The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #127 with Mikey Musumeci

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

Joe sits down with Mikey Musumeci, a five-time world champion Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt currently signed to ONE Championship. https://www.onefc.com/athletes/mikey-musumeci/

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. We're up. Well, what a journey, Mikey. We were supposed to be doing this. First of all, thank you to Red Band for saving the day. If it wasn't for you. Once again.

Yeah, you saved the day with Kanye again Yeah you saved a day with Kanye And you saved a day with Mikey Musumechi So Jamie got the cooties Ladies and gentlemen again For the second time He looks great he doesn't seem like he's that sick So we're stuffing him full of IV vitamins Out there

So you've had COVID how many times? I think two or three times now Did you get tested? I got tested two of them so for for sure two, but I think I had it three. The third time you think you had it? Yeah. Delta was the worst one though. Did you get it bad? I could barely walk from Delta. Like my lungs and like a good month of like dying. Really? Yeah. Wow. But you were probably training the whole time, weren't you? I was training during the Omicron one, but the Delta one, my muscles, I couldn't lift my arms and legs. It got really bad. Wow. That's crazy because you're in really good shape and you're young.

Yeah, I run six miles every morning and I could barely walk a mile when I had it. Wow. So it got you hard. It really messed me up. Do you think you were getting it and then you kept working out and it got worse was it one of those deals i think so but i think the residual effects of it from after being sick or what messed me up like with the muscles felt like my body was like decomposing wow yeah how long did it take for you like fully got over it a few months like completely like where my body didn't feel messed

up so did you take any medication while you had it were you on anything no just just your immune system yeah just drinking a lot of water a lot of sauna yeah and like just dealing with it yeah yeah there's that's not the best strategyamins are very important to deal with it, but if you can get access to monoclonal antibodies, that's really the best way to handle it. Yeah, because I had the vaccine three times, and I still got it really bad. Wow.

Yeah. Damn. It was so bad. It's a tricky disease. So anyway, Jamie, who has successfully avoided it for 21 months he got it and he he's had very strong antibodies this entire time but then we just got back from vegas for the ufc and we did a big show out there and uh he got the cooties yeah when i was in singapore i had to get tested like every week because i was going to indonesia a lot in malaysia so i knew i didn't have it at

least during that time. So what are you doing in Singapore? You're training in Singapore and living in Singapore? Yeah, so the last four months I've been living in Singapore. I moved there to train at Evolve, which is the coolest gym I've ever been in my life. It's huge and the facility is amazing. And I moved there

because I wanted to train and see Chatri, the owner of One Championship. I met him one time and he was the most amazing person I've met. He's a true martial artist. He loves Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai

and what he stands for with martial arts. It really moved me and it was um i moved to singapore changed continents and i've been living there the last four years for four years no four months sorry oh okay for four months yeah so for four months like how do you live out there like what are you doing so i'm training every day there and i'm just experiencing the asian culture you know I love learning about cultures and I'm learning Indonesian also are you really yeah is that the language they speak in Singapore they speak Malay but Indonesia

is right there also so second I could bella job as Indonesia how good well so you speak Portuguese yes right fluent Yeah fluent I taught myself Portuguese How'd you do that? So I was around Brazilians my whole life So I just used Google Translate For so many years that I learned Portuguese that way No one ever taught me No way

Really? Just using Google Translate That's insane And then Brazilians always correcting me when I made mistakes Wow That's insane. And then Brazilians always correcting me when I made mistakes. Wow. That's nuts. So I even know like the slangs of the different parts of Brazil because I would just talk in Portuguese on my phone like all day with Brazilians.

I've never even heard of someone like learning from Google Translate. How much time did you spend on Google Translate? Lots of hours. That's insanity yeah because you just over time just keep using it you start seeing the words and you start remembering the words did you train much in brazil no i've only uh i learned portuguese completely out of brazil wow and so just talking to braz. Every day. Words you didn't know or understand going through Google Translate. 100%. Wow. But what about like the grammar and how things are structured? Did you speak Spanish at all before?

No, I just over time, I just kept learning it more and more and more. Wow. It was like just a long process. Well, you started training when you were four, right? So 21 years. I'm 25 now. Yeah. So 21 years of being around Brazilians.

Yeah. How long did it take before you actually could speak Portuguese? Like fluent, like to this level or just like, I knew some words as a kid, you know, and then I would for fun try to pretend I was Brazilian at like tournaments, tournaments like with the refs it would help if you're brazilian with the refs right so i would go in as an undercover spy and i would go up to the refs say something in portuguese i didn't know any words and the ref would think i'm brazilian so i'd finish the tournament and then the ref would come up and talk to me i wouldn't know what he's saying and then he would look at me with betrayal and then you eventually learned how to talk yeah so now you talk to the ref would come up and talk to me. I wouldn't know what he's saying. And then he would look at me with betrayal. And then you eventually learned how to talk.

Yeah. So now you talk to the refs in Portuguese. Yeah. Now I talk to everyone in Portuguese, you know. Can you read it too? Read, write, speak. Wow. No formal training. No formal training.

That's very impressive. It's just I love learning languages and cultures, you know. So for me, Jiu-Jitsu came, the Jiu-Jitsu I do came from Brazil. So the Brazilian culture is so big in Jiu-Jitsu. So I really wanted to learn Portuguese. And even to communicate with all the Brazilians, it's so interesting. It is interesting. It's a beautiful language, the way it sounds.

Yeah. It's like a poetic, flowing language. It's more emotional. Like I feel like in Portuguese, I'm almost a different person than in sounds. Yeah. It's like a poetic, flowing language. It's more emotional. Like, I feel like in Portuguese, I'm almost a different person than in English. Ah. Like, it's all feeling based, you know? I'm more like confrontational in Portuguese. I'm a whole different personality.

It's weird. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. Do you know any other languages? Right now, I'm learning Indonesian. That's it? Yeah, I'm getting better with that. Spanish is so similar to Portuguese that I can understand it and read it.

Do you learn Indonesian from just the same way you learn Portuguese from just like Google Translate? Actually, you can't because Indonesian has a formal and informal, and nobody talks in formal. But Google Translate's only formal for Indonesian. So I have to learn it from friends, and I'm just learning it like that. So the process of you going over to Singapore. So you meet Chhatri, and then you just decide to go to Singapore? Just decide. And just decide to move there?

Yep. It was, so my whole life I lived very close to my parents, you know, and 25 years. And then I leave and just change continents, you know. Again, with Chatri's vision with martial arts. And I saw like the future of jiu-jitsu when I was talking to him. And it was something I wanted to be a part of, you know, so I got my stuff, my four shorty roll shirts and like two geese and moved to Singapore. That's it? Yeah.

So did they get an apartment for you or something? Yeah, I have an apartment there right now. I'm staying in a hotel. But yeah, I'm spending time here in Vegas still and there, you know. And so are you planning on making this a long-term thing? Yes. Yeah, really? Wow.

You know, because what one championship is doing, now they're getting into jiu-jitsu, which is so interesting. They're going to have belts and divisions. I actually have my – I'm fighting for the belt in one championship September 30th and it's going to be on Amazon Prime in the US because now they're getting into the US. Oh, interesting. Yeah, and what's really cool about them is how they're spreading martial arts

all over with kickboxing, Muay Thai, MMA, and Jiu Jitsu on the same card. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. So fans will learn about all the martial arts. I could watch Muay Thai and kickboxing as well as jiu-jitsu. Yeah. So the viewership for it just increases so much.

Well, it's also interesting, right? Because they're showing all the different styles. By showing grappling only and striking only, you get to see the purest version of each individual style. Yeah, and they could appreciate it, right? Yeah, and they're getting guys in there like Nikki Holtskin, world-class kickboxers, and Giorgio Petrosian, and all these elite fighters.

And to have the elite strikers, and then guys like you, and I know they signed Gordon Ryan and Gary Tonin. So there's the Rotolo brothers. So there's all these elite grapplers as well. And then they're putting on these amazing shows. Very interesting. I love the fact they're doing that. I love the fact that by doing that,

they've really separated themselves from all these other organizations as well. Yeah, it's incredible. And again, the exposure, it's giving jiu-jitsu which is growing so much um my last match with iminari was the most viewed match in jiu-jitsu history um it was over 25 million views wow so it just shows how their platform which is huge could help jiu-jitsu expand so much you know and that's why i want to be a part of it and the growth of jiu-jitsu we played that match on the show we were talking about your back take that back take you did was so slick is that a thing you do all the time that we did that so um it's just a move i've been working a lot and

the week of the tournament i was just doing it over and over and over and then when i went into the match like it was uh i was able to do it well it was very sweet I've seen a lot of backtakes but that was a slick one that was very slick you're known for being a guy who trains a ridiculous amount of hours a day yeah is has that always been the case with you yeah um well when I was in college like obviously my hours were limited with training. But since I've been out of college, I have so much more time now. So I'm just studying jiu-jitsu so many hours and drilling. So I heard you drill sometimes 12 hours a day.

Yeah, sometimes I'll end up drilling all day. If I'm studying a move or a position and I want to find an answer for it, sometimes it takes a long time. And the puzzle of it is what makes me so interested in jujitsu. Well, that's what's fascinating to me. It's one of the things that I really like to try to let people know about is that jujitsu in many people's minds that don't train jujitsu, about is that jujitsu in many people's minds that don't train jujitsu, they think of it as like a, we were talking about it before, like a brutish, very physical, aggressive thing, but it's not. It's super technical.

It's really intelligent. And people like yourself excel at it. People that become obsessed with it and just like really concentrate and focusing on the finer points of it and drilling until you have something just laser sharp. So I see jujitsu like a math problem. It's so reaction-based. So you do a position and your partner will give you a reaction to defend your position. So it's up to you to have an answer to the partner's reaction, right?

So every reaction they give, you have to have an answer. So it's their partner's reaction right so every reaction they give you have to have an answer so it's so literal like that you know and what i love about it it's the truth if you could do your position or not is based on that you know right so it's just so fascinating to me that and it never ends the reactions or the variables of the person's body the size of their limbs will alter the position, you know? Yeah. So always been so fascinating to me that, and it never stops. So it keeps my mind every second having to figure out new things. So when you're working a drill, like say if you're, you're drilling for 12 hours in a day, are you like, say there's a position

that maybe you got stuck in or a position where you, someone defended and you feel like there's a position that maybe you got stuck in or a position where someone defended and you feel like there's a way to get through that. What do you do? Do you set up where your opponent does minimal resistance? Do you set up for them to try to get out of something? How do you do it? So I'll have my partner giving me a lot of resistance, and I have to find the answer and i'll just keep observing what they're doing um typically what i'll do is i'll even do the reaction myself defending the move so i could see what is the strength of it and then once i find the strength of it i could figure out

how to stop it you know and just mechanically like um reverse engineering it. Yeah. So you back engineer the move. I saw the Mikey lock too. That's very interesting. That's a really interesting leg lock. I watched you demonstrate that and I was noticing there was a lot of people that were like legit black belts that were like, oh shit, like that really works. Like there's something to that. Yeah.

Using your neck instead of your armpit. Yeah. It's kind of wild. It's just so interesting how in jujitsu we could alter positions with our body you know and just instead like a heel hook so people understand is using your armpit so uh what i figured out was using my neck instead of my armpit which is also like a pit and then it's the same efficiency as a heel hook yeah and it really works yeah and you just invented that. Yeah, I was training and just figuring out different ways to control the foot to get

to a heel hook. And then people started tapping when I was doing this, and I didn't even know I had a submission. And then I was like, oh my God. And then that became a submission. Wow, that's pretty wild. Have you done that with other moves? That's typically how it happens.

I'll be training, and then I'll subconsciously do something, a movement, and then I'll be like, what just happened? And then we'll break down what I did, and then we'll discover positions. You know, it's creativity. Jiu-jitsu is an art, right? Yeah. So there's a form of creativity to it and discovering things in the art it really is an art and it's an art that is very much appreciated by people who practice the art and it's kind of hard for people who don't practice the art to appreciate it because they don't understand it

when i first started doing commentary for the ufc one of the biggest challenges was explaining jujitsu in a digestible way. Like when the fight would go to the ground, a lot of times people would boo or they didn't know what was going on. And so it was my job to try to explain the progression. And like, okay, now he's got to clear the right arm. Now he's in trouble. And then I would like talk people through right up into the submission, right up into the person taps.

So they would go, oh, I see. So it made jiu-jitsu more digestible to them and more exciting because instead of just seeing a bunch of legs and arms all tangled up, they got to see what the person was trying to accomplish. Yeah, like even my friends that started jiu-jitsu, they all start, they're like, oh, I want to do UFC or MMA. And then they go to the gym and they look at the jiu-jitsu, they all start. They're like, oh, I want to do UFC or MMA. And then they go to the gym and they look at the jiu-jitsu stuff. They're like, no.

And they'll do Muay Thai, right? And then they'll just keep seeing the jiu-jitsu class. And then one day they'll try jiu-jitsu one time. And then they switch to just jiu-jitsu, no Muay Thai. Yeah, well, it protects you from brain damage too. The thing about the problem with Muay Thai and all those other things. So much impact. It's a lot of impact.

Even if you're just sparring light, you're still getting touched. You're still getting thumped in the head. Yeah. Do you have any desire at all to ever fight MMA? So I did Muay Thai for seven years as a kid. Yeah. So I love Muay Thai. I think it's awesome.

And I'm in Evolve right now, which like the best Muay Thai program in the world so I'm interested in it you know and maybe in the future if I keep learning but again brain damage sucks but if I could take minimal damage I don't know but the problem is like can you?

is it possible to take minimal think about running into someone who's as good at striking as you are at Jiu Jitsu so you're going to take a lot of damage yeah but you know what I'm saying Think about running into someone who's as good at striking as you are at jiu-jitsu. So you're going to take a lot of damage. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Think about how much you can control people. I first saw you in Who's Number One. Who was the bald guy?

Marcelo Cohen. That's right, Marcelo Cohen. And I made a bet, and I bet on you. It was me and Lex Friedman. Lex Friedman bet on Marcelo, I bet on you. And I won. Ha ha, Lex. But when I was watching your technique, I was like, this guy is super advanced.

This is really interesting. Thank you. And you were setting him up the entire time. There was so many times it was almost like you were allowing him to put you back in half guard and moving back to mount. I'm like, he is like setting up something very specific. And then when you had the opportunity for the triangle, you took it. Yeah.

I'm always baiting my partner to give me certain reactions so I can do the move, you know? Right. And that's what's so beautiful about Jiu-Jitsu, how we could set things up and bait them to give us something. Yeah. You know? The problem with you going into MMA is like you could find someone who's like that, but with striking. Yeah.

Like Stylebender. Like someone who's like that. Of course. Who's like setting you up. And then, you know. But just learning a new skill is so awesome. And that's what I love learning, you know. Oh, it's probably, it's great for everything.

Learning, I mean, just learning a new martial just in turn in terms of just learning new moves it's just great for like understanding different ways that your body can move and be effective yeah totally so your concentration now right now is just on jujitsu and because of one fc and who's number one and there's there's quite a few professional mma juj opportunities now, which is kind of cool. It didn't really exist before. Yeah, that's what's so amazing about jiu-jitsu. The generation before us, they didn't have these opportunities, so they had to go to MMA. Yes.

Now there's professional jiu-jitsu, and it's getting so much exposure that you could be a professional athlete just doing jiu-jitsu. Yeah. so much exposure that you could be a professional athlete just doing jiu-jitsu. Yeah. And then there's, of course, things like BJJ Fanatics where you put out videos and people sell them. And Gordon, from that and seminars, he's making a couple million dollars a year. No, it's amazing. It's crazy.

Yeah. It's like you'd be crazy to do anything else but that. Yeah. And now that one is like putting it on television and in Asia, it's gigantic, right? Yeah, I was going to go to law school two years ago at a full scholarship to law school in Las Vegas and From jiu-jitsu and making the money I'm making it was more beneficial to stay in jiu-jitsu and I become a lawyer, you know So it just shows how like jiu-jitsu is so great now and how you could do it as a career. Also, it's more fun.

Oh, so much more fun. Being a fucking lawyer. No. My sister's a lawyer. Is she? Yeah. Is she Tammy? Yeah, Tammy.

Is she enjoying it? Yeah, she likes it. She trains. Your sister's really good too. Yeah. She beat me up my whole life. She's really good at Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah.

I'll never be able to get her back for the amount of time she's tapped me. My whole life she's smashed me. So she trains every night after working as a lawyer. Wow. She'll work from like 6 a.m. to like 7 at night, and then she'll train at night. Wow. Yeah. That's a lot of energy.

Yeah, but it's her passion. She does jujitsu is great for everyone to do. No, I agree. But if you went into law school or if you went and became a lawyer, like that would really suck. Yeah. We need you out there. No. Yeah. I have to stay in jujitsu. Yeah. You're a fun guy to watch, man. You're very interesting. And it's interesting to see what you can do with your body. When we were outside and you were like on your heels, just do that on the chair. On the chair. Just so people can see how ridiculous this is. Like here.

Like that is crazy that your legs. The people that don't know, Mikey is sitting. His butt is totally on the ground. And then his heels are totally on the ground, and his heels are beside his legs. So it doesn't even look physically pot. I tried to get even close to that position. My legs, there's no room for that movement in my legs. They're not going to go like that.

Yeah, I think because I've been training jiu-jitsu 21 years, my body could just bend in certain ways that, like, it's so natural for my body. Yeah. Well, for sure, it's a weird – that's a weird amount of movement that you can do. That has to have come from – I mean, you don't even probably remember your first classes, do you? No, I was too young to remember. So you've always been doing jiu-jitsu, like as far as your memory goes back? Yeah, 100% my whole life. Yeah, that's all I know.

So your body has developed and matured while learning jiu-jitsu. Yeah, so that's why I feel like I'm so bendy and like it's made for jiu-jitsu from all the years, you know. You had surgery fairly recently i just had my appendix removed oh jesus yeah it's out of nowhere i was training normal you know i was doing everything normal and then all of a sudden i had this sharp pain and i thought i had a stomach virus you know i was in so much pain and then i was actually with shatri and shatri is like no that's not a stomach virus that's your appendix because it was like one spot so we go to the hospital and they said if i went a few hours later i could have died like it was pretty intense so it burst apparently yeah like i had to have immediate surgery so

so i'm recovering from that now do they speak english there yeah singapore they speak english so it's an english-speaking country so mostly speak english and then occasionally you hear people speak other languages yeah like malay and mandarin mandarin is mandarin like the third most popular well is english most popular english is most popular like that's the working language of singapore so that makes it pretty easy yeah so it definitely makes it easier for me uh but yeah speak Mandarin there because a lot of Chinese people move there from China and Malaysia is right there too so how long do you think you're gonna stay there I think I'll spend a lot of time there and Vegas still to see my family you know just

back and forth but why do like why there just because it's new and unique and this opportunity to be around be around Chaudry? Really? Yeah, to be around Chaudry and learn from him. We train like three times a week together. Oh, wow. Yeah, he trains so much and he's so awesome. He just loves learning martial arts.

So I get to spend time with him and learn from him and just experience a new culture. It's so amazing. I'm eating all the food in Asia too. And what is the caliber of training partners over there? The training in Asia is actually really high level. In Vegas where I train, I just train with hobbyists in my garage. The last five years or six years I've been doing that. You train with hobbyists hobbyist only so meaning just people that are friends just people that do jujitsu as like fun for like for

like they get out of work and they train for fun so you haven't been going to a formal school um i would represent big teams but 100 of my training would just be with hobbyists because I like their energy better than competitors. Really? So if you train with a competitor, they have the vibe of like a 9 to 5 job. When I train with a hobbyist, they actually want to be there because they're having fun. So how I train, I train more like a hobbyist, like my energy. So I prefer being in an environment like that. So I surround myself

with mostly hobbyists wow what i would imagine there's some sort of negative to that in that you're not you're not being pressured by elite grapplers but the way that i train, I'm more just teaching everyone around me to give me certain reactions that I need to work on. So I'm more observing. So if I'm doing a position and I feel like something stops it, I'll teach everyone I train with how to stop what I'm doing. And then I have to figure out how to solve it again and again and again. So you basically just piece that all together once you actually get into a match. Yep. So it's like you're creating like building blocks while you're training.

Yeah, and I control all the different variables and I just add different things in. Wow. So no major gym where you go there and that's incredible. So you could easily recreate that in Singapore. I could train anywhere. Yeah, exactly. The training in Singapore is the same level as if not higher than my training in Vegas. So it's sufficient.

When did you start doing it that way? When did you go to just basically training on your own with hobbyists? So basically since I was like 15, 16 years old, I lived in Florida. Like I moved there when I was like 10, 11 from New Jersey. Where did you start training Jiu-Jitsu? What was the place you started at? A gym called Faggio's Martial Arts under Fernando Cabeza in New Jersey. And I trained there for six, seven years.

And then I moved to Florida. And in Florida, I trained at American Top Team. So I was with a lot of Carlson Gracie, Black Belt, and many people like that. But basically, it was me and my sister. We would drill for hours on our own. And we would just focus on our own training you know like I've basically been my coach since I'm like 15 years old that is crazy and what we would do is I would go to high school and before high school I'd wake up like 4 30 a.m 5 a.m drill

my sister in my garage and then I would go to high school and then right after school I would go train again and when you would train again then you would go to other gyms and just train with the people at the gyms yeah and then when did you decide to start training in your garage um well I've always had mats in my garage to train with my sister right so it helps so much having a sibling that also trained you know sure so my sister Tammyumichi, we would just train every day together, just drilling for hours. And then, but this decision to train primarily in your garage, even though you have access to all these gyms, and Vegas has a lot of jujitsu.

Yeah. So I train at a lot of local gyms in Vegas with friends that also train in my garage, a gym called FTCC and Methods Jujitsu. So all these people trained in my garage also uh local people but um we just started doing it um especially during covid time but uh every night i train in my garage in vegas and a bunch of black belts and uh friends that i built up the last five to six years come to my garage do you think there's any benefit at all for you to be coached by someone else as well like if you found like if you came here and trained with john

donahue or something like that um so i definitely get support from people you know um like heath pedigo is a good friend of mine and he gives me like a lot of mental support and stuff but um that's from dave yeah uh but basically i i just know know the biggest thing I learned in jiu-jitsu is learning how you learn and learning how you succeed. And I feel like every Black Belt World Champion is a little different, how they do well. Some need a structured format by an instructor. Other people do better in other environments. For me, I feel like I do the best in this style of learning. I'm just more efficient with how I train.

So do you think it's that because you've been doing jiu-jitsu since you're four years old, you have such a deep understanding of what it takes to get good and what you need to do, of what it takes to get good and what you need to do, what steps you need to take to improve, that you really don't need anybody formulating things for you or creating structure. You could do it all yourself? Basically, you know, I feel like I'm at the point now where I could just focus on that and organize everything

and obsess about all the things on my own, you know. And you're just self-motivated as well yeah i'm well this is my passion you know i really love jiu-jitsu uh so when i'm training it's my favorite thing in the world and you supplement your jiu-jitsu training you were talking we were talking about cardio earlier you do a lot of airdyne bike stuff a lot of airdyne and running um long distance cardio i feel like it helps me a lot mentally for competition. So I train a lot with like the hobbyists and I'll do a lot of cardio. And that's pretty much it. How does it, how does the long distance cardio help you mentally?

So what's interesting about running and airdyne, what I've noticed is the first 10 to 15 minutes, you have that voice in your head. That's like you're tired. Stop. Like it fights you. And you fighting that voice in your head after 15 minutes, it gets quiet like it goes away. So when you compete, that voice in your head is always there. So it gives you the skill of being able to shut it off when you're fighting or competing because it's Jiu Jitsu. Right. And so like when you run, are you running and having specific things on your mind? Like, are you trying to think about matches and think

about competition or are you just trying to breathe and keep moving? So I think the biggest thing about Jiujitsu is control, being able to control your opponent, but also yourself. So I feel like mastery of controlling yourself is what I'm trying to do with running and master your thoughts, master all the different variables that I have to deal with when I compete. So I channel that when I'm running,

like as if I was competing. And do you incorporate any weightlifting or anything else? Calisthenics? Nothing? No, because I lifted weights a little bit when I was a kid but as I got old and I got to black belt, I stopped doing that because all the people I'm fighting are

so strong and I didn't want to have to rely on strength with them or to overpower them. I wanted to make my jiu-jitsu where if i don't it doesn't matter the strength it matters your body positioning right and do you play i mean you you've moved around weight classes too right yeah like what do you wait what are you competing at now right now i'm competing at 135 um i fight 125 in the US because you're allowed to cut water. But in the one championship, they test for hydration. So it's actually healthier. So 135 in one.

And you but you've gone up as high as like, what, 155? I did open weight in 2020. Yeah, 2020 at the Euros. So I fought those big guys. And it's fun fighting the heavier division sometimes just to see how it desensitizes you to your division when you fight the monsters in the heavier divisions. So sometimes I'll do it just so then when I go back to my division, I feel like Superman from fighting those guys. Do you worry at all about injuries because people are that big?

Yeah, totally. That's the fucked up thing about training with big people. That's why I don't train with big people anymore. When I was younger, I was forced to train with only big people. And I was always injured. My body was always messed up. But now that I'm training with little people like my size, it's like zero impact. So I could train every day,

and I could keep studying and learning Jiu-Jitsu. I think that's a huge reason why I could do such high volume. Yeah, I think so too. I think when people get into real high-pressure, very intense training, and you have a lot of people that are very heavy that you're training with, that's where neck injuries and back injuries and shit starts happening and even like the energy of the

people you're training with if they're there like to hurt you or are they there to like like good vibes right are they there to get better because i've trained in so many gyms as a kid where like the energy is so bad in the gym and it's a fight. People are stomping you in the face. People are trying to break things. Everyone would be injured all the time. I would go in before training on the side of the mat praying, God, please don't let me get hurt today. So many days like this.

Well, I've always found that people that are smaller like yourself generally tend to be the most technical because they have to be. There's a real benefit to being a smaller grappler smaller like yourself generally tend to be the most technical because they have to be yeah there's a real benefit to being a smaller grappler in that if you really pay attention to the guys like the Hoyler Gracies or Eddie Bravos or these guys that you know they started out the career are smaller they're they're more technical they just kind of have to be yeah it's actually that's why also you'll see kids when they become adults, they're so technical. One thing is experience the years they're training, but also because when they're kids,

they're not strong, right? They don't have strength. So then when they become adults, they have the strength. So they gain the technique when they didn't have strength. So it's easier for someone to become more technical if they don't have strength. Yeah. Because you'll naturally force things. Yes.

I always say that about striking too like when little kids learn striking when they learn striking early on it's so good because they're not afraid to get hit because they can't hit hard so they kind of just touch each other but they learn how to do things the proper way like and they don't muscle everything because like if you teach a big, strong guy how to hit things, they try to really wind up. But little kids, they'll just do this, the way you tell them to. So they'll keep their hands right by their cheeks

and they'll throw punches the right way, whereas they don't open up to try to get extra horsepower into it. I feel like it's the same thing with jiu-jitsu techniques. They'll be in the right position before they try to execute as opposed to try to force their way through something. Yeah, I feel like there's always going to be the natural strong guy that will... It's very

hard for someone that's just learning jiu-jitsu not to use their strength, right? It's their ability. Just like a flexible guy, it's hard for them not to use their flexibility. So any ability that you have, you're going to use. So I think that's why the small people get away with becoming more technical because they're forced to.

A hundred percent. Yeah. It's, you want to learn small man jujitsu. You know, I tell that even to big guys, like when I meet big guys, I'm like, learn how to fight off your back. Even though you probably won't be on your back because you're so big, but if you can just learn how to fight off your back, it though you probably won't be on your back because you're so big. But if you can just learn how to fight off your back, it will 100% benefit your top game. Yeah.

It's interesting because I've talked to both Boucher and Gordon, who are like two of the best, big people, most technical, right? And they both say that they train mostly with small people because they want to have the technique like the small people. Yeah. And they don't use it. Like if you watch Gordon roll, he's not using strength at all. So he's just using pure technique.

Yeah. Pure technique and knowing what you can and can't get away with in certain positions. Yeah. When you, when you look at the overall scope of jujitsu, like the, the jujitsu environment today, I'm so impressed with the level of technique. It is like, if you go back to jujitsu from the time the UFC entered the picture in 1993, if you go back then and you can see plenty of jujitsu matches, you see really good technique. I mean, you watch like Hicks and Gracie and he's going against Higa Machado. They're fun. Those matches are fun to watch.

They're very exciting. But the level of jiu-jitsu today across the board is extraordinary. No, yeah, it's growing every year now. And I think it has to do with how the internet and the instructionals, like now all the moves that people are doing, it's getting spread. And then people figure out new things and If the growth is insane you're right like it's insane. It's beautiful like I have a folder on my phone That's just for jiu-jitsu moves that I've learned like off of Instagram where I have like links to like different videos

It's um, it's amazing the just the depth of it. It's like there's no end to it. You keep thinking they're going to run out of techniques. You keep thinking like, well, we've figured out basically all the different ways to break a limb and to screw up your neck. Like, we've got it all down. Now let's just refine it. Nope.

Always something new. There's always something new. It's crazy. But it's sort of like noises that you can make with your mouth that lead to sentences that lead to paragraphs that lead to books. Like there's so many different ways you could put them all together. And that seems to be the same thing with jujitsu. Jujitsu seems to be like a language that you learn with your body on, you know, how to submit people and manipulate their joints and you know and put them to sleep yeah and um i feel like especially with the way that jujitsu is that it will never stop

growing because it's infinite possibilities yeah no i think so too where what do you see for yourself as a competitor you're 25 years old how much longer do you think you're going to be doing this like at an elite level and do you have like long-term goals so yeah so i've won every title there is in the gi and jiu-jitsu you know um so right now i'm focusing on nogi and one championship especially because now they're going to have belts and divisions and i my goal in jujitsu isn't about the titles it's about helping the next generation and impacting people in the next generation you know because a title you win next year someone else will win it next year someone else will win it but our impact on people training jujitsu our impact on inspiring people

that's my goal with jujitsu you know and when did you decide that that was your goal um after i won my first black belt world um i won the title and in my mind i thought i was going to be so happy winning this title you know your whole life you train for it and then i felt nothing winning black belt world really I got very depressed you know because if you make in your mind a goal like a title you realize once you win it that it doesn't make you happy it doesn't feel anything inside of you but what fills inside of you is helping people like anything what helping people teaching people that's why jiu-Jitsu instructors are so awesome, how they could teach people and get them to

train, you know. Having an impact gives us a purpose in life, you know. So that's my goal with Jiu-Jitsu, to have an impact on others. So you've recognized that your own individual success doesn't give you enough. It doesn't give me any fulfillment wow that's wild do you think that's because you've been doing it so long that it's been just a part of you for so long that it's just maybe um i feel like it is so natural for me to compete and everything you know because it's my whole life doing it right but um for sure i feel like uh

when i see someone message me like that they're training jiu-jitsu because of me or that i've inspired them and they enjoy it and they're doing jiu-jitsu and not doing bad things you know to me that's everything that gives me a purpose to live you know you have you always had this like level of discipline that you have now this level of focus so when i decided i wanted to be a world champion jiu-jitsu i was like 10 11 years old wow so it's so crazy at that age uh becoming like in your mind like a professional athlete you know you um i had this uh insane instructor that um that instructor that disciplined me. His name was Shark, and he was like,

you can't eat cookies or brownies. I was like 10, 11 years old. You'll never be a world champion if you eat this cookie. You can't date girls. You can't, like, all these things. So I skipped basically being a teenager and just went to being an adult. Jesus.

So it was a lot of sacrifice, you know, but looking back at it, it made me who I am today, the discipline. That's great, but it's nice to have fun too, right? And that's what I'm learning as I got older. Totally. So at 25 years old, you're trying to make up for lost time. Yeah. Now I'm a teenager. So at 25 years old, you're trying to make up for lost time. Yeah, now I'm a teenager. That's crazy. So you see your future perhaps as being a coach or running a school or something like that?

I think so. You know, I'm only 25 now. My body's so healthy. Like I never did anything bad to hurt my body. So I'm very healthy. So I could continue competing probably another 15 years if I wanted to. But I want to help more people. I want to do more seminars, meet new people, learn about new cultures. You know, that's what I really love. And yeah, maybe in the future also teach people and have a gym. And yeah, love learning so I don't know where I'll end up I end up in a

different continent now so who knows do you have any if you had any injuries that are you know other than the appendix that required surgery from jujitsu never think nothing no wow so I've been very healthy in 21 years basically basically. That's very lucky. Yeah. And again, I feel like it's the way I train now that I've had some feet injuries, knee injuries. But overall, thank God, nothing crazy. Yeah, the way you train is very extraordinary. I've never heard of anybody doing that.

Just training with basically hobbyists. Like at what level are these hobbyists? Like purple belt, blue belt? Purple, brown, black. Okay. But originally they were all like blue, purple belts, you know. But you build the program by just training with them every day, you know, and then as they get more skilled,

they give you more better and better training. Is this program something you wrote down? Like do you write your training down? Not really. I just know what I need to be working at the right times. You know, like I'm basically my own coach in that way. And I just had everyone I train with, I teach them to try to beat me.

That's literally my training. Well, that's a sign of a healthy ego that you do that. Yeah, I have no ego in training. I get obsessive that I need to have an answer to everything. So I need, I'm very OCD. So I, if there's an, a position that I don't have an answer to, I go insane. So I need an answer to everything I'm doing, you know? So when you have a position that you have an answer to, do you consult with other people ever? No, I'll just have, okay, this scenario, I have an answer like this.

Then there's always a what if. And then a certain grip changes or a certain base changes and then the thing I'm doing is ruined. So then now I'm like in panic mode and I have to figure out how to deal with it now. Right, right, right. And then, you know,

another thing that's really unusual about you is your diet. Yes. You're famous for eating pasta and homemade pizza and only eating once a day. Every night I eat like this. So how this started was I've been cutting weight and dieting my whole life, right? Right. And you almost develop an eating disorder from always dieting and cutting weight for so many years of your life, right?

It just naturally happens. So I would binge eat. I would starve. You know what I mean? Like it was very unhealthy the way I would live. How much weight were you cutting? Just at a young age, cutting weight. You know, I would always be cutting like 5 pounds, 10 pounds.

Nothing crazy, but I've done crazy cuts also. So you just die from those also. But all that time, it just messes up your brain where you never feel like you're satisfied and you're never full. So that part of your brain that says, oh, you're full, stop eating, I stopped having from cutting weight so much. So what I started doing was intermittent fasting. So I would just not eat during the day because honestly, I don't like eating before training. I feel bloated when I eat. So I would just eat at night. But I started just eating the foods I love. I'm Italian, so I grew up just eating pizza and pasta. So I make pizza and pasta

every night. I have a pizza oven in my house and I roll out the dough, make everything. And then for dessert, I'll eat a pint of acai. And my weight would be lighter doing this diet than eating like no carbs and all these things. So in my mind, I was like, wait, I could eat all the foods I love if I eat once a day at night, you know, so it was a no brainer for me. And my weight is lighter and I feel better because I am fasting. So I started doing it. Wow. So there's no issue with performance at all that, I mean, given your blood sugars and everything like that, when you're training for extraordinary amounts of time during the day and not eating. So how I see it is I have to earn the food at night. So training all day is like me working for the food at night, you know?

Right. Like how people used to hunt and gather for food. So that's my mentality. And my best performance in Gi Worlds was in December. I had my best performance ever, and it was on that diet. And I made 125 easy. And so when you do, like, day of competition, same thing? You won't eat all day?

Day of competition, I'll change my diet, and I'll eat a piece of bread and, like, a little honey. Just you need some food in your stomach to deal with the nerves and adrenaline that changes for me at least yeah so all bread and honey huh bread honey rice cakes just very mild and some sugar but nothing's too heavy and when you are getting where's your protein coming from what I eat a lot of cheese. Cheese? Is that basically all your protein? Basically. I eat a lot of mozzarella, a lot of Parmesan, a lot of Pecorino Romano. Do you put any animal products in your pizza?

Chicken or meat or anything like that? No meat. No meat at all? No. I love seafood and meat, but when I'm training for competition, I feel cleaner when I'm not eating meat. Interesting. And your body doesn't feel like, do you feel like the protein that you're getting from cheese is enough? I feel the best when I'm doing this.

Like I feel like most energy, like cleaner. I don't understand how, but it works. That's such a crazy diet for you to just eat pasta and pizza and only eat at night and then train all day. Most people, if you tell that to, they'd go, what are you talking about? Like if you brought that to a performance coach. Oh, they would be so ridiculous. What are you doing? Have you talked to anybody about that where they try to talk you out of it?

Yeah, a lot of people have said, oh, that's so catabolic, right? Because you're breaking down your body doing it. But for me, it's sustainability. And I could sustain eating and training and keeping a routine doing this. And I love my food. So I don't think I would be able to compete how I do if I ate normal. Have you tried different ways of eating like different diets and different kinds of combinations of food before? Yeah, I've done every diet before, honestly. No carbs, high protein, a lot of meat, but none of them are sustainable for me. This, I don't have to change how I eat when I train. I can just eat like this and I love what I'm eating. I go to bed with a full stomach.

I'm happy. I'm always smiling when I'm eating. I go to bed with a full stomach. I'm happy. I'm always smiling when I'm eating like this. Most people look at you like I've seen pictures of you without your shirt on. You're so ripped. Most people don't believe that that's possible if you're just eating pizza and pasta. Yeah. Well, I train all day every second. So if you're fasting for 20, 24 hours and you just train every second like your

body just burns all the fat on it right so you're basically eating for like one hour i guess yeah and i watch a movie and i cook and just eat wow and that's just your daily routine every day you know and i enjoy cooking pizza so after training i'll get like i'll start making the dough and right so that's my routine every day and how many pizzas do you eat a night one big pizza like like that fits on the in the pizza oven you know and about half a pound to a pound of pasta and a pint of assay wow i once calculated it it was like 7 000000 calories. 7,000 calories. And do you know how many grams of protein are involved in that? I eat so much cheese that it was actually a really high amount of protein.

Interesting. I've never heard of anybody getting cheese as their primary protein source. Yeah, me neither. And being an elite athlete. Sustainability. It's keeping me able to train and enjoy my training and keeping me sane. Well, I'm already insane, but it's keeping me more sane. Did you read about this and decide to give it a chance?

Or was this something that you'd seen other friends do? So I just, I hated eating. What happened was I started doing this because I was doing a lot of seminars. And I would be traveling all day. And I would never be able to eat when I was traveling. Then I'll eat a big meal at night. And then when I started feeling was a lot of clarity when I started fasting. So I stopped eating breakfast and I started feeling better training, not eating before training.

I would just drink caffeine. So I drink caffeine during the day. And I feel like that gives me the energy. And I eat so much at night that in the morning I'm still full from the night before. And I'm just working off the food. And then by the time I'm hungry again, it's nighttime and I'm ready to eat. Wow. And so who taught you how to make pizza?

My grandma taught me how to make pizza. She passed away like four months ago. But she taught me how to make pizza. She passed away like four months ago, but she taught me how to make pizza. And when you do it, are you making the dough? Do you have like a starter? Like how does that work? So I can make the dough, but with all the things, but it takes too long. I don't have patience. So I just get pizza dough from like Whole Foods or like Trader Joe's and I'll start with that dough.

pizza dough from like whole foods or like trader joe's and i'll start with that though but then i'm really particular with the cheeses and like i go to like three different supermarkets for like cheese basil all the different ingredients so it comes out really good damn making me hungry yeah me too i love pizza and there's something about like a good pizza that you make yourself in one of those ovens that you have. It's so satisfying. Yeah. Well, it's so satisfying even to watch, you know? Yeah. And you slice it up in the melted cheese and you pick up the first slice.

Oh, my God. How much more time before you get to eat? Probably tonight again. It's like 322 right now. Depends on the day. Probably after this I'll eat like 7 o'clock, 6 o'clock. So have you trained at all today? Not at all.

Nothing? No, because my appendix. Oh. So I'm just doing a lot of cardio right now. I'm training a little bit, but just very safe. When can you go back to full rolling? Well, the doctor told me hard full rolling, like middle of August, beginning of August. So I could start then.

But right now, just light air training. Just keeping your body. Drilling still, studying, but I just maintaining. Right. And so this one of the things I saw a video of your whole pizza setup. Like it seems like there's a company that you use, and they send you certain pizza doughs. Yes. What company is that?

It's called Cavita for olive oil. They send it from Italy. It's an olive oil from Italy, and I also have a pasta that I use, and they send it from Italy too. So it's just way better quality. What's the difference? I feel like the pasta from Italy seems like it's less gluten. It seems cleaner. Like when you eat

it, you don't feel as bloated. It's just different, you know. The olive oil, apparently they don't change the pH levels in it. So in America, all the olive oils have to be like a certain pH. Like this is just so natural. They have to be a certain pH?

In America, I think. Yeah? Because what I've noticed about American food, it's more processed. And every time I travel out of America, I get lighter naturally just not eating the processed American food. It is wild when you go to Italy. My family and I used to go to Italy basically every year before COVID. And everyone's thin. Yeah.ians in america are so fat and that's how i eat my pizza and pasta it's almost like someone from italy you know not like american italian food right so i think that's why i'm so

skinny eating like that does this company sell pizza dough as well no they don't i'm getting my pizza dough usually from like whole foods trader joader Joe's. So what are they using for the dough though? Do you know? Just regular pizza dough. Like I don't care. I think Whole Foods makes it healthier, right? Because it's Whole Foods. Is that real? No. I don't think so. No. But just to say that.

But yeah, it's just regular pizza dough I use. And so you have basically been doing it this way for how long? I've been doing it this way since 2019, 2020, the last three years. Wow. Three years of just pizza and pasta and just strangling everybody. I feel like I'm better eating like this. I'm happier. Happier makes you better in life, right? Maybe you know I mean nice to be miserable dieting all the time yeah the dieting I think is terrible and I think that there's some

real benefit to intermittent fasting and there's definitely some real benefit to giving your body some time to digest whatever food that you have I think there's a lot of people that are like packing food on top of food yeah you know there's like this constant cycle through their system with their digestive systems always processing things. Yeah. I really enjoy intermittent fasting. Generally, I don't like to eat before podcasts. I like to get a workout in in the morning and then I don't eat until dinner.

That's mostly how I do it. Oh, so you only eat once a day also? Pretty much. But every now and then I'll have like fruit. Like I'll have like bananas or apples or something like that before i work out but the only time i deviate is when i'm really hungry like there's something going on like maybe i just worked out too hard and i'll there's a um there's a snack company called carnivore snacks and they make these um ribeyes it's like a sliced

ribeye that's dried but it's not like beef jerky it's got like it's soft and like chewy it's fucking delicious and i'll just grab a bag of that after working out yeah okay like have some water drink that and then i want to have a meal meal until dinner yeah yeah some people they fast at night and they go to bed hungry i could never do that yeah that's not that's not enjoyable going to bed hungry. I could never do that. Yeah, that's not enjoyable. Going to bed hungry is not fun. Being hungry throughout the day, at least you know at one point in time you're going to eat later. And I feel like when I drink caffeine, it makes me full also. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. So it definitely helps. Now, what about for recovery? Would you do any ice baths or saunas? What kind of stuff do what about for recovery? Do you, would you do any ice baths or saunas or like, what kind of stuff do you do for recovery? So I have an infrared sauna in my house and every night I'll typically go in infrared sauna and I feel like that helps my aches in my body so much. Um, what temperature do you put it at? Like 140. Um,hmm. So I go in like 30, 40 minutes, and I feel so much better after, like a detox almost. Yeah. Have you ever gone in a regular dry sauna? I've gone in dry saunas also.

I just feel like it's way faster and more impact, like the intensity of it. Yeah. But infrared I feel like is less less impact so I could stay in longer and it's less like you're suffering. I wonder what's better for your body overall though, because all the studies that have been done, I think have been done primarily, like the big ones they cite all the time have been done on a dry sauna. Like there's one that was done out of Finland. That's really fascinating where they found that four times a week, 20 minutes a day at 175 degrees, the people that participated in that had a 40% decrease in all-cause mortality. Wow.

So it's 40% decrease in heart attacks, strokes, cancer, everything across the board, everything. That's crazy. And it's directly attributable, they believe, to the release of cytokines, these heat shock proteins from your body being in that intense heat environment. I wonder like that intense heat environment, though, 175 is very different than 140. Like, you know, the 140 in the infrared is tolerable. Yeah. Like I do 185. Oh, wow. Yeah.

It's not tolerable. I don't enjoy it. Like especially the last5. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's not tolerable. I don't enjoy it. Like especially at the last 10 minutes really fucking sucks. Like I could go in for an hour in the 140, watch a movie. You know what I mean? So yeah, I'm curious the benefits of what I'm doing compared to the hotter one. Yeah. It's like I wonder if it's like sprinting versus like a long cardio session.

Like long cardio, like base level, like, you know, structure cardio is like very important to have like this very strong base of cardio where, you know, you always are going to recover quicker. Like that's one of the real benefits of guys who run like six, eight, ten miles. A lot of MMA guys are finding that out now, that they have this extra gear by putting in those long cardio runs, these long cardio sessions multiple times a week, as opposed to just exploding. Because so much of MMA is anaerobic, but if you build that cardio base, it really sort of strengthens the whole picture okay and i wonder if that's the case with sauna like i wonder if there's some benefit to going really hot for like 20 minutes like like i do but also some benefit to going 140 and doing like an hour and maybe just like slow like your body just has like a slow trickle of these proteins. Well, for sure, when the hotter one that you do, you sweat faster, right?

Yeah. So it's definitely more intense. So, yeah, it might be like sprinting and long-distance running. Yeah. Even on your nervous system, right? It would also build your cardio. What's interesting about the really hot sauna is it increases your red blood cell count, and it has a mild effect that's akin to EPO.

Wow. Yeah. So it increases your red blood cell count. Probably also helps your nervous system recover. Yeah. It's also helps you deal with stress because it sucks so hard. You get numb. Well, it's just you have the ability to just suffer.

Well, it's just you have the ability to just suffer. Like your self-imposed suffering is so much more difficult than most of what the world will give you because you literally can't survive it for very long. Like the temperatures that I go into, when I hit 20 degrees or 20 minutes rather at 185 degrees, I don't have much left. You know, I'm really like my physical being is in trouble. Like it gets to that point where I'm like, okay, maybe I can do another 15 minutes if I really wanted to show how tough I am. But when I get out of there at those 15 minutes, I'm going to collapse. Yeah. I've done so many water cuts with Epsom salt baths where like you go in and you're screaming because the water is burning your skin.

Yeah. So it's like that also, but it's interesting that you said it gets for distress because every time I do like an Epsom salt bath, I'll fight way better because the pain from the bath is way worse than the anxiety of fighting. Well, the pain from the bath must be because of abrasions, right? From scratches, from jujitsu. Well, just the pain of like you're in such a hot water, right? And you feel like you're burning. Yeah. I

have a float tank. Have you ever done that? No. The sensory deprivation tank. The sensory deprivation tank is filled with a thousand pounds of Epsom salts. You float in it. Is that the one with the temperature that your body's the same temperature as the water? Yes. I have it here. That's so cool.

You should climb in it. Yeah. So the temperature of the water is 94 degrees, which is the same temperature as the surface of your skin. So as you climb in there and then there's 1,000 pounds of Epsom salts, you just float. Wow. And then you close the door so you're in total silence and total darkness and just floating and it feels like you're flying. Because you can't feel where the water begins and the air ends. It's all the same temperature.

So it just doesn't feel like you're connected to gravity. It feels like you're just flying. That's so cool. And it's really good for your muscles. You get out of there, you feel like everything feels relaxed because there's so much Epsom salts in the water. Yeah, I know Epsom salt gets rid of aches in your body. Yeah, it's very good for you. And a lot of people use it when they cut weight too, right?

Yeah. It just opens your pores to sweat more. What's the most weight you've ever cut? The most weight I ever cut was 35 pounds in like two weeks. What was your walking around weight? I was lighter, but what happened was I got really sick from overtraining, and I couldn't train for a week, and I was eating like crap. And my weight went up to like 160, like very bloated.

What are you at right now? Right now, like 138, 139. Oh, wow. So this turn, three weeks later, I made 125 from 160. Jesus Christ, man. So you had to learn to not overtrain. That's my problem. Like I don't, my tolerance for pain is really high.

So I don't know to stop training. I'll just keep training training training until my nervous system like gets fried and then walking you could barely do how do your parents feel about this well they're like you need to rest you need to rest you know so um I'm getting better as I get older with this right just wiser about do you use any sort of electronics like a whoop strap or anything to sort of gauge your resting heart rate yeah so i know like the soviets would do that right when you wake up like your resting heart rate they could like measure it to see if you're over training yeah but um for me now what actually helps me with over training is running like the

active recovery of like jogging i remember reading something that if you run at like 130 and you keep your heart rate at 130, it restores your nervous system. So whenever I'm running, I actually could train more than when I rest. Really? It's like weird. Like so if I am tired from training, if I lay down and rest, I'll actually be more beat up than if I go for a run. Wow. That's so counterintuitive. But it, for some reason, helps your nervous system restore faster than just laying down.

That kind of makes sense, right? Because you're forcing your body to work and you're pumping all that blood through your system, but you're not really taxing it in a way that's exhausting it. Totally. Because 1.30 is kind of like, you know, that's like breathing it. Totally. Because 130 is kind of like, you know, that's like breathing at 130, right? It's like not that big a deal. It's not like you're burning out.

Yeah, that's what I've noticed. Like that always makes me able to train more. Yeah, I know a lot of guys who do long, I forget what they call it, but it was like heart rate training where they did long, slow training. And I would go, God, didn't you feel like a pussy? Like, don't you want to like push yourself and be exhausted? And they were like, yeah, but you can't, you're really just supposed to like, just kind of, just kind of, and the thing about the sauna is when I'm in there,

like, uh, my friend Bert did, uh, put a heart rate monitor on himself, uh, in the sauna is when I'm in there, like my friend Bert did put a heart rate monitor on himself in the sauna recently. I noticed that when I was using the my zones thing too, is that I would get into the yellow. So I would get into like the 80% max heart rate, like in 140s when at the end of my sauna session. So if I'm doing 180, that was, I was, back then I was trying this Laird Hamilton protocol where he was doing like in the 200s, he was doing like 210 and 215 degrees. So I'd crank it up to 205. I was just trying it, but I was cooking my mouth. Like I was having a hard time like with my throat and I realized, hey, you fucking idiot,

you're cooking your throat. Oh my God. Cause I was in there at 205 degrees for 20 minutes. I'm basically like a brisket. But it's ridiculous. But when I would get out of there, it was too much. The impact. Yeah, it was too much.

I was over-exhausting myself. Well, when I would do Epsom salt baths and I would cut a lot of water, you want to cry, but you have no water left in your body to cry. Now, how would you rehydrate? Did you use IV? No, just electrolytes. But in Jiu-Jitsu, especially

in IBGTF, you have to fight right after weighing in. Oh my god, so you cut the weight and then you fought dehydrated? Yeah. Oh no. Yeah. So that just makes, like your skill level has to be so good

with using no energy that you could fight on your deathbed. Wouldn't it be better if you just fought at a higher weight class? No, I fought at higher weight class too.

Like I won worlds at 141 and 125. Yeah. But just the experience of going down to a lighter division and challenging yourself where you feel, like, so weak and no energy and being able to overcome that, like, was fascinating to me. And when you did those, you had to weigh in right after competition

or you have to weigh in right before competition. How much time exactly do they give you, like, right before? So there's three matches before you when you weigh in. But if those matches go fast and people don't show up you have to fight immediately so with my luck when i did this um this one time it was 2019 i won worlds in 141 two years in a row and this year i went down a weight class and i fought 125. And I was 160 three weeks before. I made 125. I had to cut my hair on my head to make the weight at the end. Jesus Christ.

And I weighed in and immediately I had to fight, of course. Right away? Right away. So did you get a chance to guzzle some water? I just jugged down some fruit drink or something. And when I was fighting the thing in my mind I was like just don't faint don't faint did you get close no I was fine I wonder

if you would tap or blackout quicker like if you got caught a triangle or something I maybe less blood your body makes sense if you have less water right if you're fat interesting yeah i never thought of that i think that you would be like more susceptible to blacking out right you just go to sleep faster right like say if like you're fighting your way out of a triangle right and like you think and normal normally you'll be able to fight out and this time you just you have no blood to fight yeah it kind of makes sense doesn't it yeah it really does how much of an impact do you think that has on your performance when you're losing that kind of weight um 40 30 that one tournament i was fighting like 30 but i still won worlds like with 30 and then my last world i doing my diet i do now

i made weight like with zero problem like i was, pasta, and acai like two days before making 125. Wow. So it definitely has a significant impact because when I didn't do that, it was my best performance. Have you had anybody else try to mimic this diet of yours? So some of my friends at Daisy Fresh, my friend George, he lost like 20, 30 pounds doing this diet also. And now he's having people eating pasta in the gym at night. It's just a matter of like a very small feeding window. Yeah.

Consume as many calories as you want during that time. And then the rest of the day. You just grind out. Wow. I would like to talk to like a legitimate nutritionist about this. The science of what's happening. Yeah. I'd like to have like someone like Andrew Huberman follow you around and like

sort of analyze what's going on with your body while this is happening. Well, I think another thing is cortisone, um, cortisol. I think with, um, with stress when it makes it harder to lose weight,

like always cortisol affected me with losing weight, um, from not being It makes it harder to lose weight. Always cortisol affected me with losing weight from not being happy what you're eating and stuff. Oh, interesting. But when I'm like this, I'm happier and you don't have as much cortisol. So I don't know if that's true. I'm not a nutritionist, but I've noticed these things with me. Well, I mean, what's important is what works, right? Yeah. No one knows their body better than a professional athlete. So I'm sure your understanding of what works and doesn't work for your body is pretty finely tuned. Yeah. You're so in tune with our bodies.

I think it's also like a great example of how much people vary in their nutritional needs. You know, like there's some people that don't feel good unless they're eating a lot of meat. And then there's some people who don't feel good unless they're not eating meat. And they're just eating, like the way, it sounds like your body is like very carb-centric. Yeah, so what's interesting about myself, when I was a kid, my parents couldn't get me

to eat anything except pasta. Pasta with butter, olive oil. There's a lot of kids like that. I have kids. They were like, they were like they were like trying to give me a toy they're like if you eat this steak we'll give you this toy but my whole life all i ate was like pasta and pizza so what's interesting is me eating the food that i ate since i was a little kid my body absorbs it the best and i feel the best eating it

so is it because i ate that for so many years as a kid that my body just knows how to deal with it? Kind of makes sense. Yeah. It's interesting. It's like how alcoholics can process alcohol better. Yeah. Their homeostasis. Yes. So when you go to a restaurant, do you just order pasta? Always pasta, pizza. That's it. That's a crazy diet, man. I don't think there's anybody that I've ever heard of that's like a legitimate professional athlete at the highest level that eats like that. Do you know of anybody else?

I really don't. I don't, but it works for me. It does work for you, but it's kind of crazy that you have the courage to try this out and to do it because a lot of elite athletes, they will essentially mimic the patterns that other elite athletes in terms of diet, recovery. Oh, that guy won a gold medal in wrestling

and this is what he does, so I'll do that. Yeah, totally. And I've tried all the diets. I've been on every diet, but it's not sustainable for me where I could keep training like I am. I know, like I feel like I would want to quit jujitsu if I had to eat like, like those diets. Cause I've did it too many years.

What have you done? You've done like keto. Keto. I've done, I've done like, like five meals a day, like protein, small amount of carbs, or where you're deficient in just fat. You're deficient in carbs. You're deficient in protein. You know, I've done all of

them. Have you done them under nutritionist supervision? Yes. And this was like while you were trying to cut weight. Yeah. And I feel like a big thing is because of the eating stuff I've had since I was a kid, I have a hard time with portions because of that. So because I don't have to have portions with this diet, I'm able to do it. Yeah, I saw a video of you at a restaurant with a giant bowl of pasta and a jug of olive oil. You're just pouring the olive oil all over the pasta. But I guess you need those fats from that olive oil too, right? Yeah, and it's funny because I once got kicked out of a pasta restaurant. And all you could eat pasta restaurant for eating too many pasta bowls.

Come on. They kicked you out? They told me I'm done. So I go in. This place was in San Jose. I go in and it says unlimited pasta bowl. So the first thing I say to the person at the front desk, what's the record? They're like, what do you mean? How many

pasta bowls has someone ever had? And they're like, five. So now I'm on bowl six and the manager comes over to me like angry. And he's like, you're done. No more. I'm like, but it's unlimited pasta bowl. He said,

your max has been, you're expired. Wow. What a stupid thing to do. But then that restaurant, like a month later went out of business. So I might've ate them out of business. I'm sure you didn't, but their attitude probably ate them out of business.

Yeah. That's a shitty attitude. Like if you say unlimited, that means unlimited. Exactly. And you don't make someone feel bad for adhering to the boundaries that you set up. Especially I'm not this big fat guy. I'm this small skinny guy. I know.

That's probably what's really crazy, right? You're walking in there 135 pounds eating six giant bowls of pasta. What a dumb ass restaurant. Yeah. All those all you can eat things are just like it's such a risky move. Like you get the wrong dude in there and just crush your business.

Yeah. Yeah. Big fat guy goes in or someone my size. I know you don't eat meat but. I love meat too though. I do love meat. You ever eat at a Fogo de Chav in. Or someone my size. I know you don't eat meat. I love meat too, though. I do love meat. Do you ever eat at a Fogo de Chavos, Korea? I love Brazilian barbecue. I do too.

It's the best. Yeah. And that's all you can eat. I mean, they just keep coming. As long as you keep that. Yeah. You have the green on one side and the red on the other, the card. And when the green is up, they give you all the food you want. side and the red on the other the card and when the green is up they give you all the food you want and they come by with chicken wings and you know just different cuts of beef and lamb and oh

it's fantastic it's one of the best ways to eat yeah it really is no limits the best but some people can put it away some people could just keep eating keep eating and so they have to like sort of get they have to figure out how much profit they're going to make if it's all you can eat. They have to figure out, like, what, how much can I charge this guy? Like, you know what I mean? Like, you have to, everyone has to get paid,

everyone rather has to pay the same amount. So it's, like, it's a risky proposition for them. And it's interesting how, like, in those places, they'll sometimes make the meat come out slow. So you'll eat a lot and then they'll disappear for a while so you get full, right? So you like meat, you just don't eat it because of performance.

So for performance it doesn't help you. Yeah, I feel more bloated when I'm eating meat. I feel cleaner when I'm not eating as much meat. That's interesting. I love seafood too though. Yeah? I feel like seafood's a little cleaner. Do you occasionally, at least a little easier to digest, you mean? Yes. Yeah. Do you occasionally have moments where you feel like I need some more extra protein? Like I'm really training extra hard? Definitely. Yeah. If I feel like I'm like a little lightheaded or something,

I'll have a little more meat or seafood. Do you throw seafood on the pasta or seafood on the pizza? more meat or seafood. Do you throw seafood on the pasta or seafood on the pizza? Sometimes I'll make like shellfish, like squid, clams, mussels. Nice. You know, I love shellfish. That's like really Sicilian that my family is. Yeah. Mine and my grandfather's side too. I love seafood. And one of my favorite things, it sounds disgusting, but one of my favorite pizzas is anchovies and pineapple. What? Yes. But you're eating pineapple on pizza. You'll get canceled from Italians. I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck.

I eat regular pizza, but I also eat pizza with anchovies and pineapple. What is that like? Fantastic. It's so good. Is it like grilled pineapple in a Brazilian barbecue? Yeah. Is it like that taste like in a Brazilian barbecue? Yeah. Is it like that taste? They cook it with the pineapple on it.

But it's got cheese and tomato sauce like normal, right? Mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce on it, but also pineapple and anchovies. A lot of pineapple and a lot of anchovy. So it's a fucking thick, heavy slice. Yeah. And it's so salty and sweet and savory. And then you got the sauce and the cheese and the crust. And the saltiness. It's all different senses.

That's my favorite pizza. Wow. I know people say there's something wrong with me. I don't care. I don't care. I'm accustomed to it. I'm comfortable with it. But yeah, that's my favorite pizza, pineapple and anchovy.

Try it sometime It's a weird combo Give it a shot Yeah Anchovies gotta be good for you There's a lot of protein in anchovies I'm sure Yeah

Right You don't like them No Made a face Yeah yeah definitely Little salty fuckers I'll eat them right out of a can I bought a can of anchovies

The other day Ate the whole can Wow I love them It's a lot of protein yeah Yeah For sure So when you are um eating this way um you eat whatever you want you kind of have it set up you do it all yourself so it's like it's

very repeatable yeah and when do you find a difference if you go to a restaurant do you feel different when you when you vary from that if i go to like a high quality restaurant like i feel like it'll be very similar how i cook at home but like if i go to like a lower quality one like you could feel the difference like physically when i train like you could feel like less energy you feel bloated if you're not eating good quality foods with a guy like you with this incredible schedule that you have, it seems like sustainability is like a theme with you. It's the biggest thing. So you've got to be comfortable and happy with everything in order to be able to put these kind of numbers in.

100% because if you're suffering, you can't sustain it. Right. But people would think that just training that many hours a day is suffering. think that just training that many hours a day is suffering if you're training with a purpose you know like if you go into training jiu-jitsu and you're going in as a workout i think that it would be very hard to train like i am but if you're going in like you're solving a math problem and you're trying to figure out answers to the math problem then it becomes easy because you're just so focused on one thing you forget that you're even training. Well, you're very good at breaking down the steps to accomplish this mission. I like watching your videos that you do, like the Mikey Lock or some

other techniques that you go to techniques. That sort of systematic way of analyzing things and then being able to express that to other people, that seems to be very important to you. To me, it's so important because if we could subconsciously do something, that's cool. But if you could explain what you're doing, like it's just so interesting to me how the body works. Yeah. And the correlations in the body. So that's what i enjoy about jiu-jitsu the science of it um sometimes i'll go up to my friends that are in medical school or doctors and i'll be like why is the body when i do this this happens and they'll be like

how did you figure that out but it's just because i understand how the body works and manipulating the body gives us certain positions in jiu-jitsu bribe you're very intimately connected to your body if you're like getting it to the point of death multiple times a day. Yeah. I mean, you know, you get a rear naked choke, you're kind of getting someone to the point of death. Yeah. Right there, just a few steps away, multiple times a day.

Do you feel that this is one of the things that I felt from martial arts myself, and then I've recognized in other people too, that there's something that happens when you start teaching where you get better 100% because now you're like seeing all the details you never realized yeah so you'll do a move but then when you start teaching it you'll notice oh my god wait I'm doing this detail and then now you're way more technical at the move and then you evolve with the move yeah that helped me so much there was a friend of mine uh from my purple belt days my friend brent and we used to always train together we always had fun sessions but i was like a little bit better than him and then he started teaching and then i hadn't rolled with him in like six months and then i rolled with them and i was like six months. And then I roll with them.

And I was like, what the fuck is going on? Like he immediately caught me to Kimora and I fucked my elbow up, not tapping, trying to get out. Because I was like, he doesn't catch me like this. Like I'm going to get out of this. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm in fucking trouble. And then, but you know, I couldn't do chin ups for like two months afterwards. And I was like, God damn, you got so much better. What the fuck happened?

He's like, dude, it's teaching. Teaching just you got so much better what the fuck happened he's like dude it's teaching teaching just got me so much better everything just got sharper and find like he looked the same that was the thing it's not like he got in greater shape yeah to me he was the same guy but he wasn't the same guy like his pathways were very clear in his mind from position to position and he probably probably got stronger also, not physically, but just because he's so much more efficient with how he's doing the positions. It makes you stronger. Right. Yeah, his leverage I'm sure was better, his understanding of the positions.

Also, like not holding on when he's about to get reversed and abandoning positions and reestablishing control. Yeah. Like his probably understanding of where the errors are, where things could go wrong, was a little bit more finely tuned. Yeah, and that's what I love about jiu-jitsu. That's what's interesting. When I stopped lifting weights and doing conditioning,

I actually got stronger in training because I started learning how to become more efficient with how I use my body. Interesting. So then people were like, wow, you got stronger. But I didn't get stronger. I just got more technical. That's interesting.

So do you feel, though, that all of your muscles that you use in jiu-jitsu, they get enough of a workout in doing just the various techniques that you really don't need to add anything to. Exactly. I feel like it's a full-body workout, right? So we don't need to do extra things. I supplement it just with some light running, like for my nervous system, but I don't need to do anything more than that, like airdyne running. Some people – did you try this?

Oh, I'll try it. It's a Kill Cliff. That one's got caffeine in it. This one's got CBD try it. It's a Kill Cliff. That one's got caffeine in it. This one's got CBD in it. Caffeine's awesome. You're a caffeine junkie? I love caffeine. Cheers.

Caffeine for me helps me focus more. I'm sure. Well, I think for everybody. That's the whole point of it. What form do you take your caffeine in? Green tea extract. Yeah? Like this.

This has green tea extract in it, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so every time I drink green tea extract, I feel way more focused and better. That's your stuff. Do you drink coffee or just green tea extract? Coffee I don't feel the same energy from as green tea extract, so I stick more to green tea. And guarana, obviously. Guarana. Guarana.

Because you like guarana. Excuse me. Perfect Portuguese pronunciation. Yeah. Guarana, you like also, right, from acai. Yeah, guarana. That's what makes acai taste so good. Yeah.

It also gives you a little jazz. Yeah. People in the north won't say that because they don't believe, northern Brazil, they don't believe in guarana and acai. Really? They eat it, like, bitter without any guarana and acai really they eat it like bitter without any guarana in it what yeah it tastes horrible but that's like so bad i'm saying that to them oh because it's like it's like cranberry juice or something like that it's like not the natural one oh i see i see and then in rio sao paulo they add guarana to it it tastes amazing

so the guarana is what makes it sweet? Yes. Really? It's the sugar in it. Oh, I didn't know that. So the acai berries themselves are not that sweet? It's bitter. Because, God, when I get an acai bowl at one of those health food places, I'm like, am I just eating a fucking ice cream?

It's so good. It's so good. It just tastes like I'm eating sherbet. Like, this can't be good for you. And that's why I eat acai every day, because it gets rid of my sugar craving. Ah, so that's your dessert. Yeah. I eat a pint of it. Jesus. So how much caffeine is in that? How much caffeine is in a pint of acai? I don't even know, but I eat it before sleeping and I'm able to sleep. So. Well, you're probably so tired by the time you hit the sack.

It doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, if you're training 12 hours in a day, I mean, even if you're just drilling, but you're probably not just drilling. You're live drilling and you're rolling. Yeah. You're doing all these different things for 12 hours during the day. I just can't imagine how you do that without eating something, just snacks. You never, like, have a snack or a piece of fruit or anything? No, because at night I'm just so excited to eat when I get to nighttime.

And you've been doing it this way for how long? Okay, so many years I've been training a lot, like high volume. But this particular way, like the last four, five years in Vegas. So this is the one diet, the one meal a day. One meal a day, three or four years. Three or four years. Wow. I guess you've got it down.

It's working. Yeah. And there's no one else other than a couple of guys over at Daisy Fresh that are trying to imitate that? Not that I know of. You might be onto something. Maybe. You might be onto something. I'm wondering because I've seen your performances and I watch you eat. And first of all, I think there is something to the fact that you're enjoying your food so much.

Enjoyment's so important for me. Yeah. Yeah. If I was not enjoying my food, I'm miserable. And then I'm training pissed off, you know, that you're just angry all day. Well, you also enjoy training, right? So your life is filled with things you enjoy that's very fortunate yes i mean that's the like if you didn't care about jujitsu those 12 hours would be horrible because you would just be doing something you don't give a fuck about and then waiting to eat pizza yeah but you're enjoying what you're doing because you love jiu-jitsu, and then you're enjoying your food. Yeah, exactly. Enjoying is—we only live once, right?

So we have to enjoy what we're doing. What's the least enjoyable part of your life? When I'm doing this lifestyle, I really just enjoy everything. Everything? Competing I hate sometimes. Why do you hate competing? I'm a very introvert person so fighting in front of people people watching me just talking to random people I get anxiety right so but I also

love it because I hate it so really I love pushing myself to do things that make me uncomfortable so that's why I love competing but I hate at same time. Love hate. Do you love the challenge of it or do you love the accomplishments? Do you love the success? So what I love about competing is valid that I'm able to make the positions I'm doing valid. So my goal when I compete is to do a move or a position that I'm working. And if I can hit that move or position, then I feel like it's a valid move. Because I can do it in training But I don't count it unless I do it in the top level so like say if you have like the Marcello Cohen fight

Yeah, so if you have a match like that Do you go into that match saying I want to get this guy in a mounted triangle? Yes, really always I have a goal that I want to do a move and That's what I guess because I've been competing so many years That's the lot the thing that satisfies me now is hitting a thing that I'm working in the tournament want to do a move and um that's what i guess because i've been competing so many years that's the lot the thing that satisfies me now is hitting a thing that i'm working in the tournament it like validates it and what if you get like you're in a match and it's like very close like it's like neck and neck and you see some opportunities for something else other than this move that you set

out to do oh totally i'll then do the other moves but i'll be upset that i couldn't do the move i wanted but then i'll take the other move you know um but yeah like with iminari what did you go into that match wanting to do because he's a leg lock fanatic yes and a master of leg locks so you think i'd like to leg lock iminari my mindset going into the match was i wanted to give him my leg and then attack his back or pass his guard off of that. I knew that he could do some damage in that spot, but I was so comfortable in those exchanges that I knew I could, and eventually I passed his guard off of him attacking my leg. Well, he was attacking your ankle. Straight ankle lock.

I was getting nervous. Yeah. Because it looked pretty fucking tight. He's strong. He's really good. It was fucking tight. Yeah. Cause it looked pretty strong. It was fucking tight, but you have crazy flexible ankles. Yeah. So I knew that he wouldn't have enough leverage to finish my foot. So I knew that I could slowly work to take the back. How did you know he wasn't going to have enough leverage? Just because of the fulcrum you have in no key to finish a straight foot lock. His fulcrum was so small and, um, I was able to

based on the position or just in general, based on the position that he was doing footlock. His fulcrum was so small and I was able to- Based on the position or just in general? Based on the position that he was doing, his fulcrum was very low and I controlled his hips in a way that he couldn't bridge enough to finish me. So I knew this going in that I could stop him from finishing me and I could slowly work to pass his guard and then take the back. Does it also help the fact that your ankles are so flexible that you have a little bit of extra give that other people don't have? I feel like because the straight ankle lock is one of my best positions, I won Black Belt World's finals in 12 seconds with it.

So that's one of my best moves. So I'm really knowledgeable in the straight foot lock. So him doing the position on me, I know all the ins and outs of it and what makes it hard to finish. When you tap a guy like Imanari, what is that like? Such a legend. Like you, who was probably watching him compete when you were a little boy. So right immediately after the match, I really said to him, you're such a legend.

It was such an honor to fight with you. I felt his powers just rolling with just like rolling with him, you know, so it was incredible Well, he's responsible for such a revolution in in leg locks in MMA Outside of the Donaher death squad and Dean Lister and all those people that are responsible for Bringing leg locks into jiu-jitsu and making them such a primary part of people's attacks. If you go and you watch Imanari in the early days, Imanari, he was tapping everybody. George Gurgel, he tapped him,

fucked his leg up with a heel hook. Oh, he's amazing. That Imanari roll, I mean, he's literally named after a primary technique for entering into leg lock positions. Yeah, now even in high school wrestling, people are doing Imanari rolls. I saw that. Yeah.

It's wild. It's crazy. So he's having such an impact on this generation from his, which is my goal, to eventually have an impact on the next generation. Well, I think you opened up a lot of people's eyes with that Mikey lock. I guarantee you that. I mean, I'm sure you're going to have more to come. But that one alone, a lot of people are examining that and like, holy shit, this is very legit. Yeah, but he did his role in jiu-jitsu. He had an impact on my generation, you know, so he's such a legend.

Props to Imanari. Are you lined up to compete against someone else? And, like, once you beat a guy like Imanari is there like pressure to like that's the top of the food chain. Such a legend. Yeah especially with MMA and Jiu Jitsu and especially in Asia like Imanari is like enormously

popular. So I know that in the end of the year I'm probably having a match with Mighty Mouse a Jiu Jitsu match. Really? Yes. Oh interesting. Props to Mighty Mouse. No jiu-jitsu match. Yes. Oh, interesting. Props to Mighty Mouse. No, he's the true martial artist doing all the disciplines, Muay Thai, MMA, jiu-jitsu. How about the fact that he fought Rod Tang in that mixed match?

So he goes one round with a Muay Thai and then one round MMA rules, takes him down, strangles him. Insane. But he was holding his own in and Muay Thai or at least enough defensively to not get fucked up because a lot of people thought like man how is he going to get through that first round with Rod Tang because Rod Tang is going to know that it's going to go to a second round it'll be MMA but the first round he can't take him down he's going to go full out no yeah it's horrifying fighting Rod Tang Muay Thai but isn't that fascinating that one is interested in doing something like that? I really wish the UFC would take chances like that and have those kind of matches where you have a mixed match,

where you have one round MMA, one round full Muay Thai rules, one round back to MMA. To do it that way is amazing. Well, what it's doing is it brings the Muay Thai audience and the MMA audience together and it like shows true martial arts and I feel like one championship really does that so well and they just are joining Amazon Prime USA now so then Americans will be able to start watching and they'll be able to see these mismatches so it'll be streamed on Amazon Prime right yes and when does that start? That starts September 30th, my fight for the belt.

So by September 30th, you're going to be good to go with your appendix issue and all that jazz? Well, hopefully. It seems that way right now because I can start training hard again like mid-August. That's enough time for you? Yeah, I'll be fine because I'm staying in shape. Right out of the hospital, I ran like 10 miles. I wasn't supposed to. The doctor was like, you could lightly walk and jog.

So you ran 10 miles? Yeah, yeah. That's hilarious. But it doesn't seem like I injured myself. Congratulations. Thank you. So who are you going against in September? I think I'm competing with Kleber Souza.

His name is. He's a high-level person from Brazil. Okay. And he's going to be a great match. Nice. And so this is for the one championship jiu-jitsu belt? The first belt in one championship history in jiu-jitsu. And how many belts are they going to have?

How many weight classes for jiu-jitsu? It's going to be the same as Muay Thai, kickboxing, and MMA they want it so flyweight yeah i'm weight interesting so jiu-jitsu is going to be like that now and it's the biggest platform ever you know yeah well i saw they did that match with uh gary tonin and was it kai uh tyro. And he caught him in a Darce choke. In a Darce. Damn, those twins are fucking amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

They're so talented and so young. They're so good. They are twins, right? Yeah, they're twins. They're so fucking talented. Yeah. They're so aggressive, too. The way they attack, attack, attack. It's like their style is so fan-friendly.

Yeah. Well, it's like how I see it is we're a part of this generation that's spreading jujitsu to a new platform right so it's we have a responsibility to make our matches exciting you know so the guys that are fighting not submitting or finishing like i feel like um who's gonna want to watch that that doesn't know Jiu-Jitsu? Right. It's so boring. So one championship, the format is the winner is whoever has the most submission catches. And real submissions, like legit submissions. So it forces you that if you want to win the match, you have to be going for the finish. Right.

And that's what's going to make people that don't know what Jiu-Jitsu is, like Muay Thai, kickboxing, able to appreciate Jiu-Jitsu. That's what's going to make people that don't know what Jiu-Jitsu is, like Muay Thai, kickboxing, able to appreciate Jiu-Jitsu. And then if you stall and you get a yellow card and now you're losing money from your fight, like your salary that you're getting paid to fight, you start losing a percentage of it as you get yellow cards. Oh, so they do yellow cards in one. Yes. Have they always done yellow cards in one? I'm not sure, but now they do. That was one of the more controversial yet interesting aspects of pride.

The fact that they did that. Yeah, the old pride. The old pride, when they gave people yellow cards. I think they took away 10% of your purse every time they did that. It gives you an incentive that you have to fight. You're there to perform, right? And the only way Jiu-Jitsu will get to this platform and stay here is if we're finishing matches and we're

making it exciting. Right. I remember when my match with Iman minari like muay thai people kickboxing people that don't even know jiu-jitsu were able to watch it and like they they thought it was cool so to me i did my job and the rotos are doing that also and gordon will do that like everyone that fights on the one championship platform we have that responsibility win or lose you have to fight well when you look at the roto brothers when you look at at Gary Tonin and you and Gordon, one thing that you guys all have in common is you all have very attack-based styles, and you take chances, and you go for the finish. The problem with jiu-jitsu in tournament format form is when there's points involved for takedowns, points involved for passing,

and points involved for just positions. There's a lot of people that get really good at positional control, but they don't get good at submissions. And they win world championships, but they don't submit anybody. Well, I think it has to do with the rule set and the incentive to submit someone

is not that high in those formats. Like, if it's to submit someone is the only way you win like whoever has the most submission catches it forces you you have to go finish the fight yeah yeah that and i think that's really what jiu-jitsu is all about jiu-jitsu is all about submissions it's not about like passing guard and holding side control that doesn't mean anything so if you don't do anything that doesn't mean anything totally i agree now when you think about the future of jiu-jitsu, do you think that, like, this kind of one FC format thing is where it's going to go to?

Where you're going to see, like, larger crowds and then integrate it into, like, MMA cards like this? I really think that this is the future of jiu-jitsu, where it's going to be like how UFC, all the major MMA organizations, it's going to be that with Jiu-Jitsu athletes. So Jiu-Jitsu athletes will be able to make a living just competing at the biggest stage. Endorsements, everything is going to grow so much like this, you know? It certainly has potential, right? Because we see how much better it is now.

Like I started training in 96 and there was tournaments and everything like that. When I was born. Yeah, when you were a little baby. I was born in 1996. Perfect. So there was no professional option really

as like a professional jujitsu fighter. There's no way anybody could actually count on paying their bills and no way anybody could become like actually famous like Gordon.

Like it's kind of crazy. Yeah's so crazy you know and um all my old jujitsu friends all had to go to mma back in the day because there was no money in jujitsu so they had to go to mma now it's like do you have to go to mma not really right do you uh spend time working on wrestling do you spend time working on takedowns or judo or anything like that? So when I was a kid, I did a lot of wrestling. I actually got second place in Florida Seahorse Wrestling Tournament when I was a kid. So I love wrestling. But when I started training in the gym with just all these big guys, I felt like I was going to get hurt wrestling these guys because they would just throw me right so i started becoming a guard player just training with so many big people i got forced to be a guard player right you know but i do appreciate and love wrestling and i am learning it actively still well the one thing about the guard for especially when you're dealing with like wrestlers is like they they will willingly go into that position like it's not a position that

people avoid yeah like if you pull guard guys will get on top of you yeah and then if you are accustomed to that and that's where your game starts like that's where you go you know when you see guys like uh jeremiah vance do you know jeremiah vance he's uh one of the tenth planet guys that has this fucking wicked guard okay his guard is ridiculous he's like you know there's guys where you roll with them and their guard is so scary yeah so many attacks yeah it's just so different than everybody else's and other guys you roll with their guard is basically like a time for you to take a break yeah you could like hang on it's like as long as you're like defensively responsible you're okay but jeremiah is terrifying from back. And that's always very interesting to me,

to see guys who have this one position down to just such a science. Well, it's such an efficient position, you know, especially in competing jiu-jitsu. Obviously, in a self-defense situation, our knowledge of wrestling, we need knowledge of wrestling to take someone down. And someone that does no combat experience that's in a fist fight on the street, we could all take down that jujitsu, right?

Right. But in competition, it's more efficient to be on bottom in terms of that I don't have to take someone down and then progress. Right. You could just sit down and immediately start attacking the person in submissions. Yeah.

So I feel like if I take someone down, I have to do one extra step. But if I'm already in my guard, I could already start attacking submissions so I could get to the point. Yes. It's funny that there's like a negative stigma or stereotype about guard pulling. Yeah. Weird. It's very weird.

They're like, oh, if there were punches thrown. But again, if there were punches thrown in a street fight, the person has no experience in fighting. Like, we would kill the person. Yeah. We would be able to take them down. And like, all of our knowledge in jiu-jitsu, we would all be able to take them down. There's something to be said for the fact that you are vulnerable to strikes in certain positions. And one of the things that's really interesting that has kind of emerged recently is

combat jiu-jitsu yeah and you see that from from eddie bravo's uh invention like what happens with palm strikes and open slaps like a lot of guys are getting fucked up i saw someone get knocked out even props eddie bro he's awesome it's a great idea right it? Yeah, it's like an in-between MMA and jiu-jitsu. Yeah, and it's also, in my eyes, it's sort of like a proving ground for technical positions because there are some positions where someone really could just punch you in the face because you're committing two arms to one leg and you're struggling to try to secure it.

And as you're struggling, you're kind of turning towards them and you're too close. They could just pummel you in the face. And now we're struggling, you're kind of turning towards them and you're too close. They could just pummel you in the face. And now we're seeing that. Like, oh, yeah, this is probably not realistic. This is not sound. Yeah, and I feel like it's a whole other element and variable that we don't think about in Jiu-Jitsu. That there's punches.

Like, oh, if I'm holding you, boom. Right. And people are forced to think about those things when they actually do mma but this is like a really interesting sort of a middle ground i think for someone transitioning the mma it's actually a great format because it teaches you okay if i'm doing this i'm gonna get hit in the face yeah and it's really popular yeah and for viewers it's way more exciting oh yeah right very exciting yeah it's fun um what do you do outside of jujitsu? Like what is fun for Mikey Musumechi? I love hiking. I love going on hikes in Vegas. I go to this place called Gold Strike. It's like the best hike in the world.

You were telling me about this. This is nuts. Like tell me the story about your COVID experience there. So I had COVID in January again. I've had it a few times now. And when I had COVID in January, I lost this, my taste and smell. So I was doing sauna. I was doing many things. Nothing was bringing it back. And I was trying to eat pizza and I couldn't taste the pizza. Like it was a hard time for me. That's when life got really hard. This bland cardboard pizza. Yeah. And I felt like I knew what it tasted like, but I couldn't taste it. Wow.

So I go hiking in Gold Strike. And I was out for like three hours. And I went hiking, a long hike. And I come back from this hike. And all of a sudden, my taste and smell came back after doing this hike. I don't know the science to that maybe someone listening to this will be able to explain that to us done other hikes were the the the during the same time where you had no sense this was your first hike my first hike but i was training with another

friend that had covet in my garage we both had it so we just stayed together and just trained we were doing sauna like sauna and nothing, my taste and smell were gone. But were you still positive? Yes, 100%. I was still sick with COVID. So do you think you guys were giving each other COVID back and forth? Like you're about to recover and then you give it to each other again? I don't know.

We got over that time, you know. I wonder if you both had different strains of COVID. Maybe. So you're like combining strains to some fucking super virus oh my god in my garage in your garage you're got a laboratory because it's it's interesting that if that was in january is that when you said you guys yes that should have been the omicron strain i believe yes which is not necessarily known for taste and smell. That's usually the Delta or the original.

I wonder if you guys had another one. Yeah, I don't know. All I know is I tested positive and when I did that hike in Gold Strike, I came back and my taste and smell came back to me. So it was like the best thing ever.

But you were saying that that area is very unusual. The energy of it. It's next to the Hoover Dam. So the energy from the rocks goes through you, if that makes sense. You just feel the energy from the place. Just from all the water flowing? Yeah. So I felt like it just cleansed me me i don't know what happened but maybe

the fresh air but after that hike i felt so much better so maybe it was coincidence but maybe there's something to being yeah i mean maybe like there's real science to being in nature and that being in nature is good for for human bodies No more vaccines. Just everyone go to gold strikes. Can you imagine? Well, there's no real protocol for restoring your smell and your taste after you've had COVID that I'm aware of. Yeah. I've heard alpha-lipoic acid.

That was Huberman said that alpha-lipoic acid has some positive benefits. And some people have said that NAD drips or they've done IV drips of NAD, that's restored their sense of taste and smell. But it's not like there's like a medical procedure or medical protocol that you could follow. Yeah, I don't really know. But all I know is that helped me and COVID sucks. Yeah. Well, it sounds like it sucked for you. I got lucky. I got on the right meds, monoclonal antibodies and IV vitamins, and I was better in a couple days. I had Delta.

Yeah. Well, I had it in September. That was the worst one I had. And in September, like, I would run six miles every day during this time. When I had COVID, I couldn't walk a mile because my lungs, my muscles, all of my body felt like it was deteriorating for many months. I felt like- Do you think you ignored it when it first started coming on? You kept training? Maybe. See, that's the thing. The reason why I'm asking this is the people that I know that are young and

healthy that wound up getting COVID really bad, they tried to keep working out. Like Hamzat. Hamzat Shumayev. He's a UFC top contender. He had COVID very, very bad. But one of the things that he did was he wouldn't stop training. So he got COVID and he kept training. And then he was supposed to recover and rest and relax. Back to the gym. Keep training.

Spitting up blood. Coughing out blood. Yeah. And he wound up getting hospitalized on more than one occasion. Crazy. Just too tough, just too tough and not being smart about it, not taking the time off and letting your body recover. So I wonder, because you got it so bad, it seems so crazy because you're so healthy and all you do is basically work your body out and exercise. Yeah. And like you said like um not resting like in our minds we always are pushing we're always pushing so our tolerance to pain is

a lot higher i guess as athletes yeah so we think okay we're okay we're just under the weather let's keep training right that's what i'm saying because like with you you're also i mean also another guy that that happened to was cody garbrandt in in the UFC. He did the exact same thing. He got COVID and he just kept training, kept training. And he didn't even know he had COVID until he went to Mike Tyson's hot boxing show. So he was going to be a guest on Mike Tyson's show and they swab him. They said, hey, man, you got fucking COVID. And he's like, oh, that's what's been going on for the past month.

So for more than a month he had covid and he kept training and his body just kept it in and he was just exhausted all the time yeah the exhaustion so tough though he kept training and that's probably you because you're so used to doing it you're so used to first of all talk about competing after you dehydrate the shit out of yourself and competing at 30 so you're used to that like the mental toughness involved in just being able to grind through. And then you think about this wacky diet you have where you're only eating at night. So like you're going all day long training with nothing in your stomach. You're probably tired.

You're probably beaten up. So an extra level of beaten up to you is probably like you weren't even noticing it. Yeah, like you just think, okay, I just have to keep pushing. Yeah. Totally. And so when did you know't even noticing it. Yeah, like you just think, okay, I just have to keep pushing. Yeah. Totally. And so when did you know that you had it? I knew I had it when I couldn't walk. And I couldn't lift things, and my body was just so messed up, you know.

And had you been training that whole time up until that point? Yeah. Yeah, you probably killed yourself. Yeah, and then that was it. Oh, my God. So it seems like your life is so dominated by jiu-jitsu. Yeah. It's like your whole life.

Right now, at this time in my life, it is, you know, it's my passion, and I'm trying to live my passion to the fullest. I have a gift. I feel like God gave me this gift, and I want to use the gift he gave me. And now, other than, like, learning languages and hiking and stuff like that, do you have any other hobbies? I don't even know how you would have time for them. Well, I love climbing. Also indoor climbing is so much fun. That's got to be good for jujitsu, right? That's the most similar thing I've felt to jujitsu. And Vegas is like the Mecca besides Colorado in America for climbing yeah Alex Honnold

lives there yeah so um I would climb a lot for fun hiking climbing physical things um I love studying languages um I love just learning in general anything I could learn I really enjoy how do you have the time to even learn things I I don't. But if I have a second free, I'll read things. I just enjoy learning. And when you're competing at such a high level, have you ever done any mental training? Have you worked with a sports psychologist or have you read anything about sports psychology? I've read some things about law of attraction and things like that, but I've always just tried to work hard on just embracing the things. I once worked with a guy named Eric

Parker and he explained some of the feelings with competing to me when I was a kid. Was he a sports psychologist? Not a sports psychologist. Just a coach? Just a coach and a friend and mentor. And that helped me a lot. But besides that, nothing really. So it's just a lifetime of competition and you're accustomed to it and you've devised your own strategies to mitigate the issues?

Yeah. So in my mind, like I told you before you before anytime i feel discomfort i have to do it so i had this healthy part of me i don't know if it's healthy but it's crazy anytime i felt like i didn't want to do that i had to do it you know so with competing i always felt this push and it's not natural for me to compete in front of people like I said like I'm really introvert but because of that I want to do it and I also represent a different part of jiu-jitsu I feel like a lot of the people in jiu-jitsu are big like alpha buff guys you know like I'm kind of like a like a nerd like you wouldn't think that I would be a jiu-jitsu person and I feel like I show people that you

don't have to be like a tough guy like a big tough guy yeah I always like I show people that you don't have to be like a tough guy, like a big tough guy. Yeah. I always like to talk about that. The nerd assassins. Because there's so many of them. Yeah. And I think it's really unique. Like Gabe Tuttle, the guy who's the head instructor of 10th Planet here.

He's so technical and so smart. And if you saw him, you would just think he's a regular guy. But he's a fucking stone-cold killer He's a small guy and just like really smart and really understands jujitsu and like yourself is just Enamored with it and loves it. Yeah, like That image of jujitsu that people think you have to be a fighter this and that yeah It's not really that way, you know. And that's what's so beautiful about it. It is what is beautiful about it is that there's so many levels of complexity

and that when you see a guy like yourself that is at this very, very high level in world-class competition, you see these levels of complexity playing out in terms of offense and defense. And to someone like myself that's been doing jiu-jitsu forever, it's so thrilling. I really, really love it. Who's number one when they do that in Austin? I'm in my glory.

I love it because I get to sit down there and watch people like yourself and Gordon Ryan and the Rotolo brothers and all these incredible competitors. And it's so high level. And when they have it in that format i really enjoy that format that who's number one format is great yeah and uh something interesting you said about um like strength and size in jiu-jitsu um i think it's interesting how many of the world champions they all train differently and um you don't have to have like a high iq in jiu-jitsu you could have a low iq but then you have to be more athletic. Like there's a certain box that you use to your advantage. So like some, one person could

just be physically really strong by lifting a lot of weights. And then they use that. Another person can be a freak athlete and not really that smart. And they could use that. Another person could be a higher IQ, not really athletic at all. And then they could use that. So I feel like every, not really athletic at all and then they could use that so i feel like every so it's not a one size fits all for jitsu and i feel like that's why people are like oh how could you train that way how could you train that way it's because everyone's different and embracing your strength is what makes the top people the top people do the top do you get together with any of the other top people and compare like how you handle training and how you handle you know learning and deciphering certain positions well just from training 21 years i've been able to observe all like many of the top people and how they train and from that gave me ideas how they train you know and like i said i've

noticed all of them train a little differently yeah none of them exactly the same so that shows you how everyone is individual in jiu-jitsu and they have to learn differently do you know anybody that's on your level that trains like you where you basically are in charge of your own training and you devise your own strategies for dealing with various problems i I think Hodger Gracie. Does he? I think that when he lives in the UK, right? And I think that he is known for just training with lower belts. And he made his own training, right?

Isn't it crazy that that's when he reached his peak? Yeah, training with lower belts. Eddie Bravo used to tell me that when I was first starting out. He said, just train with blue belts. He goes, just strangle blue belts all day long. I go, really? He goes, yeah, it's like live drilling, but they can't really stop you from doing it. Because if you're rolling with a black belt, he's going to have an answer for all the things you're doing,

and you won't really be able to practice any offense. You're just going to be defending yourself all the time. But if you roll with a blue belt, you'll be able to just cut through all of his stuff and just keep tapping him over and over again. And for for them it's good because they get to understand like hey this is what happens when you roll with a black belt yeah and for you it's great because you get to sharpen your moves in a much better way and he's right 100 that is the best way to get better yeah totally um you have live resistance it's like live resistance drilling and you slowly could build your game, but also helping them get better at the same time. Yeah.

And making the room, everyone improve in the room. Well, it's very important, even with this idea of rolling with lower class belts, lower belts where they don't have the skill to compete with you. It's very important for them to know that there are people out there that can do that to them. Because I remember the first time that happened to me when I first started doing jujitsu, I was super delusional. And I was like, oh, I'm a good athlete. I'm fucking strong. I'll be fine.

And I rolled with this guy who was my size who just manhandled me. He just did whatever he wanted to me. Tap me, armbarred me, some purple belt guy. And I remember leaving class going, wow. I didn't know that that was possible like that it would be so easy for someone to just roll over me just stomp me into the dirt and then I realized like oh I could get to where he's at because it's not he didn't have like crazy physical attributes he wasn't bigger than me or stronger than me we were kind of the same size so it was a real wake

up call you got to feel his level yes Yes, I got to feel his level. And I also got to realize that he's only a purple belt. Like, his level was not nearly, like, black belt level, which is even more intriguing to me. And it got me obsessed with jiu-jitsu. That one ass-kicking early on when I was a white belt, just like a little light bulb went off in my head. I was like, oh, my God. Like, this is a wild sport like the levels because in striking like i feel like so much in striking once you know the

technique so much of it is timing and movement and so much of it is if you're if you have a really good athlete with like natural power they have certain advantages there was no advantages to be having jiu-jitsu like all of it is like you didn't know what the fuck you were doing and some guy's just gonna come along and do whatever he wants to you but it's i think it's important for the beginner just to know that that's down the road 100 they have to feel that level and it inspires them like okay one day i could be like this. Yes. One day. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't know how much longer you're going to keep doing this.

Do you think you're going to keep doing this, like, another 10 years? Do you have a goal of when to stop training and competing? It's my lifestyle right now. So right now this is my path in life. So I'm competing. I have no idea. So no safety net. Just keep going.

Well, at any point I could go to law school. Really? I could in the future. But right now, jujitsu is it. Do you think that's what you'll do when you retire from competition? I don't think so. I think I want to just do jujitsu. Being a lawyer is going to be hard.

That's boring. You have to deal with a bunch of cases you don't give a shit about. I think that being an instructor That's what's so cool about you to the amount of people you could bring to jiu-jitsu and help make their days better You know like if they're having a hard day or yeah, jiu-jitsu is a place for them to go instead of doing something negative Right, so I feel like instructors really deserve recognition for that Oh, I think so too and I think jiu-jitsu gyms, schools, and academies, they become like a central place where people feel home.

They feel comforted. They feel like they're with like-minded people and comrades and people they train with. It's very much like a family. Totally. And you could train your whole life. So there's people training that you'll see on the computer. There's people training like 80 a family. Totally. And you could train your whole life. So there's people training that you'll see on the computer.

There's people training like 80 years old. Yeah. So you could do this your whole life. Do you know Dave Mustaine from Megadeth? No. You know who that guy is? Yeah. He's training in jiu-jitsu.

He started when he was 58 years old. Wow. Apparently he has a black belt in karate, black belt in taekwondo, and now I think he's a purple or a brown belt in jiu-jitsu. Crazy. I'm like, fuck yeah, dude. And then there's Maynard Keenan from Tool. He's a brown belt in jiu-jitsu, very close to getting a black belt.

He's working his way there. So it's exciting when people, like, they do it later in life, and, you know, they get obsessed with it. Yeah, there's never a time that you can't do jiu-jitsu. Right. No, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful art. And you represent it very well, my friend. Thank you, sir.

You really do. It's fun to see you out there, and it's very exciting. And I know a lot of people that don't, like my friend Brian Simpson, who knows who you are, who doesn't have shit to do with jiu-jitsu. He's not training at all. But he's know a lot of people that don't, like my friend Brian Simpson, who knows who you are, who doesn't have shit to do with jiu-jitsu. He's not training at all. But he's seen a bunch of your videos online and he gets excited about it. That's so cool.

It's cool. Well, that's one of the cool things about YouTube today and social media is that you can have, like, you can have a real fan base that has zero training. They're not training at all. They just enjoy watching you compete and get things done it's fun yeah and um then when they watch they'll start doing jiu-jitsu and then we could get more and more people in it you know that's why i'm so blessed for shatri

with one championship for what he's doing to jiu-jitsu and um that's why i'm in singapore right now like i want to be a part of that growth. That's fucking cool, man. So tell everybody how to find you on social media. Yes. What is your Instagram? Is Mikey Musumeci? Yes, Mikey Musumeci. Spell it, please.

M-I-K-E-Y and then M-U-S-U-M-E-C-I. That's my Instagram page. It's a lot of pizza and pasta on the page besides YouTube. Do you use Facebook at all? Yeah, I have a Facebook page also, but primarily Instagram. And Twitter at all? No. Good for you. Yeah, I don't.

And so the Who's Number One match will be September what? My One Championship match. Oh, I'm sorry. One Championship. That will be September 30th And I'll be fighting For the belt Are you doing any more

Who's number one matches Or are you just Not right now One championship Right now one championship Because I'm living in Singapore Right So you do that

That September Fighting for the belt And then you said Somewhere around the end of the year Maybe the Mighty Mouse match Yes Also for one championship Alright

There's just so many Interesting things going on Right now So I'm so excited That's awesome I'm excited, too. I'm a fan, and it was really cool to have you in here and talk about this, man. Thank you.

It was an honor to be on your show, sir. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Honored to have you. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. That's it.

Bye. Thank you.