, and the fucking replacement comes in, they gotta redo the register, yeah. And the check, the old grandmother, you know, with the check. Oh, what is today? How much

again? Oh, sorry, I gotta take another one. When I see people paying with checks, I'm like, why don't you just fucking whip out beaver pelts? I cannot. I saw one the other day at the grocery store. It's like, really? You're still using this? Yeah, that's where I last time I saw it, too, was at the grocery store. Checks? People allow you

To just write on a piece of paper Yeah the big Lebowski When he pays like 79 cents On that milk Yeah The opening movie The opening shot So if you didn't have

All these injuries Do you think you would've Kept going Or do you think I think I would've kept going A few more years Yeah Because it was not a problem

Not having stamina And you know I've always been very blessed With my body You know Now people look at me going a few more years. Yeah, because it was not a problem not having stamina. And, you know, I've always been very blessed with my body. You know, now people look at me now the whole time and they say, oh my God, how much do you train? Well, I didn't train for a year. You know, it's like I'm just genetically really put together because of my dad.

My brother has the same. He's a lawyer, but it's the same. He's got no fat. Just good, just good base. Good genes. Yeah. They're all athletes, the root inside, you know. So, yeah.

Never had a problem with that. What was the question? The question was whether or not you would keep going. Oh, yeah. No, I would. Yeah. Because, you know, like I said, there's nothing like it. But at the moment, the fun is gone out of training.

Training would be so much fun for me. Because, you know, somebody, every time, you know, when you roll, every time something pops up, oh, God, that's cool. Yeah. Man, and then it's a new thing. And then you start using it on other people and it works and it works and it works and it works.

Oh, my God, this is great. You know, and every time a new little thing, so somebody shows you another little thing, like a guillotine show, do it like this because they can't escape. You know, Sergio Pena showed it to me. I go, wow, choke. Do it like this because they can't escape. You know, Sergio Pena showed it to me. I go, wow, wow.

It's like bizarre things and they get that whole crazy. And you know, and it's so cool but then the way you have the pain the whole time, it takes the pleasure out of it.

And once you have no more fun, what's the use of still keep going? So you can't roll at all right now? No. No, and especially just after my surgery, I get to do 10 times. So this surgery

is the same surgery from the Dow Golar incident that you just had? I don't know. I think it added on maybe, you know. That was the first time it got hurt, though. Yeah, I think so. What was the actual surgery? What did they have done?

Between C4 and 5 and 5 and 6, my nerves were flat, squashed. So I lost atrophied my whole arm and shoulder. So now they honed the holes open around it. They made so the nerves are, they can breathe again. A lot of guys get that. Jose Aldo just got that. He has a nerve issue as well. His arms are going numb.

And Carwin. Carwin had it as well. He just had surgery on it. Carwin did. Oh, my God. For Jose Aldo, he's one of my favorite guys. That guy's good. That's not good, man.

This is a bad injury. Because this is going to take a long time. I mean, this is over two months ago, and I noticed things like I can brush my teeth harder, push a little bit harder when I wash under my armpit, or I can shave my whole head now with a razor blade, which I couldn't do before. Things like that. But power-wise wise i do 15 pounds that's it wow yeah it's really uh it's really weak so when you roll around it's it's not fun you know of course they attack that arm there we go again murphy's wall yeah everybody goes in that

i had um um gig out musashi was over and his brother and his brother said that nobody could they could break his grip at an armbar i have a really weird way of putting an armbar on but the way I do it nobody can escape you know and I do that I control the hand I make sure that the elbow points up you know and I controlled in such a way that your arm you can't get out I can just cover your face the other leg I just can put away and you still can't get out really yeah and he said to me uh oh but you can't do that on me so So I'm trying, trying, and I can't break because apparently he's known for it.

He's very strong. And he says, see, see a guy? I say, flip her out. He says, why? I said, this is my wrong arm. So I go to the other side and go, clack.

I got him in the armbar right away. I said, listen, I can't do 15 pounds with this. You know, it's a very weak arm right now. So is it eventually going to come back to 100%? You know, they say it's like a millimeter a day.

And it's two months ago, so that would be six centimeters. Starting from my neck. It's got to go all the way to here. Six centimeters of what? Of healing? Of healing. The nerve heals like a millimeter a day, they say. Yeah, so nine months to a year, I should expect at least, he said.

He says nine months to a year. If it comes back, because I was very late with it. They misdiagnosed me. So I walked around with this thing for a long time. So what is the thing, though? What was the actual injury? So is it the compression of the nerves? The compression. And the pain, all the hard pain that I had, that was the nerve apparently is a whole bunch of little cables, he says.

And outside, there's the pain thing. You know, once you squish that, you know, you're already really far gone. And that happened with me. I had no pain anymore. And he says, man, that's the worst thing because that means that's already died. So you're damaging and you don't even feel it. That's it. Wow.

So then they go in there and they drill it out and then you have to wait forever for it to heal up. Yeah. Wow. And there's nothing you can do in between time and then you have to wait forever for it to heal up. Yeah. Wow. And there's nothing you can do in between time. You just have to let it go. Nothing. I started actually yesterday. I think two days ago I started running on a treadmill, but only with the incline so I can roll on the balls of my feet so I don't have my knees shocking.

And I'm actually feeling okay today in my knees. So I figured, okay, if I can do that, then I can at least start doing my sprints again. I used to be a freak, man. I could do these. What I do is I run 10 miles, 10 minutes, 11 miles an hour. That's the warmup. And then I jump off.

I start stretching while I put the incline all the way up, go to nine miles an hour. And then I jump on for 45 seconds and off for 30 and i do those 10 10 of those rounds and after that i run like five minutes run it out done take a five minute break and then i do my power training workout this is what when i was at the top of my game because that's really hard so you would do your sprints first and then you would do your power training later yeah that everybody thought it was weird but for me if you do your power training later? Yeah. Everybody thought it was weird. But for me, if you do the power training first, it hinders you with your running. Sometimes I would do it to mimic the fights because that's what I think is the biggest problem with a lot of guys.

They don't realize that you're pumping everything. You should do abs, a lot of abs, before you fight and stretch them out. Because what happens is your abs, they start filling up with legged acid behind your abs or your lungs. And that's why you see the roid guys, because they have that boop right away. They go strong, boom, and then they drop. And I think it really is because of the abs.

Because if they do 10 times this, it stays like this, right? It bumps up. Well, imagine that happens to your core. And with everything while you're fighting imagine that happens to your core and with everything while you're fighting you're using your core takedown defense everything so that stop blowing up stops your lungs from breathing that's why you get tired so you think abs are important for stamina that's what you're saying very important to keep them loose to keep them

loose and to stretch them out this is very important i would take before a fight also aspirin you know to make my blood thin because i in thai boxing i would never wear wraps i don't like to have wraps around me so i would go bare knuckle in the gloves and with the shoes i hated those things you know this was totally japanese rules right the pancreas shoes yeah because what happens is those japanese guys they're really good on the ground and so they say okay and they're striking not so okay so let's put them on shin guards let's put them on knee protection

and put shoes because they're good with leg locks and no gloves because then they're good for the real naked chokes I mean they're

totally adapted when I left Pancras I think two three months later they changed the rules it was closed fist and no more

I go whoa I've been waiting for a long time for this yeah they had to try to adapt to be mixed martial arts. Yep.

Yeah, eventually. So is it pancreas where you hurt your knees? You know, I don't know. I have no clue. I think I'm so, I'm very explosive. And I think over the years that just scraped off and my things are bald. They say they're bleeding bone marrow out of one knee. So it's like, yeah, it's like very painful, man.

It's not fun. Do you do any other martial arts exercises i know you have that thing that you sell uh well that's that's part of it because you you don't want to hit things right exactly like that yeah because it has no impact you don't get the the tendonitis right every fighter should use that thing like 12 days before the fight not the heavy bag anymore that's where the accidents happen. You know, you get tired, sweat on the bag, but your gloves slip or the wrist hurts. There's always things happen with a heavy bag.

And they like to hit the heavy bag, which I did also because it's a cool thing. But there's always that moment when you hit really hard, like a liver shot, and you feel, dink. And then I know, okay, tomorrow I got the tendonitis. Did you develop this thing? It's called the BAS system. What does it stand for?

The Body Action Stand. So what happened was, this is a long time ago, a long time ago, like four years or something ago, my agent tells me that this woman wants to see me. They have a product. And it started out with a stand

with two of those kicking things. Like a taekwondo thing? Yeah, those two. So I came to her, and I was hungover. It was the last period that I was still drinking. And I walk in, I say, okay, I'm telling you right now, because you can breathe it, you can smell it. I'm a little hangover.

Let me take a look at this thing. And I call you back tomorrow what I think. So I looked at the thing and the next day i called back i said okay now this is what we should do and i had this whole list ready and she goes like whoa whoa we thought you didn't notice anything yesterday i said no and then i came up to do a head to do a body pad you know and make targets on there and you know but then then it starts because people think this is an easy product there's knockoffs from these things, right? They're already selling knockoffs. If you buy that thing, that was like our early stages, what you're going to have.

They're going to flop around. They're going to break because you need to find a spring that is just right to not be too floppy and not too stiff. If it's too stiff, the whole stand will move. If it's too floppy, you can't knock it's too stiff the whole stand will move if it's too floppy you can't knock it for the second punch because it's still moving you know it needs to be just right now the foam in there needs to be just right now foam the density the density if it's really tight foam it's heavier you know so if you say okay this is a little bit too hard i want different foam you put different foam but now because it's lighter then the spring needs to be changed again so every time i got like eight

prototypes and i have to train on those things the whole time to see and find out which is what and what's the best weight and the best foam with what spring it took two and a half years really two and a half years to find that they They hit that thing, I mean, 30,000 times with the machine. Dong, dong, dong. That thing, when you buy it, it won't break. Two guys, there was two heads broke. But that was from a shipment that we right away took out because it was something with the glue that it didn't connect.

It was vaporizing or eating the glue. So it didn't work. There was two only. We sent a new head back, and we never, and we saw a lot of those things. So you have no problems. No problems. Do you use those yourself do you use every time when i train yeah but i now right now i can't i use a lot i can't do hooks like see that's a weird weird angle for me and uppercuts if i make 10 uppercuts the last uppercut goes slow up because it's yes biceps now you really realize that you need your biceps in order to put your body weight into

a punch. You can't lock it up now. A straight punch I'm okay with, but hooks, I can hit with a glove, I can hit you as hard as I want to your belly, you're not going to go down. Wow. For real. Yeah, it's really pathetic when I look at it. Why did you like having no wraps on?

I always have that I want to have my blood flow keep going for some reason I have the feeling if this happens that it doesn't circulate anymore naturally it's a bad feeling

when you got a tight wrap when it's too tight yeah I don't like it at all and you don't need it if you hit the right way all these guys are so like Tyson I always give the example

just know or just learn how to hit the correct way and nothing will happen these guys they come in the room they got the special guys. They got a stitch there on call every day, two times a day.

They wrap their hands perfect. He can hit it in any angle. It doesn't matter. So then when this guy, that's why when he had a street fight, he would always break his hand, right, Tyson? Right. Because he doesn't know how to hit. He hits him with the pinky, whatever, wrong technique. But isn't it hard when you're fighting because guys move and sometimes you

wanted to hit him with these two knuckles, but you accidentally catch him with the last knuckle. You know, of course it's always, you have to, yeah. You know, especially in karate with the Kyokushin karate,

you're sparring and it's bare knuckle. And some of these guys, they have a gi and some guys have their hips here, right? So that's how I broke this one. Also, also you hit a hip you think you have to get the liver but it's not it's a it's a hip bone yeah that that'll hurt that'll uh that was the good thing in mixed martial arts because now you can see what you're hitting everything now you started out you started out in taekwondo is that what you uh taekwondo. That was my first sport, yeah. I did that for about, I don't know, four weeks or six weeks. And I was already beating up the brown belts.

You have to understand, my parents are very conservative. They would never allow me to do martial art. But I always got bullied. And I saw a Bruce Lee movie in 76, Enter the Dragon in France when we were on a holiday. And I came out and said, that's it, I want to be bruce lee you know so i made these noon chucks and i was only like kung fu shoes i had the whole the whole thing yes i was really so uh i i asked my parents please please please please but they wouldn't allow me so i kept going kept going training myself so watching moves and

just kept training and then finally after two after two years, they said, OK, you know, stop asking questions. Go. And we had a neighbor, the girl next door. She had a boyfriend who was the cool guy from the town. And he said, OK, come with me. He took me kind of under a swing. And it went really good. I started beating up, like I said, the brown belts within six weeks.

She said, man, you got a good feeling. So my confidence rose. And at that moment, I was driving, riding my bike on the street, and the biggest bully comes with six of his buddies or something, and they said something. And I shouted something back. And they all laughed, were laughing, and they right away came after me. And when I saw them coming for me, I stopped my bike,

and I put it down, and i was just waiting for the guy and then the biggest bully comes to me and he's put you know that in the early days you push with your chest right and he pushed against my chest and i go pop and he goes down broke his nose out anybody more nobody did anything i come home police was already home waiting and that was it no more taekwondo for me so when i moved out of the house when i was 21 you know that's when i started fighting that's when you started kickboxing and everything else boxing yeah muay thai and how did you uh transition into pancreas where'd that come about you know this is oh it's cool we got time right yeah okay cool now um let me go back

let me see i was fighting uh thai boxing in holland i won a lot of fights by knockout like my first 14 fights i won by knockout 13 in the first round round one i was sick what was your uh your final kickboxing record when you when you 16 uh 16 and No, 14 wins, 2 losses. So, I fought this guy who was in jail for a long time, Frank Lottman. Very powerful fighter. Had a record like 52 with like 3 losses and like 48 knockouts. A monster. Now, apparently, I was a bouncer at the time. Apparently, on New Year's Day when I was bouncing

I was also drunk. That's an example. And somebody asked me if I wanted to fight him. And I said, sure. So in, I think like the end of January, I get a phone call, they asked me where to send the posters to. And I said, what posters? From the fights?

I said, who's gonna fight? You against Lopman. And I go, who from the fights I said who's gonna fight you against Lopman and I go who said that he said you you told me that you're gonna fight for so now they had posters already I go like okay you know like might as well yeah I gotta do it now because otherwise you're gonna think I'm scared right so I had about five weeks to train now you gotta understand that I I got tired from jumping rope the first time i was so out of shape it was not even funny so anyway i go to the fights and i i just had my my knee my shin at this this here there was a huge hole i uh i did some crazy stuff on the wall there was a wall i jumped on i i was always really good in jumping up like randallman did

you know i could jump this high like my chest here i would stand in front of it and jump on a wall there was a wall i jumped on i i was always really good in jumping up like randallman did you know i could jump this high like my chest here i would stand in front of it and jump on the wall but it had been raining and i jumped on and my toes slid up and i landed on my shin on it so i ripped my shin open so the day of the fight was all wild flashing we had to tape you know and and they it was like a super glue and everything and And my friend says, okay, lidocaine, there it is again, right? He says, you know, I said, just put it around. He says, no, we'll numb up the whole leg. You know, don't worry about it. He says, and he said, he put it in my butt.

So he says, the leg will be numb. And you'll see that fight. You'll see that fight. I'm like jumping. I never jump when I fight. And the whole time I'm, you know, and I'm shaking my leg and I can't feel my leg. It's like the weirdest thing, you know?

Oh, no. So then they said that it was a knockout. It was a knockout. When you look at the fight, you'll see. I don't think he even hits me. But I'm landing on my butt and I want to get up and I can't get up. My leg doesn't work. And I go, whoa, you know?

I said, man, my leg doesn't work. And the referee says, stop the fight. Then all the people start saying, see, I always said that he cannot fight. So that really bugged me, of course. Anyway, I said, OK, I'll fight another fight. Shouldn't have done it either, because on the three days or four days before the fight, I helped a buddy of mine out. They really beat the crap out of me. He had his jaw all the way wired, you know, and his mouth was closed.

So we went to the guys who did it, and we got in a little scuffle there, of course, and they threw me in jail for a couple of days. In the jail. One is why you can't get in Canada. Right. Yeah. That's a long time ago. In the jail, for some reason, I got an infection in one of my testicles.

Whoa. And it became, like, really big. And it was hurting a lot. And they let me out, you know, because it was only a few days. They did the whole test. They found out that, you know, what the guys did. And they say, you know what, we're not going to bring you to court. You know, they kind of felt that we were right, you know, doing what we did. Anyway, I still fought. And I shouldn't have taken that fight.

I knocked the guy down three times in the first round, and then actually I win. I make a spinning of a backfist. Oh, yeah, that was it. He's standing in front of me, and I'm so tired. You know, my body is so tired, and I go, boom. I give him a back fist in his neck and he goes down

so I think I won the fight and apparently like a month before there was a rule that if you did a back fist you only could do it with a turn some bullshit yeah it was bullshit anyway I couldn't come out for the second round because I was too tired

and they said okay now it really started at home Anyway, I couldn't come out for the second round because I was too tired. And they said, okay. Now it really started in Holland. You see, I always said he was not so good, blah, blah, blah. But I said, okay, I never fight for Holland anymore. This is over. You know, if these fans are like this, I don't want to fight in front of people like this. But it was always.

Yeah, it is. Because, you know, it's your life. But it was always that I wanted to do something with martial arts so a buddy of mine we both together we made this show it's like an um an um a martial arts show on music and we start doing this in like nightclubs and we would like but really cool really cool stuff i would kick him in the belly like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, right? He would grab my foot, throw me back, and I would make a flying kick in his face and land. And, you know, we did all that cool stuff. We would come on with like a cartwheel flick-flack, and that's the way we would walk to the place.

And we had bows, and we did noon chucks, and we did like break tests, the crazy stuff and little cups on his mouth. I would kick spinning Beckett here and jump up and jumping, flying Beckett the cup off his head, you know. So good quality martial arts. But we start putting comedy in there also, like funny things that, for instance, I would stand there very serious with a suit and I'd go, go get the cups. And the guy would come back and he had these little cups and I kept looking straight and he'd go, no, the other ones. What? The other ones. And he'd go, okay.

So then he would walk and he would come back with cups like this, like buckets. Stuff like that. We started doing stuff like that. He would have, and this is also a funny one, I would do a break test and same thing, you know, he would come with the break test and go, take the other ones, you know, so then he came back and he had like these wooden things that were this thick, you know, and he would spread them out like a deck of cards and I would like pick one,

right, and he would hold it and then I would stand in front of it and I go, and then he would, because of fear, he would break it already you know stuff like that we would do and that caught on real fast people really started and seemed to like that so suddenly we were doing this on bigger shows first in nightclubs then we start doing it on shows like uh events big events rob cayman when he was fighting i think that when he had the main event one time we were in the break you know showing this to the people so So that got aired. And then we were on Dutch TV. And then Eurosport saw it. And they had an event yearly in France.

And we went to there. And we started traveling now and doing these shows all over the place. And comedy was always the thing. Once we started doing the comedy, people will know me. There's a few of those things on YouTube, actually. So on one of these shows, because we came up with all these flip flex and somersaults and all that stuff chris dolman was sitting there and chris dolman is one of the forefathers in holland he was a judo champion tough guy you know and um he called me to him and he says man you you

you got some really good abilities man did you ever think about free fighting you know what it is he says no he said well we do that in japan are you interested i say sure because i go okay that's not holland that's japan right so he says come and try it out so i walk in there and at that moment i was you know european champion thai boxing so it was uh because those two fights weren't for a title so i i thought i was the cool dude and um and that was literally like hoist gracie in the beginning you know i walk in and they killed me and they will put on these chokes not blood chokes but like on my windpipe you know and pulling pulling pulling because a lot of those guys no grappling back then zero did you know that they were going to grapple when you went there no no nothing nothing i had no clue

i saw them on the ground and then they say said, okay, just go. Whoa. So I had no clue what I was going to do. So you showed up. You just thought it was just some kind of a crazy fight. You had no idea. Just fighting. So we're training, and I literally, when I drove back, I had to stop my car next to the road, and I had one of the first Philips cell phones. It was really cool at the time. I remember these pretty big ones. And I called my wife.

I said, listen, I have my car next to the road here. I'm going to sleep. I said, I can drive, it broke me, it really, I, I had to drink liquid food for like three days, because my whole throat was messed up, because I thought I could hold that, you know, so I was just fighting it, and they were pulling, pulling, till, yeah, at the end, I would tap, but it was all crushed up, and, and my wife was already laughing, says oh okay so that's it right I said no no I'm gonna go back and within six months three six months I'm gonna tap everybody there you know because I want to learn this I want to learn this game but things started happening and and I got an injury here an injury there and I had to work and it was a bouncer and you know I

once a month I would go over there, and it kind of faded away. Then my wife looks at me, in the beginning of our career, and she says, you're going to be a famous fighter in Japan. And I go, why do you say that? She says, that just came up with me. I said, no, I'm not going to fight anymore, I told you. She said, yeah, you said Holland, but you're going to go to Japan. Six months after she made that comment, I got a phone call and I never

pick up the phone. And the answering machine was broken or turned off because my crazy ex-wife was calling all the time, so I didn't turn on. So I get the, I pick up the phone for some reason and it's Chris Dolman. He says, boss, you got to come tonight. You got to come to Amsterdam. There's a tryout. There's two guys here, Suzuki and Funaki. They're looking for fighters for a new organization, Pancras. So I went to the tryout. I had a scuffle with one of the rings champions because they were fighting for rings. But it was a lot of work. I heard already that they were having works.

By works, you mean fixed fights. Fixed fights. There was a lot of that in Pancras, right? No, there wasn't rings. In Pancras, I will come back to that. No, no. I believe so that there was, but not what the peopleancrase, right? No, that was in rings. In Pancrase, I will come back to that. In Pancrase, there wasn't? No, no. I believe so that there was, but not what the people said. Like, they never asked me.

Well, I'll come back to that also. Anyway, because he told me right there, he says, you know, it's probably going to ask you a little bit later if you want to lose a fight. Anyway, I started sparring with this guy. This guy was a rings champion. He tried to hurt me because they were filming. Result was me knocking him out with a high kick. Boom. And his whole eyebrow was open.

He had to go to the hospital for stitches. Suzuki and Funaki, I saw them pointing at me. So they wanted me. I think two months, two and a half months later, I was in Japan. And before I went, I got that speech from Chris Doman. He said, they're probably going to ask you to lose or to win a fight. I said, Chris, I don't want to do that. If I want to, if I fight, it needs to be real.

Otherwise, I hated those guys who were there. And they would come back and they would say, yeah, I became a champion. And they were all cool. But then when they came back and they had to lose, they would come back and they say, yeah, I lost. But, you know, I had to lose yeah last time they made you win you know but you don't say that but you only say it when you lose so I hated those guys with that you know you're not a real guy so I knocked the first guy out and in the second fight I knocked the other guy out uh Fouquet and then by the way we had dinner with

Funaki Suzuki and I thought gaga here we go you so dinner, they gave me a book from Fujiwara, a really good wrestler. And we had a great dinner, and they put me on a cab. And just before they walked in, I go, whoa, whoa, whoa. I say, I thought you guys were going to ask me something. He said, what do you mean? He says, well, Chris Dolman told me that, you know, that you're probably going to ask to throw the fight.

Suzuki told me straight in my face I will never ask you such a thing he said we will never do that now over the years I've been hearing of course and some fights when you look at fights it looks really smooth and going over and like Ken Shamrock said he lost also he lost the last fights were all works you know it's also you go like, okay, he lost twice by exactly the same combination, and he looked into a knee bar against the same opponent, and you go like, if it was not real,

wouldn't you come up with something else? Would you really do two times the same? You see, so that's been also in my head. Did you ever see Bart Vale versus Ken Shamrock? No. It looks so fake. It's one of the early ones that looks really like a work. There's a few that look really like a work.

That's one of them. You know, you've seen the ones in Pride. Remember when Coleman fought Takata? Oh, God, Takata. Were you commentating on that one? Oh, my God, I hated my guts because it was the funniest thing ever. We knew that Coleman was going to lose in six minutes with a heel hook, right? You knew? That was the word.

I heard that. So when the reporters came in, they asked me, who do you think is going to win? And I say, I say Takara's going to win in about six minutes with a heel hook. And they went around and they changed it. They went like faster or something. They really didn't like that, that I was doing that. But I go like, that's something again.

That's why sometimes I get emotional from it when people say, oh, it was fake. And then the worst one, what they say is, yeah, but sometimes it was fake and Boss didn't know of it. So they told the opponent to lose against Boss. You know, like I fought against Funaki. And then one guy said one time, he said, yeah, that wasn't work because he didn't hurt you. I said, when did he decide that he was going to lose? Was it before or after he tried to break my freaking leg? I mean, I know if you see the fight, he puts me a heel hook, an inverted heel hook with the toes in his neck.

And my heel is 180 degrees there. I'm literally looking at my own leg. And I go, oh, my God, I don't don't feel it you know that i thought nobody else what that was a big risk what he was going to take if this was a fake fight right i needed to like two or three times so you'll see my leg completely be turned the other way did you suffer any damage because no i have no clue how that reverse heel hook is one of the worst it's the It's the worst one. I broke this. I'm walking on the street, right? And suddenly we're here with all the fighters. We hear, hybrids wrestling, bangers.

And we look, and there's this giant screen. And the first thing you see is me, baff, giving a palm strike. And the guy goes down, and we go, yay! And it's the promo for the next day. So I see this guy, Takahashi, sitting in a half guard. And he grabs a heel, and he falls back. And I go, this is the time I had nobody to roll with, right? I trained on the back two times a day.

My first year and a half in Pancras was me training on the back pretty much. No wrestling? No Jiu-Jitsu training? No, pretty much nothing. Like rolling around. If there was somebody who knew Judo, he would come. I mean, I'm talking about once every three weeks. I'm not kidding so next day i'm in that position and i go oh might as well try it right so i grabbed that heel but since i never did it i didn't realize how much pressure i put on so i grab it and i fall back using my body weight i snap the shin and a half so first we hear we

have called you know so i go whoa you see me letting go and then he feels his knee and he's like you want to fight he said yeah but I go like well dude I hurt your knee snap

because we thought it was a knee but apparently it was still like a little stuck on that leg so then he kicks with that leg

and I flex my muscle you see and then when he puts the foot down it bends all the way out you know it's like that I've seen that a few times wow I've seen a few times with checked legs only in person once

cory hill and um god who did he fight i forget who he fought uh brent no what the hell's his name anyway whoever he fought he uh he checks uh his kick and cory hill's leg snaps backwards the referee didn't even see it so cory goes down and the referee was in a bad angle. We're all screaming, stop the fight. Referee didn't even know and he's just on his back like freaking out. That's dangerous, man. Especially the shin when it's splintered, you know, and it hits a wrong...

You can bleed out. You showed me I think on Twitter, you sent a tweet with the guy who's fighting with the broken arm. Remember? I mean, how tough is that dude? And he didn't feel it. Then the referee saw it in the round three, and then they stopped the fight. But this guy was just going, annihilating the other guy with it.

It was unbelievable. Both these guys were actually really good. I go, what organization was that? Well, you know, Rich Franklin, when he fought Chuck Liddell, he broke his arm. He punched Chuck with it after it was broken. Yeah. God. So you went, and after your fighting career was done,

then you started doing the commentary in Japan. You had a couple of fights after that, the Ruben Villarreal fight you had in the WFA. What happened was that I would have Mark Kerr and Marco Huas and Pedro Ejizo and all these guys that were training with us in the Beverly Hills Jiu-Jitsu Club, and I would train those guys, and I would go with them as corner man. And in Japan, when you fight,

you see the fights are on in the dressing room. So I'm sitting, I'm watching there and Yukino and Hideki, those two guys, the people from Pride who live in America, you know, who are the in-between persons, so to say, are there also. And I go like, oh, look at that. He's going to go for straight arm bar. I say, on his right arm, watch out, who are the in-between persons, so to say, are there also. And I go like, oh, look at that. He's going to go for a straight arm bar.

I say, on his right arm, watch out, watch out. There he comes. There he comes. Boom. And the guy's got a straight arm bar. So they look at me. And then the next fight is right away also again. I say, oh my God, he's looking for a knee bar. Oh, he's going to roll in. He's going to roll in. He's going to go for a knee bar. And he rolls and he goes for a knee bar. And I go like, how do you know this?

I said, well, you can see the setup. And they look at each other and they said, did you ever think about being a commentator? And that's how I got the job. Who was doing it before you? Nobody, because they were looking at that moment, they were looking at new people, because they had the first nine or something.

Cuadros and I, we did that in a studio later. You know, yeah. But I think the first one was... No, Eddie did it with Quadros for a while. Eddie Bravo did it. He did it also, yeah. Hoyts Gracie. Hoyts Gracie, that was the first one I was there.

That was the first one I think that got broadcasted to the stage. Now, this is after you'd fought in the UFC, after you'd won the title. Were you completely done? I mean, obviously you broadcasted to the States. Now, this is after you'd fought in the UFC, after you'd won the title. Were you completely done? I mean, obviously, you had another fight in the WFA after that. What was it like being there in pride during the glory days? And, you know, did you think about making comebacks?

Because I know there was a talk. Yeah, yeah. No, I did. I did. It was two times. Two times. One time it was against Wendell A. Silva. Yeah.

Because they needed an opponent for him that was at the event, that dynamite event. 91,500 people, man, live, outside, crazy. And they couldn't find an opponent. And I said, listen, I didn't roll for a long time because I had problems. I said, but everybody wants to see a strike anyway. And there was also the same card was K-1. You remember Jerome Labaner was fighting Don Fry, K-1 rules.

So I said, so why don't we do K-1 rules with MMA gloves? I mean, that's what the people want to see anyway, you know, from us too. But then that fight didn't go through. They took somebody else. And yeah, that would have been awesome. Because at that time, man, I was hurting like a guy who holds the Thai pads. I mean, he would have purple arms. He would go, my God, this is no fun anymore, you know,

because I was in shape, you know, I had a real good stamina. Fuck, that would have been a great fight. You against Vanderlei, holy shit, a pure stand-up fight. And then when Ken came to Pride, I was the first one to say, I say, I come out of retirement if I can fight him. But Ken said, no, we did it already twice. We don't need to do it a third time. Really?

So he declined to fight in Pride with you? Yeah. That's what he came personally to tell me. He says, boss, I told him that I didn't want to do it because you already fought two times. What does that mean? Yep. And you fought in Pancrase. You never fought in MMA.

I would have loved. But also at that time, I was a totally different fighter. Like, Ken's fight against me made me who I am. That fight was like literally God was watching, and he says, okay, I give you this. One guy to train with in Holland, 19-year-old Leon Van Dyke, freaking monster.

He did, on a machine with 275 pounds, he would do curls it was bizarre i would have him in an arm bar and i better do two hands because he literally would start doing this it's insanely strong and i started training on both we didn't know anything and we would watch tapes i would watch tapes i would see a hill for instance i will write down how it works next day we start rolling i will go here look whoop i go here look I say okay now let's break this down let's see how we can make it better say okay

how can you escape well if I push this way okay so how can I stop you from doing this and we start breaking down every little thing I say okay so you basically did it

by yourself from scratch everything everything no high level instruction at all nothing I did everything myself and you know and that's the cool part

because one time I got a phone call when my big DVDs of Combat came out and it was at the time when BJ Ford met Hughes all the way back. And BJ called me

and I said, hey boss, it's BJ. He said, BJ Penn? Yeah. I said, wow. I say, where do I owe this pleasure for? He says,

I just want to tell you you made the best instructions that I've ever seen. I said, man, that is so cool. He says, you got to go. I got to do my run. I said best instructions that I've ever seen I said man that is so cool he says you gotta go I gotta do my run I said whoa

let me can I use your quote it's simple but that's cool stuff and I saw and I realized also that a lot of people a lot of fighters

took everything straight out of jiu-jitsu and they put it into mixed martial arts and a lot of stuff straight out of jiu-jitsu doesn't work in mixed martial arts because it needs to be more compact

like the sleeve will take care that it's harder for you to roll out of an armbar so that's why my armbars with me i always control the inside of the hand so you you can rotate your hand whatever armbar pretty much i do it's always control control because i don't want it to rotate you know and with he looks and we start breaking everything down and i say okay if i would tap him for instance with an uh an armbar from the mount, I'm just making something up. He would, after three times, he would know my setup. So I would create a different way to go to that armbar.

He would find that way out, and then I would create a different way. So then suddenly I start, for every move, I start having three or four different ways to go to that submission. And then I start tossing those around. That seems so crazy. It's like you had to learn jiu-Jitsu on your own. On my own. You had to figure it out. Like look at how people are doing it and deconstructing it.

And then my next eight fights, I trained for three months I think, two times a day. Sometimes I would wake up at night, would call him and we would go around. That guy was always game, always. And we would train. And my next eight fights I won by submission. That's ridiculous. So when did you ever get real legitimate Jiu-Jitsu instruction? Always. And we would train. And my next eight fights, I won by submission. That's ridiculous. So when did you ever get real, legitimate jiu-jitsu instruction?

Did you get some in America? Never. Never. Your whole career, you're self-taught. Yeah, everything. That's cool. Wow. And the cool part, and I always say this because I'm very proud of it, and that's why I'm saying it, is you, if you look at the record,

in Pancras, they had rope escapes, right? That means that if you could get in a choke, but you could touch the rope, he had to let you go. It's ridiculous. But on the other side, it's really good for you as a fighter to develop, because now you have to be more strategical. Now you have to make sure that you have him in the center of the ring before you go. So then again, if you're going to miss it, you're in the center of the ring.

So there's more thinking with sometimes I want to fight with like four submissions. So instead of going out there, I had now four submission victories pretty much in one fight. And I think that that's why the Pankrus guys were so good in the UFC. I think six or seven guys from Pankrus became all UFC champions because of that rule. I truly believe. I know it's crazy. I always said as long as i don't get have to escape because if i escape for me that would feel like a loss but i didn't you see so even

allowing them to escape to you it's good because it just means you get more submission work in yeah i have another fight now you see what i mean so you have more fights so you feel like you won you won already and now let's do it and let's do it again and then if you look at the ways i submitted people you can call a submission okay a go-go plot I didn't do, but you can come up with some crazy stuff. I put it every, he looks, normally he looks inverted, knee bar triangle, choke triangle, arm bar, figure four. How many fights did you have over in Pancrase? 31. 31?

Yeah. Holy shit Over the course of how many years That was only over the course of 5 years I fought the first year I fought 9 fights And the second 9 again Wow

And the night 8 again I mean That was a high Wow I fought that in a Pretty short time So by the time You got to the UFC

You had a Shit load of fights Yeah All the Muay Thai fights All the Pancrase fights, and then finally you got to fight MMA style. Finally, because I wanted to go to the UFC for the entrance song. I kid you not. I thought that was the coolest thing.

The old original one. From Eindhoven, Holland. And I go, I want to come up with that song. That is so cool. And that really, they came and asked me. I said, but that was the deciding factor that I said, okay, I want to do it. Because I just love that song. They promoted the shit out of you when you first came to the US. Oh, I remember that.

I gave you one of the posters. Brian sold it on eBay. I used to have the old posters. The world's best martial artist. The greatest martial artist. But it was cool. And I had a great idea. I had the three tenors, Pavarotti and all these guys.

They did a tour. And on one of those tracks is I Like to Be in America. And it's a 43-second clip. And I told them, I said, I like to be in America. And I thought, okay, please, let me put on that clip for 43 seconds. And then the UFC tune comes up. I mean, I'm going to score here in America. That's hilarious.

You were so worried about your opening music. Oh, man, that was it. For every fighter, I always got that. That's right. Did you read the script already for Kevin's movie? No, I haven't read it. Oh, man, that was it. For every fighter, I always got that. That's right. Did you read the script already for Kevin's movie? No, I haven't read it. Oh, okay, because you're in it, right? Yeah, yeah.

So it's really fun. It's Kevin James, who you don't know, who's trained with you a bunch of times, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He did the... He's a very talented martial artist. He really is. People are going to...

They don't know. People are talking a lot of shit, like Kevin James, the comedian, he's going to do a UFC movie. Kevin James can hit the fucking shit out of the pads. Yeah. the comedian, he's going to do a UFC movie. Kevin James can hit the fucking shit out of the pads. You know why

he's going to freak me out? When I was in Boston, when I was doing that Zookeeper movie with him, we trained with Mark De La Grata, and I was like, God damn, dude,

his fucking technique is crisp. And you know what? If I say, okay, you need to open your hip a little bit more, he'll do it the next time. He's a very smart dude.

Yeah, he is. He really is. He hates it when we say this because he says, oh, I don't want people, you know. He's a very humble guy. He is. For such a successful guy,

he's very humble. I met him when he lived in that apartment on Overland in a one-bedroom apartment which he shared with another guy. Yeah. And now he lives in a house. Yeah, you know where he lives.

And then you go like, he's the same dude. Same guy. Same guy. I've known Kevin since he was basically an open mic-er. I was the one who talked

my manager into signing him. Oh, wow. He had only been doing comedy just like me. We were both basically open mic-ers. We had done a little bit of professional work,

but, I mean, we'd been doing comedy two, three years. You're really an open mic-er that's getting paid. You're an amateur, basically. That's when Kevin and I met. We met in like, shit, 91 maybe, 92? Yeah, he said that you and he would watch the Pancras fights all together.

Yeah, yeah. He used to come over to my house in Encino. We would watch them, man. I had a buddy of mine from Canada who would get them from Japan. He had a connection in Japan. So he would get them. They would send them to Canada, and then he would send them from Canada to me, and then we would watch them at my house. We got all Japanese commentary. I watched all of them. I'd get a stack of them every month. This was before I was even working for the UFC. Before I ever even started thinking about doing commentary. We were just fans. How did you ever get in there? Because you went from Fear Factor. Before that.

I started working in 97. Before you came to the UFC, I'd done the post-fight interviews for about two years. I started at UFC 12, Dothan, Alabama, Vitor Belfort's debut. Okay.

And I did it then. I was on news radio, and what happened was they just needed a guy to do the post-fight interviews. They didn't have anybody. And my manager was friends with the same guy who signed Kevin. My manager was friends with the guy who was one of the producers of the show, this guy Campbell McLaren,

who was also the guy who tried to get me to fight Wesley Snipes one day. So they needed someone to do the post-fight interviews. And so he just sent me to fucking Alabama out of nowhere. And before you know it, I'm doing it. It was very unorganized, though. It's not like the UFC today. I did it for maybe two years, but I saw a lot of great fights. Shamrock versus Zinoviev.

I saw Randy Couture's debut, Vitor Belfort's debut, Dan Henderson's debut. I mean, I was there for a lot of great, great fights. But it started to cost me money, so I quit. It was like I would make more money doing comedy than that. So it was a little too, and I was on news radio at the time, the sitcom. So I was too busy. So I quit. And then when the UFC came along, when Zufa, rather, purchased the UFC,

then I started working for them. That was 2000. And when did you Fear Factor? That was at that time also? Yeah. Fear Factor was 2001, I believe it started. And I was already on Fear Factor when I started working for the UFC. I did it as a favor.

The first, I think, eight shows I did for free. Yeah. I just said, you know, they wanted me to do commentary. And I was like, all right, I'll do it. I'll sit in there. I'll do that. I was just talking, you know. Yeah, really.

Honestly, I shouldn't have been paid for the first ones. I wasn't very good at it. no but still you know that's the same as fighting you in the beginning you don't care about money but until you know somebody you go like okay well actually she's gonna pay for it well then it became you know it became the thing that i enjoyed most i mean it's like stand-up comedy i enjoy the most i'll always be a fan of mixed martial arts even when i'm not doing if i retire one day and stop doing commentary i'm always going to watch the fight i'm always going to be the fights. I'm always going to be a fan. But I'm always going to do stand-up comedy

as a profession. So that's my number one thing. But other than that, all the things that I've ever done in my life, like Fear Factor or News Radio, the UFC is the greatest fucking job ever. I mean, I love it. I always love it also in Japan. I will say to Maru, I will say, Maru,

we're the only two in six billion right now who see freaking Fedor versus Crow Cop. Yeah. Or Fedor and O'Gara.

You know, those epic fights and Vanderlei Silva annihilating, you know, Sakuraba. Like, wow.

Crazy stuff. And you were there for some prime fights pride in the for people who don't know weren't aware pride pride in the

in the heyday was one of the best if not the best organization in the world because they had so many different rules first of all there are a lot of things

that I like they had 10 minutes for the first round I like that because then you know a lot of times a guy would take a guy down

with 5 minutes into the fight and then the round would end you know and he was just starting to get would take a guy down with five minutes into the fight and then the round would end. You know, and he was just starting to get and impose his part of the game. But in the pride rules, they would give him a full 10 minute first round. And they allowed soccer kicks and stomps. I mean, it was a lot more brutal.

And no elbows on the ground. No elbows. So he had less cuts. That's it. That's what I always say. I want to have them allow knees on the ground, you know, and get away from the guts. Yeah. Yeah, we know. How many knockouts did you see with an elbow, right?

Five? Yeah. If that ever? Well, it's a good weapon. I mean, look, John Jones, when he used it on Brandon Vera, I mean, he broke his orbital bone. Oh, yeah. But that's then one of the five. Yeah.

Name the other four. You see? Not that many. Yeah. But a lot of fights get stopped by cuts. And a lot of guys get cut. And I hate that because on the street, you wouldn't stop if you got cut. You keep on fighting. It's not a real win.

I'm one of those guys who made careers out of it. But still, it's such an effective weapon. I feel like you can't take it away either because it's so good. It's a good technique. Okay, maybe what they should do is they've, yeah, but again. Could they pad the elbow? Yeah, so something around it that at least it doesn't cut. I'm totally for it if you knock them out, man.

I'm the biggest guy. But not like laying on somebody and literally do this. They don't even load them up. Right, right. You just rub them, rub them, rub them, and then they get cut, and they win the fight. Yeah, I won the fight. No, you didn't win the fight. For me, you didn't win that fight.

Do you think they could solve that with a neoprene sleeve on the elbow, maybe? The problem is, you know, it's like these crazy Muay Thai things that they have around, you know, that always starts moving and around. It's going to be annoying. People got to, you know, maybe surgically they have to implant one. Surgically implant

a pad over your elbow. Man. It's hard here, isn't it? Yeah, it's you. You're all fired up. Yeah, this is awesome. I like this. So you did two fights in the UFC after you won the title with Randleman. What made you stop? Pain, pain, pain, pain. That neck injury, I brought it all the way to the Randleman fight.

And it was still not gone. It was hurting. I couldn't sleep. I wasn't sleeping pills for such a long time because of the pain there was always pain pain in my neck and then i said you know what i'm gonna say i tore biceps like throwing a left hook in the air pack i go what oh my god what's going on now you know i stopped breaking down breaking down and then i started uh i didn't do anything then i started training like three years after that i started started training, and it started going good,

and the ground started going good, and, you know, okay, everything feels good, and then I stopped. And then, like two years later, two and a half years later, that's when they called me for the WFA, if I was interested. They offered me a lot of money, and apparently what happened, this was funny also because they Kimo Leopoldo to him they said he says who do you want to fight

and I said Hickson that's the first I said Hickson they said we don't have the money for that, it's never going to happen I said okay Hickson's crazy right, he wants millions and millions of dollars yeah that was at the time you know and I just wanted to see what you can do against him and so they...

By the way, that would have been another awesome fight. That would have been an awesome fight, man. Holy shit. You against Vandele or you against Nixon. Holy shit. Yeah, that's the same. Anyway, then I said, I don't know, you know, I don't... So you fought Villarreal.

No, no, no. They said Kimo Leopoldo. Kimo tested positive for steroids. Yeah, but when they said Kimo Leopoldo, I said, are you sure? I said, man, I just hang out with him in Japan. When he fought in Japan, it's kind of weird. I said, no, no, no, he actually wants to fight you. I said, oh, cool.

So then when we had the photo shoot, I go to the photo shoot, and he's there. And he's acting all weird, like giving me a hand, but like shying away. And I go like, wow, he's taking this fight very serious, right? I mean, what's going on? Oh, yeah, we told him that you specifically asked for him. I said, why would you do that? That's not true. And then I thought, you know what, am I going to tell him?

But then I thought, no, I'm not going to tell him because if I tell him, you know, then maybe he's not going to train as hard. I wanted to have a tough fight, you know, so I thought he's angry, he's going to train harder, it's going to be an awesome fight. And then I thought, that was my crazy mind. I say, on the day of the fight, I would deliver a letter to him in the dressing room saying exactly what I just said.

So he would read, like, I knew this already, but I didn't want to tell you because I want you to be 100% before you fight me and full of stamina because you're going to need it. And I think that would be totally backfiring, right, just before you fight me and and a full of stamina because you're going to need it and that way i think that would be totally backfiring right away just before you fight so that was the setup to to play and then yeah he got test positive so that was ruben had to take his place ruben took his no we don't want a lot of guys thank gabby didn't want to do it and then there's a lot of bunch of guys they went over because i said anybody they gave they came up with that because i didn't so ruben was just the only one who was willing to take the fight yeah now when you were

over there in Japan and you were there for all those great fights like Noguera versus Krokop and Noguera versus Fedor

and what was that like sitting there ringside I mean did you want to just fucking jump in there sometimes no you get crazy

you get crazy you get you were over there for some of the greatest fights ever ever ever and nobody gets to sometimes? Oh, you get crazy. You get crazy. You get, you... You were over there for some of the greatest fights ever. Ever. Ever. And nobody gets to take that away from you. That's what they said

with my fights also. I won two fights at first, two fights at Pankhurst and one guy in Holland says, he says, boss, everybody was saying, oh, he's going to lose, he's going to lose,

he's going to lose, you know, like a very negative country. And one guy says, boss, whatever happens, they never take this away from you anymore. So lock this up. They got, you got this, you know. And that's what with those fights also that's something that you carry on with the

rest of your life they were great moments and to interview those guys you know to reenact with them and do crazy stuff and then when i caught a start doing these crazy openings you know yeah those were fun man i like those no who didn't like those because they pulled those things out that jerry millen came oh that Oh, that guy. Yeah. You know, he was suddenly, everything needed to be the same as boxing. And I go, why? They're going to be the same as everybody else. You know, let it be.

How many fights did you do over there in Pride? How many cards? Oh, God. I don't know. I mean, when they started Bushido also, I was there 12 times a year. Wow. Every month. I was like five, six. Yeah, I have no clue. But a lot. So, every month. I was like five, six times.

Yeah, I have no clue, but a lot. So during the heyday, it must have been completely insane. I mean, I heard stories about guys getting paid with stacks of money. Stacks of money. It was crazy. All crisp, all numbers, exactly in a row. I mean, if they would walk in there with guns, but yeah, then again, you don't want to do that, I guess. There's a lot of money there. Japan is run by the yakuza right that's the whole deal with pride and all these organizations

they're basically and that's accepted that's a part of japanese culture right is that just how it works no no no no it's uh it's not accepted because when when it came out then it was over right then because then the tv said we don't want to be associated with it. And they pulled the money out. Was that just because it was made public? But it was already known, right? I think it was made public. I've got to forget this.

It was a pass from Joe Rogan for a buddy of mine. Oh, yeah. I gave my UFC pass for a buddy of mine. Yeah, that's cool. Is that your phone that keeps going off? I have no clue. Let me see. Oh, my battery's still low for use.

Okay, good. I'll turn it out. So when you were over there, though, when you were watching all these classic fights, I mean, like I said, you'd been there for, I mean, you were there for Shogun Mark Coleman. You were there for Shogun versus Rampage, Rampage versus Arona.

I mean, some of the greatest fights of all time. Rampage, the things that we did with Rampage, how, you know, I remember my first, when he fought Sakuraba and he lost that fight, I took him to the side. I said, listen, you got it, man. You got this thing. They love you. I said, make sure this doesn't happen anymore because they actually had to get him out of jail to get there to fight. There was a whole stress thing going on, because he had a warrant out of him or something, and he was at the airport, and they got him, and they put him in jail.

Really? Yeah, but then the Pride people started talking. They got him out. They made pictures of it. He's standing in front of the jail. It was on the cover of all the newspapers. He's standing there with his big chain, you know, and that was that was

Quinton he came in now the the pride what was going on back then at that time was pride was a mainstream Japanese sensation it was huge in mainstream Japan right it wasn't like mixed martial arts in America back then was not nearly as successful as it is today. A small show was 43,000 people. God damn! And they would sell out all the time. The biggest show, 91.5. Tokyo Dome, 55,000. 60,000. I mean, it was crazy.

And you would go out on the street and you would get mobbed. Oh man, everywhere. Everybody. So what happened? What happened over there? Because it stopped being like that. It stopped being like because of that. Because of the Yakuza. Yeah, when the TV pulled everything out, it was over.

That's when everything went down the drain. But it was so successful, so many people liked it. I couldn't imagine that someone else wouldn't come along. No, no, no, no, no. I think the main reason of this is Sakuraba started to lose. Oh. You, like, an organization in Japan, in order to be successful, they need a star. And where are you going to fight?

Good luck to find another Sakuraba who beat four Gracies. Unbelievable fighter, you know. But it is, K-1 never got big in America. Why? They don't have an American champion. Right. They have an American champion in America, K-1 never got big in America Why? They don't have an American champion They have an American champion in America K-1 But that guy doesn't do good at the final tournament

But once an American guy Is going to win in Japan You watch Then K-1 becomes very interesting for the people And it's logic You want to root for your own guy That's funny though Because Horst Gracie when he won in America,

he was a hugely popular guy, and he was from Brazil. I think if they had K-1 over in America, I just think people would. Dana White and I had a conversation about this. We were talking about how kickboxing has a negative stigma in America because of PKA karate, the old, boring kickboxing that they used to have on ESPN. Eight kicks above the waist or something. You couldn't even kick low. You couldn to have on ESPN. Eight kicks above the waist or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you couldn't even kick low. You couldn't kick low at all.

Very few of the... I mean, occasionally they would show you a low kick fight. You know, they would allow special rules or something. Yeah, special rules, Dutch rules. Yeah. But for the most part, it was like they would wear those big stupid slippers on their feet. They wouldn't really kick. It wasn't exciting.

It wasn't nearly as exciting as boxing or Muay Thai. But the K-1 now, if you watch the Grand Prix now. That's bizarre. So exciting. It's the best show ever. So exciting. Best show. And Max as well.

The K-1 Max, the lightweight guys. Georgia Petrosian. I mean, shit. Unbelievable, right? Tell me that guy couldn't be a star in America or Alistair especially. Yeah, but the thing is, in the beginning, it will work. But eventually, people want to see an American champion well I think maybe

if it was really big and successful over here you would have some Americans that would do well but they would have to they would have to know that that's a legitimate

avenue for a profession you know guys like Pat Barry you know guys who are real serious fucking strikers you know there's not that many of them

there's not no there's really not and you know in America there's really not. In America, there's no venue. They have to go out of the country to get real high-level fights. It's very hard. Maurice Smith would say he was at the top of the pyramid at the time,

and he didn't make it over there. So then they go like, okay, because who was going to beat Maurice Smith in America? Nobody. Right? Yeah. Maurice, he was another interesting guy when he first came to the UFC. I was there for his debut.

I was there when he fought Mark Coleman. Nobody gave him a chance. Everybody thought Maurice was going to get killed. I remember backstage, he's so relaxed. He was hanging out and goofing around and laughing. I'm like, does this guy know he's going to go get fucking stomped by the biggest guy in the game? Mark Coleman was a fucking destroyer back then.

But Maurice just, it was the first guy to have like that real high level cardio. You know, it was the first guy that just not get tired. He knew Mark

was going to get tired. Yep. I fought him. I fought him twice. Maurice in tank race, right? You submitted him, didn't you?

Yeah, twice. Yeah. It was fun. You know, the best one was the first time I'm standing here

and he makes a kick I go punch him and he goes whoa fast and right away I give him my high kick poof

and it's on his defense very close so I think oh cool I make another one right away I make a switch kick and I kick

and I slip and I fall on the ground and he wants to jump on top of me and I go wait he stops and I get up and I go thanks

so when you said wait he just listened to you? Yeah, you got to see that fight. You got to laugh. It's the funniest thing. Hey, it's legal, right? That's hilarious. Yeah, that was hilarious. That was funny.

And then he tried to take my back. This was the coolest. I did a knee bar, upside down knee bar. I'm on my head, feet up, knee barring him. I'm standing against the ropes and he's trying to get my back. So you just dove down on a knee bar. That's it. I go like, okay, get my back.

So right away, I dove in, but he grabs the ropes. So I'm standing upside down on the top of my head, and I have the knee bar. He's tapping on the ropes. He's rope escaping. Wow. Yeah, that was wild. Man, you were really there for some crazy times.

What is it like now, going was wild. Man, you were really there for some crazy times. What is it like now going from your very beginnings where there was no mixed martial arts, where you went over there, you literally had no idea what it was like, to seeing what it's like now with Cain Velasquez and all these guys. Unbelievable. You have to understand that when I came from Thai boxing, right, you get weight classes. It's like boxing. So I came to Japan, and the first thing I see is my opponent is 245 pounds,

and I'm 195. So I go like, okay, but I didn't want to show anything, of course, because, okay, this is what it is, right? You've got to fight. So I go, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. I say, how many rounds? They say one round. I say, awesome.

How many minutes? 30. I say, awesome. But I didn't think inside awesome say awesome. How many minutes? 30. I say awesome. But I didn't think inside awesome. I go 30 minutes. I'm going to fight 30 minutes. You know, that's why I put those R's on my hand. I have to stay relaxed because I'm such a hothead. Oh, that's what the R stood for? Yeah. Relax. Yeah. In Holland, it's rustig. Starts with an R also. So what's coincidentally is the same. I thought it was verrueten. No, no, no, no. Verrustig. Stay calm.

Every time when I get hit, you hear my corner. You listen to the same. I thought it was for rooting. No, no, no, no. For rustic. Stay calm. Every time when I get hit, you hear my corner. You listen to the fights. You go, stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, because they know I want to... That's why in Holland, we're all first round knockouts. I would come out very technical.

Pop, boom. Tak, tak, tak, boom. As long as you get hit, you get crazy. Oh, I get crazy. So I figure, I said, man, if I'm going to fight a guy like Rocky Marciano, you know, who can take a lot of punishment, but then come back and I got 28 more minutes to go,

we're going to shoot a load. I don't want to have that. So I put two R's on my hand and they would shout. They never shout an instruction. The only instruction they shout is like when I'm in a guard, I would tell them, right? This is my easiest guard escape on the planet. Imagine the guard is here and his left foot is on top, right? I would look at my corner and it would go right.

And I would swing back and underhook it and grab it. They would be the eyes for me. And until this day, I don't get it that nobody does this. It's the simplest thing on the planet. To know which foot is on top. Because that's the one you can push up. Because it's not being held. So you just look at him and they go right.

And then you relax and then pick it up. Oh, that's hilarious. Do you do that for your guys as well? Oh, yeah, yeah. I do that also, yeah. You got to be careful you don't get caught in a triangle though, no? No, you know that, right?

Right. This is not like while he's pulling on your arm. Let's try it now. Time and place. How crazy is it watching the evolution of the game? I mean, literally in America, there has never been a sport like mixed martial arts that has exploded and changed and grown right before our eyes. I mean, some sports got famous like skateboarding and BMX riding. I mean, some stuff that wasn't a viable way to make a living

when I was a kid became one. But nothing like mixed martial arts, where it was just constantly in the public eye and movies and jammed down your throat on television. I mean, it's pretty fucking strange, isn't it? I predicted it right away after my first fight. They did an interview with me, and I said, this is like a rollerball, that movie.

There's people going to need an outlet, and this and this is it this is gonna be very big i say you're watching four years from now or no yeah i said four years from now this will be the biggest thing and it was like seven years later or something i was like way off in time but eventually it got there i i go like what is what is better than this i knew at that time already that everybody likes to likes to know who's the toughest guy on the planet. And this is literally being the toughest guy. I was on Inside MMA last week,

and I was ashamed about a comment that I made against Frank because we had a comment that one guy says, oh, MMA is just like two guys rubbing against each other on the floor. And then I told him the story that I was fighting Frank and that I stood up and I said to Frank, come up. He says, no, no, you come down. I said, no, come up, fight like a man. And I go, I'm eating those words right now

because when I broke that guy's shin bone, because I had no clue how much power that was on that joint, that really started making me think. And I go, you have to understand that the ground guy can break whatever he wants in your body you got so much dominant power if i roll with guys my students they rather stand with me than the ground because on the ground they say you always you're there standing they can move around you know right and they get the hell out of there he says but it's way harder on the ground so i go like wow listen i i canate, break, snap I can do whatever I want

if I say okay your right arm is going to go your right arm is going to go to any guy on the street talking about power compared to knocking somebody out I can put you to sleep I can do some crazy things with you it's a very strange thing the Jiu Jitsu it just came out of nowhere

when I was a kid it was all about striking no one ever took Judo I wrestled in high school but I just did it as a sport it just came out of nowhere. I mean, when I was a kid, it was all about striking. There was no, no one ever took judo. I wrestled in high school, but you know, I just did it as a sport, you know, and you know, I got bored with it quick

because it just didn't seem like there's anything going on. You held the guy down, but it wasn't submitting, submitting him. And once jujitsu came along, man, it's amazing how much it's evolved.

You look at like MMA, you look at the jujitsu that was in MMA in 93 and look at the jujitsu you see now with like Jacare, Damian Maya, you know, it's fucking so many levels above it. The thing is what I always say, I say all the moves are pretty much invented, right? But it's the setups. They found such a creative ways to go to a particular move. That is the cool part about mixed martial arts now.

If you have that setup that nobody noticed yet, you see how many many times you see remember the first time the anaconda got introduced in pride you know the guy from the garris camp they said we call this anaconda that was no gara told me yeah because nobody saw the freaking thing before boom everybody started landing anaconda yeah you know darts joke same thing suddenly there's the darts you know oh you can do it on the other instead of the armpit you go to the... You see? So people start playing with it. And they create these different ways. Like Dean Lister against the Italian guy. Alessio Saccaria.

Saccaria. The way he said that triangle choke up. I mean, wow, that was so cool. It was so sneaky, slowly, but surely. And then, bloop. You know, you go like, that is cool. Lister's a master. It's unbelievable, right? Yeah, I mean, Lister. You know, you go like, that is cool. Lister's a master. He's an amazing guy.

Yeah, I mean, Lister, if Dean Lister was around in the early UFCs, nobody had jiu-jitsu like him in 93. You know, even Hoist Gracie didn't. His jiu-jitsu was very basic. It wasn't nothing like, you know, the jiu-jitsu that you see today. You know, there's a few guys that they say when they compare jiu-jitsu, they say, you know, like Hickson is a perfect example. People today, even high-level black belts that roll with him, just say, that guy is on another level. they compare jujitsu they say you know like hickson is a perfect example people today even

high level black belts that roll with him just say that guy is on another level there's just a few guys that are just you know laborio ricardo laborio is another one they say about that he's just on another level just there's just such a high level of jujitsu but overall the level of jujitsu from the new guys like the marcelo garcias you know these new guys coming along it's fucking it's just it's so high level it's so much more advanced than it was just 10 15 years ago you guys like the Marcelo Garcia's, you know, these new guys coming along. It's fucking, it's so high level, it's so much more advanced than it was just 10, 15 years ago, you know. You know what a cool thing is with Liborio? He saw me rolling with Joakim Hansen in China and he was watching there and then he started showing me things and I said what he could

do with those particular leg locks and how he could do this and make it that stronger and he was sitting looking at me and he was like, whoa, I said, oh, you thought I was a striker, right? And he goes, I didn't know. And then it's finished that he wanted me to come to American Top Team to teach a ground fighting seminar. Oh, that's fine. That is cool stuff.

Well, it's good to have a fresh perspective. You never know. Everybody has their own way of doing things if you haven't seen it before. That's it. There's so many seen it before. That's it. There's so many different techniques. What people don't understand that don't do jiu-jitsu, there's so many different techniques that are available. It's the same. It's like chess if you had a million pieces.

There's so many different submissions and so many different transitions and chains of submissions and new techniques and new counters. Yeah, but I believe in it's good to know them all, but for every fight you have to say, okay, I'm going to use this particular move for that guy. I don't go crazy on this dude. And then have those different setups. That is the key, man. And set up one, two, four, and go from one to four to two,

to back to one, to boom, cut. But there's some guys like Jake Shields who, Jake Shields is very basic. He doesn't do a lot of different techniques, rear naked choke, armbar, gu back to one, to boom, cut. But there's some guys like Jake Shields who, Jake Shields is very basic. He doesn't do a lot of different techniques, rear naked choke, armbar, guillotine choke, but he just fucking gets them. Yeah, and he knows it. Yeah, his path to those techniques is so sharp.

Yeah. What do you think, so what do you think about guys today? Like when you look at these guys today and, you know, do you ever wish like, man, did you ever say like, I came along too late? Like why didn't I come? Yeah, on one side, man, I was, did you ever say like, I came along too late? Like what, why? Yeah. On one side,

yeah. But you know, I always go with the glasses half full with me. You know, I, I, I'm in a great position right now,

man. I mean, I got a movie coming up with a big part for this, you know, the Kevin James comedy. You know, I got the TV show.

My wife predicted that one also, by the way. What TV show is it though? Inside MMA? Inside MMA. I mean, this is like,

this is our fourth year. It's crazy. It's nice. And my wife, when she predicted that I was going to be a fighter in Japan, and I said, no, because I'm not going to fight. She says, yeah, in Holland. You're going to go to Japan. March.

Six months later, I'm in Japan. Then two years into that, she looks at me weird again. I said, now what? She says, we're going to go to America. You're going to be in TV business. Swear to God. How did you ever get a part of the Grand Theft Auto? Like the men's room was probably one of the funniest things ever.

Best, right? Are you going to ever do another one? What is it? I haven't seen it. Oh, go on YouTube. He has a show. Yeah, he has a show inside the Grand Theft Auto. I would just sit there to watch his show inside a video game.

Is it on YouTube? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cue it up. Cue it up. Yeah, Bosswood and GTA 4. That was insane. These guys from Barfighting, they saw they saw it and what they did they gave me a script i said can i tweak this thing and they say sure so i would start building sentences in the middle of the sentence i would stop and then restart it so it looks like i'm a total freaking psycho when i'm talking it's like

really weird because it doesn't work. And the result, when you see the result, is one of my final work, man. I had to send people out there. I say, you can't because they were cracking up so hard. Out of all the guys who have fought, though, you're the very best, in my opinion, at transitioning into a career outside of fighting.

And you do inside MMA, you do commentary, you're always doing By the way, you and Michael Schiavello, when you did the commentary for Strikeforce for the undercard, it was the fucking best part of the night. I loved it. I loved it. You guys need to do it together.

I love Schiavello. I think he's fucking hilarious. You guys together were awesome. Somebody really needs to scoop you up and have you guys do more commentary. Yeah, you know, I love doing it, but just right now, this is one of those things that I thought I would never say, but I'm so busy, I don't have the time for it anymore. But anytime I have a chance, like for instance now,

I go to Brussels, and then I do this just like three days before I have to go to Boston to shoot. They say, why do you do it? You don't need to do it. I say, yeah, but I enjoy it. I enjoy it so much to go there. And there I'm also the ring announcer. And they let me free. I can slap the girls. I do fun stuff, but I enjoy it. I enjoy it so much to go there. And there I'm also the ring announcer. And they let me free. I can slap the girls. I do fun stuff.

What is Brussels? A mixed martial arts fight? Mixed martial arts and a K-1 tournament. Both at the same time. Saki is fighting. I've seen that they had one before, right? Yeah, also on Inside MMA. Yes, yeah.

Inside MMA, by the way, if you don't have HDNet, you're missing out. HDNet is the best for watching fights. There's always K-1, K-1 Max. They have 100 different MFCs on, 100 different mixed martial arts organizations, fights from Japan, fights from Europe. It's really incredible. And that's where Inside MMA, your show, is on as well. I love it. And the thing I love about it is I see my old buddies again, whether they're still fighting or they're now coaches from guys,

and then I see the new talent coming up, you know, and we all have them on the show, you know. Who would have thought you're going to get a Bozzy award? You know, like you can win a Bozzy if you have the greatest knockout of the year or something. How cool is that, you know? We really want to start doing that thing, I think, in front of a live audience. That would be cool to do also.

But it's really getting there. We never thought it was going to go doing that thing, I think, in front of a live audience. That would be cool to do also. But it's really getting there. We never thought it was going to go like that. And it just exploded from the half-hour show. We went right away to an hour. And now commercials are there. So that means we're doing a good thing with the hottest show on HGNet. Yeah, Inside MMA is great. It's a really, really fun show to watch.

Now, what about guys that you know that you started out with that have taken a lot of damage? You know, I mean, you didn't take damage. You took damage to your body like you have tendinitis, but you have no problem with your thinking. No. But what is it like when you see guys that do? Because it disturbs the shit out of me. Really, it's really sad. I know a few guys that, you know, start lisping and it's scary stuff. You know, like Orlovsky fight now. You know, Andre. You know, I love this guy. He's a really nice guy. Somebody, I know he wants to fight.

He already wants to prepare for the next fight. I think somebody should say, you know what? Let's not do it. What do you think about Greg Jackson saying that he's going to get right back in there? They're just going to fix it. And he did some things wrong, but he's not done. He's going to come back. It'll be even sweeter than ever.

And I'm listening to him talking. I'm like, motherfucker, do you know that this guy's been knocked unconscious four times in a row? You can kill everything for the rest. Yeah. You know? I mean, maybe he's not going to be a teacher anymore. Nothing but mixed martial arts.

The bad thing also is, like, your legacy is going down. When are you going to be a coach? You're going to go to a gym to train with a guy who lost his last seven fights. Imagine you're a guy like that. Right. Four by knockout in a row. There was not Orlovsky, I'm telling you. But Orlovsky right now, yeah.

So, you know, what I said, what they should do is you tell them, okay, you know where you're going? You're not going to fight for a year. And in between, we're going to do some grappling tournaments to keep the competition on there. And it doesn't matter if you win or lose. Who cares about that? Just be busy with competition so you perform under pressure.

And then if everything feels good, you know know then maybe try it one more time but then really say okay if this is going to go the wrong way you really got to stop like you took about a year off from the brett rogers fight didn't he yeah but in my book if i was my student i it was no yeah i would say now this has been shut off too many times yeah because i don't want to be that nail on the coffin that's going to say, God knows what happens. What about a guy like Alistair that got stopped a bunch of times? I mean, Alistair got stopped, I think, nine times in his career. Bobby Hoffman knocked him out.

Chuck Liddell knocked him out. So many guys stopped him. And then, look at him now. I mean, he's the greatest comeback ever. I know. But you see his fighting style, how he fights. He doesn't throw. I was looking. I said, let it go this fighting style, how he fights. He doesn't throw. I was looking at him, I said, let it go.

Make three, four shots. He doesn't do that. Everything is single shots. His defense is perfect. Boom, boom, boom. Watch. There's no three right uppercut left hook. He's very good.

Very conservative. Yeah, of course. Tries not to get hit. Tries not to get hit. And it's going to be hard for people to hit him. It's so much power. Yeah. You know, I mean, look, the striking is bizarre.

The guy is so strong. He's taking down his fences, getting really good. He's got great submissions. Ground control is really good. No one has ever been like Alistair that won the K-1 Grand Prix and is a mixed martial arts champion. Yep. Dream and Strikeforce. Dream and Strikeforce.

Dream and Strikeforce. Three belts. Pretty fucking crazy. Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool stuff. That's a guy, you know, this is cool. He trained in the early days. He trained with Chris Dolman when I was training there.

He and his brother, Valentine, and I would submit him. And then they would. They're very competitive. And then if I wouldn't come over there, they suddenly would call and they'd say, Oh, we're at your gym. We want to train now because now we're going to get you i say okay and then it went again and they say how is that possible i said because i'm training too you know but i always said that's the guy those are the guys because they they keep on coming keep on coming and want more and travel

for it he wants it the guy who really wants it it really is like that it's like the book i always say the alchemist you know if you set your goal you say that's where i want to go whatever you do you don't get off the path you know you are going to get it i truly believe there's there's something up there that helps you for that you know go go relentless don't walk over people though in order to get there unless you're andre arlovsky and you've been knocked out four times in a row yeah yeah that's true physically you have to stop and look at it and you've been knocked out four times in a row. Yeah, that's true. There's a certain point in time where physically you have to stop and look at it and go, all right, what are we going to do here?

Yeah, that's true. I don't know how you say this. How do you tell when to tell them? I think that people inside, deep down inside, the fighters know if they can become a champion or not. I think they already know that. When I was fighting and I started winning in Japan, when I got that ground game, I look at my wife, I say, I think I'm going to be a world champion this thing.

I truly believe I can beat all these guys now. And then it started. I think you feel that. I think that a fighter will actually notice himself. They will keep on trying and keep on trying. But I think once you know that it's not really there, that that's not a good feeling they won't say it but it is it's like the guys who you mount you hit they turn on the

back and they get choked a lot of these guys they give the choke speaking of that what did you think about the fedor fight when fedor was fighting uh bigfoot i mean he gave up his back a couple of times he had to it was you think that's just he's just too big it was too big i truly believe so too big with too good too big combination yeah and then and then being what 60 pounds heavier or you know that's a big difference man i always said that i wanted weight class 205 235 yeah i agree you know i agree yeah i agree it's the too big of a leap yeah those big giant guys that are cutting weight to get down to 265, that's a huge percentage. They said that he was 290 the next day. I said, how could you gain 25 pounds? His fucking head looks like it's 290.

That guy's big. Yeah, he's big. When he got on top of Fedor and mounted him, you see how wide his back is? He's like, that's a giant person, man. He got stomped by a Bigfoot. Did you see the footprint still on his back? Poor Fedor, man. That was a tough thing to watch.

And it's tougher even still to watch all those people that are behind him saying he's going to fight again. He should fight. No, no, no. The people booing when they don't let the fight continue.

I say, his eye is just closed. He can't see anything coming from the left, you know? At all. Unreal. It was going to be the same thing anyway. He's going to get taken down and smashed.

That was it. That was it. Is it hard watching a guy like that? You mean you watch them enter into pride and then see him get beat down like that? Very hard, yeah. That does something to you. You get emotional. I do get emotional from that.

It's a crazy thing, right? But in this game, in the game of fighting, we're going to see it no matter what. I mean, I was there for Chuck Liddell's debut. I was there for Hector Gonzalez, I think was the guy's name he fought. I forget the guy's name he fought. I was there for that. Noy Gonzalez, maybe. I was there for that fight.

And then to get to see him, you know, all the way to the end, to the Rich Franklin fight, you know, it's like, wow. You know, seeing guys like at the top, at their most vibrant, when they're just dominant. You know, and with Chuck, it's a mental thing. But I always say with Chuck, if he has the right person who can talk to him, he's too hungry. If he lands, if he smells the victory, he starts overcommitting.

All the knockouts he had is because of that. If he would step back, relax, I mean, he was doing really good against Frank Franklin. This guy still can be the top guy. That's his only defect. With him, it's not that he lost his timing and lost that. It's only that he's too hungry. You know, he's been knocking out people too easy.

That's the same you can also see with the training when he fought Couture. You know that when he trains, he puts everybody backwards. And then suddenly when Couture came and started pushing him backwards, that was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now what? He never was there. That fight made him again way better after that. It made him a better counter-striker. Oh, man.

Yeah, he learned how to fire him off as he was moving backwards. One of my favorite guys still. He was amazing. But he also lost the ability to take a punch. I mean, if you go back and watch his first fights, like, have you ever watched the Pele fight? Oh, my God, yeah, that was crazy. That was at WVC, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was bare knuckle. my God, yeah, that was crazy. It was at WVC, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was bare knuckle. Bare knuckle. Those guys are crazy. With the net underneath the rope so you couldn't escape. You get stuck in there and Chuck's on top of Pele, punched him in the face with bare knuckles. People get stabbed in the eyes all the time.

Dudes would grab the balls, remember? I was going to say it. Gary Goodrich. Goodrich. The Pedro. Reached in his pants and crushed his dick in balls. He should have had Viagra on him. He literally grabbed the guy by the cojones.

Yeah. What the fuck? And it was totally, completely legal. Yeah. I mean, nobody had ever done it but Gary. Vale tudo. Anything goes. Yeah, that is anything goes.

Were they allowed to bite, though? I have heard. You know, well, it's almost. I read the book from Big John because I wrote the foreword for the book. And man, that's a cool book. What is Big John's book? What's it called? But what do you think?

Big John McCarthy. No, no, no, no. What? What is his line? Oh, let's get it on. Let's get it on. But that's sort of Mills Lane's line. Mills Lane in boxing had that way before the US.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Oh, I don't even know. Fight or you're ready. Fight or you're ready. Let's get it on. Come before the US. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Let's get it on! Come on! That was his thing. And they had made some sort of an agreement where John was going to use it in MMA and Mills Lane was going to use it in boxing. But I remember when there was

some words that people were saying, only John McCarthy can say, let's get it on because every referee's got to figure out a thing to say. It's Martin Gay who's the one that started it. Marvin Gay. Marvin Gay. It's Martin. Martin.

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, let's get it on. The Mills Lane thing. You've seen it all, boss. You've been there from the beginning. You know, you're a real legend in this crazy sport. I'm a very happy person, let me tell you that. I have a lot of pain when I walk, you know, everything hurts, but it's been worth it.

And I know that with the stem cells and everything, something will pop up, you know, and I'll put it back. I'm not going to fight anymore, you know. I'm also, you know, there's also a thing that I had. In 2006, when I made the comeback, I knew that, like, I would roll and everything would go really well,

don't get me wrong, but there were things that I say, I would have had that normally, and normally I would have and everything would go really well. Don't get me wrong. But there were things that I'd say, I would have had that normally. And normally I would have had that. I noticed that I was getting slower. And that my reactions were not there as they were before. So you've got to be very realistic to yourself. What do you think about a guy like Randy Couture who's older than you? I mean, how old are you now?

Yeah, but 45, 46. Randy's fucking 48 years old and he's about to fight Machida. It's crazy. But he's got the O2 trainer. The boss with an invention, the lung training device. What is the O2 trainer? You know what? This is a fun thing, man.

I came up with this. Yeah. When I was 15 years old. Around that time, I had very bad asthma. But I also did track and field. So when I had an asthma attack, that would be like a two-week episode. Which, from the two weeks, I would be like five or six days in bed. Because I couldn't eat.

And I can't breathe. Because you can't eat. Jesus Christ. Drinking. Like this. 24 hours a day. Oh, yeah. Not really bad.

So I couldn't walk stairs nothing everything in bed you don't have any of that anymore no no sometimes I do sometimes a little bit yeah

but you take an inhaler and it's gone but then after I had an attack and I would do track and field I would realize that my lungs

would work better and I go why is that and I start oh wait a minute there's an infection in your lung pipe you know

it closes the lung pipe your lungs have to work really hard to pull that air in then when the infection is gone you know they because they worked all the time they're used to pulling hard air comes in easy i go so why don't i come up with something that controls the air intake so i started thinking about like it's the stupidest thing man you're You're going to laugh. Like, I would hold my mouth in a certain position and try to memorize that position. Stupid stuff. So you couldn't get much air in? Yeah.

And then make it every time a little smaller. I go, man, I've got to come up with something. So I tell all my buddies here in America, everybody knew in Holland also that I wanted to make that thing. And then when Vanderlei came on TV with the snorkel, I think I had six or seven phone calls. They said, you got to do that thing that you're talking about because somebody's going to find it out. Somebody's going to come up with an idea. So I started looking, got a patent lawyer. And what do you know, man?

Nobody made it. I got the patent, have everything. So what's it called? The Boss Rudin VO2 Trainer? The O2 Trainer. That's why I was laughing because when I saw this. Ah, C2O. Yeah, O2 Trainer.

And it controls the air intake. It's a very simple thing. So imagine this week you do all your hard workouts. And only four times also because you don't need to do it every way because you're actually training your muscles. They're testing it in Texas right now at the university. That guy, in 12 days he had greater lung volume he said man you made something really cool can i put my track team

on it he's got his female track team on it they're going to run tests on them now because he thinks also that because it's a little small biodegradable little compartment that's flexible also so you can't get hurt because you rebreathe a little tiny bit of carbon monoxide which i wanted to stay away from because i don't want people to get dizzy. He says, no, no, you don't get dizzy. Carbon dioxide? Carbon dioxide. Yeah, one of the two.

Anyway, he says, he thinks it's just enough to spark more red blood cell production. I said, you're kidding me. He said, I don't know for sure yet. He says, but that will be the icing on the cake. Wow. So what does this thing look like? It's an, you know, I hope I still get better. Is it online?

Can I find it online? Let me see. Go to O2Trainer.com. O2 Trainer. And people who are watching right now, you can't buy it yet. It's on there, but you can't buy it yet. So don't hit buy. Hmm.

O2Trainer.com. Zero two? Or O? O. The O2. hit by hmm o2 trainer comms yo to 0 to or oh oh the o2 shake this out and this is something that's gonna be available soon very soon this week this week yep what does it look like I can't cuz it's not it's not coming it's not coming up no you're probably getting smashed right now you just said yeah you said it online This week? Yep. What does it look like? Because it's not coming up. It's not coming up? No. You're probably getting smashed right now. Yeah, you said it online. You almost have 4,000 people in your stream. Okay, guys, everybody, you're watching. Don't buy it.

You cannot buy it, okay? It's not in, so don't hit buy. Come back at the end of the week. So it will be something that you think is going to make a big impact on guys? I think it's going to be the major impact because you can't look at it describe what it looks like okay it is it is a supportable device it's a mouthpiece like an uh like when you dive you know like a snorkel and it comes to the front with two little things it's like a square and it comes to the front here is the air uh hole and as a cap the cap you can take off and you can

put screens in there, little rubber screens with all smaller holes. They go from 14 millimeter all the way to one millimeter. So this week you train all your hard work, that's 14 millimeter. Next week you do 13.

Then you do 12. And you go slowly, but gradually you're going down. And then once you're down, you know, you really, your lungs have to pull the air in. And it's the voice.

My wife was saying, like after three weeks of training in restaurants, she said, man, keep your voice down, you know, because your voice gets really loud.

So I go, man, it's for singers. It's for people who play bow instruments. It's for scuba divers. Anybody who needs a lung. You know, you should see the commercial

that I made for it. We shot that thing in 15 minutes or less. And you're going to laugh your ass off. And you see that thing, you're going to go, wow. Wow. Yeah. Well, I'll definitely check it out. Yeah, you got to check it out.. And you see that thing, you're going to go, wow. Wow. Yeah. Well, I'll

definitely check it out. Yeah, you got to check it out. And if you haven't seen Boss Rootin' show Inside MMA, it's on HDNet. You got to check it out. Follow him on Twitter. It's Boss Rootin MMA. R-U-T-T-E-N M-M-A on Twitter. And thank you very much for coming in here, Boss. You're welcome, man.

We really appreciate it. Thank you to the Fleshlight for sponsoring the podcast. If you go to joerogan.net and input, click the link and input the code name Rogan. That's the butthole version. I don't recommend you jumping right in on that one. It's like your 13 millimeter. You know, you don't start off at the one millimeter. No, no, no.

You don't want to get used to the. You don't want to start off at the butthole Fleshlight. Thank you very much. And we'll be back next week. This weekend, I got to go to Australia for the UFC. Anything else you want to plug? Anything else? Godspeed.

Party on. And a little tiny screen. You know what's good? It's for exercises. You can literally sit here and just do it. I do it in my car right now. I go... The Boss Rutan O2 Trainer.

Boss, you're a fucking legend. Gracias, amigo. Thank you very much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it, man. It's been a blast. Awesome. We'll see you bitches next week. For sure.

Okie dokie. A lot of stories. Holla at your boy. Man, I had to pee for so long. I'm going to do it now! I go away, I'll punch you in the freaking lever. Excuse me, the men's room is occupied. And now for your hosts, Baz Rutten and Jeremy St. Ons.

Hey, white-out man way. Good to see you. Good to see you. All right. Hi, everybody. My name is Boss Rutten. And I'm Jack... And welcome to the man's room. Yeah, where men can hang out and... Okay, now, tonight in the man's room, we're going to get personal. On this show, we're going to be discussing a lot of aspects of health,

especially how to endanger the health of others with others. Did you? Not me, others. Now, we've got relationship advice like how to avoid bruising the face, we're going to take some calls advising women on how to deal with their men, but that's pretty easy, right? I mean, it's just the thing that you need to do is a kick to the groin right there. And when your body connects with the reproductive organs of another man, let me tell you, buddy, it's pain and beauty. Also, we have a special, and we call it a special, the cubicle, the copier, and stabbing a co-worker

in the eye with a little pencil. Like this. Look at the blood, look at the blood, look at the blood. This is going to be an unbelievable show. And I'm going to be disgusting. Thank you.