The Joe Rogan Experience - #845 - TJ Dillashaw, Duane Ludwig & Bas Rutten

Episode Date: September 12, 2016

TJ Dillashaw is a mixed martial arts fighter and former Bantamweight champion currently fighting in the UFC. Duane Ludwig is a former mixed martial arts fighter and is now a coach. Bas Rutten is a retired MMA fighter and former UFC Heavyweight Champion. He currently is the co-host of Inside MMA, and hosts a podcast with Mauro Ranallo called "Rutten & Ranallo."

Yes! Slow down, Dwayne, slow down. You have an orange watch. You are a fucking... What is the orange thing? I've always been attracted to orange. I grew up in Colorado, so the Broncos. Orange has always been around me. So, my favorite Ninja Turtle at the time was Michelangelo with the orange. And then really no other fighters or gyms were using orange, so I wanted to make sure I did my own thing. That is your own thing? Orange, yes sir. Orange is your... I mean, it's like...

I absolutely love orange. I see some orange at a store, a crowd of people, I did my own thing. That is your own thing. Yes, sir. Orange is, I mean, it's like. I absolutely love orange. I see some orange at a store, a crowd of people, I see an orange shirt, my eye just goes. So if there's a fruit bowl and there's an orange right next to a banana. Grab an orange. Grab an orange. TJ, what is it like being around this guy? Oh, it's intense, man.

I love it. You know, life's full of energy. You know, you can't be calm around him because he's got enough energy for both of us, you know? Yeah, no, he's a madman. We worked out today and he's in the middle of like training. He just gets excited and starts hitting his pass together. I love it. I don't ever have to do road work because of this guy, you know? I mean, we hit mitts for so long and so hard that I'm in too good of shape already, you know? That's interesting. Like all the footwork drills and everything,

I never really thought of that. Like you probably don't have to do road work. It'd be too much. I do too much training as it is. If I started doing road work, I think I'd overtrain myself. That's fascinating. You have to kind of regulate that, huh? Like, there's a standard model that, like, a lot of fighters follow, and road work is a big part of that. But you think with all the stuff that you do, if you did that as well,

it might be too much? It'd be too many hours put into the day. I'm just too tired by the time I get home. I mean, I could do it out of camp, you know, just to keep my mind right and kind of get some zen going. But during camp, it's too much. I train too much to be able to have to run as well. It's funny because everybody's got a different sort of way of doing it.

Like Jeremy Stevens was on the podcast recently, and one of the things that he was saying is that he really ramped up his running to the point where that, what he was saying is that he really ramped up his running to the point where that what he was saying is that having like this like long endurance base really helps him and fights because he knows that he is always going to recover he can always push further and harder to me he seems like a kind of fighter that does need to build on the cardio anyways you know i feel like each person's body is going to react differently to training and i'm someone that has endless cardio it feels like when I'm fighting and training so I need to stay more a little more fast twitch and I'm always putting size on instead of losing it and I feel

like Stevens has been trying to drop weight and get smaller and it helps with his weight cut I'm sure yeah I think it helps with his weight cut but I think with him it's also like a mental thing too he wants to break guys like He's such an aggressive guy. That's a big part of his training is just being able to have those extra gallons in the gas tank. Absolutely. I mean, I think that's what's kind of hard. It's hard for me to run because of my mind's so crazy too. I'm all over the place.

I'd rather hit mitts and be aggressive. I'm too aggressive of a person, I guess. Well, we were talking before the podcast about our friend cam haynes who just ran 200 miles and we're like that shit is not good for you no way no way it's not good your body's not supposed to do that it might be good for his brain though because he's so fucking crazy like he needs to know that he can do something like that he ran for 78 hours that's why i want to hunt with him yeah because i just know it's like my dad my when i grew up hunting up hunting, we'll go hike a hundred miles in a week to go, go out the back country and have a backpack and sleep out in the middle of the woods. I just feel like that's how Cameron

Haynes would do it. You know, just as hard as possible just to, just to do it. Yeah. My friend, Adam Green tree from Australia came over, flew over to America last week, went to Montana, and then hiked some crazy amount of miles into the mountains, camped out, went in deeper and deeper because he kept encountering wolves and grizzly bears, camped out there, shot an elk, and for the last four days has been packing out this elk by himself. Wow. Four days. So if you've never shot an elk or you've

ever seen an elk before folks an elk could weigh you know somewhere around 800 pounds which is probably around 400 pounds of meat that he's packing out so four days of 100 pounds on his back well you're in you're hiking you can't carry it all out you got to quarter it out so not only say you hike five miles or something on your back you gotta go back and get the rest of the elk to hike that five miles again so you're hiking the same trail yeah you know two three four times depending how big the elk is you know when you quarter it out yeah and he's i'm pretty sure he said he hiked 12 hours so that could easily be you know who knows how many miles at high altitude i'd imagine yeah oh that's right yeah puzzle so he's got 100 pounds on his back

for 10 hours 12 hours a day for four days in a row yeah that's ninja that's a workout i feel like there's i feel like there's nothing better than that it's so primal hunt with a bow out in the middle of nowhere especially i mean by yourself that's crazy well y'all also you could get him on instagram adam green tree bow hunter on Instagram. He documented it all. You know what the Instagram stories? So he was there. There he is. And a dude met him up there, a friend of his, hiked through the night to come and meet him up there and help him, I think, on the third or fourth day.

But he's got all these videos of him up there in the mountains. That's an awesome picture. Yeah. It's just so cool because,. Yeah, it's just so cool because he's just out there surviving. Look at this. We're looking right now for folks at home listening. We're looking at this tent that's covered in snow.

The ground's covered in snow. And this is where he's been living for the past week. I mean, that is the high country. Because when you're on public land, most countries don't have the same sort of public land setup that we have in the United States, where you can just go hike into the mountains and camp out in these national forests. And so he took advantage of all that, and he's up there. Oh, where's he from?

Australia. Oh, okay, okay. That's right. Yeah, all you have to do is come to Montana. You buy a tag. I think a tag for an elk is $1,000. And he's up there with a pistol because there's bears up there. So his kill site, a bear came in on his kill site when he came back.

There was a grizzly there, and there's a lot of grizzlies in Montana. Mendez was just up in Alaska and got an awesome moose. And his story is pretty cool, too. He got a real big moose, and then over the night in camp, a grizzly bear came in and tried to take his moose off and took a big chunk out of its neck oh jesus yeah so his his whole story of what he's got going up there is pretty cool he went on an awesome hunt wow look at that thing good lord yeah so we're looking at chad mendez's it says a 63 inch do-it-yourself alaska moose hunt is now live on his YouTube channel. 63 inches is the width of the horns, which is just insane.

That is an enormous animal. So if an elk is 800 pounds, that's probably like 1,500, 1,600 pounds. That's an enormous animal. And he's doing guided hunts, right? Yeah. He guides people. That's awesome. That's his passion. Yeah, that's what he wants to transition to after he's done guided hunts, right? Yeah. He guides people. That's awesome.

That's his passion. Yeah, that's what he wants to transition to after he's done fighting. He should. I mean, that's where his passion's at, and he's obviously extremely good at it, so no reason not to. That's cool. Well, here's a question. He got popped for some supplement thing. And a lot of people are getting popped for tainted supplements. If you buy things in the store, there's a lot of supplements that you get at any nutrition store that have all these

like, if they're not steroids, they're peptides, they're all these things that sort of make your body produce more hormones that are illegal by USADA. And he got caught for that stuff, apparently. Is that what he got caught for? Yeah, yeah. They proved it that it was a supplement. Oh, really? Yeah.

Oh, cool. I haven't really asked him too much about it. It's a bummer. Yeah. That's good. At this level, you have to be mindful of what you're taking into the body,

especially with the new guidelines, so it's just part of following the rules. Can't go in the cage and eye poke somebody and be like, oh, I didn't know. Now there's so much going on

with the supplements, now you have to make sure you put in the research and the investigation and put the right stuff in your body. Speaking of eye poking, did you see that picture

of Travis Brown's finger knuckled deep into Fabrizio Verdum's eyeball he didn't even say anything in the fight right did verdum i don't remember seeing verdum call home or anything on that i don't remember but i did see that jump uh that jump sidekick in the beginning at the end on his trainer like that was a cool that fire right there was cool it was a cool fight well it, it was a bummer to me to see Travis fight like that. Because I remember Travis earlier in his career was just, look at that picture. That is fucking insane. Esther Lin from All Elbows on Instagram put this picture up.

And she's an MMA photographer. She takes awesome pictures. That's an awesome picture. And this is insane. I mean, it is literally knuckled deep in his eyeball. It just, it's hard to look at, man. It's his second knuckle though too, right? His middle knuckle.

It's like his finger has disappeared in the eyeball. I don't remember him stopping or saying eye poke or anything. I don't remember either. He was focused. But there was a bad one earlier in the night with Jimmy Rivera and Uriah. Yeah. That was a bad one. And Jimmy Rivera, after the fight, said he couldn't see.

He said he still couldn't see. He said he couldn't tell what color things were out of his right eye. Fucking eye pokes, man. Pride gloves, huh? You got to redesign the gloves. A little bit of a curvature in there and that opened all the way. Sorry. No, I think you're right.

Most of the time, this is what I do. I obsess about martial arts and making things better. Someone's got to do something because the way things are going, we're just so many guys are getting eye gouged, so many guys are getting damaged eyeballs. It's just, it's not worth it, man. And it seems like we're waiting for something terrible to happen. You know, like look at Michael Bisping. Yeah.

I don't know if Bisping's came from a kick though. I feel like it might have come from Vitor's kick. Was it that or was it in practice? I don't know. Do you think it was in practice? I think he detached his retina a couple times, so I think that's why it is the way it is now. I think he's hurt it multiple times, and it was kind of where—because it's not completely fixed. I think they fixed it enough to where he can fight, and then when he's done fighting, they'll probably fix his eye completely is what it seems like.

Well, what they did is they stuck oil in his eye. I don't fixed it enough to where he can fight, and then when he's done fighting, they'll probably fix his eye completely is what it seems like. Well, what they did is they stuck oil in his eye. I don't understand it, but one of his eyeballs apparently has oil in it that's protecting the retina. So that's why one of his eyeballs is black. Oh, yeah. I was wondering what was going on with his eyes. That's why. Yeah, one is black and one is his original eye color which I'm not sure what it is but it's very strange looking

but it's just he's a fucking savage I mean he didn't even consider retiring he's like yeah yeah stick some oil in there let's get going whatever I can do

put an eye patch on let's do this gotta get back to the gym mate he does push it that guy comes to fight each and every time he's a fucking animal

yes sir Michael Bisping is the middleweight champion of the world and who saw that coming he did he did I've seen that opening in Luke Rockhold's Chicken animal. Yes, sir. Michael Bisping is the middleweight champion of the world. And who saw that coming? He did. He did.

I've seen that opening in Luke Rockhold's Instagram videos leading up to the fight. I've seen the same thing his trainer saw. Really? Yeah. He was leading it back. He was telling me weeks before the fight that things he was doing while he's hitting mitts, dropping his right hand all the time with his left cross and kind of leaning back and kind of shoulder rolling and whatnot. And Dwayne called it out a couple weeks before the fight that he saw openings you know

he didn't say he was gonna get knocked out with it but he saw some openings there you know openings there i mean that's it's pretty simple you can see where the openings are on that one for sure and uh i remember after bisping caught him and his trainer pointed at him and i'm not quite sure what he said left but he was for sure saying like see i told you i told you like that yeah so that's cool yes yeah he's a good boxing coach he understands the game i got respect for that guy is for sure saying, see, I told you, I told you. Yeah. So that's cool, too. Jason Perillo is very good. Yes, yeah. He's a good boxing coach. He understands the game. I got respect for that guy.

But it's cool to see something you've trained multiple times come out and actually work and then win the fight and then the title fight. That's nice. That's rewarding. Well, along the lines of what we were talking about today when we were working out is there's so much depth to this sport. There's so many options and there's so many possibilities that to the outsider, people look at it, it looks brutal. You see that eye poke

and you're like, oh my god, this sport should be illegal. But to a person who really understands it and watches it and appreciates it, it's like there's so it's like this crazy language that you have to learn with all these different words and all these different ways of putting together sentences. And I like to use the language analogy because if you're talking to someone and they only know a few words and they want to yell at you, but you're like some Sam Harris type dude who just has incredible language and you're just so eloquent.

You spin them up like a web and they don't really don't know what the fuck to say. And that also happens in a fight. When a guy has a very simple, real obvious game, he does a couple of things, and he does it well. As long as you engage him in that same sort of simple, obvious way, he's got a chance. But when you overflood him, like Dwayne was showing me this Switch series that he works on, which is really amazing. Really, really interesting stuff. Thank you, sir. But one of the things I noticed is while you were demonstrating it to me, because it's so unusual, it forced my brain to hiccup for a second.

I go, oh, okay. And if that happens in a fight, you're fucksville, right? Oh, yeah. 100%. Those little hiccups, right? Those little moments where your brain is overloaded because it's got to think instead of just react because you're doing something unique. If you're thinking inside the octagon, you're going to get caught. You're going to be in trouble. You need to have a completely clear mind and just kind of react to things.

And for me, it's just been kind of having fun out there. You know, the more fun I have and the more loose I stay, the better I'm going to fight. If I go in there with a game plan and thinking what I want to throw and what to watch out for, what he's good at, what he's not good at, then I'm going to be a little bit slower. You know, we were talking about your fight with Dominic Cruz that you seem so emotional, like you wanted to kill that dude. Like you were so, I mean, I definitely wanted to kill him. You know, it was so, I mean, it was obvious you were, you were head hunting as opposed to like one of the things that I really enjoyed about your first and your second fight with Hennon Burrell. But your first fight with Hennon Burrell was like, here you are fighting for the title, and you look like you're in a sparring session.

Yeah. You were just so loose, like, right away. There's nothing of tension to what you were doing. Everything was, like, flowing. And I was like, look how well he's responding to the pressure. You were having a great time out there. Yeah not not thinking about it you know and like you said with the cruise thing i want i wanted to finish him i wanted to go out there and put a point on it and uh you know things you learn from those are those are the small mistakes you you learn

from and you change them up next time and you uh come out there a little more level-headed and uh you know play his game like kind of like you were saying you know he's a point fighter you know and if you go out there and let him point fight you then that's what he's going to do you know, play his game. Kind of like you were saying, you know, he's a point fighter, you know, and if you go out there and let him point fight you, then that's what he's going to do, you know. So you've got to be able to react to how he fights and change it up a little bit, and that's why each training camp is a little bit different and you learn those things, you know.

When you go and watch a fight after it's over, do you see openings and you're like, shit. Yeah, yeah. That's called regret. I still have this, but yeah i mean yeah 100 you'll see it in the uh you'll i'll get i'll start sweating because i'm getting mad that i didn't do something correctly you know like in the end of the first round i was watching the fight against cruz and i had a double leg locked up so deep and i just didn't finish it and i could have changed

an entire the entire fight just one takedown at the beginning of the first round i was all the way deep hands under his butt perfectly i just didn't pinch my elbows to finish it so i went to lift him and he slid right through my arms one difference i had to make was pinching my elbows in and you know it changes it just one of those things in the moment isn't it fascinating how like you have to train perfectly and then you you have to just let everything go automatic yeah that's exactly it that's you just you hit the nail on the head is to train everything perfectly. Now it comes down to quality reps. But then what's a quality rep?

Hitting and not getting hit or getting the takedown, not getting taken down, things like that, right? So now it comes to the point of adapting to the athlete and the scenario. And what's correct, again, is making sure you have high success with that technique, whatever that technique may be. So just putting in the time of the reps so it comes out fluidly and there's no longer a thought but an instant reaction. Well, and also having the right coaches, too, that can give you that information and can give you that high-level technique. Because there's so many people out there that are talented people, but you see their game just doesn't evolve. It just hits this level, and it's sort of like the level that their coaches are capable of taking them to,

and then they don't go any further. And you have to believe and trust in that coach to be able to take you to that level. Someone can be telling you the exact thing you need to do, but if you don't trust and believe that guy, if he doesn't get it through your head the right ways, then it's not going to make sense. You're not going to do it because you don't believe in it. Well, I think it's amazing what's going on right now with MMA,

that people who are casual people, like perfect example, the other day I was at my daughter's school and one of the dads came up to me and this dude was just a new fan. He'd only been watching MMA for the past year and And he was just rapid firing questions at me. And he was obsessed with it. He's like, I was never into martial arts when I was a kid. I watched a little bit of boxing. And he's like, but man, the UFC has just got me hooked. And he's like, one of the things that I love about it is how many different ways a fight can end. He's like, it's just, it's so crazy. Like you'll, you'll watch a fight. And then all of a sudden the guy's getting choked. It's like, what happened?

And we were going over this about it. And this guy was a real smart guy. I think he was a hedge fund manager or something like that. But he was obsessed with all the possibilities. And I think casual fans are starting to understand now that this is a very intellectual pursuit. If you don't have a strong mind, and if you don't have this full range of options and possibilities inside the octagon, you're most likely limiting yourself. Agreed. Agreed.

I see that. Yeah. Possibilities are nice. Way to change things up. And again, like we said earlier, confuse the brain, get them thinking about something else, and then you do something else. So it's always nice. But I think right now we're seeing like there's a there's a pack right there's like the standard pack of athletes that are doing things in a certain way and then there's a few that are moving away from the pack

and they're expanding the potential of MMA I think you're one of those people appreciate that and I think you for sure are one of those coaches and there's a few guys out there I know you don't like to hear it, but Dominic Cruz is one of them. He's also doing it. We were talking about him today. That, like, his style is so fucking odd. I mean, he's technically not sound, actually. But he uses it the right ways.

He's got awesome timing. He's got great cardio. He's got a great chin. And then he can get away with the bad things he does because he does them the right way for himself. Yeah, I don't necessarily think you can say it's technically bad because he's so fucking successful And he knows how to do it. I just think it's not standard You know, like he doesn't like we're using ramon deckers as an example He does not throw kicks and punches like ramon deckers

But what he does do is he throws him like Dominic Cruz where he's moving like a pendulum back and forth. And his footwork is so weird. And he's overwhelming your mind with possibilities. And he doesn't do the same thing twice. He mixes things up so well that he's a tough nut to crack. Indeed. Yeah. He's tricky.

He is trickier than I expected for sure. But, you know, a piece of that, again, game planning is the talks up to the fight to get them emotionally invested yes and then it becomes a bit trickier to find the head right so that's the goal when you were when you were leading up to the fight he was talking so much shit yeah and you could tell that you were getting so upset but that is a big factor in fights right because fights are so emotional because it's one of the only sports in the world where your health is on the line like literally like this the option it's not like you only sports in the world where your health is on the line, like literally. It's not like you might get in a car accident when you're racing cars. That's a possibility.

But the goal of MMA is for you to fuck up someone's body. Yeah, absolutely, man. The thing with him, too, that pisses you off so much is that he'll attack anything and just talk about something that doesn't even make sense just to talk and talk louder and faster and not give you a chance to talk it's like uh high school girls just like just bickering at each other yeah i think that's what pisses you off the most you know because he's not even actually making a great point he's just making it and making it louder well he's very articulate yeah he's a good good analyst because of that you know he does good at that agreed so another technique if you get a chance to fight him again for the title yeah i bet which you're in line yeah right obviously well you lost a very

close decision to him and then you beat hafael and sun tzau which in my opinion was uh we were talking about this today was an excellent example of how far you progressed because you guys had a really tough fight the first time you fought it was a close fight this fight was not close you just ran away from him or ran away with the uh the fight rather not ran away from him but ran i mean you were just it was a clear victory it's like you just were so much more technical there were so many more options you were presenting to him and he was basically the same fighter that he was back then maybe slightly better but you're a way better fighter i appreciate it man we've worked hard we've worked long hours worked really hard um you know it's crazy how how, like you said, the sport works out, how quick things can change.

You know, I mean, I could be on 11 fight win streak right now and a split decision loss to Rafael Cinsal. You know, I thought I won that fight. A very close fight with Dominic Cruz that I felt I won as well. Those two fights go my way. I'm on 11 fight win streak, still have the belt, you know, known as hopefully one of the greatest pound for pound fighters in the world, you know. Well, you still are, for sure. What's interesting right now too is this new rule set that's going to go into place

in January, you know, where they've changed this whole thing about downed fighters, like being able to attack a downed fighter. Oh, that's right. Nice. Good call. You have to have four points down now. I like it. Yeah, if you put a hand down on the ground and someone kicks you, that's totally legit now, which I think is a long time coming. Yeah.

I think that's a... I'm a little bummed out they didn't get rid of the 12-6 elbow, but whatever. Yeah. Which is one of the most ridiculous rules because that's really not going to hurt you any more than me putting a shin across your face. Yeah. That's crazy. Or getting kneed in the face and crushing your skull.

That stuff happens all the time, and now you're going to take away an elbow that you can't even really generate that much force with. Well, it's not more force. I mean, I think there's way more force in the elbow that comes down the side because it's more like a punch because you get your whole shoulder torques into it. Your shoulder dropping down is a weird movement. I mean, I guess there's some guys like anderson silva or you know yats and kly or some badass tie fighters that can generate ridiculous power with that but i don't think it's any more than any other kind of elbow absolutely not no way

it's just some of the rules i think are a little bit archaic i think i think we all agree though the the gloves yes sir is probably like if there's going to be like one thing that needs to be changed, I mean, it would be really nice if we could all get together and figure out a way to make it so there's less eye pokes. Well, here's three experts in the field right now. We're all saying pride style gloves would be an example or like the Shido gloves, but anything that doesn't allow the hand to fully open. Fuck, they own pride.

Just use those goddamn gloves. Those are the sweetest gloves too. I love the pride gloves. I collect all kinds of fight memorabilia I'm all over the place by the way show everybody your wallet oh yeah nice I'm a boxing coach Trevor Whitman

who's by far the most technical martial artist I've ever come across he took an old fight glove and where's the cameras are there made me a wallet out of a fight glove have you seen that yet? that is so dope. It's soft. It's nice.

He makes all my punchments, my Thai pads, my belly shield, my leg kick pads, my kick shield. I'm super impressed. I was always impressed

with Trevor as a coach. Let me get a picture of that. I'm going to put that He's just a ninja. I mean, I take that same skill set and put that into martial arts or to developing technique

or drills. That's so cool. It's the same things. You can put that same skill set and put that into martial arts or to developing technique or drills. That's so cool. It's the same things. You can put that same information to running a successful business or whatever it is. You're just a detailed guy. Yeah. It's just fun to see someone do something that cool. Heck yeah. That's unique, huh?

So you guys are in Colorado now. You moved to Colorado full time. How much different is it living there? What is it like now? Also, you're training at altitude all the time. That actually made a huge difference. I didn't even take into account when I first went out there. When I was cross-training and I was going back and forth from my camps,

going from Sacramento to Colorado, going back out there was so tough. Some people get affected by the altitude differently. Joseph Benavidez doesn't get affected by it at all. Mexicans. He never gets tired, Joseph Benavidez doesn't get affected by it at all. I feel like that guy doesn't. Mexicans. He never gets tired, man. Mexicans don't get tired. I don't know.

It's a racist thing to say, but in a positive way. I'm telling you, Mexicans have fucking incredible gas tanks. Yeah, yeah. And Joseph will come up. He'll be gone, and Vegas will come out, and he'll train exactly the same. For me, when I go to altitude, it messes with me big time, but I feel like I get the effects from it long to long term when i'm done with the camp like i felt big differences when i trained

at altitude when i'm done with my camp after i've been out there for six weeks i'm in a camp and you come back down to sea level when we first start hitting mitts at wherever we go it just feels awesome yeah sea level you feel like a superman right yeah it's crazy how much of a difference it makes have you ever tried one of those altitude tents, those things that people sleep in? I have tried it. It's so hard to sleep in it. Is it? Yeah, it gets hot in there, and then your body doesn't recover as well.

If you're sleeping at really high altitude, anything higher than where we're at, if you're sleeping at a real high altitude, it's hard for your body to actually recover overnight when you're actually supposed to recover. You're supposed to have your testosterone built up when you're sleeping and oxygen get into your muscles and recover over the night. And if you're sleeping at high altitude, it's really hard to do that. You wake up more sore, you wake up more tired, and it's hard to recover. Interesting.

So what I had heard was that the best balance was training at sea level but sleeping and living at altitude. I heard that as well. It seems like it wants to go back and forth all the time. That's what I heard when I was in school. I know, I was a kinesiology major and I was really into the exercise physiology. They said, train low, sleep high, you know, so that your body, when you're sleeping and hanging out, you're rebuilding all these red blood cells, but then your threshold of working out at sea level, you can push it so much harder. So your body's used

to going that hard, you know, but you train in lack of oxygen, you can't train as hard. So, I mean, that makes sense to me but then when sleeping in an altitude tent i feel like you can't recover until you're acclimated you know once you're acclimated you can recover you know because you have more red blood cells in your body but until then i wonder if anybody does it where like you live in san bernardito and then train up in big bear just keep going back and forth and then sleep tito's thing for a while he lived up there, though, right? Tito used to live up there for his camps.

He was one of the first MMA fighters to incorporate that. No, Boss. Oh, Boss did it. Boss did it for his heavyweight title. He came to Colorado for his camp, for his fight against Kevin Randleman. So since they're rooting. So because there was a promoter in town that would hold shows.

They were called the Lone Wolf Invitational. And he had a couple shows. And then I think maybe his third show, Boss was there. He was just a special guest. So then the shows after that were now the Boss, Drut, and Invitational. But when he was there, he would be a special guest of the show. And then he would do a seminar the next day. Then I'd fight on the show and then do a seminar.

That's how we came together. And he noticed the effects of the altitude. And then so he just did his next camp there. I wonder if there's a difference between like when I think when they're studying how athletes perform while they sleep at a high altitude and train at low altitude. I wonder if there's a difference between the intensity level that MMA requires and the amount of, like, I don't think there's a sport in the world that requires you to train as much as MMA because there's so many different things you have to work on. Good point. Or as hard.

Like, we train with a lot of NFL players with Lauren Lindau in Denver. He trains a lot of Denver players, and a lot of guys come before they do their combine and come and train with them. And you just kind of realize, like, how much harder your strength conditioning is and how much harder you have to push. And that's just one workout, you know, and then maybe they're going to do some football drills and whatnot. We're going to hit mitts and do some grappling and wrestling. And, you know, it's it's a very tough sport to get ready for. I mean, I really don't know if there's many that are as hard or harder. That's what makes it fun, huh?

It's fun to watch. harder and harder. That's what makes it fun, huh? It definitely makes it fun to watch. You know, it's really kind of crazy when you think about the 10-minute rounds that Pride had and how difficult 5-minute rounds are. Well, you definitely need it if you're a grappler. I mean, who the fuck's going to beat Damian Maia if every round's 10 minutes?

Yeah, you're going to be worn out. That guy's a backpacker. He's so on another level right now. That's one of those guys that's so good at one thing, but he's incredible at it that he can get away with it. Most guys can't get away with just being good at one individual aspect of MMA, but he's one of those guys. He's just so dominant at jiu-jitsu that he can get away with it.

See, that's the theory, too, or the concept, is he's really good at the rear naked choke. Well, a few submissions, obviously, right? But let's say you're just ninja at the rear naked choke. Now, that's your one technique. technique now everyone's aware of that so all you have to do is just have different entries for that rear naked choke right so different entries and then obviously you finish the submission but as far as the striking concept the same techniques or combination just different entries and different exits right again that same technique itself yeah there are a few guys who have really excelled at one particular

technique to the point where it gets ridiculous. Remember Cody McKenzie? He was catching everybody with that McKenzie-teen. The backwards guillotine thing. He came and showed that alpha male thing. It was crazy. You have to be built for it, though. He's perfectly built for it. His arms are long. Skinny. Then there was Paul Sass.

Remember Paul Sass won 12 fights in a row by triangle. And everybody knew it was coming. He couldn't do shit about it. But you can use that to your advantage, though, as well. So I was helping Matt Brown train for Maya. And I didn't like how he was approaching the fight that he was so worried about what he was going to do. He's like, he's going to do these takedowns.

He's going to take her back. He's going to do this. Like, he was so entrenched in what Dam Maia was going to do to him in the fight rather than worrying about what he should do, what aspects he should take to the fight to stay away from his game instead of really what he's going to do. You can use that to your advantage if you're a fighter that's so strong at one thing, confuse someone and get them so worried about what you're going to do

that they're actually thinking inside the fight rather than reacting and just doing what they're good at already. Because if Matt would have fought, I feel like the way he should have in that fight, he could have picked Damian and Maya apart. Maybe. Yeah. Or maybe he would have got fucking grapple fucked again. Yeah.

Maybe later on, but yeah. That's my hope and thought at least. Yeah. Well, I'm a big Matt Brown fan, but I'm a big Damian and Maya fan as well. For me, it's weird because I'm a fan of a lot of guys, and these guys oftentimes fight each other. And it's just like you just got to appreciate the event and appreciate the result. Appreciate the sport. It's one of the cool things about MMA is that there are these outliers like this one-trick pony like Damian Maia, but what a fucking trick.

Nice. I mean, he can strike, and Damian's striking has gotten leaps and bounds better. It's one of the reasons why he's gotten so better at applying his jiu-jitsu is because he's so much more comfortable with his stand-up. His distance is very good now. He understands striking really well now. But that jiu-jitsu is just so next level. It's making it happen. When he runs through a guy like Carlos Condit like that.

Or out-grappers Gunnar Nelson that easy. Mauled him. Just mauled him. Yeah. Just mauled him. Like you said, another level for sure. And also goes to show you how fucking good Jake Shields is. Oh, you're right. Good call.

People sleep on Jake Shields. Jake Shields beat him in essentially a grappling match. You know, and a lot of people forget, you know, Jake Shields was always a guy who kind of struggled with the standup because he wasn't like an explosive guy. He was just sort of like competent with his stand-up. Awkward, but again, he beat Tyron Woodley, the fucking welterweight champion of the world. Beat him in essentially a stand-up fight.

So did Nate Marquardt. Yeah. Shields is smart with his grappling. He's come out to Muscle Farm, worked out with us, and showed some technique, and his top game is just so tough. Ridiculous, ridiculous. He doesn't even have to use any strength. It's just all about his positioning and the way he's on you.

It's so tough. I mean,. He doesn't have to use any strength. It's just all about his positioning and the way he's on you. It's so tough. I mean, it's a chess match for sure. Yeah, he gets slept on. He's fighting Fitch now. They're going to fight in the World Series of Fighting. That's a very good fight. Very, very interesting fight. That's interesting.

We have both ways. I was wondering about Fitch. It's good to see him back in there. He hasn't fought for a while, right? I don't know when the last time he tested positive after he fought Paul Harris. Oh, did he? Yeah. I thought his knee got hurt.

A little bit of that, too. Yeah. He tested positive for elevated testosterone. Oh, wow. Yeah, you can't have that. You got to follow the rules, right? The guidelines. The rules.

That's what has to happen. Yeah. Make sure that's good. But back to, like, styles. Yes, sir. It is so interesting that there are so many different styles, and there's so many different people, like Wonderboy, who's a one-trick pony in the other direction.

You know, just his fucking striking is just bizarre. And his style is like really karate-based, almost like a sport karate style. But it just incorporates the movement, and he's operating from a longer distance, and he likes to draw people in and get them extended before he catches them. Dude, he's like a cobra. Yep, exactly. Like his movement, like his back and and forth pivoting off the waist yeah but he also he does another thing that fucks with people is that front leg yeah his front leg is so nasty like he when he fought hendrix he hit one a front leg side to the body and you could see

hendrix got like stuck by it was a a hard shot, and he kind of acknowledged it, and then he got roundhouse kicked in the face with the same foot right away. It's like the Zohan. He just puts his foot up in your face all the time. He just never stops. Oh, that would be funny. See, to me, a dream fight is Damian Maia versus Wonderboy. Just complete opposite styles.

Yes, that's a dream fight. I want to see what the fight... I feel like now what we're watching too with Damian Maia is also we're watching this master who's 38. Oh, you're right. Good point. Yeah, he's still... Well, he's up there for the competitive ages, but he seems healthy and

making it happen. 38? That's the old man. I don't want to fight at 38. It's one of those things where you got to wonder how much more sand is left in that hourglass. I mean. Or is it pull the Rannikator trick? Just fight until he's 50. Yeah.

I mean, fuck. Randy almost came out of retirement for Fedor. Oh, nice. He was thinking about fighting. I wouldn't mind seeing that just as an old fight fan. Yeah. He's a fight nerd. Yeah, for sure.

I'd love to see that. You got to think about Maya though too being 38 and being able to push it that hard still is his style of fighting. Yeah. You know, he's not getting hit very much. He's on your back. His training's probably that way as well. And so he's able to go a little bit longer rather than someone who's going to be in front of you and slug it out.

Yeah, good point. He's definitely taken less damage striking-wise over the years. I think they did a stat on him where he got hit 13 times over the last four fights. No way. Yes. And most of them are the Matt Brown fight. Yeah. Oh, wow.

It's just fucking crazy how technical he is when it comes to his jiu-jitsu. Yeah. That's why you don't play jiu-jitsu, right? So you've got to punch him in the face while he kicks like Nate Marquardt did. Yeah. Well, Nate caught him early in his career, too, though, before he really understood the stand-up game. Yeah. People sleep on Nate Marquardt too, man.

You know, people forget how goddamn good Nate, especially in his prime. Yes, sir. And you watch that Tyron Woodley fight when you fought him in Strikeforce. He looked really good then. That combination that he hit him with was like fucking a video game.

Yeah, yep. He was sharp. That's when he was working with Trevor Whitman. He's back with Trevor as well. Is he? Again, Trevor is by far the most technical, detailed martial artist instructor that I've come across in any field. He really breaks things down.

And I hear Shane Carwin's making a comeback. Oh, nice, really? I would have heard that as well, yeah. He's a free agent, so he can go wherever he wants. Oh, interesting. I wonder where that's going to go. Interesting. Is he training with Trevor as well?

I'm not sure. I don't actually spend too much time with Trevor, but hopefully if he's smart, he should. He will. I know he's really close with our wrestling coach at Muscle Farm, Leister Bowling. Right. And I've been hearing it from Leister that, you know, he's a free agent. Looking about getting back into working out and seeing how his body holds up to see if, you know, how he's going to push it and what's going to happen.

Yeah. He has some pretty significant back injuries, right? Yeah. It was his neck, right? I. It was his neck, right? I think it was his neck. Back and his neck, I believe. But, you know, you've got to think, that guy played football at a high level for a long time.

Yeah. And all that crashing, big dudes smashing into each other. Those guys are freaking natures, man. That's so crazy to be able to be that big and that fast. 230 pounds just run into somebody who's standing there. It's not good for you. Yeah, definitely not good not good for you you want to stay healthy that's for sure yeah because it goes back to uh keep keeping those same rules in line when you're training the goal of the training is to get better right not to hurt each other so yeah uh just making

sure you're taking care of your partner and learn using this time to improve and get better the better i get the better you get and so on yeah and if you can get a good camp like that where everybody has their ego in check and you all grow together that's massive yeah no egos there to learn and get better overall you know that's something that i've had to obviously work on too because i'm so competitive and i want to be the best all the time you know even in the gym no matter what i'm like i'm pushing like i want to train harder than you i want to be better than you and so that's something that we me and doing if i had to work with and i've always had to work on it. I've just got to stay controlled.

Control the fire. Yeah. How do you control yourself when it comes to the amount of work you do? Do you monitor your heart rate? Do you have any sort of markers that you check to make sure that you're not overtrained? I know a lot of guys do it off their heart rate, and it's a good way to do it. Mine's just kind of off the field for the most part.

How am I waking up in the morning, and how am I feeling? Am I eager to go train? Am I eager to still feel like I'm the best in the world? That's kind of like my body lets me know mentally what I should be doing, what I shouldn't. It's taken a while to learn that. I wish I would have known this during wrestling because I believe I messed up my wrestling career in college by just pushing too hard for too long

and redlining my body. So it's all just off the field now. And I kind of lay out my whole camp that way you know I know what days I'm going to do three practices what day I'm going to do one and just kind of go off the field you know if I need to rest the whole weekend or just rest Sunday it's all for just my energy levels and how much I'm willing to do. Do you have a nutritionist that works with you? I do they're perfecting athletes I'm actually teaming up with them now too and we're doing programs for little kids and for wrestlers as well because the wrestling world does not know enough.

They've cut weight for the longest amount of time, but they just do it the wrong ways. Perfecting athletes has helped me out a lot with my career. They actually have been able to boost my hormones with the way I eat. How so? My nutritionist, Michelle, she used to be a fertility doctor. She's real holistic. She's into acupuncture and doing all that.

And the, the, the, the foods that they're feeding you are the right thing for your endocrine system and boosting your testosterone and making you just a healthier human being. I mean, if you eat and live healthier, your body's going to produce more testosterone and live the right way. And that's what they've done with me. What I've heard is that more fats like eating more fats and i've seen it in a lot of different athletes especially athletes that follow start following ketogenic diets that ramps up their hormone production because fats are a precursor for

hormones so a lot of coconut oil a lot of avocados saturated fats from healthy meats especially like grass-fed meat i feel like you can't get enough of it. I mean, if you're working out as much as I am during camp or even just working out all the time, like you can't get more, the good fats are one of the best things for you. Yeah. That's the other thing to take into consideration when people talk about athletes and people talk about people that exercise and are fit and want to follow a healthy diet. There's such a different caloric requirement for someone like you who's training what do you train two or three times a day yeah two or three just to switch it up sometimes i'll do one just one hard one just

depends where i'm at but yeah you know i'd say on average three times a day so your body's just a blast furnace it's hard for me to hold on to weight you know it's i gotta try i gotta try as hard as i can to keep my weight up so when i I'm out of season, like right now, I'm trying to lift heavy and stay as big as I can. And then when I get into camp, you know, change it up. I'm doing a lot of hypertrophy right now, a lot of hypertrophy training. I'll get closer to camp. I'll start doing more strength training. And then when I get in camp, like closer to my fight, I'm doing more power training. So when you say hypertrophy, like what kind of training? Like deadlifts? Like what kind of stuff?

Yeah, I mean, obviously I'll do deadlifts and stuff but it all depends on the reps you're doing really and how much weight you're going to do so if i want some hypertrophy i find a weight that's hard for me to do 10 to 12 times you know that's what's going to make my muscles build the most like higher reps and start building size and then when i want to get strength i'm going to start doing less reps you know around like six and that's hard to do at six and then that's when i start building more strength you know power is uh you know three quick hard, you know, around like six. And that's hard to do at six, and then that's when we start building more strength. You know, power is, you know, three quick hard explosive, you know, deadlifts and cleans and stuff like that.

And then like big breaks in between sets? Yeah, all depends on the breaks as well too, yeah. So when you're getting down to 145 or 135 rather, how difficult is that for you? Like what are you walking around at? During camp, I'm walking around like 150. I usually show up five days before my fight at 152 i usually train what i'm gonna fight at so i walk into the cage 150 153 probably i'm training like that my whole entire camp five days before the fight i'm weighing 150 and then i just lose it all with water weight

so that's not that much not 15 pounds. It seems like a lot to people listening probably, but we know guys who are losing 25, 30. Which I think is too much. I think that's not healthy for your brain. It's too hard to recover hydration on your brain. Have you ever thought that if you didn't do the hypertrophy training and you didn't do all the power training and you just did more aerobic, you might drop down to 145 naturally and then might be able to cut to 125? Yeah. Have you thought of that? I could make 25. I mean, it definitely wouldn't be fun. Super fight. you might drop down to 145 naturally and then might be able to cut to 125. Yeah, yeah.

Have you thought of that? I could make 25s. I mean, it definitely wouldn't be fun. Super fight. I don't really want to have to, but, yeah, it's definitely something I could do. I mean, you know, I'm trying hard. Mighty Mouse needs a super fight. He does, man. And I'm a huge fan of the guy, too.

You know, he's so good that I would love to fight him. And I do feel I have a really good style for Mighty Mouse, too. Because I know he's talking about doing a super fight. Yeah. I mean, he's in an interesting position because he's really essentially cleared out his weight class. I mean, he's fighting Wilson Hayes, and Wilson's a very tough fighter. Is he fighting Wilson? No, no.

Is he? Yeah. He's going to fight the winner of the show that Benavides was just. So Benavides just wrapped up filming a show with Henry Cejudo. Yeah. And I think Demetrius is supposed to fight the winner of the show. I think you're right. That the benefit is just a bit of me just just wrapped up filming a show at the Yeah, I think Dimitri supposed to fight the winner of the show. I think you're right, but what did I read today? He was supposed to fight right but he got hurt and pulled out of the fight Mm-hmm, and now I think he's supposed to fight the winner the ultimate fighter. No, I think you're right

But I read something today. I forgot about that, but I read something today about him fighting Wilson Hmm, so maybe it was just a an older about him fighting Wilson. So maybe it was just an older article or something like that, or maybe it was confused. But my point is, even if he fights the winner of the show, good luck to those guys. Good luck. You're fighting a fucking human buzzsaw. Yeah, he's on another level.

Endless cardio, punching from all angles. He's good, man. And he's, in my opinion, one of the best examples, or the best example ever, of a guy who has so many possibilities. His language, the language of fighting, his language has the richest vocabulary of any fighter. I mean, the way he fucked Cejudo up in a clinch with those knees to the body. Like, who does it better than that? I've never seen a guy break a guy down better with knees to the body like that.

You'd have to go to Anderson versus Rich Franklin. Oh, nice. Good call. But that was almost like a more brutality-oriented thing. I mean, when Anderson did it, it was just grab ahold of you and just ragdoll you. When he was doing it, when Mighty Mouse was doing it, it was crazy to watch. It's like, Jesus Christ, these things are coming. They're landing like that.

He's firing them off with no hesitation. crazy to watch. It's like, Jesus Christ, like these things are coming. They're, they're landing like that. They're fine. He's firing them off. Like with no hesitation, there's no windup. There's no exertion. Everything seems effortless. And they're there. It looks like he could do it all day. And it's good.

It looks like a real fucking problem when you're in there with them. Well, one of the, I think I'm assuming makes sense is Matt Hume. His being his coach, who's obviously the wizard, right right very intelligent in the fight world But with the background of suhudo missing weight so much Attacking the body assuming that maybe he had a hard cut and maybe ate too much or drank too much and attacking the body as far

As the game plan so it's very smart of him then also obviously he did it with the correct timing and accuracy So yeah, it was good so who'dudo really struggles to get done 25 that's right here yeah he looked big on the show he's a big guy yeah i just 25 yeah yeah i i find that yeah he may be i mean maybe like the exact example we're talking about with tj like that maybe they were like very similar in size and he just decides to go down there and ah good call yeah it just doesn't have the correct maybe not the correct path to actually make it happen if he's actually missing weight that he needs to get. I don't know what his deal is. He hasn't missed it in a long time, but he did.

He did a few times back in the past. But he missed a couple of the UFC weights, huh? Yep, and they made him fight at 135. That's right. He fought a fight at 135 and then he showed them that he could make 25 again and did it. Because he's going to be fighting Benavides now. And I'm not sure when that fight is, maybe December,

but Benavides is coming out to Colorado in about one week. He just texted me the other day. He actually bought a condo in Colorado, so he's going to be training with us full-time until the fight, and that's going to be good. Benavides is a very creative martial artist. We and him, when we train, we flow. We create a whole bunch of new rhythms and paths and patterns.

It's good. I love it as a martial artist finding the next level of the game. It happens a lot with him, also with TJ. It's fun to work with that level of athlete just to play with the game itself of overall expanding the level of martial arts. That's where I'm fascinated by. What's the next level? Where are we at? What can we create?

Yeah. Benavidez is also one of those guys that if you saw him like in a silhouette if you couldn't see who he was If you couldn't see any detail, but you saw him move around you would know it was him Yeah, he's got a very distinct picture. Even the way he holds his hand. Yeah, the way he holds his hands like everything He's got a very distinct sense. He's unique. He's one of my favorite people in the world man. He's awesome. I love that guy. He's such a character man. He is. Yeah, he really is. Talking about spinning kicks and stuff. He's got them. He's such a good dude. He is really good. What do you got here for notes, dude? Yeah, he really is. Talking about spinning kicks and stuff. He's got them. He's such a good dude.

He is really good. What do you got here for notes, dude? What's going on? Just for me to slow down and make sure I take my time. Yeah, that's my main thing. Slow down and think. I get so wrapped up and I put myself into fight mode when I talk. I just got to make sure I'm being calm and being collective and making sure I'm getting the points and the messages across with what I'm doing.

Because now, obviously, on the podcast. This podcast has helped change my life over the years. And I'm sure you get this all the time, but you literally help change people's lives for the better. And I thank you for that. And thank you for having me on. My pleasure. It's badass. But to use this time properly to help influence others and not to try to tear anybody's name down,

but to help uplift and inspire and help people become better human beings. That's what I feel my message is on this earth is to help people become better and my vehicle my tool is martial arts so i love it whether it's general fitness or training the highest level ninjas to compete for the belt it's my service back to the world to help make sure we're all together well it's interesting to see you really flourish as a coach too because very few fighters have i'm here taken to it the way you have where not only were you a very good fighter an excellent fighter but you've you've surpassed that as a coach that's really rare i feel that i i agree with that i appreciate that um i just put my time energy and

my my ocd-ness into developing others like that's literally what it is i'm obsessed with it and there's only one way to be great is to be obsessive, you know, and then to have, you know, fellow ninjas like TJ and Benavides to play along with, with this tool of martial arts to see what the next layer is. Yeah.

I love it. I mean, I need this level of dedication and athleticism in order to do that. So, uh, because of them, I'm at the level that I'm at. So it's,

it's a win win. Like every relationship should be read the notes, slow down. Every relationship should be, it should be a win-win not a one-sided path so um you know not long ago tj asked me why i'm always so you know hyper and excited and loving life it's because his goals are my goals like one of my dreams is to see him with the belt again like that's something that i obsess of is to make sure he's wearing the belt that's in his proper place so and same thing for benavides i would absolutely love to have benavides be wearing the belt so um it for me to help others become better brings me a lot

of joy and i love that isn't it funny that that passion and that intensity and focus has a negative connotation people call it ocd yeah like we're weird with our definitions. Yeah. Yeah. It works for me. But what do you mean? But why, why is that like necessarily negative? It's not. Yeah. Well, I, for me, because I have so many things going on, there's so many other elements throughout the world with my wife, my family, my business. I'm lucky and I'm blessed that everything in my circle, my bubble works with each other

well. Cause I mean, I take my kids to go and train. My wife goes and trains. People ask me this quite a bit. Are you going to have your, your kids fight? No, I'm not kids to go and train. My wife goes and trains. People ask me this quite a bit. Are you going to have your kids fight? No, I'm not going to have them fight. If they choose to, I will support their path, whatever that is, whatever their passion is. I will support that. But they do have to train because they look at it as a form of insurance. I'm not always going to be around to protect them. And I want to make sure that they can handle potential confrontations

if they can, if they need to, by either talking about it, trying to diffuse the situation, or if it does come to a physical confrontation, they can handle themselves properly. But just being healthy and happy and confident with your walk and your talk and being able to help other people, that's what I make sure it's mandatory that my kids do train martial arts and my wife as well. El Guapo just texted me. Yeah, Sensei.

He's here. He's the man. Carter's definitely gonna fight yeah boss yeah little boss so my uh so i have my daughter jade my little boy duane bang ledwig and then my third child is carter boss ledwig but we all refer to him as boss well um little boss he's the man so sensei sensei ruins my main uh my most influential martial artist to make an impact on me and he's changed my life with what he's done for me is Karen his passion in my martial art journey And then he's the first guy to take combinations and put them into one coat

Ladies and gentlemen the great boss rooting is here Boss rooting ladies and gentlemen former UFC heavyweight, one of the baddest men that ever lived. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Thank you for coming. Have a seat. What's up, brother? Long time, no see. I know Carter's going to fight just because of how aggressive he is.

I remember the first time ever going to Dwayne's house and watching his little two-year-old pride stomp his dog. He knows what a pride stomp is. It was pride stomping the dog. We have big, huge pit bulls. One of them was. That's a dangerous move, a two-year-old kid stomping a pit bull. That's why people have the misconception of pit bulls being bad dogs, but they were known

in the past as nanny dogs. My kids can actually physically rough up my pit bulls, and they don't care. They're big enough. They're strong enough. They're composed enough, and they're females. So they're just about it. The females, that does definitely help. So that helps for sure.

Tell them the story that you pretty much went naked. I heard from your wife yesterday. The pit bulls separating the pit bulls. So the two dogs. Do you have two females? We have two females. Ooh, that's not good. Yeah.

So the story would prove your point correct. I'm about to hop in the shower and my wife tells me the dogs are fighting out back so I grab my towel, I wrap it on, I run outside to separate the dogs because they'll fight because the neighbor's dog barks and they'll bark at that and they'll bark at each other and they start arguing and fighting, right?

Anyways, I run outside with my towel on to get the dogs to separate them. While I'm separating the dogs, the towel falls off but but I still have to separate the dogs. And the neighbor's behind me now. It's a show. Boom. And they have a get-together. Oh, nice.

I'm in the back naked just rolling with the dog and separating them and making sure everything is good. Does anybody have their phone out? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But his wife winks at me now, and it's a little bit strange. It's good to be wanted. No, she doesn't. She doesn't, no.

It's always nice to feel wanted. That's a savage scene. A dude separating his fighting pit bulls naked. It's funny now because my wife would go, Oh, yeah, that would have been good, huh? It's a joke now, so I'll say, Oh, the dog's fighting and go rip my shirt off. Yeah, that was a good one.

I had two females that fought to the death oh that's right i heard that i came home as a dead dog in my living room not good yeah how was the other dog was healthy or fucked up she was fucked up i put her down after that she killed another dog too she was crazy rescue dog i got her a little too late to minor rescues i got her when she's about nine ten months old and she had already been indoctrinated into the world of violence. Yeah, see, as much as I travel and move around, I want the pit bulls there because no one's going to break into my house with the pit bulls and my wife having the gun and everything.

So we're good. Or if they do, they're not going to have a good night. That's a warning, guys. Yeah, yes, sir. Yeah, and females are, like, super protective. They both are more, yep. Yeah, they genuinely love our kids. Yeah, but females together like they just

they're like chicks together like try try having two wives good luck with that shit they go both together to the restroom right that's what they do

they go together and stab each other it's just something about females they just two men can they get together

and one of them will decide or two male dogs one of them will decide like okay that guy's the king and I'll just fucking cower when he growls at me but females they fucking they never decide who the alpha is they just go nah that bitch got lucky last time we're going again we're going again right now it's women it's all the time with women if you think about it when

my wife comes back for she went out with uh women. There's always stress, like, oh, so-and-so has cancer, so-and-so has this. With us, with guys, that never comes up, right? Do we ever go, oh, did you hear about him? No, we're like, party, have a great time. So much sorrow. That is so true. Women always want to tell you who's sick, who's got a problem. Oh, she's got chronic fatigue syndrome.

Oh, they read on the internet. Oh,'s got chronic fatigue syndrome oh they read on the internet oh I have a headache and they read on the internet oh this could be cancer oh yeah I think I have cancer right?

oh yeah all the time my wife does that stuff all the time my wife's good my wife she's on point with stuff she's good about

the good positive stuff and lifestyle and taking care of the family and she's good she's programmed herself wisely I feel well they say that there's it's like a natural

sort of evolutionary path that women get together and talk a lot like that's one of the reasons why gossip exists so much with women because women would be you know gathering food and talking and that was one of the ways they figured out who was full of shit and who wasn't they had whereas the men would be out hunting and they'd be like shut the fuck fuck up. Oh, interesting. Interesting. Yeah, that's why men value, it's also why men, they value quiet, men who know when to be quiet. That's important.

And also, they don't value men who wear shiny shit and are really loud and have a lot of junk on and stuff like that because those assholes would get in trouble,

they would fuck up hunting parties. Interesting. I agree with that. I don't know if it's right, but it makes sense. It makes sense. I'm leaving it. I don't know if it's right, but it makes sense. I'm leaving it. Women are programmed to do more things simultaneously at the same time. That's why they can't really

take care of kids, but they can do anything. We don't. We just have one focus and that's it. That's why with the military women, I always think it's a dangerous thing. And the reason I'm saying a dangerous thing is because the natural inclination for a guy is to protect a woman you know

so if something happens everybody wants to automatically that's an instinct that's built into the guy to protect a woman which could of course make a big trouble

in a great right I see what you're saying as opposed to treating them as an equal on the battlefield that's it protect them yeah

well maybe training will take that away you know if they train like a guy, then they go, okay. My wife is down. She's a little tomboy. She'll fight.

She fought me. I'm afraid of her. I can't insult her. If I play too rough with the kids, I'll see her looking at me, watching over across the gym. I'm like, oh shit, I've got to play nicer with them. She'll come and fuck me up, she's she's she's awesome well watch the keeper well there's strange times because we're asking women to take on a lot of

the traits and characteristics of men you know it's and uh some of them want to and i understand that but some for some they feel like they're required to and i don't necessarily know if that's what they want. But I think society wants a woman to be a breadwinner. They want women to contribute and compete with men in the workplace in a lot of ways. And a lot of women want to do that, too. Quality, yeah. Yeah.

And then when you see that, and then when it comes to the military, it's very difficult to say, oh, women shouldn't be on the battlefield. Because then all of a sudden you say, well, what are you, a sexist? But it's not traditionally a female... Open option. Yeah. If that's the path you want to go, then go ahead. I want to be me, you be you. We'll have fun. Yeah, I get that. I mean, there's some women that I think would probably gravitate towards killing

people. They'd probably think it would be a lot of fun. Well, if you're a feminist, then also when you see a spider, don't let us get rid of the spider. They all want to be power, power and then some of them, you know, oh, no, no, I do everything myself. Oh, a spider! Look at the spider!

I say, well, that's your job right now as well. Right? Yeah, I guess so. I was reading something about arachnophobia, where they were thinking that arachnophobia, which is a fear of spiders, and a bunch of different snake phobias and a bunch of different phobias,

might literally be the memory of your ancestors. like someone you know in like someone your ancestors know died in front of them got bit by a spider or they almost died and they got bit by a spider and that shit is just hardwired into your dna because some people will see a fucking spider and they can't move they freak out and it doesn't make any sense my daughter freaks out when a wasp comes by she'll just freeze i'm like oh shit i gotta go pick her up or out when a wasp comes by. She'll just freeze. I'm like, oh shit, I gotta go pick her up or swap the wasp away. We have wasps in our area. She just freezes out. They fly around.

You don't know where they're going. My daughter's got good footwork. She does. A hummingbird. That makes a lot of noise. Sometimes when you're meditating and they're flying in front of me and I go... When you meditate, they come and fuck with you? I open my eyes

and this guy came back twice. I look at him and I go, what's up? He's right in front of me. Maybe he sensed your chi. For sure he did. Or he's female. It's Sensei Boss. Is that Sensei Boss?

Sorry, I should have been laughing. El Guapo is meditating in the yard. We were just talking about Sensei before he arrived. I like to go back to this, but again, he's the first one that I was aware of that actually did elevation training when he came to Colorado. Sorry to say that. But also, what he did is he took combinations and then chunked them together, hence numbers like four.

If you say four in the rooting system, it's jab, cross, hook, cross. So again, it's that same idea of taking the combination and chunking it together with hence numbers like four if you say four in the rooting system is jab cross hook cross so again it's that same idea of taking the combination and chunking it together because if i would say jab cross hook cross that's a lot more time than me just saying four right and that concept is what it took to continue the to develop the system and just the idea to be able to communicate tj on the pads or in the cage with limited time just calling simple commands or combinations so we can actually make sure that the fights are taking place not getting too sidetracked you know who's got a really interesting system is uh mark henry mark henry who trains edson barbosa and frankie edgar he's a

fantastic trainer like one of the most underrated guys in the business he rashad evans told me that he will name combinations after his daughter like rashad like certain daughter. Certain things. And he changes them with every camp. With every camp, the names change so no one's ever going to be able to pattern you. The other corners are not going to have any fucking idea what he's calling out. Tyson used to do that. Tyson? Yeah. He used to change

the numbers all the time. Because they would have a number system, but then every time he would change the numbers so nobody could pick up. I feel like we do too much shit. If you're going to change shit up on me, man, I'll be so lost. We're always adding. He's got a system. We do an online system.

We do his own academy, which he teaches the basic stuff. I mean, we've got a boss combo we do. We've got my combo, stuff like that. We'll put it online. But then we always switch shit up. So so each camp my combo might be different you know but if he completely switched all of it up i'd be lost we already do too much as it is i'd be lost yep yeah we did the boss combo today we're trying to like when you're trying to remember all these different things and put them all like the ramon deckers there's like 50 shots in a row

the deckers like stuff like that the tyson and the deckers those things kind of tied There's like 50 shots in a row The deckers like stuff like that the Tyson and the deckers those things kind of tie together that you're doing things You're supposed to do naturally anyways Like you know you're returning with the same punch and slipping and then rolling into the body and kicking inside then kick in the head Those are supposed to come together no matter what he's just making it a combo So once you stop stop thinking about the combo you just naturally start to do it Right put reps with the Tyson he's following the hooks up with coming to the body and then yeah cut He's just making it a combo. So once you stop thinking about the combo, you just naturally start to do it. Right. Put on the reps.

With the Tyson, he's following the hooks up with coming to the body and then the uppercut. So it's kind of stuff that ties together, and it's a lot easier to remember it that way. Has to flow. Has to flow. Natural intuition. Yeah, boss, before you got here, we were talking about the level of MMA right now. It's so fascinating because there's so much depth, and people are getting so much better, and there's so many different styles, and it just seems like such an exciting time right now for MMA. It is.

It is really exciting. For me, the first big change that happened in MMA was that everybody now was in shape. Finally. Nice. You remember we had all these guys running out of gas. I go, dude, that's like being a painter. You go in half a can of paint, do a job, you say, I'll run out of paint. I'm sorry.

It's the dumbest thing there is. Go run a hill. You know what one guy one time told me? I said, yeah, but I'm a heavyweight. I said, Cain Velasquez. And he goes, yeah, but he trains really hard. Also, he's Mexican. And I look at him like, are you kidding?

I said, you just gave the answer. Just train really hard. Nice. That's the thing. And there's a science behind it now, too. You know how to train, when to train that hard, and which ways to do it, how to make your body bigger if you need to or faster if you need more endurance to train that way. So, I mean, it's just like all these other sports. There is a science to it.

It's becoming a real sport. But to back up my Mexican theory, I talked to Crazy Bob Cook, and Crazy Bob Cook said, Kane will take like a month off or two months off, get hurt, something like that, has to rest up an injury. Not train. Come back and outwork everybody. That's so not fair, man. That's Benavidez too.

Because that does not happen to me. We were talking about Gilbert Melendez, another one. Yeah, you're right. Fantastic cardio. A lot of Mexicans have crazy fucking cardio, man. I always had good cardio. It might just be the- Well, it's because you don't love a hard do.

He has a good cardio because he doesn't calm down. Yeah, I don't calm down. I got it. If he shows up here early for the podcast, he's out in the parking lot shadowboxing. You know what I mean? I've got to stay sharp, baby. I've got to keep that belt back. He's not on his phone hanging out like most people waiting for whatever he's got to do to happen.

He's always doing something, always crazy. But it goes 100%. The thing with Dwayne is when you hold focus, Mr. Typetts, for Dwayne, you cannot take a break for five seconds and say, listen, make sure that you do it. He wants to keep going, keep going hard the whole time. I said, guys, step back, do this different. Just relax. Constantly he's in my face.

He wants to go 100% all the time. He does that to me holding mitts. So on the other end of it, I'll be hitting mitts. We'll be going for like an hour, hour and a half. I'm just like dead tired. So my feints and my forework have gotten so good because how much he's in my face. He'll come at me and nonstop want me to throw combos, and I am so dead tired I'll faint and move. You know what I mean?

Like, give me some time. Let me breathe. Let me breathe. That's good. It's for the overall good cause of developing your skill set in martial arts as a whole. So there's a purpose to it. We were talking about how interesting it's been how Dwayne has transitioned so well into becoming a trainer. Was that a challenge for you going from being a great fighter to being a great trainer?

No, no, it wasn't. For me, it's always been like riding shotgun. Or for whatever matter whatever we were talking about if a student fights i'm more nervous than the student at that but then i would be when i would fight for myself because then i'm in control so no but sometimes it's difficult if you don't have the right student right if your student is not responding and it's yeah it's very hard it's uh once you have those you know it, but a lot of them don't. A lot of these fighters

don't listen to their corners. Still, till this day, top fighters. I mean, you hear the corner constantly screaming. They don't do what they're doing. They think they can see it better. You know,

but once there is a trust, you know, and there was always a good trust between Dwayne and myself and the same with him and TJ, then he knows what you're seeing

that's probably going to work. And he will do it. Like, if I would say four to Dwayne in a fight, it will come out less than a second later. I will just shout four, pa-pa-pa-pa, it come out right away. If you could enhance my voice when he's fighting, it's a video game. We need to get a bullhorn. Get a bullhorn. The UFC should allow bullhorns.

No, no, no. I did that. Did you? In the UFC, I brought a megaphone because I thought everybody was screaming and they actually put it in the contract after that. That you couldn't have a megaphone? Watch my fight against Kiyosaki here. Short combinations.

You hear like this loud voice. Because I figured in Japan they're quiet, but here everybody's going to scream. I'm not going to hear them. So Avi, Avi Rubin, the old owner of the Beverly Hills Jiu-Jitsu Club, says, I'm going to bring a megaphone. They go, yeah, that's a good idea. That is a great idea. What about just like a tube, like a roll of toilet paper or something like that? Roll up a piece of paper.

Yeah. Could that work? I'll try it. I'll try it. One of those orange cones. Yeah, nice little chocolate cone. I always do that when I see them. I like those cones.

The reason why I brought that up about training fighters is because there's an interesting parallel between you two guys. Both great fighters and then both wind up having great students. You having Dwayne as a student and Dwayne now having TJ as a student and a bunch. Yeah, I mean there's a lot to that. There is.

You know, but it's all connection. And that's with everything in life. You know, once there is a connection that is, if people, you know, if I don't I don't care for him, if he's not a good guy, and that's with some fighters also. They come in, they just work out, they're gone again. They don't build a relationship, and once that happens, it hurts their fighting. I guarantee you that. Yeah, I'm sure.

And for fighters, it's really a problem when you build a relationship with the wrong trainer, and then you've got to leave that guy. You have this tight bond with someone who doesn't really know enough. That's a hard one. I've seen that many times. And when they leave, people get super butthurt. It gets to be a real problem. Yeah, but if it's real, it's real.

That's all I say. I say to my daughters, I say, what do I tell the guy? I say, just tell the truth. Can't go wrong with the truth. The guy, sorry, you know, it's like on Inside MMA, I would say about a certified, oh, that sucked or this sucked. And they say, yeah, but what if we're going to get him on the show? I say, I'll say the same thing. And if he tells me that I'm wrong, he can't say because it did suck.

You know, you just got to be honest. There's nothing he can do. Yeah, it doesn't mean they suck as a human being. No. It just means that in that moment, that was the wrong thing to do, or they didn't execute it properly. Yeah, and then I have to be on point, too, as far as a trainer with the fighters I'm coaching. I've got to make sure I'm calling the right commands at the right time as well, and that goes back to the relationship that you have and making sure you have that connection. When you also have to know your fighters' capabilities. Exactly, exactly.

When you have a great racehorse you know everything becomes so much more interesting because you have all these options and there's so much mental behind it too like duane knows how to coach me too you know like not everyone responds to negative energy not you know some people respond to negative energy right like danny castillo you gotta tell danny castillo like you're doing that like an idiot. Come on, fix that. And he's like, okay, yeah, he'll do it better. With me and Dwayne, it's a little more,

I've got to pump the guy up maybe a little bit, tell him what he's doing right instead of what he's doing wrong. So you've got to know how to coach each fighter. And once you build that relationship like Boss is talking about, you don't let it go. There's very few things that are as painful as listening to bad corner work. Oh, that's fun. I had a guy that went down to his liver in the corner cross who cross i go he just went you don't want him to throw a right hand right now you know let him keep that here so the liver

is protected and i go yeah no that's an idiot exactly you know who does that yeah i see that did you watch the fights this weekend yeah i did what did you think about Stipe and Alistair? Man, that was crazy. That was so crazy. I mean, the three or four last punches he gave, I mean, they're on an inch. They're all exact at the same spot. He's got really good precision.

Yeah, it just stopped him. And he got hit hard. He waved it off. But then that guillotine, and we know, 11 guillotines I believe that he had before. That's right. And tight ones. He put me in one time. I said, I want to feel it. I go, whoa, this is a really tight guillotine, and we know, 11 guillotines I believe that he had before. That's right. And tight ones. He put me in it one time.

I said, I want to feel it. I go, whoa, this is a really tight guillotine. But he got out. Yeah. He's a freak athlete. He really is. And he's a very likable guy. He's awesome.

Yeah. Steve is a good guy. We were talking about his composure. Yes, sir. He's so composed. Like in Brazil when he fought Fabricio, when he was in a stare down, he's just dead faced. He's got his own dead face. It's not like a Fedor dead face or a Kane dead face.

He's got his own dead face. But those guys, they can just stay completely calm in that incredible environment of being there in Brazil, 45,000-plus people screaming for Fabricio Verdum, and he just shuts his lights out. That's one of the things. Our main battle, right, is being able to

control ourselves and he looks to have mastered that ability to control his own emotions and make sure he's directing the energy in the right path. So, Stipe,

good job. Gracias, Hoppe. He's a bad motherfucker. It'd be interesting to see if someone got into his head the way you and Dominic were going after each other

or the way Connor got into Aldo's head. Right, yes. Good point. That was a master class in fucking with someone's head. Absolutely. I mean, Conor took Aldo completely out of his element where he was just so frazzled

by the time they actually met each other inside the octagon. I think with the Overeem and the Steep, it's the same as Holman and Rousey. Rousey's intimidating everybody the way she is. And when she stared down, that's when she lost because she realized Holly didn't care at all. She was just there, I'm going to hurt you.

And it's the same with Steve. Everybody is intimidated by Overeem, and you should be because he's a monster. But I think Overeem could see in his face already, he's not intimidated. This guy has absolutely, you know. And then when you fight a guy like that, that little voice starts playing in your mind when it gets bad. And that's why maybe we saw these crazy things of running away, which I

say is a good thing, because I said the same thing against Corlin McGregor, but for a big, huge heavyweight, it doesn't look good. And now you set yourself up more as a victim, because he's following you in, and that all is an input in your own brain. Because now you start telling yourself, oh, I know everybody thinks I'm hurt or that I'm afraid. Am I afraid?

You know, there's the whole doubt thing that goes on in the mind. There's always these two voices, I say. So one voice wants to quit and the other voice wants to go, right? You know, you're in a really bad situation and they say, okay, call it quits, call it quits. And then suddenly the other one goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and then suddenly the other one goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, we're not going to, let's just see what happens, you know? And then suddenly you come out of the situation, like I was about to tap in my second fight,

but then the audience started cheering for him, and then my ego took over, I go, okay, I get out of the situation, and then 30 seconds later, I knocked him out with a knee to the liver, and I go, okay, this is the last time I'm going to think like that. Because the bad voice, stay away from the bad voice. Yeah, focus on what you can control, and that's yourself, right?

Did you ever use any psychological training? Did you ever talk to a sports psychologist or anything like that? Or is it all self-taught? All self-taught. But what I did a lot is talking to myself. And people might laugh about that, but I'm very honest to myself. Like people say, oh, are you nervous to fight? No.

I'm not nervous. Why not? What can happen? What can really happen? He's going to knock me out? Well, it's going to be hard because it's never happened before. But if it happens, well, I'm not going to feel it. Apparently, you know, you're going to go down.

Submission. Is there submission? Is that really so bad? I'm going to tap. So what is so really so bad? Well, the really bad thing is listening to all the crap that all the not-so-good fans are going to tell you afterwards on social media. But if you

just care. Remember last time I told the story from in the room? If you take a fighter who's normally a nervous fighter. This is what I tell my students who are nervous when they have to compete. I say, okay, imagine now. The guy's right here. We put you in the room. We lock the door. Nobody can go in there.

You guys fight, and when you come out, you're not allowed to say who won or lose. Do you really care if you would lose? And he goes, no, because everybody can lose. I say, well, that's the mindset you should have when you go to a fight. That's my mindset. Winning or losing, I'm going to win,

I'm going to do everything in my power to win, but if I lose, so what? We're human, we come out of it. I say, you overcomplicate things. Certain combinations, when I set a four and then I do four punches to the head. And then I say, we stay with this combination.

The only thing we're going to change are the heights. So now I'm going to say, you do the four punches, left, right, straight, left, hook, right, straight. I'm going to say, okay, body, head, head, head. Now the first one has to go to the body. Head, head, head. Body, body, head, body, head, head, head. Now the first one has to go to the body, head, head, head. Body, body, head, head. Head, body, head.

Body, head, body. I mean, now you can make like 12 combinations from just a four punch, you know? But some people, when I tell it to my students, sometimes they overthink it. They go, oh, no. I say, no, just think body, head. Do the same combination, but they start thinking, oh, that's a liver shot. No, that's not a liver shot. That's the body.

Just, you know, keep it simple. And once you liver shot. No, that's not a liver shot. That's the body. Just keep it simple. And once you can keep it simple, it's much easier to do. Well, it's one of the things that we were talking about earlier was the amount of fighting that is mental. And the amount that is your attitude and how you feel about things and how you go into things and just your enthusiasm. Like Travis Brown. We were talking about Travis Brown, who earlier in his career was this fucking stone-cold killer. I mean, he had all this crazy footwork.

He'd throw a lot of kicks. And remember when he knocked out Stefan Struve with that Superman punch? Oh, that's right. Yeah. God damn. He was so unpredictable and wild. I was like, this motherfucker's going to be the heavyweight champ. Just give him some time.

And then he moved to Jackson's. He's training at a great camp but he just doesn't seem, I mean maybe it's a few losses in a row. He just doesn't seem to have that fire anymore. Did he lose when he was at Jackson's? He changed camps. He started losing after he changed

camps. Most of the time, and this is what I tell people, like my stretch routine and every time when I say this, they ask me, what is your stretch routine? I do the same stretch routine as I did 23 years ago when I started. Same routine. And the reason is, it never got me an injury. So if it's a winning

combination, don't break it. And it's the same with your team. If it's a winning combination, do not break it. Once you break it, how many fighters you see changing camp or firing a trainer or firing a manager or somebody who always helped them, and suddenly they start losing, you broke the spell or whatever you want to call it, the mystical thing that was going on.

That was working. Don't break it. Why would you? Yeah, but it's so rare that you find the perfect person. Like if you're with Johnny McFuckstick in Columbus, Ohio, and he's a shitty coach, and you've been with him forever, and you've got this weird bond with him, and then Firas Zahabi wants to train you, and you're like, God damn. What do you do? There's a lot coach and you've been with him forever and you got this some weird bond with him and then for us the hobby wants to train you like god damn yeah but what do you do there's a lot of intent everybody runs into boss rooting right off the bat so you know because I tell all my students I say listen I

teach straight out two times a week go anywhere you want any gym I don't mind guys you want to spar with other guys go anywhere you want but the problem is if you have that guy we are talking about who doesn't know anything, he's going to be butthurt. He's going to be, okay, you cannot go, you cannot go. But a good coach will say, go. Yes. Just train everywhere. If you can find something better, please do.

Perfect example is Duke Rufus, who's a great coach. And Anthony Pettis started training at Jackson's. He just wanted new looks. He wanted different things. He wanted to mix things up. And he had some great success doing that. And he also cares about Anthony Pettis. Yes. He wants him to do that. He cares about his career.

He wants him to grow and so he's like, yes, please go do this. Yeah, experience some new stuff. Every time I went up and trained with Farras at TriStar, he loved it. He loved the idea. Go up there, get some new looks, get some new technique, grow, you know. Those are real friends. Those are real people that care about you and they want you to have the best thing in your life. I sent Dwayne to other camps. Right? I mean, he went to Chuck's camp also. Yep, yep. To train. Well, there's a small handful, maybe a half a dozen or more, of really, truly elite camps

right now. You know, there's American Top Team, of course. There's a few that you could go over, but of places where you really kind of can't go wrong. It's really just a matter of finding the right combination for you, too, right? I mean, some camps are more grappling heavy and you might be more of a striker we've seen that happen too you know the guys just kind of get the wrong formula yeah it's the thing if you're a great striker go to a more grappling

oriented camp that's what i always say you got the striking that's when i decided okay this is it forget about striking three times a day submissions. That was it. Never lost again. It's just doing what you're not comfortable at. And do that a lot and make sure you get comfortable at it and that's it. Wonder Boy is a great example of that. He started training with Weidman, who's a great wrestler. And it just completely changed his confidence and his stand-up. And now he's so loose standing up.

You're getting to see the same Wonder Boy that was, I think he was was like 57 and 0 as a kickboxer something fucking crazy like that and you see those skills now because good luck taking that guy down correct you know he's getting mauled by chris weidman all the time weidman who's a big 185 yeah you know exactly yeah that comes to the oh but uh there's so many levels to mix martial arts so many areas we could obviously take the the three easy ones with the striking the wrestling and then the grappling right so with those now what's your style what's your skill set now with that being said you got to make sure you're getting with the best people in those three areas also but now we can take in the fourth account which since i said earlier is the conditioning aspect now so there's a lot of pieces of the puzzle and you can't just go to one guy you can't just go to a boxing coach if the boxing coach isn't really familiar with mma because things are different as you point out today with

the distances right and then using the switches because of the further distance so you got to make sure you have the correct people that understand the mixed martial arts game because if you go to an expert karate guy who doesn't understand mma that's not going to work no matter how much you guys love each other it's not going to work you have to have mma in the mix yeah you go to a wrestling coach who doesn't know how to strike he's not gonna learn how to close the distances with punches to build a time time your takedowns he's gonna want to grab a hold of you and move you around to shoot on you you know so yeah he might also not understand where you're in vulnerable positions for submissions like a lot of wrestlers will still shoot that double with the neck on the

outside yeah you know and i mean they just haven't figured the distance out or the difference in the in the technique out yep agreed yeah that's why i love this this trio and this lineage because i'm taking what sensei has done as much as i can than what i've done and then adding that up and i'll pass it tj's way and this is a direct line of lineage of martial arts information that's been expedited and it's it's awesome to have an actual martial art family and just keep passing along the knowledge it's fun for me as a martial art nerd it's also interesting because tj has that wrestling background as well and that i think that's a big factor in his success because he's incorporating all of your techniques and your techniques and then on top of that you've got that elite of athleticism and then the wrestling base so you've

got awesome takedown defense and takedowns and also i really firmly believe there's something about wrestlers that fucking grind of dieting and starving yourself and dehydrating yourself and the mental toughness that breathe that you know you get from certain wrestlers it's like it's off the charts i've still to this day never done anything harder than wrestling even with all the aspects of martial arts and fighting like fighting to me is it's a lot a lot easier than a grind of a wrestling season you know i wrestle at cal state fullerton where we started way too early like i said i overworked myself and pushed through a ninth month season being completely strict on everything my diet my

you know i can't i'm not going out and having fun with my friends because i'm wrestling and then wrestling every weekend and just it's such a hard practice like still today we do two days a week like wrestling practice like damn it I don't want to go wrestling. I just love wrestling. I'm going to get hurt. I'm going to have to go really hard. Like, man, wrestling, I've done it. You know, it's tough, man, and it definitely does breed mental toughness,

and then you're learning how to compete on your own every weekend. When you're training a team elevation and you're doing wrestling practice, are you doing strictly wrestling? Are you putting wrestling shoes on and you're doing like full-on wrestling uh like you know a competition between your teammates are you doing that kind of we do that as well as we'll do MMA wrestling as well you know there's different forms of it but yeah I'll go throw my wrestling shoes on and we're doing matches you know depends on where we're at we'll do situations and yeah we're doing full-on real wrestling practices is there a benefit to having wrestling shoes on, though?

Because you're not going to fight with them on. Your defense will become way better if you wear shoes. So it's so much easier to get out of a takedown without it. You can't, like, a single leg, you should not get taken down in a single leg in MMA. If you do, you're, I mean, it's so easy to slide your leg out on a single leg. But with a wrestling shoe on, I can't just go to that easy defense. I have to use my hips. I have to cover his head. I have to use all these positions to have a better defense with my shoes on.

So it's the difference between grappling with a gi and no gi? Is it that kind of a thing? Yeah. So in college, I shot high singles. That's what I shot. I shoot a high single. A guy tried to turn and kick out. I would catch his shoe and then take his back. In MMA, a guy turns and kicks out all the time. So a high single leg is not going to work anymore. So, yeah, I mean, like with a gi on, you can't get away with certain things. You can't just slip out of a submission. You can't just slip out of an arm bar and roll out of it. You actually have to have the real technique of getting out of it if this guy is so good at it. So, yeah, it's learning you to do the defense the right way instead of using the cheap moves.

That's interesting. Would it be okay if you did it with no shoes on and your opponent did it with shoes on because that way you would have the slipperiness of being barefoot so if i'm wrestling against a kid that i know is coming in from like a college and he's really good i am not wearing shoes i don't care i'm not gonna wear shoes like chad mendez like one of the best wrestlers in the world at practice he'll never ever wear shoes now he doesn't his defense is ridiculous he just pushes you off his leg like the way he'll stand now too is because he'll only let you shoot a single leg because he knows how easy it is to get out of it and uh he'll he'll never ever wear

shoes again wrestling ever since grappling but don't you think the the the injuries the twisting knees come from shoes wearing shoes because a lot of guys they do it on the wrestling mat and that's still okay that because it might slip a little bit but as soon as you step on the judo mat with shoes you're planting your feet and then with upper body motion rotation something's going to twist because a lot of injuries happen with wrestling right yeah you got it yeah better you got a better traction so you gotta know i mean i gotta know what you're i mean i've wrestled my entire life i kind of know my positioning with wrestling shoes on and stuff but i think it creates better habits to have your shoes on while wrestling because you're not going to be able to get away with what we call a stanky leg

where you just whip your leg out. If I have a grip, what you want is the grip above your knee. But as soon as I get your grip below my knee just by pushing it down, I'm out. I'm just sliding my leg out. There's got to be a similar situation to wearing gloves, right? Like when you're trying to limp arm at a certain position. For sure, real naked. Yeah, real naked

is really hard to finish with gloves on, yeah. Any kind of grappling we do at elevation is with our gloves on, you know, because I'm catching certain moves

and I can wrist ride differently. Chokes are different. I can't slide it as easy behind your head. You got to learn all those things with gloves on as well. Some people think

that it would be a safer sport without gloves. Probably. It's going to be less more bloody, though. A lot more bloody. A lot more bloody, that's the thing. The cuts and everything.

And the breaking hands. Yeah, but you would learn a lot more effective striking. You really couldn't just unload on a guy and just hit anything. So for Ross, I was up training up at TriStar. He's like, hey, I recommend at least once a day day, once every other day hitting the back with no gloves on, you know, get that proper technique of knowing how to hit something with no gloves on. So you don't have that padding and protecting. If I got a 16 or a 10 ounce glove, I'm able to just go away on my bag and punch it as hard as I want. I don't have to punch right. But if I don't have gloves on and

I'm hitting that as hard as I can, I have to hit it correct. I have to have the right knuckle placement to put it on that bag. Yeah. I mean, that's what a lot of karate and traditional martial arts guys believe. They believe that those gloves are actually giving you this sort of false sense of your abilities. Because your wrists are all wrapped up, your hands are all wrapped up. Look at Tyson. How many times did he break his hands in a street fight? All the time. Mitch Blood Green. Because they perfectly tape his hands up in training. And then when he has to hit without.

On the other side, you know, hitting a bag. But because if you do it wrong, like if you're hitting a bag bare knuckle. Because I had a guy who told me, my coach is a really good coach because he lets us hit the bag until our hands bleed. I said, your coach is an idiot. That's what your coach is. I said, because if this happens four weeks before the fight, guess what's going to happen? Every single workout, when you hit, you're going to reopen the cuts. It's going to hurt every first round of your workout, right?

So yeah, if you do it perfect, and the impact is perfect, but as soon as you hit and you slide a little bit and you shave a knuckle off, well, four weeks before the fight, that's not going to heal anymore. Because you reopen it every time. One of the interesting things about MMA is how we're still kind of learning and there's no right approach for everybody. Everybody's approach is different. Like the approach for Damian Maia is going to be different than the approach for Wonder Boy is going to be different than your approach.

And it's so difficult to figure out who's right. I mean, it's really based on the success of the past. Well, if we take away the gloves, everyone's going to turn into Wonder Boys kicking with Damian Myers grappling. Yeah. If we take away the gloves. Well, there'll be a lot more chokes. A lot more chokes and a lot more kicks. If they take away the gloves. There we go.

Yeah, I mean, it'd be so much easier to sink chokes in, so much harder to defend. So we definitely have to change up the commands then. Now, when it comes to, like, if you look at football or baseball or any professional sport, they pretty much have protocols that are very similar. Most teams have pretty similar protocols as far as training and how they prepare their athletes. But with MMA, it's wildly different.

Who decides, for you, who decides when you're doing strength and conditioning, when you're doing hill sprints, when you're doing sparring? How do you guys work that out? I find someone that I trust completely and then work together with them. For my striking and my MMA with Dwayne, it's something we team up together and think of like, what if I do this, what if I do that, and then kind of make a perfect plan for myself. My strength and conditioning coach, Lorna Nadal, I believe in him completely of watching him train athletes and peeking me the

right way and how i feel personally it's all trial and error um you know where i'm at right now i i trust in every single coach that for different aspects lisa bowling for my wrestling he's been around the game for so long and knows how fighting works that i'm going to trust him in my wrestling techniques and help him pick me apart you know elliot marshall's my jujitsu coach. I really believe in Colorado at Elevation Fight Team with me and Dwayne. We really got it pretty good to figure it out. But someone's going to come in and have a different mindset of what they want to do. And if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. Yeah, it's just the trial and error and the learning as you go along is so interesting

because, you know, you lose a fight and then you go, God, what did we fuck up on? Where did we go wrong? What do we need to do better? Yeah. And then, you know, maybe, you know, you get that Joe Silva call like, hey, you know, we have a fight in eight weeks. You ready to take it? I had Joe Silva call me when I was up on a ladder doing electrical work in the mountains

to fight in two weeks and it was against Jonathan Goulet. So I said, sure, take the fight. And then I text boss right away or I call him and I say, can you train me? He's like, sure. Go out for a week. So yeah, going back to the point. That worked out well. The fastest KO in history. Ever. We had a fight for that, dude. We had a fight

for that one. Yes, sir. Mr. Rogan, thank you, sir. God damn, there's so many people hating on him having the fastest KO in history. There's a lot of fucking debate. I was like, the referee, it's wrong. It was a wrong call. They were saying it was like 11 seconds or something like that. Yes, sir. Like, bullshit.

That was sick. We played it over and over and over again. That was fun. We were working on that exact technique, just pulling down the jab and going overhand right in the back with Sensei and just repped it out, repped it out. It was so fun because I'm leaning over the cage and I'm saying, Dwayne,

he's going to come up straight forward. I want you to step to the side and just knock him out. You will hear me say that, repeating it over and over. I say, I don't know what, because every time I have that,

I have one time I say, he's opening with a right low kick. I want you to counter it. And then the guy opens with a right low kick. How do you know? I have no clue. Every time I worked with this,

with Jens Pulver, how we knocked him out, that combination, we worked in the dressing room before. Boom. I mean, it's all the time. With Goulet, for some reason, I go, he's going to come straight at you. Just move out and just go.

Don't you think it's kind of data chunking? You've seen so many fights. You've trained so many people. You just see things. And you don't even know what you're seeing. You're just like, you know how sometimes you'll see a guy. I call it all the time. I'll see a guy lift his heel up and he's about to throw a right kick.

Like you just know, just for whatever reason. Twist a little bit, you know he's going to spin. And then the funny part is when he does a back kick, nine out of ten times the other one throws a back kick. So I always thought, I'm going to do this on purpose and hopefully when he makes one, I'm going to catch it. A little off beats. Off beats, yes sir.

I could do this too. It's crazy when people throw back kicks. Probably the most ill-advised back kick of all time was Chris Weidman versus Luke Rockwell. Maybe the most ill-advised back kick. Was that called at the moment? What do you mean? His corner called it at the moment?

I don't know if he called it. I think maybe it's because Luke had been knocked out by Vitor with a wheel kick. So maybe, I'm just guessing, that Chris decided to throw a wheel kick. But it was like, you could see it coming. It wasn't fast. No, if you don't know 100% how to kick, I say don't kick. And he shouldn't have done it.

It was way too slow, and they saw it coming. Off a memory of that, though, when Vitor B did it i'm i'm i think i remember correctly rockhold was against the cage correct because he's trying to circle off right yeah so he was aware of the cage now weidman's back was against the cage i thought he was closer to the cage than luke was in that fight i don't believe so no i believe he was moving i was believe it was the same thing he was moving towards rockhold i don't remember the correct direction but i remember vitor threw it before and it was the first time I'd ever seen him throw a wheel kick.

He threw it right before against Rockhold and missed, and he threw it again and landed it. Caught him. Nice. But he was just... That was TRT tour. He was just... That was a different Vitor.

I think he had an 18-pack for that fight, man. He told me. He told me before. He says, boss, my kicks are going to be... They're getting really good right now. I'm going to knock somebody out with a spinning back kick to the head. I said, go for it, dude.

And then he knocked him out. Well, Vitor has had so many hand surgeries. I believe he's had eight different hand surgeries. He's broken his hand so many times that I think he just started concentrating more on kicks. Just see that. Made a big difference. This is going back to patterns. People lift the heel up, you know they're going to throw something.

Well, figuring out what they're gonna do but in that same theory is paying attention to what combinations and what techniques actually land and then chunking those together and making those the system so just being having going back to the language and the vocabulary of high percentage combinations drill them and rep them out so just it's not too bad yeah and know how to really deliver a technique before you attempt it like the first time I ever saw Cain Velasquez throw a wheel kick ever was in the Travis Brown fight, and it looked fucking perfect. I was like, what, has this guy been hiding this forever? Like, he never threw a wheel kick, and all of a sudden it's a perfect wheel kick.

But it's probably because he had practiced it and drilled it to the point where he's got it down. It's like, all right, time to unleash the wheel kick. He has a lifelong martial artist in his corner, however you want to call it. So I'm sure he's seen a million back kicks and can correct him on what to do properly rather than what he's doing wrong. Yeah, but it's interesting when you see a guy out of nowhere pull a technique that you've never seen before. Well, high-level athletes, I can show TJ anything, right? Or watch videos and see something, he can pull it off right away. He's a great visual learner.

I'm a great visual learner. So is Sensei. I can learn by watching tapes and watching somebody do something. I can just mimic it. So can TJ, so can sensei. It's just the way it is. I wonder what the next technique

that we're going to see that we couldn't believe someone's pulling off inside the octagon. Interesting. It's really clothesline, boss with his clothesline, and elbows to the collarbones. I saw somebody land a clothesline recently.

Do that, that fight's going to be over. I saw someone do that, and I was thinking of you, because you've talked about that so many times. That, like, go up to a bag. They attached to us both on the Twitter feed, right? It was a Twitter somebody. Yes. It's a clothesline. Yeah.

But a clothesline, if you really do it, they can cover up with their hands, but you're still going to hit them. You loop around. And you loop around to the back of the head, which is still outside the mohawk. It's still a legal punch. And your feet is completely legal. He moved his head or didn't move his head and it's his fault. Eddie Bravo and I had a conversation about this. When you hit a guy with a

head kick, a lot of times it's landing on the back of the head. A lot of times. It's coming over the shoulder. A lot of times the foot is impacting the instep is hitting the back of the head before anything. And nobody's ready for that impact. Everybody's impact ready for the sides and to the front. Tyson, his hooks, he was always the smallest guy, shortest guy,

but he would hit his hook almost to the back of the head. His hooks were so short. I always say it, just hit yourself really gentle with the palm on the back of your head. Your brain is simply not ready for that. Yeah, one of the best head kick KOs I've ever seen that came from the back of the head was Ernesto Hoos versus Maurice Smith. Did you ever see that conversation? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jamie, find that because it's such a crazy combination. The way Hoos gets his leg up, they're in the middle of a clinch and Maurice, I believe, picks his leg up. They're in the middle of a clinch and Morris, I believe, picks his knee up and Hoost comes over the top and down behind his head. Saxo Jajira style. He used to do this. He just did a seminar. Kicking over the defense.

Right there. And just like what you said before is, say you take a punch mitt and put it on the head. You're going to let me just hit the punch mitt? If you have your hands up? It makes no sense. Having your hands up, you think the guy's protected now and don't punch him? Right. have your hands up? It makes no sense. Having your hands up, you think the guy's protected now and don't punch him? Right. Put your hands up. Let me punch you. Let me punch your hands. That's something I've always got from Sensei. Especially kick. Block my

kick. Come on. It's a misconception of people. When they put their hands up, but this is what goes on. If I want to kick you in the head and I see you put your hand up, a normal person automatically takes the power of the kick because he sees he's defended. But if he just would not care and just kick as hard as he can on the defense,

he will kick him out. He's going to knock him out. This last weekend we saw Yancy Medeiros fought Sean Spencer. Spencer blocked the kick and he took it right to the head. Check this out real quick. This is Maury Smith versus Ernesto Hoos. Play the whole thing so you can see the combination. See?

Boom! Look how he does it. in the clinch with the knee. Boom! Nice. Yeah, that is Rommel Decker's kind of style, you know? Like the push and the kick to the head. He started with that in Holland. The way he was able to bring it up and around like that, too. It's just crazy technique.

If you realize when he's in the clinch, he'll block the shoulder and almost pull his hand down for him. He kind of guides his hand out of the way so his kick's going to come up and land behind the head. That's also where flexibility is so critical. There's no more important thing when it comes to kicking technique than flexibility. Because if you don't have flexibility, your body's all stiff and it doesn't move right. There's no one can do that unless you're flexible. Yeah, got to stretch. Got to do the stretching routine.

This is a complete animal, man. This is such a good guy. Oh, who's the best? With all the fights, him and Kamen and all this. Who was that one Croatian dude that kept knocking him out? Yeah, that fucking guy hits so hard. What an animal, you know? Oh!

Yeah. He was the first K-1 champion. He was an animal. That's right. That's right. Satake, he knocked's right. Satake. He knocked him out. His muscles also, when you see it,

it's a different kind of muscle it almost looks like. He's very strong. Yeah, there's some dudes like that. It took a long time for him to break the ice with me. And then suddenly he came to me and he goes, you're a funny guy. But it took like four times of meeting him. He had no clue what to expect.

That's a hard part of the world. Yeah. Yes, sir. That is a hard part of the world. Probably tough to relax in that area. Got to be on guard the whole time. I think to this day, the greatest stare down of all time was Cro Cop versus Vandele. Oh, nice.

Vandele would mean mug everybody and it would work. He looked at Cro Cop and Cro Cop looked at him like, motherfucker, I'll cut your head off. It was like, oh, he did almost. He was a little too high with the kick. That was the second fight. That was the second fight. But in the first fight, I mean, you never saw the eyes of a killer

more than that one time. Because, I mean, he was ahead of an anti-terrorist squadron in Croatia. But you see, I go back again. That was Wendelay always intimidating somebody, and now you have suddenly a guy who does not care. Not only that, your strong suit is striking, and you're taking on one of the most explosive strikers to ever compete in MMA,

and a guy who was a legit K-1 level striker. But it's interesting how that style really worked really well. Like, here it is. Look at this stare down. Look at Cro Cop. Get the fuck out of here. Look at that fucking stare down. I mean, that's goddamn terrifying.

And I'm not even there. Yeah. That is legit as fuck. He's not believing in Vanderlei very much. But it's interesting because Cro Cop was successful in K-1, but he was never the elite of the elite. Right, agreed. But his style, that explosive one-shot style translated so well to

MMA, whereas maybe like Ernesto's style would not have translated that well. I see that. Because he was more technical, he would set things up more. What I say, no single kicks I always say, because they can be countered. And I always say, or you kick like Mirko Krokop. Because if you then kick really hard on the defense, you're buying yourself a little bit more time because you force them to block it.

But some of these guys with the left kicks, if they're the orthodox, they can't kick. I say, take the kick. What are you going to do? Is it going to give you a rash? I mean, it's not going to do anything. It's not going to kick a muscle. Just counter the kick. It's not gonna kick a muscle just counter the kick

Well when croak up gets a full blast kick you're gonna be forced to block and then you can counter Which buys him a little bit of time to get out of the way again So TJ in his last out of the Sun see I'll just wait for the kick and just step in throw the cross time I'm on the way in well, there's levels to everything right and there's levels to kicking and Edson Barbosa switch kick nice Yes, that's one of those things where I watched that and I go what the fuck? Yeah, I've never seen anybody switch kick that fast. Yeah, he just Is inside leg kick you can a whole fight with Watch old Benny the Jets Yes, spinning back into the body. Oh, yeah to the body

against Fujiwara I mean I saw that Kings of the Square Ring. When you see him, you can hear the impact on the butt. You see the guy crumble. Benny the Jet was a bad motherfucker. By far the best American kickboxer ever. Yeah, he's without a doubt one of them.

I would say him and then I would say Rick Rufus. Such a pioneer, too. I mean, he was doing that back when there was really no one at that level. I mean, he was at such back when there was really no one at that level I mean he was at such a high level such a wild dude too

again Mexican is he Native American or is he Indian American oh is he I think so or maybe a mix but I'm pretty sure

because he used to come out with the headdress and stuff that's right Blinky Rodriguez who was his brother-in-law was Mexican

I saw him in Holland coming in he was fighting Spang Ewan Spang, who's a big black guy, strong, strong kickboxer. And Benny never fought with low kicks. And Spang is murdering him in the first round.

Everybody's for Spang. Spang keeps going. And he gets low kick, low kick. I don't know how he stayed in the fight. Benny, right? In the second round, he starts coming in a little bit. And it was five rounds, five at a time, because Thai boxing.

In the third round. And now Benny the Jet starts coming back. And suddenly, Spong starts spitting out his mouthpiece, because he needed an extra break, and he did it again, and he did it again. And there, it was like Rocky versus Ivan Drago. You saw literally the whole audience change from being for the Dutch guy to be for Benny the Jet, because they realized, this guy is so tough, and he keeps hanging in there. And then Benny the Jet stopped him in the fourth round.

It was the craziest thing. People were going nuts. When he spit out his mouthpiece, he went spunk. Everybody, boom! He was a new hero there. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen. Did you watch Glory this weekend? No, but I heard it was really good, right?

Jason Willis knocked out Simon Marcus. Oh, wow. Fucking crazy. And Marcus was lighting him up early in the fight. Lighting him up. He's like 44-2, right, Marcus? So three then, I guess. Three now, yeah.

He lost to Schilling in that crazy fight where they went that extra round, and Schilling knocked him out with a right hook, which was an insane fight. That was the tournament, too. That was the first fight of that tournament, and Schilling fought two more times after that fucking crazy fight. But the Wilmots fight, Simon Marcus was lighting him up, man, with Muay Thai. And Wilmots is more of a boxer style, and he was moving in, and he had some success with combinations. But then he caught him at the end of the round with a shot, and Simon Marcus was kind of playing with him and lowered his hands and was smiling, and he got hit with a couple of shots,

and the referee gave him a real questionable standing eight count. And the commentators were screaming. Joseph Valtellini was screaming, like, that's ridiculous. They shouldn't do this. That's not a – the eight count's no good. He wasn't about to go down. There's no standing eight count in kickboxing. Like, why'd they count him?

Like, they're saying that the ropes held him up. Then the next round, Willness just fucking dropped him legit and hurt him bad and then dropped him again and finished him off. For Hoover. I'm looking forward to him fighting Badr Hari now. December 10th, right? Yeah. God damn, that's going to be nuts.

Badr Hari is one of the scariest motherfuckers to ever walk the face of the planet. Yeah. I have no clue how he's still out. Out of jail? Out of jail. I guess he's got money. Oh, that's right. Yeah, because they said it was maybe going to be in Morocco.

I go, don't do it in Morocco, dude, because if you beat him, that's going to be a problem, I think. Yeah. Didn't he rob a bank, right? No. No, not him, but he beat up somebody. Oh, Lee Murray. Lee Murray went to Morocco. Okay, right? No. No, not him. That's Lee Murray. Oh, Lee Murray. Lee Murray went to Morocco.

Okay, okay, sorry. With brass knuckles. My story's better. Well, he beat some guy up at a nightclub where he stomped his shin. They held the guy down and he allegedly stomped on his shin and snapped it in half. See, that's not being a good person. I don't think that's what he was going for. No, I don't think so. I don't think he was going for the good person.

Stories like that, you have many of them from him. Man, that's not good. Yeah, not good. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of MMA. I think that MMA is the most exciting sport in the world. But there's some things that you see in kickboxing that you just don't see in MMA because there's no threat of the takedown. So you see these wild technical exchanges, and in my opinion, we need more of that.

There's not enough eyes on it. Just don't think enough people are paying attention. Phenomenal show, Glory. It's a phenomenal show. That's why I don't understand The numbers About why There's not many More people Watching it And especially the guys

Who are complaining About not understanding Mixed martial arts Well Punching and kicking Everybody can understand that And I 85%

Knockout ratio It's a great show I love Glory But I like Lion Fight better I like Traditional Muay Thai I just feel like Glory would be even better If they just went Muay Thai because why why take away elbows?

Why why no elbows? I'm not a big fan of elbows just because of the cuts it cuts too easy I understand but then also limiting the clinch time because the clinch time can be boring, right? So I think like the k1 rules are more I like the k1 rules or glory rules better for that aspect for the higher pace fight But or just in the clinch, keep elbows. But in the clinch, just don't allow them to play around as long. See, I understand what you're saying about elbows. But part of me is like, look, it's a striking contest.

Why would you eliminate one of the best weapons in striking, which is elbows? And Lion Fight has these—I mean, look, they get cut up for sure. Do you see Gaston Balanos is one of his faces? I mean, he gets cut the fuck up. His opponents cut the fuck up. They're blasting each other with spinning elbows. But it's fun as hell to watch. Yeah, definitely fun to watch.

I'm not trying to be in there anymore at all. I'm done. I'm good. I hear you, man. Much easier just coaching TJ and coaching the guys and teaching martial arts and eating what I want and hanging out. I totally respect that. I just think as a person who appreciates the purity of the art, I just feel like there's no reason to take out those clinch battles and there's no reason to take out those elbows.

Because the guys who are good at those clinch battles, they just start fucking blasting each other with knees to the body and it has a significant toll. And then the elbow battles that they have inside the clinch, to me, it's a really important part of stand-up striking. I see that. Yes, sir. Agreed. We were talking about earlier, Sex and Jinjuro, he just did a seminar at my academy and he showed us really cool clinch elbow knee techniques.

It was nice to get it from an actual pure Muay Thai fighter to see his look and his perspective of what can happen in the clinch elbow knee techniques it was nice to get it from an actual pure muay thai fighter to see his look and his perspective of what can happen in the clinch that that was that was eye-opening it was cool yeah i think if we didn't have those guys we wouldn't know that we would have only the level of striking that we see in mma and i think you know when you go and you watch like a ramon decker's fight fight, and you watch him in his prime, you realize, oh, okay, this is possible. There's levels to this fucking thing. Jordan Mean, right?

Yeah. His elbows. Oh, man. He retired. No, he's coming back. He is. I heard. Yeah.

His father is the boss of the MMA system also. Yeah. And he told me he's going to be back. Yeah, he's a black belt in the U, right? Yep. His father's a fucking savage. There's a picture of him on his instagram page like 50s fucking yeah jordan is a very very talented guy but um he had so many fights you know as a young man i mean i think he's only 24 or 25 and he retired right that's what i tell everybody this because they

start competing too young he competed when he was 15, 16 years old. They have to lie about his age, you know. You're going to burn out. You shouldn't do that. Everybody's asking me. I met this girl now in Visalia, 12-year-old Jenna. I mean, I started following her. I sent her a whole bunch of gear and stuff, you know. She says, watch me. I'm going to be the next

Ronda Rousey. So I go, yeah, I want to see that. But it's, you know, it's the training. I told her, start, I want to see that. But it's, you know, it's the training. It's, I told her, start sparring maybe when you're 15 years old. Wait with that because your brain is still wiring everything

to your nerves, you know, at that age and it stops at 14. Just give it two more years, you know, till all the connections are there and then maybe start sparring.

But competing, I would just wait, wait for competing. Don't go in this early, do jujitsu, wrestling, do all that but striking to the head, I think they should wait for competing. Don't go in this early. Do jiu-jitsu, wrestling, do all that, but striking to the head, I think they should wait with that.

Even doing those things at a young age, you need to make sure they're fun. I almost got burnt out of wrestling in eighth grade. I wanted to quit. I wanted to be done with wrestling. That's too much. It was just because every weekend I'm competing that I'm so nervous as a little kid.

I'm putting so much pressure on myself. They're like, I got to win this tournament. I got to do good. My dad was my coach. I wanted to impress him. All this stuff. It's like eighth grade i was almost just gave it up you know but you got to learn to learn to have fun with everything as long as everything's fun like you can compete do all that stuff i mean obviously kickboxing is a little bit different because

you're going through some uh brain trauma but but even with the wrestling and jujitsu make sure it's fun if you got a little kid that wants to do ma or a little kid that wants to get involved in grappling and wrestling make sure it's fun you know go've got a little kid that wants to do MMA or a little kid that wants to get involved in grappling and wrestling, make sure it's fun. Go to practice, play some games, do some things as well as learning technique because little kids will get burned out way too fast. Enjoy the journey. We hear that in striking a lot, right?

A.K.A. they get injuries and injuries there and how many times should we spar? We spar two times a day. Do we ever get injured? No, we never get injured. And we go. If people watch they're going to go, oh these guys are crazy. But we know exactly what we hit, where we kick it. It's all about sparring partners. Now if you

decide your great sparring partner doesn't show up and you get somebody from the club somewhere yeah, who has this weird, he doesn't he's not as professional, yeah you get injured. But I've never been injured in sparring. Yeah but you're a freak. You're boss rooting. Settle down. get injured but I never been injured in sparring and we have a freak get boss fruit and settle down but same with you yeah you never get in just right we will

yeah what did you think about cowboy Cerrone deciding no more sparring he doesn't spar he just does drills yeah talking about that and look sensational in his last fight he looks sensational because he because he still was sparring before that. You know, it's closer, but the further you stare away, it's like a luller. He said he never sparred, and finally he started sparring. He started sparring, and he became much better. See, I look at that. I think your reflexes need to be tested all the time.

If you're going to fight, well, then you're going to have to fight in training, because that's what's going to happen. Unexpected things, unexpected techniques, techniques you know you need to be prepared for that if you just spar you don't know what i'm going to throw at you you can visualize a counter on my right straight well what if i set it up as a one two instead of just the right straight you see now yeah and with that being said sorry um is is we're talking about sparring but it's not just full-on fight sparring but there's a whole level of sparring drills that you can play with and mimic scenarios going back to the patterns right like what's a

typical pattern the jab the cross the rear low kick learning how to deal with those things in the motion but while you're doing that drill you have to have the clear mind like you're in the fight but know that you're going to be you're going to be countering the jab you're sending something up in the jab but not just going in fighting guys i don't want this to be misled where everyone's just fighting and sparring hard, but to do actual sparring drills because there's a full path between hitting mitts and actual sparring, and then that's the web of the sparring drills.

Yeah, I think Cowboy also had an issue with cutting the weight, too. Yes, sir. Yeah, he looks like a 70. Cutting weight was just too much for him. At 170, he's a fucking assassin. I feel like when he went up to 170, there was a lot less pressure on him at first, too.

You know, you got to go into a fight with just having fun and not thinking about, like, I'm supposed to win this fight. For him, he's going to a completely different weight class. What is there to lose? And so I think that's what's helped him out a lot, too. And I think he's kind of catching his groove. He looked awesome in his last fight.

Right body, left hook, right high kick. I loved it. And it went all full hits. If you saw the body shot, it dug in there. Yeah. Right? And then wrap it up with the high kick. I loved it.

And the technique, the technical shot, it dug in there. Yeah. Right? And then wrap it up with the high kick. I loved it. And the technique, the technical aspect, there was no wind up. There's no muscle behind it. Everything's just perfect. Pop, pop, pop, crack. Head kick. It was just, God damn. He's another guy as far as developing somebody. I used to help him out when he was first training in Colorado.

And he was so wrapped up into his own style. I would try to say, no, do this and do that. But then I realized, look, everyone needs to be their own athlete. You know, you got to do what's good for you. If it feels natural, go ahead. And then he's just a prime example of someone you have to allow to be themself, you know. Right. But just kind of guide a little bit here and there.

But, you know, he went down to Jackson's and look what he's done. He's amazing. Well, he's such an individual. Yes, sir. As we all are, yeah. He's trying to put cowboy in some other boxes. He's just a fucking wild man. Who's the weirdest guy you've ever worked with where you're like,

Jesus, I don't even know if I can fucking help this guy? We all have those. Faber. Faber? Yeah. He's not going to try to learn new things, though. Yeah, he's set in the past, so you've got to respect that. You've been successful, there you go, but the game has changed. Now look at the results.

The game has changed. You have to change along with it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results. You have to evolve. You have to let the eagle go and continue to develop and train and learn. That has to happen. Well, you guys had personality conflicts for whatever reason. No blame, but whatever they were, you guys had this.

It was a great time when we were together. Look what happened. Look what they were, you guys had. It was a great time when we were together. Like, look what happened. Look what flourished, right? Yeah. I became much better as a martial arts instructor, being able to work with all the athletes, right? Everyone, we worked together. Everybody rose.

So it was a good time. It was a good win-win. It worked out. Time for me to go home and do my own thing and things laid where they were. Yeah. You asked about why, you know, him as a good coach. And the reason of that is what I already mentioned with the training. He's always there.

He's always there on time. He always goes full out. And that work ethic, he took to be a coach. He will always be there with the guys cutting weight, doing everything. I guarantee you,

they can call you at 3 o'clock in the middle of the night the day before the fight. As long as he's not naked breaking up pit bull fights. Just give me 30 seconds. I got this. But that's it.

That's it. If you have that drive and you're so focused on one thing, he just put that focus on training. I'll be training all day long. I'll get home and want to just relax, veg out, maybe watch some TV, just do nothing. And then maybe it'll be like 12 o'clock at night. I'll get a text from Dwayne on something on my fight, what I should be doing, what I should be thinking about. I'm like, God.

Sorry. Now I've got to think about this all night. The reason why he's so great is, like you said, he's constantly thinking about it, and he cares how well I do. Before you fought Hannon Burrell, I was eating lunch in Vegas at the hotel. I had a bunch of my friends with me. We're all getting ready for the fights. Dwayne comes over.

Hey, man, come on, sit down. How you feeling? Boom. Sits down and just... That's what we're going to do.its down and just... The whole thing is movement, switches, get to the side. The whole thing, brow, brow, how's his style? And he just was

fucking 100 miles an hour. And then he's sitting there putting food in my mouth going... And then he visits Kevin, James, Wyman, and me in Vegas. We were also in Vegas. That's right, yeah. And we still got the same thing. Same thing. It just goes off.

What do you think? This is good? This is good? This is good? Boom! But that's why you're so fucking good, you know? And I don't like the term OCD, man. Obsessed.

I've dedicated my life to the arts. OCD is those weirdos who wash their hands a hundred times before they leave the house. This is a different thing. This is just, it's a positive obsession. Yes, sir. Yeah. Again, I've dedicated my life to the arts. Yeah is a different thing. This is just, it's a positive obsession. Yes, sir. Yeah. Again, I've dedicated my life to the arts. Yeah, man.

So it's fun. I love it. Yeah, pretty much everybody at this table has. Your method, though, is so uniquely Dwayne. And I really love your system. I think that's so critical is that you've taken all your stuff and you've written it out and you put it into like this system where you can really learn and That's something I learned from Rob Kamen to nice Rob Kamen tapes who's amazing sir

He has a system and one of the things that I learned when I was training with him It's like this guy has this system the same way a lot of jiu-jitsu guys have a system you know and it's like his his system of breaking things down and movement and strikes that it's all like it's it's like his system of breaking things down and movement and strikes, that it's all like it has a pattern to it. Yes, sir. And you could follow this pattern. There's a progression to it. And with the way the world is today, you can learn it all from him online. Yeah.

He's so good at breaking things down and being able to film it and show it to people that you can go on his online academy and learn exactly what I'm doing. Yeah, all you need is a willing participant, someone to train with you who go on his online Academy and learn exactly what I'm doing. Yeah. All you need is a willing participant. Someone to train with you is going to do the same amount of work that you are. Agreed. Yeah. It's fun.

I love it. I definitely love it. It gives me thriving passion and a purpose, you know, to put energy into other humans and to watch them flourish and grow and get better. And that's a feedback for me. It's obvious.

I might be just doing it for myself, but it's a good service back first. But I love to see people do good. Well, I'm glad you're around, dude, because it makes it interesting. And this is such a fucking exciting time for MMA, man. So much good shit is going on, boss. Are you loving doing that show, the MMA show?

I love it. You know, last time I heard you on a broadcasting, you're talking about the different levels of a knockdown, right? And we had Herb Dean and Big Joe McCarthy, and Joe McCarthy was talking about the five levels of a knockdown. Once you start staggering, once you fall back, once you crumble, there's all different sides. I think that I love those conversations. The roundtable, sit down with some professionals and talk about problems that we have right now. And then figuring it out. And I love that.

And the show also is great. I see new talent. Like Conor McGregor in the beginning, we had him on. So we see these guys come on the show. But also once in a while we got Mark Coleman or Don Fry. I see my old buddies again. It's just a fun show. Boss, before you got here, we were talking about eye pokes.

And we showed the Fabrizio Verdum, Travis Brown eye poke. Did you see that? Have you seen it? Yeah, I heard about it. It's just a fun show. Boss, before you got here, we were talking about eye pokes. And we showed the Fabrizio Verdum, Travis Brown eye poke. Did you see that? Have you seen it? Yeah, I heard about it. It's fucking crazy. Like knuckle deep into Fabrizio's eye. What do you think could help that? What do you think could fix that?

I think penalties. I truly believe so. Because if you look at Pancras, which was open-hand striking, we never stabbed each other in the eye. And we have open hands. How is that even possible? So now, because we arch our hands backwards, because we want to hit with the palm. And it's just a fact when it happens,

it won't happen in training, right? And especially not at that gap. Oh, no, not anymore, of course. Because if they come from Greg Jackson, Winklejohn, I would say, well, Mike Winklejohn lost an eye. Right. You know, with a nail. Whether it was a foot nail, okay.

Toenail, yeah. Toenail, but still, you know. Holding pads for somebody. Holding pads. You know, with a nail. It was a foot nail, okay, but still, you know. Holding pads for somebody. Holding pads. Yeah, that's what happened. It's very dangerous, yeah.

No, but I think once you say, listen, if you're known to do that, that it happened with you in the past, referee should be allowed to go before there

and say, listen, when I poke, I'm going to give you a red card. And I think that will stop it. Because people are going to get more, become more careful. Red card, which in pride would give you a red card. And I think that will stop it. Because people are going to become more careful. Red card, which in pride would cost you 10% of your purse.

10%, yeah. I think the point deduction, I think one point every time. I think no warnings for an eye poke. I think the gloves. I think the gloves, too. But I think that even if you take a point away from a guy, if you warn him, that person you poked in the eye is still damaged by that. So even if he says it's an accident, it doesn't matter.

One point, either way. Even if it's an accident. That's what I'm saying. Even if it's obviously an accident. Both. If your fingers go into someone's eye and you know it's going to cause a point, everyone is going to curl their knuckles back. Be more accountable for it, right?

Yes, sir. I see that. Yeah, so gloves and penalties. Or a beating afterwards if you do it. You're going to be tied up to a pole. I hate to believe anybody's doing it on purpose, but someone must be doing it on purpose. Some, I feel, are kind of aware of that. They have to be.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, how often is that happening in training? I don't know. But some of them do look deliberate. It's like kicks in the pills Christoph Szyzynski was one time fighting and he got kicked six times I believe it might even be seven in the pills and he goes back to the pills or the balls And I go kick him back. Yeah, that's my answer. I say he's not getting a warning. So do it back

Yes, sir, right then he knows how it feels and hopefully he's gonna stop but Christoph is two nights of a guy he didn't do it there's a few fights where you go oh i gotta wonder why not that's purpose on purpose rather um did you see uh czech congo versus cro cop oh yeah yeah way laid him in the sack wham like more than once i mean it was several several good blows most of the time it's bad technique most of the time it's with the lead leg And they don't step open The right foot So the angle cannot go Like a 90 degree angle Into the muscle

And it kicks straight up And Beecher goes Look if everybody Who gets kicked in the pills I guarantee you The leg that they're standing on The toes are pointing forward Yes

If they would point to the side It would be okay Well with check I believe it was knees In the clinch Oh I think it was just right to the sack. But as a Thai boxer.

Yeah. A Thai boxer should know that. I never need anybody in pill. I did once, actually, but that was on purpose. Yeah, see? That was against Rene Rose. Yeah. You know, if I could fight video from that, that is the best.

So I fight Rene Rose. You heard about him, right? The tall guy from Total Psychopath, they say. And he does always illegal things. So we're fighting him. And the first round, I beat the crap out of him. And the second round, we come out and we're clinching. And he bites in my ear.

And I'm shouting, let go, let go, let go. And then you see my knee going all the way back. And then I knee him. He comes loose from the ground. That's how hard I knee him in the pills. He goes down. And I wanted to attack him on the ground. But they pulled me off. And then Cora Hammers was in my corner.

Now, he brought all his friends. He had Hell's Angels with him, and I had all my Bouncers friends with me, and they all started fighting. They threw a chair into the ring. It bounced off Cora Hammers' back. It lands behind me. If you see the video, man, it lands behind me. I look behind me.

I see the chair. I sit in the chair while I watch everybody fighting. And then later they cleared everybody, everybody down because the referee took, he says, why did you do it? I said, look at my ear. And it was a hole straight through my ear.

He bit straight through my ear, a hole in there. And then he grabbed the microphone and he announced to everybody, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He's got a hole in his ear. He bit his ear. That's why he did it. And then everybody calmed down. Oh, wow. Did you continue the fight? No, no, no.

That wasn't it. It was a hard knee. Wow. It's like the Wild Wild West. That was a good one. Eddie Bravo thinks he should be able to hit a guy in the back of the head. He thinks that when you take a guy's back, that when the old days of MMA, when a guy had two hooks in, you almost didn't go to the rear naked choke. You just blast a guy in the back of the head with elbows.

Yeah, that's right. But then we go again before rules. Right? Yeah. What was that? Henzo? Henzo did that to the judo guy, huh? Yeah.

What's his name? Stryker? Yeah. From Holland. Spikers. Spikers. Ben Spikers. Ben Spikers.

Yeah, the judo guy. Apparently that guy was fucking with Henzo, kept calling his room. I. From Holland. Spikers. Spikers. Ben Spikers. Ben Spikers. Yeah, the judo guy. Apparently that guy was fucking with Henzo, kept calling his room. I love Henzo. Calling his hotel room all night. So Henzo was like, oh, okay. All right. And did you see what he stepped on his face at the end? Stepped on his face after he smashed him.

Yeah. Yeah, don't mess with Henzo. But that's what guys would do. They would take someone's back. I remember Half Gracie fought somebody. I forget who it was. But he got the hooks in and just boom, boom, boom!

Right to the base of the skull. It's so effective though. I know, but it's the longevity of it. Ball strike will do the same thing and it keeps your spine intact. Right, but here it is. Here's Henzo. Oh, nice. This is actually... Okay. Look at that cage.

Just duct tape around it. So he gets his back. He flattens him out, and then here it comes. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Yep. Well, I do the baby. Yeah. I mean, that is the way to open up that choke, man. You can't defend once someone starts raining those elbows down.

And, you know, you can cover that shit up all you want. Now he's tapping. Now watch this. When he goes away, what is he going to do? He gets up and steps on his head. That's right. That's my Hanzo! World Combat Championship.

That was, I think, the same. He helps him up. Hey, roll over, buddy. We're pals now. He beat the fuck out of that dude. That was a good one. That was, I think think the same event where Murillo Bustamante fought Tom

Erickson and they fought for like fucking 90 minutes. It was one of those crazy fights. It was like a 45 minute fight I think it was honestly. Wow. It was a crazy fight because they didn't have like an ending to those things. They didn't you know, you just fought. 90 minutes for Saccharabba and Hoyes. Remember that? Yeah. That's right.

But they did rounds. They did rounds. I don't think Murillo and Erickson did rounds. I think it was just one long... I don't remember. But I remember, like, Erickson at the time, he's like the forgotten heavyweight. Like, when he was in his prime, he was fucking terrifying. Because he was a natural 300-pound gorilla.

An enormous wrestler. And he could hit so fucking hard I remember he knocked out Kevin Randleman he hit Kevin Randleman with a left hook and knocked him out But I was like Jesus Christ. He was one of the scariest guys for his time But just like kind of missed the window you know like he was really scary in the early days of MMA Nobody wanted to fight him Who's the Monta though super tough man. What a great guy. Remember he tapped Matt Lindland twice.

He had to tap him twice. Lindland was like, nothing happened. I didn't tap. And they believed him. Big John actually talked about that on our show. He said, yeah, that was a bad one for me because I didn't see it. And that's what people should understand at home.

Same as the referees, especially Dean and Big John, they're so invested. They love the sport so much. There's so much there for the fighters. So when they make a bad call, it hurts them as well, you know. But then to get the avalanche of all the people on the internet, you know, come on. Everybody's human. And we were talking about, I believe, four calls or three calls that they were talking about with Herb Dean.

Herb Dean had over seven and a half thousand matches he did. I go, the odds are great. I like those odds. Only four mistakes and seven and a half thousand matches.

You're doing a good job. Well, both of those guys are the gold standard. I mean, Herb Dean and John McCarthy, that's the gold standard. I mean,

you know who was really good before he went away for selling weed? It was Josh Rosenthal. Yeah, he did my last fight. He's very good. He's a very good referee. So crazy he went away for something like that. So crazy.

Well, he went away for selling weed, and he had kind of a little bit of an arsenal. So a few little legal guns. Selling a little weed, only 12 acres of weed? Hey, nothing wrong with that. It's just helping the world. The real problem was I believe guns were involved and that's one thing. But yeah, look, you're going to sell weed illegally. You've got to protect yourself.

It's unfortunate. The whole thing is unfortunate. But he was a very good referee. Very good referee. Very good martial artist too. Yeah, he always trained. And I respect that obviously having people in the field. If you're going to work in the field, you should actually

train in the field. That's what I wanted to bring up to you. What did you think about the Travis Brown Fabrizio Verdun fight where Travis called time? He got his finger jammed.

Fabrizio threw a punch and Travis's finger apparently broke. And there's some photos of it now online. It's fucking nasty. It shows you how tough Travis is that he continued

with his finger smashed and it was a compound fracture where the bone broke through the skin. That's one picture but there's some even better ones that he released today where you could see it after the fight. It was a nasty break but so it was a weird

thing where Fabrizio threw this punch and he threw like one of those Chuck Liddell style overhands that come over the top and it landed on the fingers of Travis and snapped one of his fingers. So Travis calls time which you really can't do. He's like my finger's fucked up. He calls time.

Scroll up though and you see the actual opening. Here comes the boom. He says time out. Right? Kevin James said that. So he cannot do that Did they stop That's right you did that boss you did that in a fight, yeah, yeah, yeah Maurice no I did I like that Yeah, I kicked him in the head and then I got excited

I wanted to give him another kick in the head But I slip and I fall on the ground and Maurice wants to jump on top of me and I put my hand up and I say, wait. And he stops and I'm getting up and I go, thank you. That's composure, huh? That's ninja. It's a trick. Yeah.

And you know, another one, a whole funny, funny, funny, was with Jason DeLucia. I dropped him with his liver shot, right? And then I walked towards him and you see what I'm doing. I stretch my arm above me and and I wave with my hand. And you see him looking up to my hand.

And then I liver kick him again. I just put my hand up. I say, yeah, look at this. And he actually looked there. That's good composure, right? We actually use that stuff all the time. The bird. The bird.

So there's Master Tong. Master Tong, he's my first striking coach at alpha male and uh when duane first started to come to teach at alpha male i was i think it was my second fight you were there we were in san jose against uh hugo viana and uh we're in the hotel room day of the fight just kind of hanging out just waiting and master tong's just in the bed he sleeps all day long and then uh he's in the bed just hanging out. Dwayne comes to hang out with us. And he's telling Master Tong a story. And Master Tong's kind of looking at him like he's paying attention.

But then he looks at Dwayne and he goes, bird. And we're inside a hotel room, right? And Dwayne looks over to look if there's a bird. And as Dwayne turns back to start talking to him again, he's rolled over on the bed and looking the other direction and sleeping. So he faked him out. He's like, hey, look over there while I turn over and go to sleep. He couldn't deal with the barrage of the Ludwig.

Talking fast. He doesn't understand it, so he turns around. No, it's Max. He doesn't understand it. The fucking guy, he was supposed to corner TJ in that fight. What's that? He was supposed to corner you in that fight, and we couldn't find the fucking guy. I'm about to walk out for my fight, and Master Tong's nowhere to be found.

I'm like, what the hell? I'm going out to my fight. Where's Master Tong's nowhere to be found I'm like what the hell I'm going out to my fight where's Master Tong And then so Danny just corners me And after the fight I get back and Master Tong's like Oh TJ uh I go smoke way up in the rafters So supposedly he says he went up in the rafters to smoke his cigarette And he was too scared to get down So he couldn't come down to come corner me

That's a great reason So I'm in the room like the next day And I go say like where the fuck were you like what's up with ties and cigarettes or gambling or everything i don't know it's just a culture really good fighters yeah that smoke cigarettes yeah i mean he was smoking while he's fighting i mean that guy is so talented it's crazy i wish he if he had half the work ethic that duane had he'd be amazing you know he he's such a good trainer he's such a good fighter by just this i don't know man he's such a good trainer. He's such a good fighter.

I don't know, man. He's such a freak, though. I would see him in the corner with a tank top on and gold chains and sunglasses inside. Big smiles on his face. Sun's out, guns out. Big ass belt buckle on. He's awesome. And he would make sure to be in the camera

for the decisions. He's like, position himself so you can see him. He wants to be a superstar, you know? Wasn't there like an issue with him gambling against one of your fighters, too? Against Faber, apparently. No, I'm not joking. This is for reals. Apparently the motherfucker, when Faber fought Barau in New Jersey, it was me and Tong.

And no one knows if this actually happened, right? Allegedly. Let's use the word allegedly. So allegedly, he gambled on Burrell to beat Faber, and he's cornering Faber. Like, what the fuck, man? I go to New Jersey to corner Mike. I do two seminars. I get up super early, do two seminars before his fight, come back, fight, do everything I need to do.

And then after the fight, which apparently he gambled against favor i'm leaving the hotel to go i gotta get up super early and take off to go back home and and i'm walking out down the hall and he's got a a track record of hitting people up for money all the time tongue and uh well he's he's an addict he gambles yeah so he legitimately apparently has a problem gambling not budgeting his shit right so anyway i fly to a or fly to New Jersey, do two seminars corner. Like I'm just, I'm working my ass off. I'm leaving the hotel after the fight down there the next morning. And he's following me down the hotel.

Oh, Dwayne. Oh, Dwayne. Uh, uh, uh, uh, can I have a little bit of money? And I'm like, and then I like, I gave him the crow cop stare. I was like, no motherfucker. I got up early, came out here, worked my ass off two seminars, cornered and did what I needed to do while you were sleeping in. Don't ask me for money, motherfucker.

I got genuinely mad because he's being lazy ass and asking me for money. So I told him no. It's like Deadpool when he says you're the world's worst best friend. When he bets against him in the Deadpool. Oh, that's right. But on the positive side master tongs a badass motherfucker he's so bad man like he's such a talented dude yeah i think he is one of the best guys in the world to hold mitts yeah i wouldn't say he's like

super structured and gonna like he maybe it's like his understanding of english you know he can't like break something down like this is why you should do it and tell me like why i'm doing things and when to do it. He just kind of shows you. He makes you do it on the mitts without even you knowing it. He makes you do things you're supposed to do the right way just by holding them and having a very limited vocabulary. He's helped TJ a lot.

He was my first trainer and I picked up on a stand-up very quick with him and I think he's a great trainer. He's just an addict. He's got nasty Muay Thai too. Oh, dude. He's so, yeah. Very good Muay Thai. He's good. I love the guy, man. It's a problem,. He's just an addict. He's got nasty Muay Thai, too. Oh, dude. He's so, yeah. Very good Muay Thai. He's good. I love the guy, man.

It's a problem, man. When people get that gambling bug, that's a scary bug. That's a very scary bug. I never did that. If you get a bug, it's going to be a good bug. I mean, if you've got a trainer that's betting against you, that's as bad as it gets. Is that confirmed, though? So, Master Tong was coaching out in Texas.

He was at a gym in Texas. And that's when Dwayne first got here. So Master Tong was kind of mad and just kind of left. That's why we needed a new coach. That's why we brought Dwayne in. And then when Faber was going to fight Barali, brought him back for eight weeks for his camp, and he was out here training him.

Faber went in that fight with a hurt hamstring, and Master Tong knew that as well. He tore his hamstring a little bit and went into the fight a little injured. And so when Master Tong went back to Texas, he was bragging that he made $5,000 because he bet all this money that Faber wasn't going to win the fight. Then it got back to Faber because Faber knew the trainer out in Texas. It came back to him and he found out about it.

Allegedly, who knows if it's really true, but Master Tong was bragging about it. That hurts. That's awesome. That's loyalty. You love him. I love the guy. If I come to find out he bet against you, that's rough. What if he gave you four? He won five and gave you four. That's what you're supposed to do.

Listen, dog, you know and I know that you came to that fight a little fucked up. So here's a taste. Give him the majority of it. Not even half. Like most of it. You still won a thousand bucks. People with a gamble problem don't do that. I know. They want to keep it. Yeah. Right? Not even half. Like, most of it. You still want a thousand bucks. People with a gamble problem don't do that. I know.

They don't. They want to keep it all the way. They want to keep it all the way. Because he had nothing to show for it afterwards. He guaranteed he went and gambled it somewhere else. Oh, man. I mean, when he was coaching at Alpha Male in the beginning, before the way he got there, I mean, he was making good money.

I know he supports his family and stuff, but he should have been a lot more well-off than he was. But it's an addict. It's a serious problem, man. You wouldn't actually think that it's a problem. It's a serious problem. That goes back to what I always tell my guys. For myself, you're going to create habits.

Let them be good habits. And I got that from Sensei. Create good habits, right? Yeah, your habit is train like a motherfucker. Teach like a motherfucker. Get obsessed with that. Don't get obsessed with blackjack. I invest in other humans

Or poker for that matter Anything Yeah It's weird Once you gamble because you need it You always lose Trust me I enjoy gambling on fights

I used to do it all the time When I first started working for the UFC I would gamble on fights And then I was like Can I get in trouble for this? I was like I wasn't sure I was like

I can't affect the outcome You should mention it before the fight. You say, I put my money on him. That would make it more enticing. People would get mad at me, though. What the fuck, bro? But I was right. Yeah, but what the fuck, bro?

The best is when the time when Diego Sanchez won a fight, and then at the time you're going to interview him, he's like, hey, you told me I was weird before. And you're like, yeah, you're gonna interview him he's like hey you told me I was weird before and you're like yeah you're weird and then he's like just got quiet

he tried to call you out but you're like no that's a yeah you're a weird guy it's not bad Diego's weird as fuck have you seen his interview before he fought Joe Lozon

at UFC 200 he was doing an interview before Joe Lozon he had like this whole like it had to have been planned out it was almost like a freestyle rap

he put it on his Instagram. It is one of the funniest interviews I've ever seen. I wish I remember exactly who we did an interview with. He's so odd, but awesome. You know what? And the good thing about him, a long time ago, this is before The Ultimate Fighter, this guy would

send me videotapes from the East Coast with a note and he says, Boss, okay, this one I won, but can you break it down where I have to work on? And I would write everything down and send it back to him. And then I saw him with The Ultimate Fighter, and then later I met him in an elevator. I say, man, you always used to send me the tapes.

He said, yeah, thank you very much. But you see, I really appreciate it about a guy like that. Yeah, no, he's a really, really dedicated guy. You know, Diego Sanchez is a fucking warrior. And he's a guy who's won more third rounds of fights where he lost the first two. The Martin Kampman fight, I'll never forget that fight. Because his face was hanging off of his skull. And he's chasing Martin Kampman.

And Martin Kampman, who fought at 185, was a big fucking guy for 170. And Diego's just running out of a mask of blood. The Jake Ellenberger fight. The end of the fight, he's on Ellenberger's back beating the shit out of him. That's right. Lost the first two rounds, comes back in the third like a fucking savage.

If every fight was 100 rounds long, Diego Sanchez might be undefeated. Mexican. Yeah. Mexican. That's right. Fantastic endurance. He always had a crazy cardio.

Fuck you, Donald Trump. Oh, that's good. Fantastic endurance. He always had a crazy cardio. Fuck you, Donald Trump. Oh, that's good. Leave Mexico alone. I mean, think about who had more endurance than Julio Cesar Chavez, right? Well, yeah, you're right. But people fail to mention that he trained. Was it Mexico City or 7,000 feet elevation? People don't take that into account.

And a lot of his fights were there as well. Yeah, that's a good point because a lot of people don't realize how high Mexico City is. I didn't know until the first time I went there. I just did a fucking elliptical machine there and I was like, holy shit. I said it to Cain Velasquez on our show. Are you going to go out like three weeks ahead because of the elevation? And he says, no. I said, do you think that's a smart idea?

Because you should be training there. When I trained for the Red Bull fight in Colorado, my first week, eight days, nine days, were really not nice. They were not fun. I mean, I got tired so fast. It took really a while for me to get into it. And Colorado is 2,000 feet below Mexico City, which is crazy. To have a heavyweight title fight there.

Do you remember the second UFC there when everybody ran out of gas? Yeah. It was the most horrible thing ever. The first two UFCs were in Colorado. Oh, the first one too. McNichols and then the other arena downtown. I forgot which other one it was. Do you remember Ben Rothwell and Mark Hunt in Colorado?

Oh, yeah. Yes, sir. Yeah. Oh, those poor was. Do you remember Ben Rothwell and Mark Hunt in Colorado? Oh, yeah. Yes, sir. Yeah. Oh, those poor guys. They almost died. They both almost died. There's only one way to prepare for that is you have to be in that element because you literally have less red blood cells.

Yeah. Period. There's less oxygen in there. I talked to a guy who's an endurance athlete who lives in Boulder and he told me, you have to live there for three years. He said to reach the full potential. Oh, okay. Full potential.

He's like for for those guys for when you're talking about like bikers like or triathletes or something like that like for them every last second isn't because you're doing the same activity over and over and over again it's not like fighting or your creativity or explosiveness all these different things come in a factor it's just biking you're just biking you're just running you're just you're just swimming these are the things you're doing and so every little second every little ounce of extra endurance so they optimize everything in that regard and he was saying to really hit your full potential you need to live at altitude and train in altitude for three years so okay so lives and

trains are nice yeah i see that three years wow yeah well full potential go from the 99 that you had at one year and to 100% after three years. It could be like that as well. Yeah, I wonder. But I understand what he's saying. What threshold. If you have only 10 days or two weeks to train high altitude, I almost would say don't do it. Because your first week is going to be the worst week.

You can't think straight. It's better to just stay. But if you have to fight at high altitude, always go there beforehand, man. I'm telling you, three, four weeks at least. There's the First Bank Center, which is right by my academy. They had a couple UFCs there. When you walk out of the dressing room, there's a big metal sign on the wall, and it says

extreme elevation. If you feel lightheadedness or dizzy, please rest and drink water. So that's what the fighters see as they're walking out to the cage and that big-ass fucking sign. So I went to like the fighters see as they're walking out to the cage Is that big ass fucking science right to my father? It's crazy for people who don't live there to take fights at altitude It really is especially with fights fighters can't afford like you're training for a fight in Mexico City You can't afford to go anywhere

I mean if you if you're on the undercard you making you know, what's like the lowest paid guys in the UFC make? 8,000? Is it 8,000? It's crazy It's crazy. It's crazy. You got to get on the O2 trainer to get those lungs invested. That will help. That will strengthen them for sure.

Because a lot of people say, oh, this product, you know, it mimics high altitude. You can't. You cannot. It doesn't. Oh, you have to wear it like eight hours a day. But otherwise it won't. But it makes your whole inspiratory system much stronger and it's easier for you to pull in. Well, you're talking about your own personal O2 trainer where you put it in your mouth,

and you have, like, different filters on it too, right? Stronger and weaker. Yeah, stronger. I'm now with a guy who is the trainer, the scientist behind Usain Bolt, three other gold medalists on track and field. Actually, Dominic Cruz as well is training there. This guy has a higher IQ than freaking Einstein he has like over 25 medical journals

where it's proven that only inspiratory training works so what happened was he did a review of my competition explain what this thing is to people that are listening that don't know it's a device that I invented because I was an asthma

patient and I realized that after an asthma attack for like a week in bed or eight days in bed I would resume my track and field and I would break my running times. And it always puzzled me. Why am I stronger after an attack? This is crazy. The medicine, medication and then I realized when I saw

I went to the doctor's office and I saw a poster on the wall with a pair of lungs on there and it showed where it's inflamed when you have bronchitis. And what happens is, you think as a kid it's infected in the lungs. It's not. It's in the air pipes that go to the lungs. So that was my aha moment. I realized, oh, I've been working out my lungs unknowingly because I've been pulling air through that infected hole.

So unknowingly, I made my whole lung system, my inspiratory system stronger. So why don't I come up with something that controls the air intake? And that was it. And then finally, I started, oh, there you got it. I started making it. And it's a very simple device. It starts with a hole of 15 millimeter. You start training with it.

And once you feel that you get the same air as you did before, you go to 14 millimeter. And now with this guy, what this guy does with it, because when my lawyer called me and he said, listen, did you read that review about our competition? It's horrible. They slammed this. I said, I know because they control the area in and out. It's not a good way to do it. I said, contact that guy. I want to send him an O2 trainer. And when he contacted him, he said, Bas Rutter will... He said, Bas Rutter from the O2 trainer? Yeah, we're already using it. Inspiratory

trainers. I love the product. So what is the difference? The difference is, when you control the air out as well, you cannot completely empty your lungs. Because you do it with resistance. But if you completely... And air out is all with force. It's all done by your core and your diaphragm and your intercostal muscles here and your ribs.

But breathing in is also done with that. It's much harder to breathe in. But as soon as I start stopping the airflow out, I cannot completely exhale anymore before I take a new breath. And that's what I started with. So now we're going to come out with all these medical journals with Usain Bolt. All these people that he trains all do inspiratory muscle training. So they all use that kind of a device? All use it, yeah.

Wow. So like those masks that you wear that control in and out, those are no good. That was the... That's the competition. That was the competition, yeah. So it's just something that just controls in

and then you can breathe out with your own mouth. So you breathe in through it and then when you breathe out, how does it work when you breathe out freely? How does that work? Everything comes out because it has two valves. One side is where they have the holes on and on the other side you have a flap and if I breathe in, the flap closes

and forces you to breathe into one side. That's brilliant. And the only thing that the scientist said is that you can use it like you did, boss, with training, because it cured me from my asthma. On my website, you will read a lot of people cured for asthma. I don't use an inhaler anymore. And I used an inhaler my entire life, even before world title fights.

Always had an inhaler with me, because if I would sneeze, for instance, very aggressively three times, my lung would close. I have to open them up with an inhaler. I haven't used an inhaler for two and a half, three years now anymore. So it works with everything. We're actually looking for an FDA improvement. Everything is going to happen now because the results are just crazy good. That's fascinating. Yeah. Oh, and what he said,

what I wanted to say is what he does, he lets them in the morning do 30 repetitions. So they take a small or tiny hole and you lean over with the OT2 trainer, and once you breathe out, every bit of air goes out of your lungs, and then while you're breathing in, you're sitting straight up. And then you breathe everything out again.

You do 30 repetitions in the morning. That's it. For you. For your inside. So that's all you're doing is just 30 repetitions? That's it. And that'll build you up. If you go for six weeks, two times a day, 30 repetitions? That's it. And that'll build you up. If you go for six weeks, two times a day, 30 minutes,

30 repetitions, and after that, just one time a day, the increase you're going to have, you're not going to have any lactic acid in your core, which, by the way, is the most important thing in fighting. That's why everybody gets tired, I always say, because their muscles start pumping, you know, just like your biceps are pumping, and they start pushing your lungs backwards. So now your

lungs cannot freely inhale anymore because you're pushing them backwards with your core. And that's the reason when you see guys, you know, that's why I used to do, I actually said that at the seminar last Saturday. I said, that's why before a fight, I would do a lot of abs, but constant stretching abs. Abs, stretching. Abs, stretching. And that was for that reason, because I know if this gets tight, your core gets tight, everything goes downhill. That's why the guys in the beginning with the steroids, well, in the beginning, they're still doing it, apparently.

But you saw guys, because if you use steroids, you pump much harder, right? So they're very strong until the core builds up with lactic acid. Now the lungs can't breathe in anymore. And that's why you see them going strong, strong, strong, strong, strong. And then suddenly they drop and it's over with them. That's the reason. So your protocol for this O2 trainer is you do it 30 times, like 30 breaths? 30 breaths in the morning, 30 in the evening.

After six weeks, you increase your whole respiratory system. They say you've got 15% to 20% you will gain. It's incredible. You cannot do this with BDs. 15 to 20% in how long? How much time? Well, six weeks. In six weeks?

You're going to... Yeah, you'll be amazed. Once we're going to come out with all these journals, you're going to like it. So 15 to 20% lung capacity? Yeah, look. This is inspiratory, right? This is other devices. Now they can...

There's still air in there because they can completely empty their lungs. We're looking at a video for folks who are just listening to this. We're looking at a video on Boss Routin' O2 Trainer, which is online on YouTube, right? Is it just O2 Trainer? What is your? Yeah, this is O2Trainer.com. The site crashed right now. Oh, okay.

The site crashed because we swamped it? We swamped your site, Boss. You swamped my site. Boom. Nice. Selling some O2trainer.com. The site crashed right now. Oh, okay. So the site crashed because we swamped it? We swamped your site, boss. You swamped my site. Boom. Nice. Selling some O2 trainers. I love the flap, though. That's amazing.

Dude, I'm buying one of these. It's such a... I'll get you one. Free. It's such an easy... Score. It's such an easy thing. Are you using the body exit system? It's right back here.

All right. You want to see it? No, I crushed it. Come on back. Come on back. I'll take you back here. We got to end this podcast anyway, but I'll show you in the back because I got to get the fuck out of here. Boss Rudin, you're a fucking gem of a human being.

Huss, I didn't get to do this. It's a pleasure to know you and honor to make your acquaintance. Same, I can say for both of you gentlemen, it was an honor to train with you today. Bang Ludwig, you're a fucking genius. And TJ, you're a bad motherfucker. I can't wait to see you fight for the title again. And I really hope it is soon. And thank you, everybody.

That's it. This fucking podcast is over. Jihad. Woo-hoo! Thank you.