The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #125 with Aljamain Sterling

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

Joe is joined by Aljamain Sterling, UFC Bantamweight Champion and host of the "Weekly Scraps" podcast. http://www.aljamainsterling.com/

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Yatzee. Undisputed. The undisputed champ, ladies and gentlemen. It feels amazing. God, how good does that feel for you? Oh, top of the world, liberating.

After all that shit you had to take from people for so long. How many months was it? 13 months before I could get back in there. 13 months of people talking shit. Yeah. It's a long time. It's a long time. But how sweet must it have been when they raised your hand and you got the W and still.

It was kind of a mind fuck a little bit because it was a split decision, which I was like, wait. I mean, like going back now, I can see why people were saying that. But in my head, I thought I had that thing locked up, easy, dead to rights. And I was really confident going into the scorecards. And then when that happened, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. They're really trying to take this away from me. After 13 months, I worked this hard.

You got it. Yeah, that was a weird split decision i mean it was a very good fight but you definitely won the fight i watched it again today actually i haven't i've watched it one time with people normally after the fight within i usually watch it that night and i usually watch it a couple times and i analyze it and I break it down take notes wins losses because that's how you grow but for this one I just wanted a break and just get away from the sport a little bit and it's kind of decompressed because like I said man 13 months is a long time to just have people just chirping at you you can't physically do anything because you're healing so I was just really happy that I got it done but now I need to go back and start to get back on that horse a little bit to get ready for the next one. Yeah, go back and watch it. You're going to appreciate it.

It's a great fight. It's a very good fight, but you're just different. You're so much different than the first fight, which made, you know, for someone who's had neck injuries myself, I was wanting to ask you, like, how bad, was your neck fucked up before the first fight? Yeah. So going into the fight, it was fucked up. So just to give a kind of a storyline, college wrestling, freshman year, me and this guy talking shit to each other. We call each other out. He's upper weight class for me, but he, the last year he wrestled the same weight class as me. I'm very competitive. That kid was competitive. We're both from New York so we go after he slams me

spikes me on my head his name is Dave spiked me on my head I had stingers so anytime I would turn my head I would find like a radiant pain

from like the crown of my head all the way down to like somewhere around that C disc like right around that area

and then each year it got progressively worse like that got better but each year after that wrestling pulling on the head we would do hand fighting drills where we put our hands behind our back and you got to keep your head up in a in a wrestling position and someone of your partners is pulling on your neck and yanking it yanking it so that didn't help uh jiu-jitsu didn't

help all these other things so over the years it got progressively worse. I have MRIs dating back from, I think, 2014 when I had my UFC debut. And every time it was about my neck. Almost every single fight, I had an MRI about my neck because I kept thinking, okay, this is the time I'm going to have to get it fixed. This is the time. And we were able to just let it heal, do PT. And then before the first Jan fight, when he pulled out, I was contemplating on pulling out because my neck had a really bad flare-up and I thought I wasn't going to make it to the fight.

And thankfully, he pulled out, gave me some time to do some PT at the UFC PI. That helped out a ton, everyone over there. And then I got a shot. But the funny part about the shot, the cortisone shot, they put it in the wrong spot. The doctor said, oh, but you'll still get the effects he put it like a disc level too high wow so c67 was mine he put it in the c5 c6 he said i'm like well it's not the end of the world but i did feel some relief but then i go through training i'm rolling with this guy at 10th planet and uh i'm in vegas Vegas and it's a guy I'd never trained with before

jumps on my neck in a guillotine cranks my neck on a flow roll to warm up it's the very second flow roll right before the fight again I think about three weeks before the fight and I as soon as he did that and the role was done I go to him it's like I know the rest of this week is shot and I'm probably gonna be out for a couple of days because of this. And that's exactly what happened. And then we had the fight, whatever. After the knee, I started having some atrophy

because now they're rushing me to get back. Because I texted Dana when I was in the hospital. When you say after the knee, tell everybody. So I illegally kneed to the head. Yeah. From the first fight in March, March 6, 2021. That night we went to the hospital and I texted Dana White and I told him, like, I want to have the rematch and get this done and settled the right way, like, as soon as we can kind of thing. They were offering me to fight, like, I think, like, two months, what was it, March, April, May.

And I was like, dude, if I was suspended, if that was a legal shot, I would have been suspended. There's no way I can fight in may like if it was a legal fight ending sequence i would not even be cleared to to compete did you get concussed from that 100 so my analysts out there my doctors that know what a concussion is they know all the symptoms they know what a concussion is i threw up later that night they thought i was drinking i was like i didn't drink my friends were there and we they came to see me so they all spent a ton of money come out buying uh tickets um for the fight for the flight and some of them even gathered at the house that couldn't pay for the tickets to get out so I had about 30 something people at the house and here I come back from the hospital and I still don't remember much of the night. I had to get, like, people to kind of help me recall what actually happened.

And when we're at the house, I kind of want to just go to bed. But then at the same time, I felt bad because everyone spent so much money to come see me. You know, these are friends from college, from high school, middle school. So at that point, I'm kind of like, well, I can't just be mopey. And, you know, I have these guys trying to lift me up. Hey, guy, you made it here. One of the hardest things to do is to get to the top to even earn a title Shot everything you had to do just to get the title shot You finally got it. This is not the way you want to win, but you get an opportunity to do it again

You know I had to keep it in perspective and they helped me do that and they just they wanted me to have a toast so I had a toast with the tip with the with my With my friends and family, and people took that. And I never posted anything, but people took that because my friends were posting stuff because they were excited. I mean, I can understand why, but me, I'm not very excited. As an athlete, no one wants to win like that. So it's not a very exciting moment, but I did understand that this was special to have people that cared about you

and had been following my career for so long to come out and want to hang out so for that moment for me it was just really cool just to to take that moment in with them like hey man like after this i gotta kind of get back to work and uh we had a toast i said a couple words we'll do it again blah blah blah and you know they said to the champion whatever there was videos out then it looked like i was faking i'm like guys i didn't know there was videos out, then it looked like I was faking. I'm like, guys, I didn't know there was a protocol, how you're supposed to react after being illegally need to end the head from a shot you don't even see. While you're exhausted in a high-stakes fight,

I didn't know there was a certain way you're supposed to act. I'm like, was I supposed to pretend like I was being macho? I'm just trying to gather myself. But after that knee, I tried to get back into the gym like a week later. I started to hit the bag to try to see if I can make may happen. But I told my manager that's probably not going to be a go. They asked for June. That would have been the Brandon Moreno fight. I think they had that rematch and that would've been cool, but I couldn't do pushups. I hit the bag. I was getting radiating pain down my arm and I couldn't do pull-ups push-ups um bag work all that stuff so this disc that you had

was it bulging at this point or had it deteriorated to the point where it's bone on bone like where were you at so that's a good question i never really asked it's just i'm having i was having pressing from i guess herniation is when it's like spilling out yeah so it was that what it is yes herniating yeah so i guess that would be the proper term So it was spilling out into the spinal column and pushing on the nerve and they said if it doesn't unblock within two to four weeks That muscle could just end up just being like I could just lose muscle and that would just be that's a boss Rutan have you ever seen boss Rutan's arm his army? I haven't seen it, but I've heard about it's crazy Yeah, one arm he calls baby arm because it's like it's so atrophied.

It's like he has nothing there. His other arm's jacked, and he's got his right arm. He goes, I can't even hold a gallon of milk out. It's crazy. Yeah. And people don't understand how big of, like, how severe of a thing that really is. It's been years and years and years for him, and it still hasn't grown back. Exactly.

So that could have been me. That could have been the end of your career. Yeah, try to be tough and say, you know, I'm just going to go fight. And they looked at it again again and surgery was the option. I was so afraid to do the surgery, though, because I just wasn't sure how that was going to happen. So let's explain the surgery. You have an artificial disc. Disc replacement, yeah.

Yeah. And Weidman had the same thing, right? So he did like a disectomy. He never had an artificial disc? No, he does. But the first one he did like a disectomy. He never had an artificial disc? No, he does. But the first one he did was a disectomy, I think, where they just clean it out. And then I guess that didn't do too well. And then they went in and actually took it out and replaced it.

So we're like blood brothers. So when he had his disc, you at least had a friend that was a training partner. You knew well. And you got a chance to ask him what the recovery was like. How is he doing? Is he good to go with that now, or is he having issues? Well, he fought after. He fought Uriah Hall.

Well, that was crazy. But he's trained after that. I think he actually fought even other fights after that as well, if I'm not mistaken. I think he had a couple fights. I think he had a couple fights. But he had a couple fights but he said doesn't bother him same thing with me you could barely even see my scar and so your neck feels just like a normal neck now it's weird so i i hit the doctor up um dr robert walker walkins jr he's the man super cool super accessible and um really like checks up on his patients which which not a lot of people do that. And thank God he was the guy who did the hand of the procedure

because I think he did a phenomenal job from what I know. And just being very hands-on with me, walking me through the process. When I'm asking him about my recovery from a neurological standpoint, when I'm trying to get back into training and I'm like not feeling the muscle endurance and I still feel like I'm slowing down. And he did a good job walking me through everything just saying like hey man it just kind of just takes time just stay with the stuff and the protocol as long as you're not having any pain kind of thing so when you're saying muscle endurance like like your neck was fatiguing is

that what you're saying just about everything everything like a lot quicker like like physically I looked good but like internally like all the, like, all the neurological things, like, the wiring, it's like, since they severed the nerves, I guess, it just took a while. They sever your nerves? Well, I mean, I would imagine, like, when you cut the neck, there's probably nerve endings in there. They don't cut your nerves. Well, I think the nerves move out of the way or something like that. Yeah, they push them out of the way. Yeah, but when they do cut in, like, something happens there mechanically where you have you have to like get everything back to working the way that it was before.

Do you have an image of what it looks like now? Like an MRI or an x-ray or something like that where we could see the fake disc? That always freaks me out. I might have something on my IG. Eddie Bravo's got one of those in his lower back. He's got a fake one. I know a lot of guys that have them now. It's one of the things that we were talking about, people that have issues over time and get surgeries over time from jiu-jitsu.

It's like everybody has something eventually, but a lot of guys are getting disc replacements. Yeah. I do have a picture posted. I mean, it might take me a while to find it because I don't have Wi-Fi. Is it on Instagram? Yeah. You'll find it.

But, yeah, man, it was just a crazy process like just to get back and after the knee then I do the surgery and I was afraid to do it because I just wasn't sure what I was gonna look like because I there was only like three people who have done it Alan Joban he was very great with me as well oh Alan did yeah and I think we had you we actually had the same doctor and um I asked him about it, and we got to talk. And that was cool that he got to express everything and kind of similar feelings for the two of us. So that was amazing to talk to him, talk to Weidman. I talked to Weidman's doctor, but I almost felt like the guy didn't really,

you know, I'm not trying to offend anybody, but it just felt like he didn't really, I don't want to say care, but it didn't seem like he was really, I felt like I was just another number to him kind of thing. That happens with a lot of doctors after a while. Yeah, so I think that's the most PC way to put it. That's kind of a bummer. Yeah. When doctors start thinking people are just like numbers.

I'm like, dude, it's my neck we're talking about. I know, right? I'm like, and I'm not just a regular, I mean, I am a regular guy, but not just a, I don't do a regular job. Fuck regular guys. You're the fucking Bantamweight champion of the world don't say that's and your job is crazy as fuck oh there it is wow so that's an articulating disc so that disc allows your neck to move as freely as if you had the regular disc tissue in there yeah and you don't do you feel anything in there so that's what i was oh So that's what I was,

oh yeah, that's what I was going to say. So I hit the doctor up, Dr. Watkins, and I go, is it weird that it feels like sometimes I need to oil my neck like a car?

Because it feels like the joint, it gets like dry because I can hear it go ka-ka-ka-ka. Sometimes, not all the time. Got my Shake Shack. Is that right after you had it done?

Yeah. Wow. Got Shake Shack after I needed that. Go back to the other picture, Got my Shake Shack. Is that right after you had it done? Yeah. Wow. Got Shake Shack after I needed that. Go back to the other picture, Jamie. Shake Shack needs to step their shit up, though, man. They do? Yeah. What's the matter?

Like, just the service sometimes is, yeah. It's like, but they make a damn good milkshake, so I'm okay with it. That is wild, looking at that neck thing. Yeah. How am I looking at, what part of your neck is that? On the front. So this thing is going to outlive me. Really?

Yeah. So that never needs to be replaced or anything? Nope, 150 years he said. That's the thing that freaks me out when people talk about like knee replacements and shit like that. Like you got to get another one in like 15 years or something.

Yeah. And that, I'm good for life. Because I was talking to Bisping about his, because Bisping was running. I go, you're running now? He goes, yeah, I'm running. life. Because I was talking to Bisping about his. Because Bisping was running. I go, you're running now? He goes, yeah, I'm running. I go, wow. That's pretty damn good, though.

I know. Does it hurt? He goes, no. I go, how long does it last? He goes, I think it lasts about 15, 20 years. I'm like, ooh. Then you got to go back. Then what are you doing in 20 years?

In 20 years, you're 70. Yeah. Whatever you are. 60-something. You got to go back. And then they got to saw the top of your knee off again. And take that old one out. you doing 20 years then when 20 years you're 70 yeah like whatever you are 60 something you got to go back and then they got to saw the top of your knee off again and take that old one out and put a new one in not only that but your bone has probably grown around all the screws and shit so they got to back those out you're probably gonna get shorter too yeah for sure you probably lose some of your limbs yeah like some eddie Eddie Bravo got taller when he has disc replaced

Yeah He gained an inch Yeah, I feel like that's what it does Yeah, well, that's how you're supposed to be I'm shorter than I was when I was younger You get shorter because your disc material disappears Starts to compress Especially if you do jiu-jitsu

Jiu-jitsu or wrestling or anything like that Where you're constantly getting pushed on and yanked on your back and get squashed and yeah yeah so sometimes it gets it gets a little trippy with that when i'll hear that in the morning like i'll wake up and i feel like i need to kind of like oil it or my neck first before i start doing anything crazy but once you move around a little then it gets loose yeah then it's good but he said that he said i've never heard anyone describe it like that i was like yeah it feels like I need to oil the car real quick before I can start doing stuff. Interesting. So you just have to warm everything up and get all the blood flowing and do neck motion exercises?

I still sleep bad. Yeah? Sometimes I'll sleep, and the way that I sleep would just jack up everything. And then in the morning, I'm just stiff neck, And I'm like, oh, maybe it's the surgery. But it's not the surgery. It's just the way I sleep. How do you sleep? Honestly, you can ask my friends, family.

I'll fall asleep anywhere. Just give me a chair where I can just comfortably just do this or a corner. And I'm not right now. You're a fighter, man. You work hard. Yeah. You got to think about the average person is not nearly as exhausted physically as you are. Yeah. After a day of training.

I'm spent. Sometimes I wonder how I used to work a full-time job doing this when I was coming up, but I was also 21. Now I'm like, there's no way. You also didn't know any better. When you're 21, you're just wild. I'm like, damn, I go hard in the paint, man. My training sessions are pretty intense. It has to be.

That was one of the things that I was so impressed with, the difference between the second fight and the first fight, was your endurance. Like you had talked about the fact that you just didn't feel like you fueled up properly for the first fight because you were just a little too anxious and just the moment was such a big moment that you weren't hungry. It just completely went over my head that I was fighting hours later than what I normally fight because this is my first main card as a co-main event.

So although I was in Vegas, so it was three hours earlier than the East Coast, I didn't fight until 8.30. I had two pancakes and two eggs in the morning after a morning shakeout. So I'm already burned. I'm already in a calorie deficit. I did the morning shakeout, fasted, and then I had the two pancakes, two eggs after that. And these, not even like big pancakes we're talking about.

We're talking about these little itty-bitty pancakes that the UFC PI gave us. They also gave me lunch and dinner. But I wasn't thinking about that because normally I'll just eat one time for the day and have like a snack and just stay hydrated and I'll go fight. And never had a

problem before until this one i i think it just went over my head and i didn't calculate everything the right way and i was like no no i'm fine i don't want to overeat and then i didn't realize my body was telling me like bro stupid you did not eat at all like what you ate is still in a deficit yeah compared to what you i just had had a hard 20 minute workout and then right after that to just put that back in my body and to try to go out there and fight a 25 minute fight against a Russian Terminator no not the smartest thing to do but in hindsight I do feel like I didn't do that bad in in comparison to the circumstances if that was a three round fight I think I could have skated by and I'd be like,

ooh, I dodged a bullet kind of thing. Maybe I could have, on the scorecards, I know it was like a split. I won the first two rounds. On one judge's scorecards, the other two judges had him up two rounds. So it was a close fight.

So, I mean, for what it is, I felt like I was still proud of my performance in the sense of I didn't quit, I didn't give up. I showed that I can take shots. I'm durable. It also might have given him false confidence. 100%.

Because he's probably thinking, oh, this guy has no power on his punches. I'm like, dude, I'm just going. There's a moment in the second or third round where you catch him in the second fight and rock him. And you can see he covers up. You wind up taking him down right afterwards. Yeah. second fight and rock him and you can see and he covers up you wind up taking him down right afterwards yeah but you you could see like he was being super aggressive and taking big risks coming at you and then you clipped him it makes you smile your back mount is so fucking good i was watching your transitions and first of all the first one when you move into mount the way you scoot

into mount like i know you haven't watched the fight too many times i slid into i slid in there like those dms you know oh my goodness like you were like greased lightning you just it was so nice it's like safe your back control's so good man it's so good and i watched the sanhagen fight too it's like man when you get on someone's back there i love when someone's a specialist in a very particular position. And for you, man, when you get motherfuckers' backs, like you could see Jan when you had his back. It was like, holy shit. It was different that time around.

Yeah, and Pahumpa in his corner was like, don't let him get your back. Don't give up your back. And then next round, boom, you get the back again. And you see him, him marcos going like this yeah and that's when i looked up at the corner and i smiled and i just go and people thought like i like like was playing that i was like no that was a genuine moment that's things i do like in the practice room like if i'm sparring that type of thing or if we're doing like just regular

roles and i get a dominant position or i get to the back after just getting the back and you're probably like i just can't stop this guy and I'm just like grinning, like a sinister grin on the back and I'm just like, yes, yes. Well you were just a master of back control. I love that when someone, do you remember Paul Sass? Do you remember that guy? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he was the English guy, no?

Who had this triangle from hell. He tapped everybody in the triangle and everybody knew it was coming. He just got everybody by triangle. He had the most ridiculous record. His record was like, out of all of his submissions, like 90% of them were triangles. So everybody knew it was coming, and he would still get you. He would pull guard, grab arm, all of a sudden, what?

You're like, what the fuck? He got it again. He was slick. I love guys like that. I love guys who just have this one position. Because it shows you what's possible with reps when you're in that spot over and over again. And you understand the technique. And you understand positioning. Like your fucking back control is a thing of beauty, man. You know what's crazy?

Here's Paul Sass. This motherfucker could just get triangles on people. It was crazy. That's a slick one, actually. Oh, man. He would get them constantly. And guys would be saying, I know I just have to avoid his triangle. It's cut to.

It's kind of like Paul Craig. Paul Craig gets a lot of people in that nasty triangle, too. Oh, my God. Off of his back, his guard is fantastic. Yeah, he's a demon. You know what's crazy? I would say I feel like my triangle finish is better in the room, and I never get it in the fight.

I thought I was going to get it against Cody Stamen in the first round when I had that triangle locked up, and then I tried to switch to a reverse lock because we were just working that, I think, like one or two weeks ago. A reverse lock? Yeah, so you have the normal traditional triangle where the lock is on the same side as where the arm is. Right.

But then I try to do like a bolt lock on the other side. Oh, I see. Yeah, and I try to lock it up the other way, and when I did that, I lost the grip, and he just kind of just slid out of the position. Yeah, but that choke on him was fucking sensational too because everybody knows how good he is. Yeah.

And when you see you finish him like that in the first round, and it's just, it's also the tightness. There's no room. There's no fucking breathing space. Yes. Oh, no, this was Stamen. Stamen. Oh.

Cody Stamen, yeah. Oh, I'm thinking of San Diego. Yeah, and then I finished him with the Soluev stretch. Oh, that's right. That's right. The Funk Strudel. That stretch is crazy. I called it the Funk Strudel.

That's a terrifying position because you feel your shit just getting ripped apart yeah so most like when i fought mizugaki i never hit that head and arm choke from the bottom and i swear to you after that it was like almost every other practice i was like either getting into that position and guys were panicking or i was submitting guys in that position and um now I actually just hit it last week which is nice so I feel like even with that solely web stretch I never actually went for it in a fight or sparring session actually I did I did a lot I did it against Hennon Burrell I tried and he survived that guy was super flexible and he survived didn't tap and then this one

I got but then after that in the practice, I was getting it a lot more. And then in sparring, when I would go for it, guys would just kind of just like, as soon as they would step up and they feel me going for it, they would kind of freak out and go right back down, and they would just let me keep the back control instead. That's funny. But your back control, is that like your ultimate position? If I get there, I got options.

Yeah, I guess so. Because you're relatively safe as opposed to being on your back and looking for a triangle. I would never do that in a street fight. You know what I mean? So for a street fight, I would much rather be on someone's back.

For sure. And like if we were in the woods, someone's getting put to sleep and getting buried and it's not going to be me. I always remember Rampage versus Ricardo Arona arona yeah from the triangle about triangles that is the scariest slam in the history of the sport rampage hoists him up above his head like he's in a pillow fight yeah boom is the scariest because you think about the amount of torque involved and how strong Rampage was in his prime. My God.

And there was a headbutt in that sequence too that split his forehead open. Yep, yep. Aroma? Arona? Yeah, Ricardo Arona. Arona. He should have known better. Should have let that shit go.

That or transition and cut the angle because once you cut the angle, that distribution of weight, the center because once you cut the angle that distribution of weight the center of gravity being in line for me to pick you straight up once you turn it's almost impossible to lift somebody up unless you're just a freak yeah he just didn't want to let it go yeah remember he pulled guard here right so he pulls guard and ricardo arona i think he's carlson gracie he's like a legit very high level black-level black belt. Oh, he's Noguera. He's got a Noguera thing on his shorts. So he hooks up this triangle, and on most people, that shit would have been fine.

Yeah. Shout out to the people who can pull guard and win. I know. There's not a lot. Well, Paul Craig's one of them. Paul Craig. There's not a lot of guys that are these guard pullers. That Chase Hooper kid actually just did that a ton in his last fight.

I was actually shocked. He's excellent off of his back. Well, he's excellent just period on the ground. He's like 22 years old. I know. And he looks like he's in high school. So Arona locks up the triangle, and as soon as he locks it up, Rampage realizes it. Yeah.

See right there? Boom. Fucked up. I mean, that is the worst slam in the history of the sport. And he was never the same again. Arona was never the same again. Yeah. I mean, I think he only fought a couple times after that, and he just, it was over.

Like, Arona at one point in time was in contention. He was like one of the best guys in his weight class in the world. Yeah. And that one rampage slam just changed everything that's like before i really started watching and that's what i remember for him you know so that's kind of a bad memory for me to have so that kind of sucks um and the other one that was really bad too was kevin kevin randleman but i know we're talking about triangles and uh fedor that was insane for a slam that was just like yeah

But they died rolled it over. He just like like nothing happened. Yeah, like I mean immediately I know but if you watch that he kind of tucks his neck a little bit and catches it more like on the side Of his neck and the shoulder yeah, but that's a big lift It's a big lift and all the way down and random and is And Randleman is so strong. Randleman was so strong. God bless him. Find that. Yeah. Well, man.

RIP. Yeah. Rest in peace, Randleman. I met his wife. I wonder what Randleman. She's cool. What did Randleman die of? I forget.

I forget what it was. Because he had the worst staph I've ever seen in my life. Staph infection. Yeah. Did you ever see it? No. That bad? Dude, he had holes in his underarm where you could look in and see all the muscle tissue.

Oh, that's insane. I mean, a hole like the size of my fist in his underarm. It's crazy. Like, he lifts up his arm. He's just got a hole. And I think Randleman unfortunately let that staph go for a long time before he ever got any treatment. And it just kept growing. Like, go to, here it is.

You got to vote. Whoa. Complications to pneumonia, it said. Well, how do you not die from this? Yeah, exactly. Look at the size of that hole, man. I mean, that's crazy. What are you doing?

I mean, it's an apple-sized hole under his armpit. So he had these, look at that. You can see all this chest tissue. That had to have contributed. It's almost like that doctor game. Right. That operation. Dude, that's crazy.

Well, I just think he let it go. I think he probably didn't go to the doctor and didn't treat it. And the problem is when it gets that bad, that's coming back, and your immune system is probably compromised forever. Shot, yeah. Yeah, I mean, staph is fucking terrifying, man. My friend Brian went over his friend's house once, and his friend's wife was looking terrible, and her gums were bleeding.

And he's like, what is going on with your wife? And he's like, oh, she has a staph infection but we're treating it you know uh holistically he's like what the fuck are you doing get her to a hospital bro get her to a hospital they're giving her herbs and shit and she died she died from staph oh no i feel bad for laughing oh fuck you know it's 20 years ago let it go i'm like they're like like this guy's an asshole he's laughing she passed I'm like oh shit have you had staff no thank god

really yeah I shower before and after that's good that's a good move I don't understand people that go home

like dude you just rolled with like three to six different people right you don't think that's disgusting to just sit in your car and then let it marinate like what are you

it does marinate yeah that is what it is it's like you're not cooking beef. It's insane to me, you know? It is insane. Yeah, you got to use really good soap, too.

I use defense soap. You ever use that stuff? I have. I feel like it's the best. Or maybe I'm thinking of something else. Defense soap is natural. It doesn't affect in any negative way your natural skin flora. It's all tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil, so it's actually good for your skin,

but it kills all the nasty shit. Yeah, okay. It's like naturally. This is good. It's good whiskey, right? This is Josh Barnett stuff. Give a shout out to Josh Barnett. It's called Warbringer, Warmaster Edition, and Mesquite Smoked Whiskey,

and this is Josh's own stuff. Like, Josh Barnett really knows whiskey. That's impressive, man. I always like fighters that branch out and start doing other things because obviously it's a short career window, so you've got to make the most out of it while you can. And I'm hoping to try to do the same thing. I'm trying to start, like, a rum company, brand company, spirit.

So I'm just trying to look into the details. Are you into rum? Is that your shit? I love rum. I looked up all the details in terms of what's the best thing for you to kind of drink if you're going to drink. Because I drink a lot when I'm not training. And when I say a lot, I mean I would have maybe a drink every other day kind of thing. And if I am drinking with people, I get crazy.

Because when I'm training, I don't do do that so I kind of just unhinge a little bit my fiance thinks I'm crazy she's like you drink way too much I'm like I'm sorry babe but I got it I got a kind of like unwind somehow from all the dialing in for 13 months and even before that just like a whole training camp you know it's long stressful I don't have many vices but this is the one you know so i'm just trying to figure out how to do the bottling the labeling and uh where i can get it distilled i'm hoping to do it in jamaica with somebody reach out to the funk master ladies and gentlemen if you have a run company you got a rum company and you're looking for a representative holla at your boy it'll be a thanks that'll be i got a couple names in mind

too so hopefully it's something that we can really it's got to have something to do with funk we're thinking about that yeah it has to hopefully no one takes that don't do that don't do that to me don't be an asshole i almost did a deal with a whiskey company but then unfortunately i started drinking really old scotch and uh i was like damn this stuff's too good like I really love Buffalo Trace that's like my favorite American bourbon yeah but then I started drinking like really old scotch like what's ones like old old shit what did we have LaFrog what was that and yeah and they were like 18 years old yeah 20 years old.

And there's like a smoothness to that old stuff that's just so different. And then it's also like Buffalo Trace. They don't sell you anything unless it's eight years old. Okay. Everything is at least eight years old. So that is. You know who's got a good one is Brendan Schaub. I hate the name of it.

I love Brendan, but I hate the name of his whiskey it's tiger thick like shut the fuck up but the whiskey itself is outstanding it's very good and that's 10 years old and that's a japanese whiskey that's blended with an american bourbon it's very good now when they say eight years old are they actually sitting in a distillery for buffalo trace does not fuck around they take all their shit and they put it in casks and it they they age it all for the exact same amount of time or longer it's for eight years though eight fucking years that's a long time it's a long time but that's how you get that smooth taste if you drink like like we were talking earlier before the podcast started about about somebody gave me some moonshine.

And you're like, why the fuck would you drink moonshine? Exactly. That's how I feel. Because it's not smooth. You drink it, you're like. There's nothing. What was Megan's shit? Resilia?

What is it? What is that called? Resilia? Yeah. My friend Megan, she gave me some shit from Mexico. And it's just like, just like straight turpentine. It's nasty, and she loves it. That stuff.

What I wanted to try was that scotch that you had, too. Yeah, grab that. There's some 12-year-old scotch up there. That bottle right in front of you, I believe, James. Who is it? Weidman. Yeah, thank you. I will never forget this.

We were talking, and he goes, I drink scotch now because whenever I would do business and have a conversation with Fertitta Lorenzo, he would always drink scotch and that kind of like got him into it. And he was like, you always do business over good scotch. And I was like, we already drink it. So it just, for some reason, it kind of sat with me a little bit longer than it probably should have. And I haven't forgot that.

And I was like, you know what? I drink scotch now. Yeah. It's a gentleman's beverage. I like a good whiskey. Yeah, I really do. Scotch, a whiskey, bourbon. And like I said, this stuff, I mean, I have no affiliation with this

other than that Josh is my friend, but this is fucking fantastic. The stuff we're drinking right now, it's smoked. That's what it tastes like. Check out this bad day. What happened? It wasn't today, but I was looking up whiskey storages. I was going to show you guys. Oh, no.

Those are barrels. Yeah. What happened? Collapsed. The storage warehouse collapsed. And you lose a lot. They lost all that whiskey? Yeah.

It looks like it started with a fire. Oh, no. 45 barrels of champagne. Imagine you're fucking waiting for years and years and years. Oh, no. That's how they store it. Wow, they just stack it on top of each other. What company is this that does this?

It looks like this was Jim Beam is what it said, unless there's multiple times this happened recently. 9,000 barrels crashed to the ground. Oh, how much money is that? Jesus Christ. A lot. Yeah. That must be millions. A lot. Yeah. That must be millions.

That must be millions. I would assume so. Because then you've got to rebuild it and you're down all that, you know. Well, maybe some of those barrels are still good. It looks like they're not all destroyed. I wonder how- That was before.

So that was the first day. Then the rest of it fell down. Oh, damn, dog. What the fuck, man? Clapses again. Again. Why don't they get in there and fucking get those barrels out of there? How the fuck did they wait a day?

The whiskey or the bourbon got into the waterways. A thousand fish dead. That's fucked. Oh, my goodness. They died from whiskey. They were drunk. They hammered fish. Rough day.

Even that, I'm just like how you age something for like one barrel like how much how much bottles can that produce so this is the way i'm thinking now because i'm trying to get into this i'm like well that one barrel how long does it take so that one barrel legit sits there for eight years 12 years 25 years go to Buffalo Trace's website. So Buffalo Trace, they're the longest running distillery in North America. They're older than America itself. Oh. Yeah, they started in 1773. Okay.

It's an old ass company. And so what they do is, I mean, they have it down to a fucking science. What they do is, I mean, they have it down to a fucking science. And when you get Buffalo Trace, like every, like they, we had a barrel made for us because we contribute to Fight for the Forgotten. And it was, you know, Fight for the Forgotten, Justin Wren's company. And his charity builds wells and they build wells for the pygmies in Uganda and in the Congo and it's a beautiful charity and Justin's an amazing guy and so Buffalo Trace teamed up with him and they did a promotion where they created a barrel just for us so Justin came on the show we taste tested it and they're all the same to me

I mean they're all great but they're the same like what about this one and what about that so like you have a flight of different whiskeys to try, they're all great, but they're the same. Like, what about this one? And what about that one? So, like, you have a flight of different whiskeys to try, but they're all great. But it's all, like, the same kind of smoothness with, like, maybe subtle differences one way or another, but not better or worse. Yeah. But this is how they set it up. So they have all their shit like that in these barrels. So we got one of those barrels. And if you want, I'll give you a bottle if you could take it with you.

Okay. Because we got cases of it. Didn't you want i'll give you a bottle if you could take it with you okay because we got cases of it didn't one barrel make like 80 180 bottles i think see that's what i'm wondering like metrics like that so you see that's the buffalo trace bottle on top of that barrel yeah it's yeah they just but you know they don't fuck around man like you you have to wait eight years that's it so every barrel that they have is accounted for. I'm just like, how much do you have to have in order to have something that was aged eight years before you can sell it? A lot. And you have to wait eight years. It's like, how many cycles do you have of those in your life?

Exactly. You don't have many. But the thing is, they'll make a new batch every X amount of days, and each one of those barrels has to store for eight years. So you're thinking about 2030 today. Yeah, yeah. That's what you're thinking about. It's the only thing that they'll sell. If the barrels are packed today, you're going to buy that whiskey in 2030.

were going to buy that whiskey in 2030. Honestly, I thought they might have had something like maybe the barrel was aged eight years and then it sat in that barrel that was aged for eight years. I'm like, man, they had the whole thing sit for eight years. I don't know who figured that shit out. Look, who figured out that if you let the whiskey sit for almost a decade, it's better? I bet they found some and they're like, this shit's better. Yeah, I bet you're right. Yeah, I bet you're right. Probably.

I bet you're right. Yeah. Like that old, old, old scotch. You know, scotch goes for, like really old scotch goes for fucking insane amounts of money. Speaking of. And they crack it open. So that stuff is 12 years old.

So 12 years of a barrel sitting there. Yeah, it's 12 years sitting there. And what is the name of that company? What is that called? What is it? Kau Ila. Kau Ila. years sitting there. And what is the name of that company? What is that called? What does it say? Cal-Ila. Cal-Ila. How much do you think the most expensive bottle of scotch that ever sold was?

Oh, I just saw this one. I'm going to say a million dollars. Not quite. How much? A little more. More? 1.9 million. Whoa.

A 60-year-old bottle. Almost 2 million? Of Macallan. Oh, Macallan. Macallan Fine and Rare 60. God damn, you're an idiot if you pay that much. You're rich as fuck. Even if you're rich as fuck, you could buy a house. Why would you just- is the difference between 10 year and 60 year that much that you would

spend $1.9 million? Maybe if you're Jeff Bezos, you want to impress that little lady friend of his, lady friend of his Listen babe we're going to crack a million nine Bottle of bourbon And I'm fucking in there This might be a different one It says it was 160 years old Oh my god 1926

That's not 160 years ago But how much is that It says age 160 Maybe it sat in barrels and then was bottled in 1926. Does that make sense? Yeah. That's the only thing I can think of. Or maybe that's just the name of it.

Simply, and they just let it sit in the bottle. Maybe like 1926 was when it was supposed to be opened. So there were only ever 40 bottles made of that. Whoa. And 14 with the label that it has. So there's things like that I know that make it more rare because if you only have one you know oh my god look what it says there two point zero seven million dollars for a fucking bottle sold at Sotheby's auction it was over a hundred and sixty years old when it was sold but

Sotheby's is it isn't that where that movie that we were talking we talked about all the time the sour grapes movie where they rip those dudes off with the fake wine? It's the biggest auction house there is, so they do almost everything. There's one or two other ones. But that was one of the criticisms in the movie about the way the wine was sold is that Sotheby's never bothered to – do you know the movie? No. There's a movie called Sour Grapes and uh there's this guy who was a wine connoisseur who was buying all this expensive wine then he started selling wine and then he

started selling fake wine oh he was also selling fake bourbon too oh rudy kern kernia one um auction house implicated in massive rudy kerniawan wine fraud caught selling counterfeit rare bourbon so he I don't know if it was him that did that same auction house but the that guy Rudy sold millions and millions of dollars worth of fake wine so he would make fake labels and rub dirt on him and shit and make him old and and he sold a bunch of them. But one of them, he sold a bunch of them to the Koch brothers. And, you know, those guys are rich as fuck. And they're billionaires. And someone saw the wine and said, hey, that's not real.

And he's like, what are you talking about? And they go into this investigation and find out that he got ripped off to the tune of millions of dollars. Yeah. And so they went after them. And this guy wound up doing time. But it made for a fascinating documentary. Yeah. I mean, if after them and this guy wound up doing Time but it made for a fascinating documentary. Yeah.

I mean, if I'm those guys I'm not letting that go. You're not going to get me like that. No, no, no, no. You can't do that. Yeah. Yeah, especially when

it's easy for him to just, you know, just instigate a lawsuit and got an investigation going. Yeah, that was silly. I mean... The guy got away with it for years though it that's what i'm

saying i'm like whoa but it just shows you how those dorks that are willing to pay a million dollars for a bottle of wine like what what are you doing you know i get a few thousand for a really nice bottle of wine i get it i get you want to get crazy i get it if you're super rich i get it but get the fuck out of here with a million-dollar bottle of wine. That's crazy. Yeah, I don't think I could ever justify myself paying some shit like that. What is the most expensive bottle of wine that's ever been released or sold? Let's guess.

What do you guess it is? Most expensive wine. A million dollars? I bet it's more. I bet it's a couple million. It's probably five to ten at this rate. You think so? Yeah. They just want to have a crazy dinner party and show everybody how big their bank account is.

I don't know what the fuck kind of dinner party. Pretty much, right? What kind of fucking dinner party you bust out a million dollar bottle of wine? Red Penny night. Yeah. We made it. We made it, honey. You definitely have a mega pint of it.

Shit, I had a Red Penny night on April 9th, I'll tell you that. Oh, I bet you did, right? I bet you did. How fucking satisfying was that? Zing! Just all those people talking all that shit, and then when you won, and there were still people that were talking shit that you didn't win after. I'm like, he fucking won that fight.

What do you guys want from me? There's two rounds that you could make an argument that there are 10-8 rounds when you spent the majority of the round on his back. Smiling. Smiling and he's defending and fighting for his life and has, what is it, $558,000? That's it? That's all I can find, yeah.

Wow. That's crazy that whiskey is more expensive than I would have never... It might be because you're going to get less liquid because you want going to get less liquid. Because you want to have a whole glass of it. You don't want to just have a shot's worth, you know? The amount of value. I don't know.

Yeah, that kind of makes sense. You only get four glasses of wine versus 20 to 30 shots. 1945. I tell you, you know Mark De La Grata? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw him not too long ago. We were at an Italian restaurant in Florida, and Mark likes a nice wine. We're having a nice dinner.

It's a really nice place. And the sommelier comes over, and I go, let's get crazy. I go, what do you got that's, like, really good? He's like, well, we have a 1972. So I go, let's do that. It was, like, $1,000. I'm like, dude, you're going to have a $1,000 bottle of wine. It wasn't even good. It wasn't even good that wasn't even good that's the letdown i think the bailiff just

handed the verdict to the judge oh my god crank it up crank it up oh my god the johnny depp verdict live this is insane she's so crazy i feel like look i don't want her to have to pay him money i really don't because i think that that lady's broken and psychologically she's so damaged she's so crazy and i think the real punishment is that it's been exposed to the world how insane she is yeah like she's insane and she's a liar and it's like that lady needs to go to the jungle and do some ayahuasca and get connected to the mother and then come back and apologize. I always thought about doing that.

You should do it. That shit just seems intense. Well, you should do any kind of psychedelics. I say you should do it, but I haven't done it. I've only done DMT. Have you done how many grams? I don't even know. Maybe a gram.

I think I did one five is the number that's the magic number I feel like that's a lot it is a lot because I did that one and it was my first time doing it and I went to another galaxy it was another

we had a good time now imagine what four more will do to you yeah that sounds trippy as fuck. The way to go, Aljo. Do you smoke weed? Occasionally. What kind of occasions? Like this podcast?

I mean, this could be this occasion. Probably a good move for you. Oh, you know what you should smoke? Mike Tyson's weed. I got some Mike Tyson weed. Iron Mike is a legend. Normally it's like, you know what it is? I just have a harder time usually functioning.

Just a little bit. Don't get crazy. Because Mike's got some California weed, and it will put you in a place where you question reality. Yeah. That dude, he's high all the time. He's so functioning. Like, you want to talk about a guy who has, like,

sort of reinvented himself as this like wise philosophical he's a shaman he's a shaman and he's an introspective guy you know and when i was a kid he was the scariest fucking human being that ever existed when he was the the top of the food chain and he was uh the heavyweight champion of the world and even on the way up to the title, he was the scariest guy ever. No one had ever seen a heavyweight like him. Moves like a fucking lightweight, smashes people, knocking everybody out. It was just a matter of time. You know, I smoked with Henry before.

Cejudo? Mm-hmm. Really? He's a character, man. I like Henry, though. I love Henry. We actually did the interview at his house. I made the suggestion, and I go, I overhear DC talking to somebody, and I go, oh, yeah, Henry lives in Arizona.

And I go, tell him let's do an interview. Tell him let's do an interview. And he's like, he's not going to do it. I was like, just ask him. And he's like, he's not going to do it. But then he hit me up later on. He's like, it's a go, pretty much. And I was like, all right, so let's do it.

So we ended up getting to his house. it's a go pretty much. And I was like, all right, so let's do it. So we ended up getting to his house. And his one stipulation was to just not be the cringe, do a serious interview for us. Right. And he did. There were some moments where he—

For people who don't know what we're talking about, Henry is— The king of cringe. He does these promos where he acts— He's so confusing because on one hand, he's an undeniably elite fighter. Yes. Undeniable.

Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, two-division world champion in MMA, straight-up killer. I mean, the dude's a straight-up killer. One of the last guys or one of the first guys to beat Mighty Mouse in his prime. Beat Mighty Mouse in his prime. Close fight. I would say arguably. Arguably. Yeah.

Close-ass fight. But he won. But he was stopped. Arguably. But yeah, close ass fight. But he won. But he was stopped in the first fight in the first round. Yes. Like just to come back and have the performance that he had was super impressive. But the way he stopped Dominic Cruz, the way he stopped TJ Dillashaw, Henry Cejudo is the fucking man. He's the fucking man.

But he does, when he promotes fights, like he allows himself to make, he gets so ridiculous and so cringy that you have to pay attention to it but you could get confused and think he can't fight yeah because it like he's talking like a guy who's crazy but then he fights like an elite world champion and he's a dog he's a he's a dog for sure yeah i like I like Henry you know I understand him but it's just so funny when I see him come just like I know he wants to be taken serious so badly that he just does that and it's kind of like he's him trying to laugh at himself but it's at the same time it's just like you're a tough guy but I know you just want people to kind of appreciate the work that he's put in.

Yeah. And it just seems like some reason. Well, they certainly should. I think MMA fans do. I think real MMA fans appreciate what he did. But other people see him and they're like, this little dude? I'm like, this little dude would fuck you up, man. Fuck you up.

Dude, the way he fucked up Dominick Cruz, I was like, Jesus Christ. Like, who does that? Like, he had such a strong leg kick game in that fight. It's very interesting. Because, like, he chopped at Dominic's legs with just, like, you would never, if you watch him do that, you would think, oh, that guy must have been a Muay Thai champion. You wouldn't think, oh, that guy was an Olympic gold medalist in wrestling. Yeah. You know what I mean?

He's good, man. He's good. Do you have, like, a thing, like, about a guy like that where he might come back and you got to, like, keep your eye on him? Yeah, but it's tough because to keep my eye on him, what's he doing other than making silly jokes in the media? Do you think that he wants another fight, or do you think that he's just, like,

keeping attention on him and doing his thing and i think the competitor's side of him wants to compete again um i think he has to right yeah he's still young still young yeah and i think that's the main thing because you still have those unknowns and what ifs the only thing that annoys me about that is you got us who are actually doing it in the mix and fighting the lions and then you kind of had this long ass break yeah and then you kind of had this long-ass break, and then you come back and just jump in right where you left off. That's the only annoying thing because you don't have to go through that gauntlet

that we had to go through or still going through. I agree. But you got to be honest. That's the fight. That's the big money. The big money is in that guy. Is it? I think so.

money the big money is in that guy is it i think so i think he's the guy that the mf mma fans are going to want to watch see if he can come back in that division who else it's like tj and him tj and so hudo beat up tj so chel son actually brought up a good point i was listening to his podcast um i had just finished mine then i was listening to Chill, and he was talking about Cruz and, yeah, talking about Dominic Cruz saying that he's never lost a fight that wasn't for a world title. And I thought that stat was mind-blowing because I never even put that in perspective and realized that that's really the case. Is that true? What about the Uriah Faber fight? That was, like, his first loss ever back in the WC.

So he means, like, once he's in the UFC. Yeah, pretty much. He hasn't lost I was like true a pretty damn good stat in that Pedro Munoz fight You get to see Dominic Cruz is still Dominic Cruz. Yeah, he's still Dominic Cruz That was a Dominic Cruz esque Performance like his footwork was on point and he got rocked in the first round and still recovered came back fought strong won The fight clean favorite fight was for a title, too. Oh, was it? No shit.

It hasn't lost a fight. What is that, for the WEC fight? Yeah. Wow, that's wild. So when I looked at that, I was like, holy shit, I didn't even realize that. Dude, that was 2007. When I graduated high school. 2007, 15 fucking solid years ago, man.

That's a long ass time ago that Dominic Cruz was fighting for the WEC title and he's still really good. Yeah. He's still fucking world class, man. There's a lot of money in him, obviously, because Dominic has a giant name. Dominic also is a broadcaster, super respected commentator. In my opinion, he's one of the best commentators. It's like my favorite go-to guys are in no order. Dominic Cruz, DC, and Paul Felder.

Those are my favorite guys. And I really used to love Dan Hardy. I really wish they didn't stop using Dan Hardy. I don't know what the fuck happened with Dan Hardy. I don't know the story. Oh, with that ref. Yeah, there was a thing where he got upset at Herb Dean, which I felt like was very, you know, inappropriate.

If a fighter is upset, I can understand if you want to talk about a stoppage being too late or too early. Yeah. I understand. But to, like, you've got to be there, like, right on top of those guys, I think, to really get a sense of what the fuck is going on. And you're going to make mistakes, and you're also, you've got to think of, like, the overall landscape of the guy's performance as a referee. Like, Herb Dean's one of the best of all time, if not the best. Yeah.

So when Herb Dean calls a fight or doesn't call a fight, he's as good as gets like you telling me that all like he knows when a fighters in trouble and when they're not He knows when a guy might be able to recover and this fights where people have recovered like Gray Maynard Remember that fight with Frankie? Yeah The two gray Maynard fights with Frankie where Frankie was fucked in deep deep trouble And he still wound up.

One was a draw, right? One was a draw. And then the second fight Frankie won and the third fight Frankie knocked him out. I thought there was one that Gray did win. Like originally. Really? Yeah, I think he had beat him originally and then Frankie came back and then beat him for like the belt.

Let's Google that. I think. I think that's what I remember. Why did I feel like the first one? So the first one was after the BJ Penn fight, right? So Frankie beats BJ, wins the title. So there it is, the draw. So it was a draw, yeah. But did they fight before that?

Yeah. Yeah, he beat Frankie. Oh, so they fought three times? At 5-0. So where was that? That was the UFC, too. Okay, so this is Gray Maynard's record. Yeah.

Gray was an awesome boxer, too. Like, very, very good. A guy like that should have been a world champ. He probably would have if he didn't fight Frankie. So the draw was the first fight. No, I'm sorry. So he won a decision in the first fight, and then a draw in the second fight, and then Frankie KO'd him in the third fight.

And this is way back in 2011. I think those two fights changed him, though. Those are wars, man. And then the Nate Diaz one was rough. But you're right. Like, if you go from that fight, then you go into like later in the career. But that is often the case with fighters that there is this one fight that's a crazy war that you don't necessarily recover from. Yeah.

Remember when Meldrick Taylor fought Julio Cesar Chavez? I don't know if I – no, I don't think so. That was one of those fights where it was a crazy war, and Meldrick was winning. He was winning on decision, and Julio stopped him in the last round. And, I mean, with just, like, very little time left in the fight, like a few seconds left in the fight. Julio Cesar Chavez put it on him, clipped him, dropped him, and he got up. And the referee, I believe, was Richard Steele. And he looked at him, and he just called the fight.

And there was like a couple seconds left to go for the fight. And if Meldrick had made it to the final bell, he would have won a decision. Oh, man. But it was one of those fights where he was never the same afterwards. And this was both of these guys were in their fucking prime. And Meldrick was an Olympic gold medalist. And look, he clips in there with that left hook so look he gets up and they stopped it oh this was this was this the second time the first one you're explaining yeah no he he stopped him much quicker in the second fight

the first one they fought and he stopped him with like just a couple of seconds to go and from that one on it seemed like meldrick was never really the same and then there was a really bad one with meldrick and terry norris when terry norris was in his prime do you remember when terry was terrible terry was fucking people up like terry terry norris in his prime there was a a period of time where he was a world champion where he was so fucking good. He was so good. Terry Norris was a fucking straight killer. And he caught Meldrick Taylor right after Meldrick Taylor fought Chavez.

Sometimes it's just the right time in your career to get somebody, man. But when do you know that's going to be your time? But when do you know that's going to be your time? Like, how do you know as a fighter when to tell yourself, like, this fight is probably the one that's going to put me in that same revolving door as everybody else where I might not recover? Yeah, this is when Terry beat up Meldrick, and this was Terry when he was in his prime. Yeah, it's hard to know, right?

Like, when do you know? Until it's, like, all said and done. And then there's people that defy time, like Randy Couture. Glover Teixeira. Anderson Silva. Anderson Silva has a boxing career now. He's 47. He beat Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a world champion. Anderson beat him at 47. I'm not saying that Chavez Jr. is the best in the world. Yeah. But he's an elite boxer. He's an elite boxer. Guy went the distance with Canelo.

Pretty good scout to have at his age. And Anderson boxed him up. It was wild. And people were looking at him like, look, man, if he never fought Muay Thai and he never fought MMA, he might have been one of the best boxers ever. Yeah, could have been. People forget how good Anderson was. When Anderson was in his prime, man, it was like watching a magician.

He was like an artist. He would find ways to connect his foot to dudes' heads. Yeah. He cracked so many people, and he was so smooth when he was in his prime. He was so smooth. He was fun to watch. Oh, my God smooth he was fun to watch oh my god he was still fun to watch still fun to watch but i do i do worry about that though at that age but just in terms of like his health going forward yeah it's rough you gotta spar still yeah you have to

spar you know it's got to be rough there's some people that could pull it off like bernard hopkins pulled it off way into his late 40s. I mean, I think he had his last fight when he was 50. But how do those guys sound, talk, walk, everything? Bernard Hopkins was super defensive. He was very defensively responsible, really disciplined in his boxing. I didn't watch all his fights. responsible like really disciplined in his i didn't watch all yeah i didn't watch all his fights but well it was like he had like a classic style like he would hold his hands up high and you know he

didn't do things just through athleticism he did things through like perfect technique excellent technique knowledge footwork but when he fought roy jones like the first time he fought roy jones roy jones was so exceptionally talented that he was able to do things from weird positions. Like Roy would have his hands down low, and he would throw a left hook instead of a jab. It was a leaping left hook, and it was crazy fast. Just whap! And he would hit people with it, and you could see they'd be like, fuck, where is that coming from? So he was able to beat him the first time they fought,

but then Bernard beat him later, when they fought later. Because Bernard, his, like, that classic style, he didn't lose as much as he, like, he didn't rely as much on athleticism. Yeah. But athleticism is real. Like, Roy Jones in his prime was one of the best of all time. One of the best of all time. One of the best of all time. Roy Jones when he was at the top of the food chain, when he was just, every fight was like an execution.

Like people forget. Like that song, Y'all Must Have Forgot, that's a great name for a fucking song when you're Roy Jones Jr. One of my amateur fights. Dude, his highlight reel is spectacular. It's spectacular. Is this it? They're gonna do it? The nasty left hand You ever see his bicep? I know it's a big difference

It's giant as opposed to his right It's way bigger 2019-2911 Answer yes Has Mr. Depp proven by a great Now I feel like I'm watching someone get beat up And Herb Dean should step in. Herb Dean, where are you now?

Yamasaki. Yamasaki. No, it was the other one. Steve Mazzagati. That one. Yeah, Mazzagati would let some fights go. Sorry, Yamasaki. Yeah, well, it's like people are making mistakes, man.

It's like it's a crazy-ass job. The referee job's a crazy job. And thankless. So thankless. If you call a fight correctly, you very rarely get praised. If you make a mistake, people are so mad at you. Sometimes they don't know. They think a guy's more hurt than he is.

They stop the fight. People get mad. But it's honestly better than the opposite. The opposite is when it gets scary, when you see people get really beat up and the fight should be stopped. Yeah. Unnecessary damage. Yeah. I think that would be way worse.

Yeah. Some people are crazy. They just want to, let me go out on my shield. You know what was a good stoppage? Volkanovski and Korean Zombie. That was a good stoppage. That was a solid stoppage. He was still standing up like that's this is it this is enough this is enough you know what's also funny i didn't even get to uh watch all of that fight i was in the

back doing a ton of um media so i didn't get to see just highlights did you ever watch it afterwards no i haven't watched my own fight i want But I want to watch those two fights because now people are talking about me fighting Vogue because I may go up a weight class. You're so big for 35. It's so hard for me to believe that you're 35. What do you weigh right now? Probably like 170. Do you really?

Yeah. That's so crazy, dude. How hard is it to lose 35 fucking pounds? It sucks. It's not fun. That is so crazy you could i want to look at 35 t-bone steaks like 35 16 ounce steaks and that is what you lose it's a lot oh man that's a that's a different perspective yeah look at it that way look at it like 30 steaks you're gonna lose that from your body and then put how much back on

like fight night I don't even know what I got to lose you got nothing to lose that's what's crazy but you know that's one of the things that we found out from I think George Lockhart or Mike Dolce told me I forget who told me but that the bigger muscular guys actually can lose more water

because your muscle is composed of so much water. Yeah. You know, I feel like I knew that, but I didn't know why scientifically kind of thing. Well, look at guys that cut crazy weight, like Paulo Costa. The big jack guys, yeah. Yeah, Paulo Costa cuts crazy weight.

Yoel Romero cuts crazy weight, you know. You ever see Yoel walking around in between fights? He's a fucking heavyweight. He's a big man. He's so big. He's so heavyweight he's a big man he's so big he's so big as a big man actually actually i think i heard when he said that about the muscles actually when you had him on yeah yeah i think that's when i actually learned that like officially like oh i love you he's the best i fucking love that guy and look at him see when we're talking about guys

fighting into their older age he's in his 40s and he's fucking people up he just like yoel still terrifying you think he's sparring though i'm like there's no way he's sparring i feel like he's crazy to the point where he like his style it's like i don't need to spar i could just do some yoel romero shit dude he came from that cuban that is, like, he came from a different sort of a system. Like, he explained it on the podcast. It was really cool because Joey Diaz was the translator. So Joey was with Yoel, and Joey speaks fluent Spanish and also from Cuba. So he understands, like, where Yoel came from.

He understands, like, all the stuff that he's talking about what is this that's the jaw of the guy he hit oh my god he shattered this guy's jaw and they said it was like at the end of the round at the end of the fight oh my god look it's on the on the right the left side of the jaw and right through the sun the center oh my god yeah you know well it's terrifying. That guy's got to be made out of titanium. That's what Rockhold said. He said he feels like he's made out of metal.

That's crazy. Do you know the story about him and the doctor? They bring Yoel to the doctor. I've told the story before, but I'm just going to tell you. Yoel gets injured after a fight. They bring him to the doctor, and the doctor says, where did you get this guy? And the UFC goes, yeah, he's amazing, right?

They go, no, no, no, you don't understand. His structure's different. He goes, I've never seen a human being like this before. He goes, his eye tendons are three times thicker than normal. His eye tendons? Eye tendons, the tendons around his eye. Because the guy, like he had some sort of an orbital issue. Yeah.

And he goes, and his bone's already healing. What? He was already healing. They were like, what the fuck, man? Like, the guy said he was the most extraordinary human being he had ever examined. Like, Yoel's just... I can see that. Yeah, just a super specimen. So here here he is deep in his 40s still one of the scariest guys even stylebender had to like

be minding his p's and q's when yoel's swinging at you that guy's fast people were pissed off at that fight but then when you look at it like from from our standpoint, like what we know, we understand why. If you're Israel Adesanya, like you're not. After he felt a whiff, he felt a little steam from that first shot in the first round. That entire approach changed. It's like, you know what, I'm just going to kick this guy's legs, stay on the outside, and just take this one home because this guy can't touch me. You can't be upset at that fight. That fight took place because of how good both of them are.

That's why it was that way. And Yoel is a unique challenge. He's a unique challenge. Imagine if Izzy did try to get over-aggressive and open up just to make it more entertaining. Yoel can starch people. Anybody he hits clean, he's going to starch. I'm not playing that risk. Fuck that risk. Fuck that risk.

Fuck that risk with that guy. Remember when you knocked out Rockhold? The way he put Rockhold out? Dude, that guy's terrifying. Yoel in his prime was terrifying. And I think his, I don't know if his prime is gone, man. That's what's weird. Like you watch him fight Bellator?

The guy he fought did not look bad and yoel looked like yoel like he didn't look like he's diminished yeah do you know i'm saying i was kind of sad that the ufc let him go i was like really you're gonna let this guy go he might have got a really good offer and the problem is he's gonna beat up a lot of dudes who could be contenders you know that's the issue bro he beats up a lot of dudes who could be contenders you know that's the issue bro he beats up a lot of dudes i mean he's no picnic you barely get by with him but i feel like the uc needs that guy they need like that ultimate gatekeeper that if there's someone that gets out of the line in your weight class you go you know what you're gonna fight this guy next well listen yoel yoel

could be champion like arguably should the same way that Glover became champion there's a path for Yoel Romero to get to a title you know maybe it's a 205 maybe it's an 805 but who the fuck knows it could happen

he's that good still that fight with Whitaker he could have won that fight for... He's that good still. That fight with Whitaker. Yes! He could have won that fight. Yes! Isn't that... For me, that's crazy to know, like, on a different... If I just changed the judging that night, there's a good chance I could have won the fight in comparison to the other guy.

Yeah. That's such a mindfuck for me. It should be a mindfuck. It's crazy. Because you just never know. It's like whoever's just in the corner, you just, I don't know. It's such a crazy thing. And some opinions are wildly unpopular.

Like some people will score a round for one guy. Like bad take McCarthy? What did he say? Didn't he apologize? He did not apologize. Didn't he say he watched it again? I saw something. It was a half-ass apology saying,

I can see why you may score for Sterling. I'm like, dude, you said there was absolutely no way. That's a definitive end right there. Yeah. And people believe him with everything he says. They take it like he's a godsend. And I go, we can be wrong. We're all human. I'm not saying John's not right a lot of the times,

but Elva Leight, he's been kind of bad. Well, he's got his takes on things. I don't agree. Yeah. It's like, dude, I think when you dominate a guy and you keep him in danger and you have his back most of the round, like most of the round. Almost four minutes. That's a lot.

What are we calling that? of the round like most of the round for almost four minutes that's a lot like what do we talk what do we call in that like that that guy's super close to getting finished if he fucks up in any way he's getting strangled and he can't get out of there that's completely controlled like having someone completely controlled in a dominant position that means a lot it means a lot it's like if you watch the jiu-jitsu match, for sure you'd say he'd be winning that fight. A wrestling match, for sure you'd be winning that match. So in a fight, that's a lot of points. That means a lot.

It should be. It should be. But? But it's like the 10 points must scoring system. That's not our system. It's not. It's a boxing system. But what are we supposed to, like how else can we score it though?

Like do we have to use a point system? I feel like we might even have to just go with like feeling like nah, nah, nah, he won that round. Like just get rid of scorecards. Like the three judges just thought you won. So this way it's not like, the points just don't do it just because you add up the points. And sometimes it doesn't tell the story of like the fight. It's too abstract. Like 10 point, 9 point point and you could just make decide

yeah you could just decide i go with that i like a guy who wrestles i go with that i like a guy who's a kickboxer like it's so subjective you don't how many times have there been a fight and you're talking with a friend and he thinks the guy should have got the decision and he's not even an idiot yeah he's just he's just got his perspective and you're like oh really and then you realize like wow that's what's weird about like subjective success of styles or like what's more important is it more important to be able to control a person or is it more important as when the person gets up away from the control starts you up and hits you with a bunch of leg kicks and a bunch of punches yeah like who's winning that that's a huge momentum shift too because you're winning you're on the person's back or got them down and looks like you're gonna advance yeah or if you do if like

say you transition into mount and then the guy explodes and escapes and that's a big moment like you might have had him down and as you're trying to get to a dominant position he explodes gets out and then he just starts like wailing on you yeah like to me that's like i find that more impressive in terms of like what actually happened unless the takedown was significant that got you to the ground because in my head i look at it like a street fight like what would i what what thing that i could do to you would be more damaging because that's what we're ultimately scoring is damage i mean yeah or strikes not even not strikes just like yeah damage i guess that's what we're ultimately scoring is damage i mean yeah or

strikes not even not strikes just like yeah damage i guess that's the overall sum of just everything yeah it's it's it's damage and it is most certainly control and you know obviously submission attempts are very valuable too but it's if you're looking at like what happens you could decide if someone takes someone down and mounts them for three and a half minutes. And then that person sneaks out the back door and just starts chopping at legs and fucks the dude up and gets him in trouble. And then the bell rings. Who won that round? Some people will say the wrestler won it because he had full control for three and a half minutes. Some people will say the kickboxer did because he landed 20 significant strikes in the next 40 seconds i i like wrestling but i am by far not

someone who's like if i take you down i won if i slammed you and nothing else happens i think i won because i did the most impactful thing that round right but if i get you like a technical like ankle pick kind of thing where it's not damaging whatsoever and I just control you, and then you get out and you land big shots, I think from a fighting standpoint within that round, I would feel like if we're just looking at that round and we're like, all right, this is the beginning, this is the end,

I could just go, nah, I feel like what he did was way more impactful for the fight. Right. In terms of, like, if it was, like, jiu-jitsu, like, oh, we're scoring time and control. That's way different. But we're talking, like, for a fight sequence. And what's the goal for the fight? Right. To do and inflict damage, try to put your opponent out or finish the fight.

So I would look at it more like that. Like, what was more impactful for that round that both opponents did that could end the fight or do be bring more damage to the fight which is what we're looking for in a fight situation you're trying to hurt the person right ideally that's what you're trying to do right maybe there's a way to score it like you would give points for moments in fights where someone either did damage or someone had control but control was not worth as much as damage because you could survive control unscathed you know just because someone like has you down like maybe in half guard and you're just like clinching and controlling you

could survive that for a couple minutes sometimes and nothing happens so that even though the person's in control of you it's not that big of a deal yeah but then damage like how much more is damage worth like if you see the person gets wobbled or you see like a big impactful kick something where you're like wow that was a significant moment in the fight yeah so that would be worth more and you could instead of like being attached to this the system it's it just it's not comprehensive enough i don't think i just think there's so there's so much nuance to fighting and even then but even if you added all this stuff up people would still disagree there's certain fights where people would be like man i don't see it that way

it's a special it's a special sport i just think maybe because everything is so subjective it kind of like even when boxing i have a hard time scoring it because I don't know what punch is considered a scored shot because if it hits the shoulder or if it hits the glove I'm like but if I still hit you I like if you cover up and I wail on you 40 50 shots and you only land two clean shots and maybe it grazes off my glove or something, but it wasn't as impactful as me punching your body like a spaz kind of thing. I'm just imagining someone just getting, like, covering up in a hallway,

kind of like the kids just, you know, beating up, wailing on somebody, and then the one person gets one shot. In my head, I'm like, well, dude, I kind of beat you up for, like, a very long time. You didn't do shit, you know? So I just feel like that's more impactful even though it's like hitting the glove i'm hitting your shoulder i'm

hitting i don't know it's a it's weird is i think it just comes down to what you look at but then i just don't know what each person is looking at and could be like okay that's scored well i would say i would think that if you wanted to be objective about that hitting the glove is way better than not hitting someone's gloves right yeah and nobody wants to do that like no one would say hey i'm gonna hold my hands up high and you just punch me in the face right exactly people think that that like completely protects you no it's a little protection yeah but big punchers like a francis and gano type dude it doesn't matter if your fucking hands are up. Shit is knocking you over. You're not going to stand in front of someone like Francis with gloves covering your face. You know, like a lot of those kickboxer guys, they put that shell up and they come marching like this.

Like that is, you're still getting hurt. You're still getting hurt even if you're blocking it with your hands. Yeah, I feel like those guys, when you talk about like damage and CTE and stuff, like those guys, they get their head rattled so much because that's how they spar. That's how they fight. When do you ever get a break? I know it's only three-minute rounds, but that's still a lot of blows to the head consecutively for a nine-minute period versus us where we can kind of take you down. There might not be too much action, kind of like a Sparza Rose fight like the last one. Obviously, not all the fights are like that but um yeah so sometimes i see that i'm like but that's not that's not a safe

not i don't want to say safe i mean it's a fighting like it's not a safe sport to begin with but no no but that's not a great style in terms for for longevity i'd rather get my head out of the way and like i'd rather land something on you versus miss if you make me miss I feel like that's more demoralizing it's not scoring like clearly but if I can like land I feel like I don't know if I throw more punches and you cover up I'm winning the fight well the thing about MMA is I mean think about your fights with um Piotr like those those fights those rounds in the second fight where you are on his back you're taking no damage for minutes and minutes and minutes

minutes and minutes and minutes that never happens in kickboxing that just does not happen those guys in the K1 glory days the highlight really is crazy because they're all knocking each other out Jerome the Banner knocks this guy out you know Peter Ertz knocks this guy out you know

peter ertz knocks that guy out ernesto hoose knocks this guy like holy shit there's so many goddamn kaos yeah those k1 glory days when japan was having those giant kickboxing events just huge stadiums filled with people that were going to see those guys when they fought in the K-1 Grand Prix. Fuck, man. Those days were incredible. Man, I give it up to those guys because they are built different. They say we're tough, but I look at those sports and I'm like, dude, you guys legit piss-pounding each other the entire time. Yeah.

I mean, maybe it's not the— And they all get KO'd. Yeah, it's crazy yeah it's a tough man sport for me i mean Ernesto who's fought Bob Sapp remember that yeah he fought him twice and that's a big dude yeah i think he fought him twice pretty sure he fought him twice but Ernesto who's had Bob Sapp in fucking trouble but he just couldn't deal with the size. He was a big man. Couldn't deal with it. God damn, he was big.

Those days of Bob Sapp were incredible. Because it's the age-old question in martial arts. Does technique overcome size? To a certain extent. Yeah. To a certain extent. Like Minotauro, he got spiked on his head in that fight with Bob. And his neck was fucked forever after that.

It was never the same after that. He's a big dude. Dude's 375 pounds. That's why they're away classes. Yeah, but those days of the kickboxing days, there's never been anything like that in terms of something that's mainstream as those K-1 glory days where they're selling out giant stadiums it would be good to have i'm surprised that sport like you

know sometimes those fans that complain and go oh they just rustle the whole time like well why isn't like kickboxing a bigger sport over here it's a really good question i don't get it like it's literally everything that you want to see that you bitch about for mma which i don't get it like it's literally everything that you want to see that you bitch about for mma which i don't understand it's like you know that there's like if i go to a comedy show i'm expecting the guy to make a joke right you go to an mma fight and you're expecting that these guys might not decide that the easier path to victory is wrestling as if you're just going to be mind blown like oh my god how can you how can you do that you're not supposed to do that like that i don't know i don't get those people just go watch kickboxing it's uh it's dumb like all of it's interesting jujitsu is interesting kickboxing it's like who can impose their game that's what's interesting combat sports yeah and if you're not if you're not a real fan you just want to see violence and you just like

they're just guys you you need to understand what's happening here. It's beautiful. Like some of the Damian Maia fights when Damian was in his prime. Well, he would take guys down and strangle them. Like, do you understand what you're seeing? The way Damian Maia went through like Neil Magny. I was like, do you understand what you're seeing here, man? And then he went to his seminar.

Yeah. I heard him say that. He went to his seminar. I was like, that is actually hilarious, i respect the hell out of it i respect that too yeah well that's the kind of dude neil magny is but those i mean some of those fights man when you watch like damien when he was in his prime man that's a elite constrictor if you can't appreciate that like then you don't appreciate the real thing you only want the like the sexy parts yeah you only want the ko's and the submissions and yeah more action

yeah i just appreciate fighting it's just for me it's kind of like an art man so you get to paint your picture tell your story whether it's almost like how you feel like an expression of yourself i feel you know like sometimes you feel, like an expression of yourself, I feel, you know. Like sometimes you have a game plan and you get in there and the moments just kind of change when you're in there with the individual and you start to feel like the way you feel in that moment is just the way you kind of express yourself. Are you angry? Are you aggressive? Are you calm, cool, collected? Are you kind of like trying to be chill and laid back and kind of let the fight come to you?

And I feel like every time you step in there, sometimes you get a different emotion that day. Like being able to dial that in and get to that sweet spot every single time. So you're in the zone. It's so hard to do. And that's why I appreciate that. Like even a guy like Khabib, like he's still arguably, arguably, he's still one of the top guys. For sure. To ever do it for sure but i feel like there is some fights that he could have possibly had because obviously he had a lot of injuries and stuff like that um stuff that happened with opponents and stuff so

it's not to his his um it's not his fault but a guy like that who can what i'm trying to get at is a guy like that who can get up 28 29 times and be in that zone every single time and not have an off night. That is the guy that I'm so like wild by because it's, it's not like I know what it is because we've done it. You've done it. You've competed before. So you know what it is to be in that zone, being that element where you're just like,

I have to excel and, and get this w by no matter like you can't tell me like some of those days if he weren't to go into those training rooms with those guys that they might not ever get the better of him on certain days but for him to be on every single night that's impressive that's a hard thing to do it's a super hard thing to do for a guy like that who's in one of the most talent-rich divisions and to dominate every time, never have an off night. Yeah. I don't know.

Do you work with a psychologist or anything? Have you ever done any of that? No. No? You know, different people have worked with different mental trainers. There's a guy, Vinny Shorman. He's worked with a lot of fighters and he's basically uh he's a hypnotist but also like does like sports psychology stuff for fighters and helps them get in get their mindset now focused i feel two ways about that

i feel one you're mentally weak and you could possibly be broken because you feel like you need to have someone else get you to a point to to feel confident about yourself that's the way that's one way to look at it but then the other side I look at it is like even for me

I go through anxiety I'm not saying I'm immune to it but on the other side it's kind of like you get the help and it makes you better from dealing with it so I'm like which one is it for me it's like sometimes you know someone is doing it and I wonder what type of person they are like does this really get them in the zone and locked in like this is something that they didn't feel that they need versus them trying to do it and they're not really all in and I could probably break them. Because this is the way I think.

I'm like, I analyze my opponents. Like if I hear like they need a mental coach, I'm like, oh, there's probably a mental thing in there that I can possibly do and exploit in the fight that can be a trigger and really just throw off this entire game and make the fight easier than it probably would have been had this guy been locked in the entire time. So I kind of look at it from two sides of the spectrum.

I don't know. My brain is just operating. That's a great predator's brain. When you're thinking like that, would you exploit it in, would you bring it up to them that I heard you got a mental coach? That shit ain't going to help you?

Is that the kind of thing you do i i mean i would but i've never like actually said anything like that about anyone personally like oh you heard you got a mental coach like i because i i don't want to feel like i'm bullying somebody you know because they you know oh you're a nice guy you are but at the same time because you know it's a tough sport. I'm all about having fun and talking shit. But there's certain parts where you're kind of talking shit and it kind of just feels like you're being that bully. And I've been like beating up as a kid because I was always the smaller guy. So I understand that feeling. So sometimes I kind of get like a little weird about it, even though we're grown ass men agreeing to punch each other in the face anyway.

I guess my message when I'm doing like, doing the stuff that I do, I try not to show that because I don't want to come off as that and, like, kind of, like, help project. Because people are super influenced by everything that someone, like, an athlete does that they're, you know, one of their favorite athletes or something, like, they could be easily influenced by that. So, I don't know. I think real crazy, man.

I started thinking about this. I started thinking about that, this possibility, and then my brain just is always on. I think that's probably, I don't know. I think real crazy, man. I started thinking about this. I started thinking about that, this possibility, and then my brain just, it's always on. I think that's probably why I don't sleep. That's a good way to look at it.

That's an honest assessment of looking at it. That's, I appreciate that. It's, um. I just know I'm getting that ass. If you got that mental coach, I'm coming for that ass. Pause. What is pause is it possible that someone could be elite but looking for the most razor sharp of blades and consults with the mental coach to devise a plan to even strengthen the resolve further

i agree because i've had people tell me that even though they think I'm mentally tough, that if I did get a mental coach, I could probably get to the next level of my game. Yeah. But then I don't know how much of that is just talk. I think it probably depends upon the mental coach. Oh, that too? I bet there's some mental coaches that are wizards. And it's like everything else, man.

You could learn karate from a bad instructor and you don't know what the fuck you're doing. Or you can learn jujitsu from Hoyler Gracie, you know. Like, you could get lucky or you not get lucky. I think that's possible with that as well. You could have a really good mental coach that fucking puts you in a place that maybe you wouldn't get without one. I think it's possible. Maybe you wouldn't get without one. I think it's possible.

Because coaching and just understanding psychology and being able to frame things in your mind, like what is fear? Why am I thinking? I have done the work. I'm ready to, no room for any bullshit thoughts. Don't let them in. You've done everything you need to do

and you're ready to rock and roll. And most people can maintain that sometimes. That's why we're talking about how impressive it is for khabib's record yeah because he maintained that his entire career but it's if there was like a clear path in your mind you know how like there's like submission paths like you know that once you're in half guard and you get out of their half guard and you have the arm on your neck you're gonna either try to lock it up for a head and arm or you're gonna spin and try to take an arm bar and you have these paths in your head yeah maybe it's like that maybe there's like

yeah it's a it's a very interesting thing like just the whole approach everything man i that's why i think this this is why i love the I love the sport because there's nothing else like this. Nothing like it. I do this all the time, and it doesn't get old. I get nervous when I do because I don't want to be fighting until I'm 40-plus years old. I don't want to do that. Cutting weight to 135 is not easy. It's not fun.

And I want to be able to have longevity in my life post-fighting where I can hang out with my kids, talk with my kids properly and not feel like, you know, I just don't want to have that image of me with my future kids, wife, and I don't want no one looking at me as like a sad case of someone that's stuck around too long kind of thing. That's very important. And I looked up to the guys, our pioneers pioneers man like those guys paved the fucking way and to see those guys how they most like a lot of them aren't in the best of shape but thankfully for those guys they

helped pave the way for us and and i i look at them as examples of how to do what they did but do it in a better way that could be long-term beneficial as opposed to just a temporary thing i'm here one day going tomorrow revolving door you know no it's um they're real pioneers like they're there's not a sport that's like the ufc where you look back to 1993 and those guys are still around like hoist graceist Gracie's still around. Dan the Beast Severin's still around. They're still around. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, it's wild, man.

Those guys from the very early days are still around. And some of them are still pretty fucking active. Mayhem Miller. Yeah, yeah. That guy's crazy. I love that guy. I mean, we talked about Randall before, of course, Mark Coleman. And, I mean, how many of those guys who are the early greats they there was nothing before them you know I mean Mark Coleman was literally the first UFC heavyweight

champion when he beat Dan Severin and we got him in like that scarf hold headlock yeah and and and tapped him for the title I told my boys we should do like a marathon, like watching UFC 1 and just try to get to like 100, just to catch up and watch all the fights all over again and just enjoy the events of how it was and gradually see the increase in value of production and the whole everything. And the rules.

The rules and the talent and seeing how things evolve, how strategy evolved. I think that would be a fun thing just as a fan. So Murillo Bustamante fought Matt Lindland, and when he fought Matt Lindland, he took him down and submitted him, and Lindland said he didn't tap. And so he got him in an arm bar. And so Big John him in an arm bar. And so Big John McCarthy stopped the fight.

But then Lin-Manuel said he didn't tap. And so they made them keep fighting. I think it's the only fight like it. I've never seen that one. I think it was the only fight like it where then they continued the fight. And then Bustamante got him in a guillotine, and he tapped him again. There's only been one fight that I can remember that was where the fight was restarted twice.

I'm pretty sure Big John McCarthy was a referee. Wait, didn't that happen with Benavidez and somebody? He finished somebody twice in one round. Really? Joseph Benavidez? Yeah, like the ref perhaps uh i don't remember i think the ref had stopped the fight thinking it was like something illegal and then they resumed and then he finished it again i was like wait that's actually crazy oh

it's like a one round fight that was That was against Figueredo, right? Wasn't it? No, no. Because I think Joe won. Oh, okay. Because I think he beat someone like two times, and that's when they started calling him Joey Two Towns. Joey Two Towns, get the paper, get the paper.

That's such a good movie. That was a great fucking movie. Can't believe Ray Liotta's dead. He wasn't that old, man. No, he wasn't. God, that sucks. People are just dying too damn young. Like, 67 is not that old.

That shit scares me. It shouldn't scare me, but it does. Well, I think what you are scared of is very wise. What you're saying about are scared of is very wise what you're what you're saying about being scared of like being damaged to the point where you people feel sad being around you yeah i don't i don't want that well because you don't want that and you got that in your head it's not going to sneak up on you yeah the the people that don't think it will ever happen to them and then they're in denial when it's happened to them that can be a real problem yeah you know it's cool and i'm not you know trying to make this like a sensitive

subject but even like when you spoke to shab and you kind of like politely told him what he pretty much asked you to be honest and real about what you thought kind of thing and i thought that was i can respect that i know some people get really but i'm not talking about him but i know he did get bothered but um some people get really bothered when you give them honest criticism or honest feedback and i think when you do that you limit the the power of your friends to help give you true honest feelings and perspective of what they think as a friend looking out for you and your best interests. And obviously that person's got to mean a lot to you

in order for you to take that at whatever they're saying. Well, I also, with the shop situation, I knew he had another option. Yeah. Like, he's really funny on podcasts. I'm like, dude, you're really fun to do podcasts with. I'm like, that's what you should be doing. Especially, like, me and him, we would have so much fun.

It was so silly. He's like a silly dude. Yeah. And that's what I love about Shob. He's like a really fun, big, silly dude. But he wasn't really interested in fighting anymore. He was just kind of doing it. Yeah.

You know, like there's levels, right? There's a guy that's hungry, that's trying to fight for a title, and then there's a guy who is just doing it because that's what he's been doing, and that's where he was. Yeah. And I was like, you had a lot more fire for this a few years ago, and the problem is like you get knocked out a few times, and then it gets worse. Yeah.

And then it gets to the point where you get hit with shots and your body doesn't respond that well You see that with certain guys as they get older they get hit and then you see like not even the biggest shot But they just don't feel they don't seem like they can take anything anymore. Yeah, I hope I can catch that myself So I don't have to wait for someone to tell me. Yeah, you know But you remember when Chuck was at the end of his career yeah he talked about that chuck talked about that really honestly and openly it was very interesting the way he would describe it he was like it's like your your brain is like hey you're too tough like you you don't you're gonna keep taking these shots so i'm just gonna shut off

yeah it's just like your brain protects you from the impact after a while because it just knows what's coming and you just you can't take a shot like you used to yeah oh man that's i respect those i respect the hell out of those guys so they took a lot and when the sport was still growing so it's not like they made a ton you know thankfully dana took care of some of those guys like uh chuck um forest and a few of the other guys you know so that's always cool to see because if it wasn't for guys like that i couldn't be doing this yeah you know those guys helped pave the way for for all of us no doubt no doubt if you really stop and think about it

there's not another sport like the ufc where you can go back to 1993 and it's almost unrecognizable in comparison to 2022. You watch the difference in the ability, the technique. Everyone's so good now. From flyweight all the way up to heavyweight, you have so much skill. the way up to heavyweight you have so much skill i tell the guys on a regional circuit at the gym like you guys are in a different time period different like this sport is a different beast for these young guys coming up like you're not fighting just a specialist who might not know how to punch a um punch himself out of a bag kind of thing like these guys can do it all yeah and uh on a regional level so some of these fights that i see, I'm like, this is so high level. This could be literally showcased on the UFC platform, Bellator, Ryzen. They could fight for any of those guys at the talent and the education that they have

and the reflexes, the speed, the power, and the fight IQ. Some of these guys might not have as many fights, but they're so battle-tested coming up. It's just a different game. If I had to come up through this, things could have possibly played out a little bit differently on my way to the top, but I feel like my specialist talents being good at wrestling

and blending that in for catch wrestling and finishing fights with the redneck and choke on the regional circuit, I feel like that would have been a little bit more contested. Or maybe I'm selling myself short. I don't know. But I feel like when I watch it, I see these guys. I'm like, man, this would have been much more tougher competition where before these guys couldn't sprawl, couldn't do. Like, I'd get these guys down.

It was just like that. Now these guys can actually keep the fight steady. Like, you got to work a little bit now to get these guys down. It's not just I'm just taking you down and gonna hang out like you gotta fight in these positions so these guys now man good luck and best of luck because the guys who do get through that gauntlet get to the top i just hope they don't take too much damage because again you know it's the same same thing i didn't have those type of fights on the regional circuit i like legit pretty much ran through everybody or i barely got punched

so most of the shots i took were literally all in the ufc so like it's a cumulative damage in those early early fights against guys who are you like real similar to right yeah and that's what i'm saying like these guys from the debut fights are having these type of fights yeah i'm like i never i never had to experience that it's hard to find a low level mma show these days exactly even the young guys coming up with two fights or it's like super skillful yeah yeah but that's just so interesting to me because there's not another sport where you can go back to 1993 and it's so much different than it is now. Yeah, it's impressive. It's really impressive. I mean, there was no time limits. There was no weight classes, no gloves.

Yeah. People wore shoes. Wrestling shoes. Yeah, they wore wrestling shoes. Or a boxing glove. Crazy, man. Like, how are you going to wrestle with that boxing glove on, man? Crazy.

And the sport is just continuing to grow and expand. That's what's interesting too it's like you're starting to see you know just better and better matchups better and better fights and there's so much when you get to the top of like some divisions there's so many killers vying for a spot yeah you know 135 135 is a great example of that man i think. I think we are the best weight class in terms of ranking on win streaks from the top, from the champ all the way down to, I think, maybe the top 15 that the UFC actually has ranked. There's arguably like four or five championship level fighters in that division. I think there's a total of eight champions or former champions in our weight class. That is so crazy.

Because if you really stop and think about it, any one of the guys is at the very top. eight champions or former champions in our weight class. That is so crazy. Because if you really stop and think about it, any one of the guys is at the very top. You're obviously the champion, but Jan has been the champion. Sanhagen could be a champion. They all have that level of skill, and everybody's scrapping for that top spot. TJ, Aldo, Aldo's still dangerous.

Yeah. He's not that old either. I think he's got the weight cut down, and I think that's why his performances have progressively gotten better. And that actually gives me goosebumps when I say that. I'm like, dude, this guy is still really freaking good. Still really good, man. Aldo's still really good, and I think he's only 33 which is kind of crazy there's the other 34 something like that something

like that but you got myself you got Jan Dillashaw Aldo Marlon Vera you got Cruz that's five favorite never actually retired so that's six your boy Murab Frankie Edgar yeah Murab is an animal Merab has the craziest gas tank. Yeah. No, remember I said last time, I was like, get yourself a Merab? I wasn't joking. Dude. Dude.

He's an animal, man. What a great training partner he must be. Oh, all the time. The guy would take his shirt off his own back for you, man. He is unreal. They don't make people like this guy. Not in the States, at least. I haven't found nobody like that.

This guy will do anything for anybody on the team. That's just who he is. He's so tough, too, man. That Marlon Marais fight? Yeah. Jesus Christ. Oh, my goodness. I had a heart attack in the corner.

I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I was like, roll, roll. Marais is an interesting character, man. How big is he? Is he very big for 35 when you're standing next to him. He's a thick boy with three C's I Wonder I always wondered with him like me What is like he's doesn't see he seems to fade like in the Cejudo fight and I've always wondered like is he cutting too much?

Weight because he looks so big things anxiety you think that's what it is. Yeah to fade like in the suhudo fight and i've always wondered like is he cutting too much weight because he looks so big i think it's anxiety you think that's what it is yeah yeah i feel like with guys like that i've seen guys who are stacked in the gym it's almost like if they don't get you out of there or hurt you and they have to go the whole like duration i feel like they tend to wilt a little bit because they're not used to that pressure of being the the nail you know they want to be the hammer so bad like if they're not being the hammers like and i think where i got that from with him i feel like it's the anxiety because maybe he's gotten tired multiple times in the training room training with edgar um i don't know if he was

there when garbrandt was there. But situations like that, I feel like when they've gotten tough, maybe. Because when Mark Henry goes, like, think about everything your grandmother or your mother has done. I'm like, for me, I'm like, if you have to go to those depths to get me motivated, you know what I mean? It's like, what are you kind of telling us that we don't know what happens behind the scenes? That's what I'm thinking. This is my battle warfare talking and how I, like, assess things and situations, how you could look at it.

Has anyone ever said anything to you in the corner that made you change the way you thought and really fired you up? I mean, Ray always. Ray Longo's the best. Ray and Matt always. That's like. All Joe, you're killing them all joe that's yeah it's uh even in the last one where he said look at the motherfucker i turn around look i'm like yep i see him ray and uh you know and matt sarah should have a fucking show where they just follow them around and they corner fighters. Yeah.

That would actually, I think that would be a good series. That would be a great series. And then they go out to eat and talk shit. I'd watch it. Yeah. I'd watch it. I think that'd be fun. Someone should put that together, ESPN Plus.

Yeah. Put that show together. Ray Longo's hilarious. It's crazy how long he's been doing it, too. Yeah, man. Coaching, training. It's crazy how long he's been doing it, too. Yeah, man. Coaching, training.

And I think his birthday just passed. Because they just gave me a day. Aljamain Sterling Day, Nassau County, Long Island. May 23rd. Dude, you got your own day? I got my own day, which was insane. That's incredible. You got your own day.

It was a wild experience, man. So I said, this is a day of self-care drinking lighting up your J's do whatever you want just be a good person have a good time um but his birthday was the was the uh the 20th and um I forgot why I was even bringing up his age I think well I'm saying like he's like 64 there's that beautiful woman yeah this is Aljamain Sterling day my sister is my niece that's amazing um but to see how how he's still doing this at his age it's insane man because look at him crazy right he says some really good words man i love him um when he's awesome when he's in a corner you have to scream yeah you know so at his age to be doing that like i i know it has to weigh on him a little

bit like being much on the body but he cares you know about his guys and that's why it's so cool because like to have him at this age still doing this like he he loves the sport uh you know we love him for it because he doesn't have to be doing this anymore you know what i mean yeah um but he's invested and i think that's what makes it so special for us because it's just uh to have him around it's uh i mean he's been there for I think that's what makes it so special for us because just to have him around, it's a big deal. I mean, he's been there for now. How many world champions now? Matt Serra.

Tres. Yeah, Weidman and you. All from Long Island. All from Long Island. When Weidman was coming up, I remember Ray Longo told me in the corner, he beat somebody. I forget who he beat, but it was quite a bit before he fought for the corner. He beat somebody. I forget who he beat, but it was before, quite a bit before

he fought for the title. Ray Longo looks at me, he goes, this kid is a motherfucker. That's what he said. He goes, he's a motherfucker. I go, yeah?

He goes, yeah. Keep an eye on him. I was like, wow. When Ray Longo tells you something like that, you believe it. And then, I think he knocked out Munoz. He knocked out Munoz with that crazy elbow.

Oh, my God. And it was just like he was the boogeyman for a while. People forget when Chris Weidman was the champion and he was on his way up to the title, he was the fucking boogeyman. Put people away. Oh, my God. He's almost like Marab in the sense like uh no one will say his name kind of thing like no one was calling out chris wadman no one's calling out

marab you know what i mean so it's like yeah well when he ko'd anderson silva and everybody was like what that is that real yeah they started grasping at straws, though. You know, the thing about that fight, man, is Anderson had a very good strategy in the early going, and he was landing very effectively to Weidman's legs. Remember, Weidman dove on a knee bar? Yep, from the top position. Right. He, like, jumped from half guard and went out and spun out into it. And I was like, wow, this guy is really going for it.

Yeah, and Weidman's jiu-jitsu is solid as fuck. But Anderson got out of it somehow or another. But maybe, who knows, during that he might have tweaked his fucking knee or something. But when he gets up, he's chopping at the legs and looks good doing that. But then got into that thing where he's trying to pretend that he was hurt, just taunting him. Got into that thing where he's trying to pretend that he was hurt like just taunting him Yeah, and when Weidman did that back fist to the left hook that was the key boom Yeah, boom boom. It was so brilliant It was so brilliant because he always goes left to right like so you throw your right hand

He moves offline and then he comes back in the other direction But Weidman hit him with a back fist that confused his rhythm. Turn it off. Yeah, because you've got to adjust. Then he hit him with the hook. Yeah. So this is like early in the fight. He takes him down.

And I maintain that Weidman, during this time period when he was a champion, was one of the fucking scariest guys ever in this division. He was awesome. He was a killer do you remember that horrifying yoel romero knocked out of him yeah that was all that flying knee you know what's interesting about that too he we were speaking about knockouts like talking about our losses and stuff and um he was saying like that yoel romero knockout um versus the uh gay guard musashi versus that one.

He said that one was way worse for him in terms of the post-after effects. Really? And then I had one with Zabit. I've talked about this before. And versus the Marlin fight, the one with Zabit in the training room, he threw a 360 spinning ninja kick and the leg wrapped around my neck. Oh, Jesus. I closed my eyes.

I had never seen a ninja jump at me like that in a room, ever. I'm not in shape. Ray just asked me to jump in there with this guy. I don't know who the hell he was, but I felt like I was set up for failure. He throws a 360. He's doing side kicks. He's doing jumping switch kicks. So I'm like, yo, what in the fuck is going on? And he's doing sidekicks he's doing jumping switch kicks so i'm like yo what in the

fuck is going on and he's a lot bigger than me i mean although it's only 45 but i didn't realize how big he was so he took his shirt off and he's doing these sidekicks from both sides i'm shooting in he's pulling me up and hitting me with these sambo throws judo throws and um i'm just getting ragdolled i'm like if i wanted to go up at 45 at that point in my career, I'd be like, bro, that would be a nightmare matchup ever. Like, me and Zabit just would not go well. Where has Zabit been? I think for, like, religious reasons. This is what I heard.

I don't know if it's true or not, so don't condemn me. But I heard it was religious reasons that he kind of stepped back. And I think, like, maybe, like, family too. But if that guy came back, it would be problems, man. I don't know if his gas thing has been questionable but this guy is a certified ninja oh he's fantastic i caught him in an arm um what do you call it from half guard well you're full guard and you sit out to your side and you do like a shoulder crunch to clamp i had him in that i thought i was gonna get the tap but he was so flexible his elbow was just hyper extending i'm like am I about to like break this guy's arm

I mean hyper extended in the training room cuz he won't tap and then I try to switch to a triangle he gets out and that was like the only success I actually had with him I mean I hit him a couple times like boxing but overall I was the one getting kicked from just Guam he just hit hit me, and he's almost like Saget, just extending these long-ass legs and then getting out of there. And then the second round, he just does this tornado thing, and I'm just like, I close my eyes like, ah! And then it just whack.

I open my eyes, and everything was just blurry. It felt like my head was in that big-ass bell, and it just went dong! And I just sit back, I hit the cage, and I go, I wave off, like, bro, I'm done. This is over. And that one I actually had way worse symptoms for with that knockout. Really? Yeah.

I mean, I wasn't out, but I was out. Yeah. I still saw everything that was happening, but I couldn't move. Like, my body was, like, not responding, not responding. I was like, this is not, you can't have too many of those. That's a problem with training, right? Some guys will do that to you.

I didn't know who the hell this guy was. If I had ever seen a highlight of this guy doing anything even close to that, my whole approach would have been different. Or maybe I'm saying, we're not even kicking, we're just going to box. I'd rather do that because I felt like I had way better success with that

than I did kickboxing with him, and I'm good at kicking but i couldn't kick this this guy was just he was a ninja man he's so skilled he's so skilled and he puts all those traditional techniques to use like very few fighters do yep he can do a lot of a lot of wild stuff you know there's different styles that we're seeing that are effective, you know, different striking styles that we see that are effective now. And there's quite a few people that are taking almost like a karate approach, like a karate approach to movement. Like Suido?

Yeah. Well, his was very karate, right? For a while, right? Yeah, yeah. The one he fought, Wilson Hay hayes he's a good karate guy boom he caught that straight and i was like oh that was nasty if you had to choose if you had to say like this is who i defend my title with who who would you choose who would who would your first after that fight you know i'm assuming yon and you will have a rematch eventually

yeah but what is your choice? Would your choice be to fight him one more time? Would your choice be to fight TJ? What would your choice be? It was totally up to you. So, Hudo, what's your choice? Right now, damn, if it was my choice, I mean, I feel like you would want to pick the fighter that you feel like you

definitely would be, right? I mean, for a title defense, I would think you would want to do that fighter that you feel like you definitely would be, right? I mean, for a title defense, I would think you would want to do that so you could keep the belt as long as you can. Make some money. That's so honest. You know what I mean? That's so honest. Nobody talks like that. Everybody says, I want to fight the toughest guy no matter what.

Because that's fucking stupid. These guys are so stupid, man. It annoys me. Like, I'm an honest guy. I can't just be, like, like you know i keep it a buck like right this i would want to pick the fight that i feel i would have the easier time with and keep that belt and make i'm trying to cash out joe i hear you like i'm trying to get paid you're not in this position admirable to be honest like that that's why even like with the

yon fight the first one, and people were asking me like what went wrong, and they were calling me delusional. I'm like, dude, if I felt that he was better than me, I would have just said it. I would have just said this man is better than me. I need to close the gap doing this, doing this. I didn't feel that.

And that's why I was confident going into that one, you know? So it's kind of the same thing. Like if I'm going to be honest, like if I just want to fight, which one would be the best for my legacy i think tj or aldo in terms of like oh i fought this guy like yeah you know even a cruise what what fight is harder out of those two for some reason i feel like the hardest fight out of all of them is Aldo. We don't really know how good TJ's leg is. Yeah.

Like, TJ's leg got mangled when he was in that. Submission with Corey. Yeah, he got caught in a heel hook position. And tried to punch. And he got out of it. And in the scramble, I think he said, is when he really ripped it apart. And it was, I mean, kudos to him for winning the fight after that because that was him fighting three more rounds or four more rounds.

Was that first? I think that was the first round. Yeah, so four more rounds with a destroyed left leg against one of the best guys in the division. Yeah. Yeah. Your victory over Sanhagen is probably one of my favorite of yours it's my favorite it was so clean it was so clean it was so like oh my god like this is what's possible this is what's

possible to a fucking elite guy elite guy like sanhagen he's elite he's really good the way he put out frankie the way he put out marlin i, the way the guy moves, I'm a big fan. In his fight with Jan, I'm a big fan of that. But the way you clamped a hold of him, took his back and strangled him, it was like, ooh. It's a fight script. I think as a jiu-jitsu guy, that is, to me,

like, that is, I know how hard that is to do. I appreciate that so much. Because it was so smooth, you know? It was just like incremental steps closer and closer to the finish once you got them down. Yeah. Was that like one of your most satisfying submissions? I think it was because of everything that was at stake one them disrespecting the two of us by not even giving us the title shot it was

like a way of like booting me out they I think they were really trying to make a San Hagen yawn for the title dude come on man original god damn smooth that is that was my power position it is clearly your power position, but that was one of the best rare naked joke submissions I think I've ever seen. Because it was just, it was so dominant, and I know how good Sanhagen is. It's not just that you did it. It's just how good it looked

and how good the guy you fought was. Yeah. Yeah. Against all the odds. And ever since that day day I started coming for the asses what is that one accidental blooper this out there you're saying I'm coming in that house that coming on it I said John you better when you fight so coming on it as I'm coming for that ass pause that's it good thing I caught

myself so when you you know your fight was how many months away now it was like Pause. But that's it. Good thing I caught myself. So when you, you know, your fight was how many months away now? It was like how many months away ago was it? Almost two months now. So when will the UFC come to you with an opponent, you think? So I'm supposed to get news either today or tomorrow who they want us to be the next guy and so what I am gonna do I am gonna release that information as soon as I get it but it's gonna be on my podcast oh so people now how does someone get this podcast what's it called the weekly scraps is actually on all streaming platforms we're doing

like it just I know we talked last time, and since then I actually invested in a guy, and he's been doing all my content now, helping me do the clip outs, helping me with the podcast, helping me just get stuff out there. So we're doing vlogs, and now we're looking to transition into like instructional videos for like MMA for beginners to like enthusiasts like ourselves. Like just from a from a high level perspective like different things that you

would want to see like an introduction to all the positions in BJJ like um basic um positions like a north-south what is north-south right what is full guard what is half guard so I want to do this and and try to build like some type of online school. But there's so many different avenues it could go. It could go half guard, but if a guy doesn't go for the underhook or if he does get to the underhook, what do you do from that situation? And you've got to branch off and go into this specific transition or sequence. So there's so much I want to help bring to the MMA game

and just give my knowledge back to the sport. I think that's going to be cool, but we're looking to do that. That's what he's helping me with now. So hopefully that's going to be launched this week. And all the other stuff is just on all of the streaming platforms and all that. So when you do fight next, when will it be around? Probably September. I think that's the next Vegas card. i know they got the one in july yeah because i'm not um that's too soon for me yeah i've been

doing too much too much of this actually i'll take you away 170 what you want more yeah you want the josh barnett stuff or the scotch stuff i'll do the josh barton that um shout out to josh yeah so when you get to an actual weight cut like how much you're actually cutting like day before the fight the last one i did nine and a nine and a half nine and a half yeah that's not that bad for you no i i'm used to cutting two to four pounds really the last few fights i've gotten bigger thicker whatever um and the day before, I'm cutting way more weight. I don't get it. Maybe it's are you doing any different strength and conditioning or anything?

Just the programs I've been doing since I've been an amateur. Same, same exact programs? I was thinking about doing tutorials on that, like what I'm actually doing for those type of workouts too because people have been asking me like what we do for conditioning I don't know There's like I don't want to do too much and then it's like I'm the like you're expecting that from me Like it's gonna be like a subscription service, but I want to do like really specifically just hone in on Technical things that you would want to know like people obviously want to know how I take the back in certain things.

So I could break down my fights and give that out so you can see step by step what I'm doing in this situation with someone does these things and how you can get to the back from those positions. The one that I really like is the first one I got though in that second round and I slid into that takedown. That one for me was almost like an improv too because once I into that takedown. Like that one for me was almost like an improv too. Because once I got the takedown and he fell down, I knew at that moment he's going to bounce back up. Unless I could figure out a way to capitalize while he's posting his hand to push himself back up. And you have to, like the way I timed that, for never doing that before in training, like you can't drill that.

You know what I mean? Like you can't take someone down and then that's high speed because then I'm just sliding into mount. Yeah. And, yeah, that's like things like that I would like to break down so people can get an idea just to get inside my head of what I'm thinking from a grappler standpoint and for back-taking situations because that's ultimately where I want to be,

where I feel like I can finish most of these fights. And have you thought about doing the weekly scraps? Is this about MMA? Is it about life? Is it about everything? Like, what is this? It's mainly about MMA. I was trying to do an angle of, like, some life stuff,

like Dana life stuff for me. But I just don't know what people really want to see. Let me stop you right there. Just do what you think is interesting. Don't ever worry about what people want to see because you're never going to get a good response. It's never going to make sense. And it's only going to, like, whatever you want to do is only going to work because it's you. Your take on things is going to be very different than anybody else's take on things and so if you want

to talk about the news if you want to talk about foot locks whatever the fuck you want to talk about you should just talk about whatever you want to talk about yeah and the people will either like it or they won't like it but it'll be you yeah and if you think what will the people like like I you're fucked because now you're gonna start reading the people like? Like, ah, you're fucked. Because now you're going to start reading the comments. I read the comments too much. You're fucked.

Don't do it. You just do what you like. Like, you're an interesting dude. You're a smart dude. And you're an honest dude. That's like the most important thing for podcasting. You have to be honest. You're a very honest guy.

So you can just talk about stuff. Yeah. And people will trust you. They'll listen to you. That's what people are missing. They're missing like – I think it's a lot of people out there that are missing honest conversations. They're missing like a campfire talk. People just sitting around drinking whiskey talking shit.

Those kind of like conversations are valuable. Yeah. And you're good at that. So why not do that when you retire look at shop shop's balling out of control you know there's a lot of fighters can do that chael's doing a fantastic job at that son you know he's the man with that he's the man he's very smart with it and and he's also like you know his opinion is very good because his take is very intelligent on, you know, fights and predictions and how he feels like things are going to play out. Yeah. So there's a lot of great examples of guys who have taken their career post-fight and just continued to expand and grow. Yeah.

You know, a lot of them go into commentary. Have you thought about that? So, you know, a lot of them go into commentary. Have you thought about that? I got offered a gig in Boston, but I'm debating if that's really my angle or my expertise. Like, I'm good at breaking down the fights, but in the live moment, what you guys do, like, calling the fights, like, even though there are some things, like, fighters are going to always be upset or feel like they're being slighted or biased commentary, but it's kind of the nature of the game.

Like you kind of tend to resonate with someone's style a little bit more. Usually that's unless you just really don't give a fuck about the people fighting at this level. But for me, I just don't know if I could do that because I feel like I would be more trying to break down every single situation versus like making it a fun experience for the viewer, still giving some knowledge so that they understand what's going on, that type of thing. So that's a hard thing to do versus just analyzing it, sitting down and actually just breaking it down

without the pressure of in real time needing to talk about what's actually happening right now in front of you. Well, it's one of those things you get better at the more you do. So if you had the opportunity to do it, you'd really want to do it a bunch of time so you get better at it It's it's complicated because you don't know when to talk and when not to talk and you have to have a good chemistry between The three people that you're working with or the two people rather the three of you together When like when John annex talking I have to be like real careful like he might have a promotion

Yeah, I might not be able to talk but I might see some shit going down I might see there's something happened where I go, oh, he's going to bow. But I can't say anything yet. And maybe DC wants to chime in with some points of his own, and he has some idea. And so you have to have like, we have like this vibe, almost like we have telepathy. Yeah. Like we know when to talk and when not to talk. You can feel the energy, the frequency. Yeah. But we have apathy. Yeah. Like we know when to talk and when not to talk. You can feel the energy, the frequency.

Yeah, but we have a shit ton of fun. But we've also been doing it so long. I've been doing commentary since 2002. And before that, I did post-fight interviews in the 90s, in 1997, in 1998. So I've been around for so goddamn long. I was like eight years old. You little baby.

Now you're the champ. But it's just been so long that I, you know, just a fucking insane amount of time. Yeah. I feel unstoppable right now. Yeah. I got a day undisputed. Yeah.

I feel good. Did you get to pick? Life's good, man. How does. Yeah. Did you get to pick? Life's good, man. How does it work? Do you get to pick who you fight? Kind of, sort of. Kind of? I think to a certain extent.

I know Dana doesn't think I won the fight. I don't know if he changed his mind. What? If he actually. He didn't think you won that fight? After the fight, went right to the press conference. The judges, he did it exactly like this. The judges blew that one.

I'm like, what? Did he really say that? Yeah. But then he kind of said, well down to high school the first round so then how you Can't say then the judges blew that one if you man that first round was super close Yeah, and I was counting the strikes in my head while I was going on and then when I landed that elbow I was like I definitely won the round like there's no way I hit this guy more. He's coming forward but Octagonal control is not because I'm walking forward. My octagonal control would be me pivoting, you chasing me around,

and you can't touch me, but I'm controlling you and dictating where the fight goes. So if you're throwing, swinging, and missing, that means you're not utilizing octagonal control, which is being you cornering me every time I try to circle out and you do some damage, and then you circle back out and you catch me again. You're not doing any of the such things. You're just doing this waltz following my lead and I'm landing more strikes.

I don't see how you can score that. And that's supposed to be the very, very last criteria. Ringmanship. Ring general, um, general, general, whatever. Generalship. Generalship. Man, I'm fucked up today. But you can say arguably.

General membership. Yeah. It's one of those things. I mean, it really goes back to what we were talking about earlier, that the scoring system sucks. Yeah. With no disrespect to the judges or anybody else, I just don't think that that 10-point must system is designed for us. I think that's designed for people that are just boxing and it's at a perfect system for boxing it works great yeah but boxing's two weapons you

know and the same MMA fighter has four with the same two hands these judges need to get neat in the head elbowed in the head and then they could talk to us about what is more damaging and significant let me calf kick you yeah four times in a five-minute span, well, in a two-minute span because sometimes that happens, and you tell me if you're affected from those strikes. Why don't you just take their back and put them in a body triangle and squeeze the shit out of their organs?

Does it feel like a 10-8 now? That is the worst feeling, man. People don't know when someone's good and they have that good body lock, it's so disturbing because you can't breathe. No, Joe, you're just holding them. You're just holding them. It's like, it's hard to breathe. You remember when Ivan Salivary tapped somebody in the UFC with it?

I didn't know that happened in the UFC. Yeah, Ivan Salivary tapped Tony Franklin. He got him in the mount. He got him belly down, rather. So he got back mount, belly down, with the body triangle, and he just arches into him and just crushes his shit, and he taps. Goodbye to your spine, your spinal column, your ribs. It's amazing.

See if you can find that, because it's kind of fucking amazing. Yeah. Because what's also amazing, like, I've felt that in training, where some guy has your back, and you want to tap. Like, you think it's going to break your back. But to be in the middle of a cage fight and pull that off, that's crazy. And also interesting that it never really happened again. I don't think anybody ever tapped anybody with it again,

but I think it's valid. You know what I mean? It's like one of those things like a calf slicer. How many calf slicers are there in the UFC ever? Very few. Very few. But that shit's valid. How many twisters? Very very few very few but that shit's valid how many twisters very few yeah but that shit's valid yeah you know that might be valid too because i'm like i don't know too many people who've been finished with a body

triangle so here it is he's got body triangle and all he's do is just crushing his back see that look and he's tapping tap tap tap that's h Tap, tap, tap. That's Hendo. No, no, no, no. That's Salivary. Oh, wow. That's Ivan Salivary. That looked like from the profile. I was like, is that Hendo?

Salivary's got the dopest rooster tattooed on the side of his body. It's really cool, like a fighting rooster. But this is, to know positions and to see someone tap from this is really extraordinary. I've tapped three people with that. Like that, in that position? One in a jiu-jitsu tournament, and actually two in a jiu-jitsu, and one in a rematch that I had as an amateur. Wow.

Well, if you get to that position where you're like a Gordon Ryan-type character, you start writing down how you're going to beat people and put it on a piece of paper. Please, one day, do that. Body triangle from the back flattened out. Tap someone with that. It's a fucked up position. It's a fucked up position.

It seems legit. But I know that even when, like if someone has my back and I'm laying on top of them and they have the body triangle in it, it fucking sucks. Like, I do agree those judges need to experience that when someone fucking locks that shit on you and just crushes it's so hard to breathe it feels terrible you have to take a shit it's the worst it's just really hard to breathe when your guts are being smushed that's the thing people don't understand like when you breathe if you have a good deep breath, there's a lot of movement in your abdominal muscles as well.

It's not just up here in your lungs. When that shit is just fucking completely distracted, you're like... You don't get much. And some guys just know how to put it on you. Yeah. And that's you. That's you. Some guys know how to like hold a position better than most people if they're in the same spot. It's it's it's so important for the sport because you get to see someone who like well what's the worst thing that can happen to you in this spot? Well, the worst thing that can happen to you in this spot is Aljamain Sterling versus Sanhagen.

Watch that. Look at how helpless he gets at the end. At the end, that's the worst thing that can happen to you. I wanted to finish him standing so bad. Why? Because that would have been so satisfying. Do you fight like that, though? No, no, no.

Not like striking. When I got on it, when I climbed his back and I locked it up and then when I watch it back it goes I hear you in a commentary and then you go, I think you say like he's got his neck, he's got his neck or something like that.

But I lock it up and I reap it back and I have I try to go Montalino, I try to put the hand behind the head. And he does a good job of just turning just a little bit. But I felt like if I just squeezed a little bit more, I could have gotten it from the standing position and tapped him on the way down. And I feel like that would have been an epic,

just like mind fuck to everybody. Like I just came in there in under a minute, took this guy's back, threw him down, climbed him like a tree, strangled him, and he tapped on the way down. That's how forceful the pressure was. That would have been like a poetic justice for me. I mean, it was still a beautiful ending. It's so interesting, though, that you have a specific way that you'd like to have finished him.

You finished him so perfectly. It's funny that you have a better narrative, a better one in your head. That's like the walk-off KO for a jiu-jitsu artist for me. Right. Very few guys have gotten it from that standing position like that. Yeah. Remember when Charles Oliveira fought in the UFC? It looks like one of the first, maybe his second fight in the UFC,

fought Efrain Escudera. And when Efrain was the ultimate fighter champion and he got his back standing and choked him. And finished him. And then when you get up and he lets you go, it's just like, damn. But I wanted to put him out. Like, say for a triangle choke, say that epic poetic

justice situation for you is him trying to pick you up and as he picks you up, he just passes out and collapses because you put him trying to pick you up and as he picks you up he just passes out and collapses because you put him to sleep right like that epic climax end to the fight that's like for me right that's what i wanted i wanted to like have him like on the way down he's about to tap and then he just goes out and then i just get up and there's a dead body yeah and i like i like c. Yeah. And I like Corey. I'm just saying, like, this could have been anybody,

just how I would have liked that finish to have gone. Well, that was, if you, like, how many times have guys, like, got a standing triangle before? How many times has that happened where someone, there's Carlos Newton and Matt Hughes, and Carlos Newton catches Matt Hughes in a triangle and hoists him up in the air. What is this? Jessica Andrade just got – oh, that was a standing arm triangle.

That's different. But it was really cool that she did it, because that is a legit move the standing arm triangle but this is a triangle triangle like from on top the only time I can recall was Carlos Newton and Matt Hughes and he catches him and Matt Hughes blacked out

and as he was blacking him out he slams Carlos Newton to the ground and knocks him unconscious and then blacks out and then he wakes up yes and they're like you won he's like i won and it's like he did win but like it's his last movement before he goes unconscious because he's in this triangle he's like i'm just gonna slam him and he slams him to the ground and they both go out and then he wakes up first yeah Yeah. It's wild. Is that what's supposed to happen?

I mean, in the real world, I guess he woke up first. Like, if we were in the jungle fighting to the death, I would have woken up and killed you if you were asleep. I don't know. I mean, he might have blacked out right after he committed to the slam that KO'd Carlos Newton, which in case pressure. Yeah, he wins. He wins It didn't seem wrong that he won to me, you know, it seemed like it made sense But it still seemed so crazy where people disputing that I think people were like hey He was only out cold because he was caught in the triangle because it like he was like on top of the cage almost

You remember that? I think you can hold on back then. Yeah. Let's see if you can find that. I have standing triangle typed in and it's all it's given me. No, no, no. I understand because the thing is a standing triangle is arm triangle. An arm triangle is when someone stands

up and they clamps this on you. What I'm talking about is someone who is in a triangle and someone picks them up and they're literally holding onto the side of the cage. So they're riding on the guy's shoulders in a full triangle. And like that was Carlos Newton and Matt Hughes. This wild picture keeps coming up too.

Oh yeah. That was a reverse one. Yeah. Kind of like Rampage. Rampage and Arona. Who did that? Toby Amada. That's right. Toby Amada. That's right.

Toby Amada. He put him to sleep backwards. I thought he was about to be the truth after that. I'm not going to lie. I thought he was going to be. I was like, that's godsend. You did that to Masvidal? That's wild.

That's wild. So find Carlos Newton versus Matt Hughes. And this is a really interesting fight. Carlos Newton was one of the first badass submission guys they had like a real comprehensive submission game Carlos Newton had a wild submission game he was fun to watch

yeah and so they had caught yes so Carlos Newton is like a mounted triangle. And if you can find it, the actual video, video unavailable. God damn it, Zulfa.

Let us have some fun. I don't get that shit, man. I don't get that shit. I don't get it. I don't even know. Promote your shit. How come they don't show the finishes? Show the finishes on Instagram.

Yeah, I don't get it. Everybody who bought it has already bought it. Yeah. You know? So, oh know so oh good boy we found it so this was like I want to guess what year was this can I guess 2000 I think it was saying UFC 34 is that's all right yeah I want to say this is look at that hold it's like I'm gonna chill andop. This might have been before 2001. Shit. So he catches him in this mountain triangle. See, he's like leaning against the camera and slams him and knocks him out.

So Matt Hughes is unconscious there. Just add to the ad. Oh, they went to an ad. Sons of bitches. Jesus. Zufa. Let us have some fun. I'm not waiting 10 seconds.

I'm an American in 2022. Want it now. in 10 seconds. I'm an American in 2022. You want it now. So, but that was a case of someone going unconscious in the middle of winning. So, look, they're both out. And he wakes up and he's like, what, I won?

And he fucking won. And he gets up. And I think they're telling, see, he realizes right there, he just claps his hands together, I won. He won. What the hell? That's got to just claps his hands together. I won. He won. What the hell? That's got to be a mind fuck in itself. Matt Hughes was a fucking tank back in his day. That dude was a tank.

He's one of the pioneers of that wrestler who's also a submission artist. When he hit George St. Pierre with that far side armbar, remember that shit? Mm-hmm. George St. Pierre committed to a Kimura. Yeah. And Matt Hughes hits him with a far side armbar. And you're like, holy shit.

That's pretty high level, man. That's very high level. It's in slow-mo? Yeah. OK, so he level, man. It's very high level. It's in slow-mo? Yeah. Okay, so he slams him. Out. Carlos goes out, and then Matt just goes out. Limp. Look, he's fully limp.

Look at his arms. And look, the referee steps in and pulls him off of him, literally, like, pulls him out of the triangle. I think he didn't even realize what was going on either. Well, I mean, he won though, right? Because it's like his last gasp of energy slams him and that causes the KO. Yeah. So it's a legit win.

It's just the craziest shit ever. Yeah. I was just saying because he's out cold and then he's also out cold. Yeah, it's wild. But he woke up first, so I guess. I'm sure you've seen those fights where guys throw left hooks at the the same time and they both go Yep. Yeah, the double knockouts Like what that is great. That's happened more than one time man. Like how is that real? I know it seems like a movie you know

It reminds me like Condit and Hardy yes Both the same time but now instead of the double knockout one gets the worst. But Condit connected. Yeah. Yeah. Like I was saying

I miss Dan Hardy on the mic. He was good. Yep. I like his warm room stuff that he does on YouTube. Yeah I know he's great. He does some of his warm room stuff. But he was also

one of the ones that kind of counted me out. Like some of the stuff he said was inaccurate based on like I mean obviously his perspective as a fighter thinking what I'm doing and uh some of it was was off but for the most part he does a pretty damn good job it's a hard uh prediction two people actually fight

it's a hard prediction and even if they fought and you don't know about certain aspects of you know what was going on with their health or in training camp. It's so hard to tell. I gave them the knowledge though, Joe. Yeah. I tried to tell them what's up. I said, you guys are fucking up with this one, but carry on. But doesn't that make it all the sweeter when you wait those 13 fucking months

of people talking shit online and then win? And everyone's like, no, no, he won one. It's not he won. He fucking won one. He won not he won. He fucking won one. He won. He won that fight. Yeah. You know?

Even my hotel, I'm like, you guys didn't want to give me a day last year? You gave me a day after I won one? God damn. That's what's interesting. It's like you've already defended the title once. Now, how does it work in terms of, like, when you become a champion, do you renegotiate your contract? Do they give you more money?

From what I understand, I'm new at this. Well, you're not new necessarily because you defended the title. Yeah. But with this, I think it just depends on the leverage standpoint and the relationship that you guys have. Because at the end of the day, the UFC can do whatever they want to do. They can give me $5 million for the next fight if they chose to, but it's solely up to them what they feel,

no, this is what we're going to give you. Do they try to encourage you to do stuff on social media, to try to promote your, you know, your air quotes brand? Did they give you advice on how to get out there? So we had the athlete retreat, which we haven't done in years, which I hope we do do that again because that was a great time. Just a bunch of fighters in one building. You just never know what's going to happen.

I think that's – oh, man, what was that? Cyborg and Mangana. Yeah. That altercation. I was there live, like front row and center. You know what? Get slapped by Chris Cyborg. I was the ref in that one me

and wyman were like two refs both on both sides that's how close we were i was like oh damn we just watched that in real life that's hilarious that's hilarious but for the most part um do they offer any resources and like like say if you wanted to like if a fighter wanted to start a podcast yeah wouldn't it be great if the uf, like, a department where they could help you get everything set up? We're literally not just saying this because you're saying this. Like, literally just talking about this on the way here. Really? Yeah, my camera guy and myself, Jake, we were just saying if the UFC had a department literally just to help people that want to do other things like outside

of fighting like help them get established in terms of podcasting media or branding whatever it is like just someone you could consult with either by weight class or last names type of thing and I think that would be huge because obviously like let's be honest the UFC is not in the business of promoting individual fighters they not in the business of promoting individual fighters. They're in the business of promoting the UFC. They've done a great job with that. Yes, but no, because promoting individual fighters promotes what you're doing. What you're doing is you're selling fighters. You're showing fighters. You're promoting fights with fighters.

The more you pump them up, the better it is for everybody. Yes. A hundred percent. That's what you would think. But I'm saying I don't think that's what you would think but i'm saying that's what then i don't think that's what they're necessarily i think they're always worried about like negotiations yeah you know like now now he's worth more money exactly but you would think common sense would say well if you got me at this percentage and you have me

at a four fight deal if i finish in spectacular fashion the next four guys like case point let's say short on molly because that's an easy one for people to to understand um he wins his first four fights all by spectacular knockout he looks like he's godsent but he's on the same escalator as everybody else so what's like what's his incentive like now you got me in i showed you what i can do now where's the relationship where we can negotiate and say okay so for the next fight you did this this was the response this is what we think we can do so I think your fair share or a pay bump up pay bump up a bump and pay um would just be natural but because that's not the way humans operate it's just no I'm gonna

keep you at the cheapest cost that I can. And I get it. It's a business aspect versus the other side of it, the independent contractor. So we obviously always are going to want more money when we see our counterpart in boxing getting more money at its highest level. But the guy who's coming in, like a Patty Pimblitt, a Sean O'Malley, and they have great finishes coming up and they have a lot of hype, a good fan base. They're not on the same pay scale as the other guys. You know what I mean? It's just this guy isn't the same value as X, isn't the same value as Y, because X brings this to the table and Y only brings this to the table.

So I like X more. I value them more. I should treat them as such so that we have a good working relationship. I should treat them as such so that we have a good working relationship. But at the same time, it's also the only—I'm not trying to go on a fighter pay rant. I just think that there's room for improvement, you know? I think that's very fair. And I think you saying it that way is very important as a champion.

And I think it's very fair. You know, like, there's always room for improvement in everything. Like, I think the UFC deals with a machine that is so fucking big in terms of the amount of fighters. It's, if you look at guys like Conor McGregor, right, like, that's the top of the food chain in terms of, like, the ability to earn money. He earns the most money. And then who's under that? Maybe Izzy? Izzy. earn money he earns the most money and then who's under that like maybe is he is he um john jones if he when he when he comes again yeah when he comes back like uh what are the big usman after the masvidal fight you gotta think usman's up there 100 it has to be and that's why they're talking

about that canelo fight it's only because of how big Usman's profile is now. So there's that. I mean, first of all, if you just think about the sheer talent in each weight class, how much harder it is to be a champion now. It's way harder. Way harder. It seems like the hardest time ever to be a champion. Even for me, even the first fight,

obviously I was being denied a title shot for whatever backstory that they have in terms of promotion or whatever, not wanting me as a champion. That's the way I felt. It could be completely wrong. You felt like they didn't want you as a champion? What do you mean? Yeah, I felt like they were seeing gold with these other guys

as compared to the gold that was in front of them. Like, I didn't seem as, I didn't appear as shiny anymore, which I didn't really understand. I'm like, dude, I'm just as talented as these guys. I'm actually outspoken. I'm actually out there promoting. I promote the UFC. I promote myself.

Do you think it's like that some companies, not even just the UFC I promote myself do you think it's like that they some companies not even just the UFC but some some groups of people don't appreciate someone when they're right there yeah it's like they don't see you for what your potential is they just see you for what your current state is like oh let's look at his Instagram followers he only has this many or let's look at that only this many YouTube views instead of like looking at you and thinking like hey we're partners here we're partners like if you were partners you'd probably want to promote me because that's what you would think really fucking talented and I'll make you a lot of money we'll make a lot of money together we'll smoke fat cigars and drink some cognac and have a good

goddamn time but sometimes people don't see things that way and I think that it it's a probably an underutilized research Or a resource rather because if you can make it like a really good connection Between like the fighters and the organization just across the board and like anything has room for improvement But the more you do that the the more you're having goodwill. Goodwill amongst the fighters and the organization. But when people think that there's a lot more money in boxing, there definitely is a lot of money in boxing at the top, top level. But dudes who are fighting who just have in the beginning, they don't get paid any. It's terrible.

It's not like the UFC. If you make it into the UFC, at don't get paid any. It's terrible. It's not like the UFC. If you make it into the UFC, at least there's like a minimum. Yeah. Like what is the minimum of a first fighter in the UFC? When I started in 2014, when I got in in 2014, it was 8 and 8. 8 and 8. And then I saw 10 and 10. Explain to people how crazy it is to live off of 8 and 8.

In New York. And you have bills. And explain like where all the money goes because it doesn't all go to you yeah so for at least for me the way i break this down after i get paid i pay out my coaches then i pay out my managers and then after i do that um i can tell us the percentages um Well, we've agreed. This is like in the beginning when we first started. My coaches and I, 5% each, so 10%. And then the management, the standard management contract is usually 10. I've seen 15. I've seen 20.

So that's 20 gone. 20% gone. Gone. Right off the top. Right off the top. So you make 8,000 to show up, step on the scale, but I think you really have to step in the top. Right off the top. So you make $8,000 to show up, step on the scale, but I think you really have to step in the cage. And then if you win, you get the other $8,000.

So $16,000, I pay them 5%, 5%. I estimate what I'm going to pay Uncle Sam because if I don't have a business set up where I can write off expenses, I get taxed at a higher percentile in the tax bracket just based on the individual getting paid versus me setting up an LLC or S-Corp depending on how much you're making. At that point, you probably would want an LLC. And I'm not a tax expert, but I'm just telling you what I've done. I have an S-Corp because now I make a lot more money. But in the beginning,

I didn't have anything because it was like, it didn't make any sense to pay for that if I wasn't going to actually. So then after I do that, you deduct expenses. But back then I didn't have anything because it was like it didn't make any sense to pay for that if I wasn't going to. Right. Actually. Yeah. So then after I do that, you deduct expenses. But back then I didn't have that. So I was getting taxed at the higher percent bracket. And then the expenses that it takes to get to the fight in terms of food, prep. It's a hard fucking road. Yeah. But there's some value in that because the people that really want it as a career, they're the ones who rise to the top.

Yeah. There's some value in that in the early days. But at a certain point, then it becomes the argument, well, boxing has more money for its champions. And if that, I mean, what did Gervonta get for that knockout on Saturday night? By the way, how fucking beautiful was that shit? You know what was crazy? I was like- Pull up Gervonta KOs Romero because that is nasty.

I felt good for Romero. Watch this. He goes to the head with a right hand, and then he goes to the body with a right hand. And then boom. I mean, look how beautiful it is when he lands this because he lands it and then he slides under the counter look at this look how he dipped and cut that angle so quickly dude that was amazing offline I'm out of there peace you know what also is interesting is that it

appeared that he hurt his hand or something in the fifth round oh well he did this yeah he did like a shake. He made like a face, like, ah. And there was a lot of speculation that he had hurt himself. I said that. I said that when we were watching live. I was like, I think he hurt his hand. And they're probably listening to me.

I mean, they probably know I know what I'm talking about. Well, didn't he break his hand in a recent fight? I feel like he broke his hand in 2021 in the december i think december of 2021 he had a fight and broke his hand and went to a decision it's gonna be like mayweather you know um my friend radio raheem pointed something out today we're texting each other back and forth about this he said this is around the same time in floyd's career when floyd started getting hand issues that's what i was just saying it's like he might be like floyd like he broke his hand and then he stopped like going after it and just like beating people up well floyd figured it out though he figured out how to maintain his career even with those hand injuries yeah you

know he he figured out how to get people more excited about talking about him, but be better defensively. If you go back and watch the Pretty Boy Floyd fights when he's Pretty Boy Floyd, he was just fucking people up. He wasn't getting hit like most people were because he was still really good defensively, but then you look how he got later in his career. He couldn't touch him. Yeah, he put the beats on a lot of people, man. Dude, he was the least hit boxer of all time if you if you really stop and think about it what other fighter that you can say in recent memory

who's fought top of the crop best fighters guys like canelo guys like ricky hatton when he was coming up like think about all the different people, Madonna, all the different killers that Floyd fought. He got hit so few. I felt like Madonna won the first fight, though. Really? It was close. And based on, like I was saying before,

about you sitting in the corner and me just wailing on you, I feel like that's got to count for something. I feel like it was like 200 or 250 plus more punches. Do you remember when Maidana hit him with that left hand? I think it was at the end of the one round, like fourth round or something like that. He made $1.5 million in total payouts. It says, according to Sports Grail, Tank was guaranteed a purse of $2 million.

Oh, I'm sorry. Tank was guaranteed a purse of $2 million, while his opponent got $500,000. Davis's pay-per-view share was 60%, which meant he walked away with $5 million, while Romero earned $1.5 million of total payouts. And that is the KO shot in that photo. Look at that fucking photo. I also heard it was the largest gate at the Barclays Center. Yeah.

Again, Radio Raheem said it was packed, and he said there was a lot of crazy violence, too. And he believes that people have said that gunshots were fired. Like, they try to deny that gunshots were fired. But he said there was a stampede and it was pretty wild. Sounds like people lost money. Something happened. It got a little crazy, but the fight itself was that he's emerging.

The fact that he can sell out that place and have such a stuffed crowd to see him fight. I want to know the pay-per-view numbers. I hope it was really good. I want to know my pay-per-view numbers. I hope it was really good. I want to know my pay-per-view numbers. I thought it was shit. Dana, what's the

pay-per-view? They don't tell you? They haven't told us yet. What? Jamie? This one's like 200k. Let me see at the bottom. That's what it says. It got 200,000 buys. I think it was estimated he gets 200,000. I don't know if it was an official. He gets 200,000? Yeah, that's a weird terminology.

Usually somewhere in the $200,000 range for A&B purchases. Right, but I think he's bigger now. I think there's something that was evident when you saw the sold-out Barclays Center, the way it was sold out. It was a big event. I think Gervonta is emerging as a superstar.

People are realizing this guy sleeps people. And he does it. That left hook that he had. Who's that? No, the uppercut. Who did he do that to? Oh, man.

It was sensational. And it was a competitive fight. It was a competitive fight against a dude who looked really tough. Like he could take it. And then he steps off to the left and fires that left uppercut. Woo! It's so pretty. So pretty.

Watch. He hits him with a right hand. Another right hand. Bang! I mean, come the fuck on. Is there a more pretty shot in all of boxing ever? And I'm out right there. Just walk off.

They're all amazing. Look at that. That's fucking spectacular. You could go back in history and think of so many amazing one-punch knockout fights, but that's as pretty as any of them. One more time, please. He hit him. That's as pretty as any of them.

And he just knew. Yeah. Watch this shit. Right hand. He throws it again. Boom. I mean, just walk off. Sensational.

So he's a superstar, and he's a guy who delivers, right? Romero was no joke, man. Romero was scary. I was watching him in his power early on. I was like, Jesus, this guy can crack. Super confident in his power, too. And he kind of had like an odd like sideways like almost like a marching in style i was just about to say that i didn't understand when he was like

almost like back jabbing yeah and i was kind of like i feel like the way he's mechanically throwing his punches versus the way gervonta was i just felt like and i picked romero to win i was like i feel like there's something about this guy but then when the fight started i was like why is he punching like that? I feel like he's going to get an expensive— Nasty left hook. Nasty left hook. But I just couldn't see how he was going to land that.

I don't think he's—I think it's a probe. I think, you know, like when he's doing that, I think he's kind of setting things up. Yeah. You know, I don't think he's like trying to like traditionally just throw a perfect jab out there. I think there's certain times when people do things where they're trying to set some things up. And so they'll almost backfist you. Yeah, that makes sense. And I figure he was probably worried about the speed of Davis.

Because it's almost like Mighty Mouse. He can hop around you and hit you in the blink of an eye and he's gone. And he's just literally like a magician magician so I almost felt like that with Dave is the size difference you have the power versus the speed and the power so it's like this guy hits you he's hitting you and he's the same way he cracked him and I'm out yeah like a like a thief in the night I robbed that motherfucker and I was out he hits him with that left hand and then ducks under to his right and steps away

and he's gone as he collapses so you gotta you gotta be cautious of that walking forward so I can see that but then that made me realize

like he's fighting Gervonta's fight Gervonta wants to play the counter fighter and if he counters him it's gonna be ugly yeah

but some guys they even though a guy's a really good counterfighter they feel like they could still put it on them like tiafimo lopez when he fought lomachenko he still put it on him even though lomachenko is like one of the greatest counterfeiter uh counter strikers ever yeah like lomachenko's spectacular his footwork but tiafimo presented so much danger he has so much much power. And he was big. It's a lot bigger than him, I feel like. A lot bigger than him, yeah. I mean, Lomachenko's really probably better suited to 30. And five

pounds at 30 is big. It's a big difference. And when you look at Teofimo, he's a big guy for that weight class, too. He's cutting some weight. He's cutting some weight to get down to that weight class. He just presented so much danger that even though Lomachenko would probably like to counter, it was too risky. You see that happen in fights sometimes.

Guys are just... Every Deontay Wilder fight, everyone's just so scared. Any moment, bang! He just drops the hammer on you. Yeah, and gets sent to the freaking gulags. He might not ever come back.

You see the memes with Anthony Joshua when he got sent? What's that? When he fought Andy Ruiz. Yes. And he got sent. And that's what we say. We say you got sent.

Okay. You get knocked out, he sent you. He sent your shit. But yeah, when he got sent, they showed him as a ghost. Oh, yeah. Leaving behind the gun. Who does those?

Someone does those. They're genius. One guy's Ray Rod, I think. Yes, I think it is Ray Rod. I think it is Ray Rod. I think you're correct. Yeah. He's also the one that put Thanos' glove on somebody.

It's hilarious. It's hilarious. Yeah. Whoever did Connors with Eddie Alvarez, that one was beautiful. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Dragon Ball Z. Yeah.

Like, ching, ching. I'm like, oh, my God. That's kind of what it was like. What a combination that was, huh? Yeah. When Connors beat Alvarez, what a combination that was. I feel like it was just a perfect stylistic matchup for him. Oh, yeah.

Oh, Tyron Woodley. Oh my God. Like, how do you make this? That's insane, bro. What's insane? I know, he's got a rumble, comes in and cleans it up. That's hilarious. Oh my God.

They're too good. The internet's undefeated. The internet is something special. You get to showcase your talents. Wasn't that a crazy fight? This one? Jake Paul knocked out Tyron Woodley. Yeah.

Did that surprise the shit out of you? Yeah, I didn't think by knockout. I was like, maybe Woodley takes this fight more serious. And I don't know if he- He didn't have enough time though. Yeah, I feel like he's all over the place. He didn't have enough time because he was supposed to fight Tommy Fury. Tommy Fury, something happened.

I think he got injured. And so then they called Tyron Woodley, but I don't think they gave him much time. No, it was a short notice fight. Very short notice. I know he got paid good for it, which is good for him at least, you know? No, it's good for him, but that's not...

Yeah, I don't know if I would want to... I know. Like, the trade-off. Like, if you put me in that position you give me the option to pick that like to make my money i don't know if i'm taking it well some hesitation clearly no one gets that choice i mean he didn't know yeah but if i knew like this was my faith what do you think about that because there's some people are really dumb and they think that people choose to get knocked out on purpose for money and And someone said, oh, he took a dive in that fight.

I go, I don't even think it's possible for you to get hit like that and not go unconscious. Like, you see the way he got hit? He got hit perfectly. And if you watch him face plant, if someone's going to go out, they're going to, like, break their fall a little bit. You know? That dude got knocked out for real for real now you work for that money if you go

face plant cold with without protecting your face if you can if there's trying to say you I'm not denying the idea that there would be someone out there that would let you knock them out for money there definitely is and there's definitely some guys that will take a dive like the ultimate fighter inside the house where he's like punch me bro oh my god that's so crazy it's like dude you just wasted one of your knockouts yeah that you had for your career how many you get how many can you really get it's different for everybody right but what is like a reasonable number of times you can get knocked out shit man i already got two well technically technically three from wrestling a shot to

my teammates hip um one of we were fighting for the same weight class and uh marco cara Shit, man, I already got two. Well, technically three from wrestling. A shot into my teammate's hip. We were fighting for the same weight class, and Marc Acara shot into his bony-ass hip. He was like 5'11". Bony hips, and I'm skinny too, so I shoot into his hips, and I knock myself out in overtime. And I lose the match because he takes me down, and I have no idea. And I wake up, and I'm like, okay, let's finish the match. I didn't get injury time, nothing.

I was like, oh, this is crazy. But yeah, so three times. But I don't know how many of those you can realistically get. I mean, we could look at the guys who have been knocked out consecutively and then seeing when a jab really makes their eyes roll back in the back of their head kind of thing. Yeah, that's when it gets scary. Yeah.

But how do you stop that from happening? Do you think that should be an individual's choice? Do you think that should be something that the coaches prepare a fighter for early in their career and they go, hey, we're going to coach you and we love you and we're going to take care of you. But there's going to come a time where I'm going to have to have a conversation with you and tell you something you don't want to hear, which is that your skills have eroded, your body seems to be failing you, and we're troubled that you might be showing some evidence of CTE, and we would want to stop your career right now. Yeah, see, that scares me, man. For this kind of conversation, I get more like... Anxiety?

Not even anxiety. Like I get more emotional about it because it hits home. I realistically have to think about that every day and I don't know, there's going to be the geniuses out there that say,

well, no one told you to do this. I'm like, yeah, but this is what we chose to do. Obviously, someone's going to do it and we enjoy it,

so. I think there's a gene and if you have a variant of this gene, it makes you more susceptible to CTE. Rhonda Patrick talked about it. I like her. I think it's, I might be fucking this gene, it makes you more susceptible to CTE. Rhonda Patrick talked about it. I like her.

I think it's, I might be fucking this up, but I think it's APOE4 or something like that. And that she said that people who, we'll find out, because I'm going to butcher this, but people that have this issue with their genes, if they have a specific gene, they're more likely to get severe brain damage, chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

That's it? What is it called? T-M-E-M. T-M-E-M-1-0-6-B. Boy, did I fuck that up totally? That's a lot of letters. Why did I think it was something so different than that? Scientists have zeroed in on our genetic code to better determine why some people develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy,

the Alzheimer's-like disease associated with repeated hits to the head. In a new study, researchers at Boston University's CTE Center said that a variant of the gene T-M-E-M-1-0-6-B may influence why some people experience more severe forms of the disease than others. So it seems like the variation says are 2.5 times more likely to develop dementia. That's a lot. So it seems like you get tested and find out if you have that. How's your grandparents? Unfortunately, they're not alive anymore.

Our grandparents? Yeah. Yeah, they're not alive anymore. Yeah? Yeah. But when they were, were conversations good? No, they never developed Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, one of my grandparents,

I only knew my grandparents on my mother's side, and one of my grandparents, she had a stroke when she was, oh God, I'm not sure how old she was, but they gave her 72 hours to live. And I was a kid and she lived for like 12 years. Wow. Yeah. She lived for a long time and it was a real struggle it was really rough and then my other grandfather took where her husband rather my grandfather took care of her and I stayed with them when I first

moved to New York when I moved first moved there from Boston in like 91 something like that and it was so sad, man. But it gave me an understanding that this could happen, this is what happens to people. Your body fails you and do what you wanna do with your life now. So for me as a guy who was at the time like 22, 23 years old I guess I was,

and I was staying with my parents because I was trying to make this move to do stand-up in New York. And I'm staying with them in Newark, and I'm watching these old people die in front of me. And as a guy who's just beginning his life away from his parents and just starting this career of trying to be a comic and then seeing these people whose life is on the last page of the last chapter and you love them and they've been with you since you were a child i remember fishing with my grandpa when i was five years old man just him like laughing and smiling with me and spending time with me and now here i am a man and i'm staying with him i see him fading and I see my grandmother barely hanging on.

And I remember thinking, you know, that this is just how human beings go and you have to get this in your head. And if you don't see it, you could live your life like you have all the time in the world, but you don't. You don't. Those days are coming for everybody.

So live it up, bitch. Yeah, that's beautifully put because i think um we only have one vessel we only have this one experience i'm not like a super like oh the crazy spiritual stuff and all that but yeah i don't say let me not say crazy let me not say crazy spiritual stuff but i'm not crazy into the spiritual stuff i should say but i do understand that time goes we never get that back and it is the most valuable thing I think you actually when you talk to max he was actually saying that like when he goes to the gym like his most valuable thing is his time like he comes in he

doesn't talk to nobody he's just super dialed in super focused and I think he's right like even now I'm having the trouble with that balance because so many people are pulling me in different directions and I almost feel I don't want to say obligated but I feel like because I miss so much when I'm in training camp and I'm never really around I almost feel like I'm like for myself I'm always making myself feel bad about not being able to hang out with everybody so i need to try to do everything when i do have the downtime to go see everybody because i look at it twofold it's like time memories not being able to make those the sacrifices to do what i love and also provide

an income for my life so it's like how do you balance that out um and i have to try to i battle with that because i don't know what's too much because i do feel like since this last fight man just imagine 13 months of a whirlwind and then after the fight you think life is going to slow down because that's what it always does after the fight but it just feels like now i'm getting more and naturally but now i'm getting more requests to want to do all these things or come out come hang out come do this come do that people I haven't heard from in so long and I'm just like time to change your number sir yeah it's uh yeah I feel like you get a second phone and these are people that I like you know but they're asking me to do this and

how much for this or can you come here and just do this? Not even paid. But it's just like some of the stuff is goodwill, but how much is too much? Yeah, you've got to have your own time. So you're going to have to figure out a way to filter that out. And say no. Yeah, well, you're going to get to a point where there's no way

you can say yes to everybody, and you're probably already long past that. Yeah. So the sheer amount of time that you need to dedicate to training and preparing for a fight. So, like, say if the UFC comes to you and says, okay, we have Aldo. It's going to be September, blah, blah, blah. Let's go. And you're like, okay, I got to dial in. And then all of a sudden everybody wants this from you and that from you and come here and do this.

And could you be on my that? And would you do this? And then you're like, fucking Christ. Yeah, no, it's a lot. my that and would you do this and then you're like fucking christ yeah no it's a lot but that's because you're the champ yeah well that's what i said naturally so i get it yeah but i think sometimes they might not realize the pressure that is on us so to speak for us to try to please everyone as best as we can because see what tyson fury does no he makes a message puts it out there. He says, I'm going into camp for the next four months.

And he starts talking about I was going to be off social media. I'm not going to be answering my phone. I'm going into hiding. And that's what I do. Yeah. And maybe that's what you need to do. To say, look, I'm training. This is it.

If you call me and I don't answer, don't take it personally. I'm not answering any phone calls. Yeah. So now here's my issue. My problem with doing that is that Tyson Fury, in terms of what he makes financially to support himself, I feel like if I were to do that, the position that I would be in in terms of self-promotion

or making money outside of fighting in terms of like sponsorship and things like that I was semi I need to be kind of like active and out there okay that's a different talk right I'm talking about people trying to get you to do things not give you money oh yeah but these people some of them trying to give you money some of them some of them oh some of them but some of those out yeah filter those out into the all of them category. Yeah. So it's a tough balance.

It is. But your time is so precious. If you think about the amount of required time that you need to prepare for a fight, just think about how many hours of every day. And this is, especially if you take into consideration recovery. Yeah. Right? Recovery stuff can take a long ass time.

Right? If you decide you're going to go to a place and do a sauna cold plunge and go back and forth, that shit, you killed an hour. You got an hour. The hour's gone. Okay, so that's the hour you're not training. You're just recovering. And then how many hours are you training?

Like, what are you doing? Do you run? Do you lift? Do you have strength and conditioning workouts? On top of your jiu-jitsu workouts, on top of your wrestling drilling, on top of your MMA sparring, hitting pads, doing rounds in the bag. Like, shit, man.

There's no time. And then you got to eat, and you got to fucking sleep. And you got to shower. Yeah. And you got to shower. Double time. Got to wash those nuts. How many times, or how many hours, rather, a night do you try to get in?

I still struggle with sleep, but I've gotten better where i'm sleeping before two and i'm now i sleep before one for the most part last night i went out i had to explore austin a little bit it's cool went to the bars it's so funny like everything was empty then slowly start to pick up and then slowly i'm taking more more and more pictures with more people and then this person is asking what do you do? I'm like, I'm such a nice guy. I don't have security. I'm just like, for me, I'm just a regular dude that just punches people for money.

And that's it. You know what I mean? So when I go out and people are like, one guy wanted a picture. He put his hand on my shoulder. It's always fascinating when I see this. The trembling is unreal. And I was like, yo, bro you're about this like push me over the melt just like as much as you're shaking on my back right now it's kind of crazy it's weird right it but I

get I get it cuz I'm like I don't see myself in that light but you probably it's probably the same thing I'm just freaking I'm just freaking being Joe right you're just being a person yeah so I think some people look at us in more of a different light, especially I can only imagine for you. Like for me, I'm just like, I'm your everyday Spider-Man. I'm just here to save the world, you know, one fight at a time. We're all just people.

It's just you don't get used to being around famous people until you're around famous people. And then after a while you realize, oh, they're just people. Yeah. But it takes a while. And some people, they're just like, dude's taking your picture i remember my ufc debut ufc 170 you call that one ronda rousey versus sarah mcmahon um dc versus pat cummings and i see all these guys as i'm walking on the campus i call it campus the campus of the mandalay bay and i see all these big wigs that I watch on TV all the time and I'm

like, stay calm, stay cool, stay cool. Don't look like a weirdo. Don't say anything weird. Like I would just do like a cool head nod. So. That's hilarious. And just walk by and I'm like, yo, don't be that guy who's overly like fanboying out kind of thing.

Like just be a regular person. And I'm like getting to watch some of these guys warm up and I get to see as a guy coming up making his debut I'm 8 and 0 at the time and to see how these guys are doing these veterans I got to even see like a better experience for myself in terms of what I'm doing and kind of gives me more reassurance of where I'm going and that I kind of have a good grasp on things at just that point in time where I was at in my career. When you do it now, when you're around famous people now, it just seems normal, right? Yeah.

Sometimes I'll see people, if I bring my friends out and they'll see somebody and they'll be like, yo, bro, what are you doing right now? And then I have to remind myself, oh yeah,, yeah, this is, like, their first time. So they're going through that learning curve. I'm like, yo, bro, just be chill, please. Yeah. But, yeah. Now it's just, yeah, just regular.

Why this guy puts his pants on the same way we do. Well, that's everybody. Yeah. Yeah. The only way we're ever going to learn from each other is to understand that we're all exactly the same thing, going through different lives. We're all just people, different amounts of energy, different personalities, but it's kind of the same essence at the heart of all people. Just they're going through different things. And if you had never been around a famous person, you're just like this person.

Just all of a sudden you're standing in front of Michael Jordan. You're like. It's like you don't know what to do yeah if i ran into him that would be really cool i'm sure you will like i don't like i ran into the rock when he when dc for john jones the second time and he was in the back and i got to meet him that for me was huge i'm like that dude's gigantic he's a he made me i'm like see this is where i say size and skill i'm like i don't know if my skill could do anything to this man this guy is probably made out of iron he's too big yeah there's certain guys that are just like they're too fucking big but yeah it was a cool experience like i didn't know how i was gonna like like act so i try to

like he's a nice guy like be cool like obviously i just won the fight so i'm on adrenaline high already and i see this guy i'm like, I got to get a picture with you. I was like, that might have been a little aggressive, but I'm sure he understands. How old are you now, Al Jermaine? 32. So you're, like, right in your peakity prime right now. When you think of professional athlete at, like, a championship level, that's right there. That's, like, the sweet spot.

Yeah. For a fighter, that's, like like where you're yeah the body of mine but i it sucks in the sense of i don't really know how much longer i want to do this like in the sense of i have the desire to want to do this but i don't know how much i wanted more i want to do this in regards to what we were talking about before, just post-career quality of life. Right, so you have to know when to pull the chute. Yeah, and it's like, well, what if it's just one loss? But then I can see how that one loss would be like, okay, that was just one.

Maybe he just got lucky. And then you do the second fight, and maybe you have another bad loss, and then you're like, okay, maybe that was just two bad fights, two bad nights. And then now you're going down this consecutive pattern. It's like, well, when do you know when to chill? And I don't know. And then we got that killer, of course, Marab Davosvili. So at some point, you know, I think I'm either going up or he'll try to go down.

It just depends on how soon everything happens. I mean, because if he beats one more contender, you know, he's next in line. Well, I certainly think that you can have a great career outside of MMA that you can set up now. Yeah. And I think that what we're talking about, about you doing podcasts

and just talk about whatever the fuck you want, like do your podcast about MMA, talk about whatever the fuck you want. And something like that could help, you know know if that can grow all you have to do it's not much different than anything else like we're already doing it you know how to do it just keep doing it and then people go oh I like the way he talks about shit I like the interesting subjects he covers just talk about whatever the fuck is interesting to

you yeah and you can develop something that just like shaab has done where when you leave your fighting career you have a full career you have like and they're connected and that helps they help each other yeah but see i guess where i'm at right now i have to be honest and go and this is my crazy side again taking over the way think, is how much is too much? How much is possibly a distraction and taken away from the main source of income, which right now, which I should be capitalizing on, is fighting and getting better. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. But if you have an hour to play video games, if you have an hour to fuck off,

you have an hour once a week that you could do a podcast. It's not a lot of time. You have 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week, and you just need one hour a week. Just sit down and do something one day a week. If you just commit, it's not that hard. I don't think it'll fuck you up because I think a certain amount of reflection and time off and stuff is actually good for your performance. So if you have this one hour thing that you do once a week where you just talk about shit, I don't think that's bad. If you were doing it every day, I would go, yeah, it's going to get in the way.

Because it's not really just one hour. It's one hour. You got to get there. You got to fucking do it. You shoot the shit and then you leave. Yeah. Yeah. And before I got Jake, I was shooting myself, editing myself, trying to do my own clip outs myself, and uploading everything myself.

This is during a training day. And then I'll go train twice that day. It's a lot of effort. And as a champion, particularly, because you're training for five round fights. Yeah. And that additional 10 minutes of work is a lot. That's a big gap, isn't it? People don't get that.

You're fighting for almost half an hour, bro. You have to be absolutely focused for almost half a fucking hour. And talking the one-minute break in between rounds. Talk about intense like I don't like most people who don't have the attention span to even like read a book you know I mean so to have that attention span to do that for a half an hour where the consequences of you not focusing are so detrimental to your health well-being and you being a highlight reel for the rest of your life it's uh it's a high-stakes sport man so you gotta read it's it's a lot more difficult than people

think and i it's it's tough it's just not easy well also you have to avoid being injured is there another combat sport that where people get injured as much as mma fighters when you factor in the wrestling the submissions and the striking all together, I feel like the opportunities to get injured for MMA fighters to pull out of fights, they're way more numerous than boxers. Don't you think more MMA fighters pull out of fights because of injuries than boxers?

Oh, yeah, 100%. But then we also, if you hurt your ribs and you're a grappler, that could be very, very crappy, and you might just go in there mainly because of the paycheck that you just need or um because they probably work another job or probably don't have any other income like which i've been in that situation twice before um or yeah because if you're a grappler that's going to affect you more so you probably be tough to do it but if you didn't have any of those woes and you just had that happen you're probably gonna pull out

like nah I'm not gonna fight an injury what's the point they say that Anderson when he fought Chael Sonnen had a fucked up rib oh yeah I did see that that's why he didn't

really struggle so hard to avoid the takedowns and try to fight off his back and then tapped him with a triangle ribs are not fun it's horrible

it's a shitty injury terrible injury did you see that that fucking dude in Bellator, Korshkov, who KO'd that guy with a spinning back kick to the ribs and broke seven of his ribs? I didn't know he broke that many ribs. It was a nasty kick, though. Oh, my God.

When you watch the impact of that and you see where it's hitting on the guy's body, you're like, holy shit. Because we know. Because I felt it. You felt it. You know what that feels like. Yeah.

The everyday person, I don't know if they know what that feels like in high speed. Like, that's a fucking. The impact when you see the slow motion photo, his foot is like four inches deep into the guy's rib cage. Yeah. It's just like oh yeah i wouldn't trade places with that guy yeah they had an x-ray of it all the all like things seven ribs are shattered and they had to screw them all back together again plates and stuff so he said see i don't like injuries like that man this is where it lands like right there boom yeah collapse yeah

Like right there. Boom. Yeah. Collapse. Yeah. And Chance is a really fucking tough guy too, man. For a guy to go like that, to go down like that, like you know he's in real bad shape.

Yeah. That guy is pretty damn good. Khrushchev? Yeah. But Ben Askren be him though. Ragdoll him. Ragdoll him. What does that say?

I still maintain that Ben Askren was prime time Ben Askren. him, though. Ragdoll him. Ragdoll him. What does that say? I still maintain that Ben Askren was primetime Ben Askren. Yes, 100%. Ben Askren, when he did the same thing to Douglas Lima, he manhandled him, too. Ben Askren, look at that. That's his ribs. Look how bad they are. He gets a lot of flack, but. Dude, Ben Askren, when he was the fucking Bellator champ, was the shit. He was ragdolling everybody.

Yeah, and his hip. Because he had surgery on his hip. Yeah. So before that, I think when he was like at that point, I think he would have beaten a lot of guys. And I think a lot of these other fights probably would be a lot different. I mean, the Masvidal knee, that's just perfect timing. Yeah. It was a great strategy, too.

Yeah. Like the way he circled off to the right and then charged at him. Almost like Ben's instinct would just be to try to take him down. He saw it coming. Imagine if he actually tried to sprawl instead, like, instinctually. Right. Right.

That fight goes maybe a completely different way. Right. Yeah. Oh, body kicks, man. Spinning back body kicks. Damn. What's that? Fucked up.

He was like grinding in pain from that. Yeah, well, that's the exact same spot. First of all, it's where the liver is and second of all, your ribs break.

That spot is a terrible spot. And it's the heel. The heel is like the hardest bone in the human body. Yeah, you stomp on rocks with that thing. Yeah, you throw that shit in someone's ribcage, spinning, the torque, the speed, it's not,

it doesn't feel good. Do you anticipate going up to 45? I do. And I think it just depends on the rest of the, like, how the next few fights go. If Max Holloway and Volkanovski fight, and then after that, you know, whoever wins that fight, would you think about that fight?

Like a super fight like that? That would be cool. You know what's crazy? That would be a great fight. I still can't even wrap my head around that I'm the UFC fucking champion. It's pretty crazy. Like, I knew it was possible. Right.

But actually being able to say that out loud, it's like. Is it even sweeter that you did it, but people were mad at you the way it went down? Yeah. And then you did it for real, for real. Yeah. Is it even sweeter? Oh, 100%. But I had more pressure on me because then it was like, oh, you were never the champ anyway.

Even though I did feel like I was a champ when I beat Sanhagen. We were the two best and highest ranked guys with the most high profile wins. For some reason, got leapfrogged for a title. For a guy that was coming off of a loss with Jose Aldo and Piotr Jan. Piotr. So those guys, he fought a guy that had just beaten and knocked out Uriah. I mean, it is what it is. That's history.

But I felt like the champ for a while and I felt like I just had a shitty defense. history but I felt like the champ for a while and I felt like I just had a shitty defense but in whatever happened in reality you know that was a shitty way to win the belt and the way I won it made things so much better like I didn't care about the win or the loss I really didn't I just wanted to have a good performance to remind everybody who I was what I'm capable of doing and to show people that that last fight was not that was a shell of myself and I still did as good as i did and for me i i pepped myself on the back because i'm like man most guys would have quit and be like this is too tough this is too hard i'm just gonna just just go home i could pack it in at any given moment when he hit me with some of those shots man those i feel like those would have put a lot of people down hands down came and picked my hands up because i'm so

exhausted and just three two crack me right down the pipe no head movement nothing i'm like dude i took my looks like a man he messed up gave me an opportunity to show that that was 100 correct what i was saying and uh got to really show who was who and he had more time to prepare for me i was on the sidelines you know right so way more satisfying to come back and do that and even the october fight where they want us to fight i should you not i came home from a sparring session with marab and uh i told my roommate steve and uh pumi at the time and uh i just tell him i think i'm gonna have to go out there and wing it again and they looked at me like what the are you talking about i'm like dude my conditioning's not getting any better you guys have seen the sparring i'm not ready to fight but i need the money one i needed the money um and two i felt like i couldn't pull out of the fight because of um just the standing of the way

everything was i felt like the ufc would have been really pissed i mean who wouldn't be obviously you but they i felt like they didn't ask me before they put me into that. I don't feel like I know they didn't ask me. Do you feel differently now that you're a champ? Like you wouldn't accept fights if you really don't think you should be fighting? Like now you wouldn't make that fucking I need the money decision? Yeah, 100%. And it's not like I'm bad with my money.

So just so people understand that. I live in New York. I bought a house in Vegas to save money on taxes. So that's my primary residence. So I try to spend more than half the year out there. And the other side of it is I don't spend a lot of money on other stuff. And I normally pay all my taxes like right away. I'm pretty good with that type of stuff.

So for me to say I'm having issues with money, like it's not issue. Let me not say issues. But now just being able to see where I'm at, especially after the last fight, I put myself back in the green where now I don't need to do that. Like I don't need to jump into a stupid fight just to prove that I'm tough or just to prove that I need to make a paycheck. Well, as a champion, I mean, what are the protocols? Like how do you get to decide who you fight next does the ufc tell you here are your options do you get to pick out of those options as far as i know from this very short title well actually it's pretty long title reign at this point

over a year oh you weren't really the champ. You weren't really the champ. I don't know if I really have options like that. I think they know who's the money fight. And you think that's Aldo? Who moves the needle. I don't know if it's Aldo that moves the needle. I know TJ definitely moves the needle. You can ask USADA.

Ta! Oh, no. We should end the podcast with that. That's hilarious. Oh no We should end the podcast with that That's hilarious And then Cejudo Cejudo So there's options Yeah

So you got a lot of options And how long for Sean O'Malley? Honestly If I'm being honest That guy's really fucking good He's fucking good And I like his honesty And the way he breaks down fights And analyzes it kind of reminds me of myself,

except he's a little bit more brash about it. It's like, ah, Frankie was winning that entire fight with Cheeto until he won 13 minutes of the fight until he got caught with the front kick. Very accurate. Cheeto was losing that fight. And the way he breaks down all this stuff, he's a good analyst and honest about what he's looking at. His terminology may not always be the best to describe it, but he knows what he's a good analyst and honest about what he's looking at his terminology may not always be the best to describe it but he knows what he's talking about um good movement slick on the feet

and uh i think his feints are what really does him well especially having that that length and that range of this weight class i do think he might be a little weak though like i feel like if i grab that guy and put a body lock on that guy i probably break his ribs and get a body lock on that guy, I'd probably break his ribs and get a submission with a standing body lock. Literally crunches back like the Hulk, just gah, gah. How rude. How rude of you. I just think he's, something has to lack. You can't have the power, the speed, the height, and the leverage.

You can't have all those things. God did not bless you like that and to have a big, you know what I mean? Like something has to lack. So you feel like if someone is real long like that they're probably not as physically strong yeah right i feel like that was the case with sandhagen i feel like that was the difference like even yan i don't feel like he was overly strong but him being more compact i feel like he was more explosive than sandhagen i felt like he was um a little bit stronger in some of those positions as well.

Jan's style is very interesting to me because he's one of the rare guys that fights and moves forward with his hands like way up here. With four-ounce gloves. Yeah, way up here. I mean, he's very strong defensively too. You know, it's like by being that hyper-aggressive, a lot of times guys open up. But he doesn't open up that much. He stays in a pretty solid shell. That's why the second fight was so fun for me.

One part that did scare me, though, he did something different in that. It was out of the forefront. This is why I need to watch it and really break it down. That I've never seen him do when I was breaking down his fight footage to see where I would be best at. Normally he'll start the combination, he'll switch, he'll play with the hands a little bit, he'll do his feints, like a little subtle movement, and then he'll touch with either a jab or parry the hand, hit the jab, switch into a southpaw, hit the cross,

and come back with another southpaw, a cross from the southpaw position or a hook to catch it coming out. He started one of the combinations, from what I remember remember with an uppercut and then switch stances and i swear to you when he hit me with that it caught me so off guard i was just like abort abort abort and this is what i i turned my back to him and i kind of like run away a little bit i'm like yo bro i've never seen you do that you got to chill out you can't be you can't be changing what we've watched all fight camp you know what i mean so that's just how i am so I see different things and when he caught me with that so far and I was like oh that was a sneaky setup and great it landed a good shot I had to like really like get out of there and

reset the position um to make sure I was still in the driver's seat of that fight because that that was like for me the one scariest moment because I'm like he could have came with a head kick right behind that caught me off guard and, and I could have walked right into that. But that's why I kind of, like, tried to turn away from him. So if he did hit a head kick, it would have been, like, on my shoulder or something. You know what I mean? Just kind of get out of the way.

What if they came to you with a rematch? I don't want to fight him again. Not right now. Let me not say that. I don't want to fight him again right now. I had to think about this guy for almost 24 months. I would like to see a different face. I feel like we're married, you know?

It's like a sour relationship at this point. I bet that's how Max Holloway and Volkanovski feel about each other. Have to. And I think, what if Max wins this time? They're going to fight again. That's just insane. It's going to be like a Turo Gatti and Mickey Ward, right? I feel like if Max wins and it's definitive, I think Dana moves going to have to. It's going to be like a Turo Gatti and Mickey Ward, right? I feel like if Max wins

and it's definitive, I think Dana moves on to another fight. Really? That's what I think. Really? I feel, even if the fight with Jan and I was a no contest, I feel like he would have moved on to another fight. And wouldn't have even given me a chance to redeem the title shot. I feel like he kind of has his

layout, what they do in the war room, where they want fights to go, who they kind of expect to win. And if it does go that way, they're like, okay, this will go here. And they're kind of moving around like chess pieces to kind of see which way they could build the best storyline or make the most money kind of thing, which is smart. Isn't that also just dependent upon results inside the octagon? No, of course. That's how you're marketable. You're only marketable based on what you've done.

Yeah. But I think they have an idea of what this person might do like i i talked to the matchmakers and you can hear like the way that they analyze the fights and they they'll kind of rate a fighter based on like what they think like from their perspective they see like a fazeev and this is i'm just making this up but they see a fazeev and they go like oh that guy's a fucking killer like that guy's so good like they they have like they're predeterm a season, they go like, oh, that guy's a fucking killer. Like, that guy's so good. Like, they have, like, they're predetermined, like, what they could potentially do. And they kind of have an idea of, like, who they're going to match them up with, who can sell because of their style, their performance. And I think they have to kind of, like, they have an opinion, so to speak.

But the fights and the results are how the fight. Like, who would have thought Carla Esparza 2 and Rose Namajunas would have looked like that? You know what I mean? No one. It's crazy. Like, you just never know but that's the best example ever of you never know yeah it's crazy I thought that was gonna be a wild scrap I did too Carla beat her in the first fight Carla has shown much improved skills in submissions and takedowns and stand-up, everything. You know, Rose is the queen. You know, Rose dominates Joanna. Rose beats Zhang Weili with a head kick.

Like, come the fuck on, man. Yeah. And then beats her again in the rematch. Like, come on. That fight should be chaos. Yeah. Nope. Nope. Nope, for whatever reason.

That was... I mean, but that's, fighting is crazy. You know what's sad about that? Both of them think that they won. Do they really? Yeah. How can they think that? And that's what I said.

I was like, but you both didn't really do anything. I mean, who can say who won that fight? Yeah. I don't even, I would, if you were a judge, you should have a shrug option. You know, you should have like, just in case, they brought out the shrug because, like, it's so crazy. Like, you decide. I'm not even going to decide. No one can tell you who won that fight.

So who gets the belt? Who keeps the belt? They kill the division. We're killing the division. You're going to have to fight at 125 now, ladies. Actually, I know you talked about this before. Belt changing hands with DQs. Yes. Yeah. I know you talked about that before. Belt changing hands with DQs. Yes.

Yeah. I know you talked about that. I don't think it should. I think you definitely should have won that fight, and I think you should have gotten your win bonus, and I think— I got a flat fee, by the way. Do you? For title challenger, I got a flat fee.

At least that was written in the contract before the fight. That's nice. I just think that should be the case with all fights don't you think yeah who I mean who are you really fighting harder to get you know I'm saying like you're fighting it's the hardest fucking thing in the world I want to win you want to win you're not going to fight less hard if you you know don't think that there's a bonus like you want to win and your pay goes up yes so why would you not want I don't like that because it's your subject to win? I don't like that. Because this is why I don't like it. I don't think it's an effective

motivation or incentive. And two, I don't trust the judges. Not all judges. Some judges are great. Let me clarify. Some judges do a fantastic job and I agree with them 99% of the time. That's all you can ask for. But occasionally, some of them are so egregiously

wrong. 30-27 one way, 30-27 the other way. It doesn't make any sense. time that's all you can ask for but occasionally some of them are so egregiously wrong 30 27 one way 30 27 the other way like how any sense and and the people boo when they hear the decision like what the fuck occasionally and now if that costs you half your money because someone didn't do a good job or a couple people suck at their job yeah that's dumb that doesn't make any sense i always before i would break down my financial earnings and what i would have to like estimate it to pay and see what i would be left over with before each fight and i would do two sides one if i won and um the other devil's advocate if i lost like okay this is what i would have and yeah kind of help me budget in that sense but it's like and so if it's like no one if no one gets the belt, then what happens with the belt?

Do we both fight for a vacant belt? Then no one gets championship pay. They fight again for free. Everybody gets their money back. I don't know what does happen. I don't know what the right thing is. Well, the real question is, like, who does Carla fight now? You know, what would really be interesting is a rematch with Yoni on J-Check.

Oh, yeah. Because that first fight, when Yona beat her, I mean, that was a brutal fight. But can you throw her back into that after that last one with Wei Li? I think that was the last time she fought. Well. I think. Aren't they fighting again? Yeah, they are fighting again.

Yeah, Ioana and Wei Li are fighting next. That's going to be a good fight. Well, I was saying if Carla were to fight Ioana again, I feel like that would have been tough to kind of just throw her in there after that. After not being active and her last fight was a loss. I think it was a loss. I'm not sure if she fought somebody else. Ioana's fight?

Yeah. I think she lost to Weili and then that was it. She lost by decision. And I thought she won that fight. I thought she won that fight too. But it was super, super close. So that's June 11th. That's a great fight. It's a great fight. Is that the Singapore card? Yeah, that's. So that's June 11th. That's a great fight.

It's a great fight. Is that the Singapore card? Yeah, that's Singapore. That's the Singapore card. Oh, that's a fantastic card. That card is amazing. That card, that's Glover and Yuri Prohaska, too. I don't know why I just did that high-pitched voice.

That's crazy. That's amazing. Yuri Prohaska is fucking interesting, man. He's interesting. He's a wild card. Such a wild card. There's no backward steps. He just comes at you with this wild ass karate style.

Did you see the clip of him yelling in the wilderness or somewhere? I was like, what the hell is going on in this world? He wraps a towel around a tree and punches trees and shit out there. He's like the 205 Tony Ferguson. Yes. Yes. Yes. With crazier hair.

Yeah. But, you know, his fight against like Dominic Reyes is a perfect example of that. He just waited right into the fire against one of the most athletic strikers in the division and eventually KO'd him. Yeah. I felt bad for Dom. I like Dom. I like Dom a lot, too. And Dom, arguably, a lot of people thought

that he should have got the decision over Jon Jones in that fight. Right? Remember that? I mean, Jon had two fights like that, with Gustafsson, the first one, and the Dom Reyes fight, where I really, when I first watched the Gustafsson fight in real time, like when I was watching it live, not in person, but live first watched the Gustafson fight in real time like when I was watching it live not in person but live I thought Gustafson won and when he got decision obviously

that's a friend of mine so I was happy he won I was like oh shit it's close fight but glad he got the win um but that was a fight I actually thought he had lost and uh the Dominic Reyes fight every time I watch it with my roommates we like we talk about the fights and we like we go who won that fight they always say down I'm like yo I don't know man we talk about the fights, and we go, who won that fight? They always say Dom. I'm like, yo, I don't know, man. We watch the fight. We try to score each round.

And I go, nah, Jon Jones won that round. But then I'm like, I don't really know. I feel like you can – the argument is there that Dom won that fight. It could, you know – In a close fight. Look, with different judges, it could have easily gone that way. Yes. It was one of those fights.

But that's interesting about John's career is because when he's challenged, that's when he's at his very best. He's good, man. When John's challenged. But one of the things that happens with John, I think, is some fights aren't as big a fight. It's not as—Tiago Santos. So don't train as hard. Maybe. Yeah.

I mean, it's hard to tell because, like, when he shows up for DC, he's fantastic. Yeah. You know, when he shows up for certain guys when they're really dangerous. I think it's that competitor's edge when someone's talking shit,

you almost want to rise to the occasion even more to kind of shut them up. I feel like John has that ego in him where it's just like, I have that extra competitive edge where I want to win and shut you up so bad that this fight I'm going to look like a motherfucker. Yeah. And yeah, that's what he did.

I'm interested to see what happens at heavyweight. The Steve Bae fight is going to be good if they make that. Is that actually happening? I don't know if it's actually happening, but if they make that, I can't see why they wouldn't. The other fight is in Ghana. Yeah, but he's out. For how long, though? ACL surgery, I think it was.

I think he tore a couple things. He's a couple months out of surgery, right? But then training camp, you got to recover, get the stuff. John Jones versus Stipe makes sense for UFC fight this summer, says Dana, and that's in April 27th. Yeah. Or April 17th, rather. Yeah.

Who knows? I would rather watch that. Well, Al Jermaine, let's wrap 27th. Yeah. Or April 17th, rather. Yeah. Who knows? I would rather watch that. Well, Al Jermaine, let's wrap this up. Congratulations. Thank you. It's beautiful to see you succeed after that 13 months of people talking shit about you. You win in the end. They can all suck it.

The troll master. It means nothing now. Every mean word means fucking nothing. You won. And best of luck to you in everything. And tell everybody how to get a hold of you on social media, what your accounts are. All my accounts are Funkmaster MMA, Instagram, the tweeter.

I talk a lot of shit on the tweeter. TikTok, I'm on that now. YouTube, Funkmaster MMA. So check out all the vlogs. Behind the scenes, we've been doing a ton of stuff. So the fans, especially the weight cutting stuff, the fans seem to love all that science and crazy shit. I hate it because I'm dying.

It's horrible because you're dying, but it is kind of fascinating when you realize how a guy, like people say, oh, he's the 135-pound champion. I go, nope. Yeah, he's 135 pounds for about four minutes. Yeah, that's it. All right. Well, thank you, brother.

Appreciate you. Good to see you. Good luck in the next fight, thank you, brother. Appreciate you. Good to see you. Thank you, brother. Good luck in the next fight. And bye, everybody.