The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #135 with Paul Felder

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

Joe sits down with Paul Felder, a retired professional mixed martial artist and current color commentator for the UFC. www.ufc.com/athlete/paul-felder

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Paul Felder, ladies and gentlemen. How are you, sir? I'm good, man. Thanks for having me, dude. My pleasure. Yeah. I love what you've done, because I think every professional athlete, every fighter, when you're done competition, you need something to drive you.

And you decided to go into triathlons, which I think is fucking awesome. Yeah. And I kind of stumbled upon it. I didn't have any idea what I was going to do when it was all said and done. I thought, you know, I'll be like everybody else. I'll do grappling competitions. I'll hit pads. I'll stay active.

But that's still not the same as getting to the cage and actually fighting somebody and I stumbled upon this guy Lionel Sanders who I kind of found on YouTube just looking up run workouts because I was getting bored during the pandemic you know I was going outside I was going for these runs and they were getting boring you just run miles like how do guys do this you're just running to run all the time and like there's no there's no structure or anything and i found one of his workouts in arizona where he was running it was like 107 degrees and he's doing like crazy tempo workouts and i was like oh my god what's a what's a tempo workout so like all your runs kind of break down in the, you know, you have your easy miles aerobic,

right? And then you have where you kind of go a little bit, you're not quite going as hard as you're going to go for a race. And that's like tempo. So you're upping your heart rate into that kind of zone three area where you're keeping it right there. You're not going threshold, which, you know, kind of just below all out. And he was doing that and it was like a hundred and something degrees.

And I was like, this dude's out of his fucking mind and i started following all his stuff and then i started realizing how crazy this sport is if you really watch these guys i mean they're freak athletes these guys plus mma right you wrestling jujitsu kickboxing boxing traditional martial arts well now i found this other sport that's totally new to me that i know nothing about that i can dive into and it's all these different disciplines so i can be an idiot all over again and not just pick one sport i can do all three of these things and i didn't even know how to swim yeah i grew up in south philly told me oh bro i've swam with balal if i don't know how to swim balal super doesn't know how to swim he sucks but he does it

just like anything he gets in there he does it I've swam with him he's done a triathlon oh really yeah he did it on like a borrowed bike

a borrowed wetsuit which is like a surfing wetsuit like not what you would go and swim in you know cold water with for you know having any flexibility in your shoulders but

yeah so these triathlons like how how long does it take to complete one of those well to parent there's sprint distance which is a really short one i mean you can do those the guys are doing those like you know under an hour um like 45 minutes 30 30 minutes, you can do some of them. It's like a quarter of a mile swim. It'll be like a 10-mile bike and then I think a 5K. And it's always swim, bike, run? Swim, bike, run. Unless you're doing like Super League stuff, which is this other organization

that's now kind of mixing up the order of which they'll do things. A lot of these races, they'll do swim, bike, run, swim, bike, run, swim, bike, run. So these dudes are literally, and women, are tucking their caps and their goggles and stuff while they're riding on the bike and stuff like that. And then they pull it back out as they're sprinting to the water, putting their cap back on their goggles and diving in after having just run, you know, probably like sub five minute miles, diving back into the water to not be able to breathe correctly.

It's the scariest thing of it all. But the ones I do the most are 70.3s. So it's like the half Ironman distance. So it's 70.3 miles. It's 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and then a half marathon. Jesus. Yeah. And I started with that like an absolute jabroni that I am.

Everybody's like, do a sprint, do an Olympic. I was like, no, I want to do this one. And I did. And oh my God. I remember the first time I saw you when we're getting ready for a show, we were in the green room getting changed. I remember this. I was like, what are you doing?

I'm like. You look like shit. I'm like, are you doing i'm like you look like shit i'm like are you on adderall or something you thought i looked like a crackhead you look like a crackhead you were so sucked in because i just i had just done that race so when you saw me i was still trying to even like days ago i had done that race and uh it's like cutting weight yeah 20 pounds running one of those and doing the swim and doing the bike. You probably lose about 10, and that's with hydrating the whole time. And so how far are you going to try to push this? To the absolute limits of being an amateur.

Because I'll never be. I mean, these guys, Joe, that do it pro. I don't believe you. I don't believe these guys, Joe, that do it pro, I mean. I don't believe you. I don't believe you. You're a psycho. I would love to do a professional.

You're a psycho. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But I don't even want to say that. I feel like it's disrespectful to the guys that I know that are pro

and how fast they are to say that yet. All I want to say now is I want to do it and be, I want to win age groups, right? And my age group,

you know, 35 to 39 is, these dudes fast because they a lot of them come from a collegiate background of some sort of whether it be swimming cross country track and then same as me coming from mma they they don't have that anymore and they find triathlon but they at least have the base of an endurance sport whereas mma is not as much as we want to say you have to have great endurance and you do which most guys still seem to don't understand that but it's not the same like 25 minutes is the longest fight that we could possibly have right that's the swim but when you have a guy who has great endurance, they have such an advantage. Like, Nick Diaz, in his prime, would put a pace on people that they could not fucking keep up with. I remember when Nick Diaz was at his peak, when he was in Strikeforce, when he was a champ over there.

You remember those days? Dude, he was putting a fucking pace on people. And he would get his ass beat for the first five, ten minutes of a fight. Well, he would force a slugfest. So someone would try to go all out. And he would be hitting them like 50, 60%. And then every now and then he'd dig. To the body in particular.

Like the Paul Daly, I think, fight. What a fight. I'll never freak that one. I'm like, oh, he's dead. He's done. There's no chance. Paul Daly has the most ridiculous left hand I think I've ever seen in the business. And he's so skillful.

Yeah. So slick in his maneuvering and the way he sets up uppercuts and hooks. Yeah. His fucking left hand is a weapon, man. And he bombed on Nick Diaz. Woo. Crushed him. I thought he was done.

And he just did what the Diaz brothers do. They take that shit. It's crazy. Come on. Yeah. Come on. Crazy thought he was done. And he just did what the Diaz brothers do. They take that shit. It's crazy. Come on. Yeah. Crazy how they take it. And that's got to, like, that demoralizes you, man. Like, you're in a cage fight with all these people watching,

and you got this crazy son of a bitch going, come on, man, that's all you got? Hit me again. And you're known for knocking dudes out like that? Your heart immediately, you just shit it out. You're like, oh, my God. I don't know what I'm. Which is credit to Josh Thompson because Josh Thompson is the only guy to ever stop.

Put his shin right upside that head. That's what he did. Legitimately stopped Nate Diaz. Yeah. Legitimately stopped him. But that's like, the way he landed it too, it was so perfect. Yeah. It was like the perfect head kick.

And he was like bent over. Yeah. He was still an out-out. Still was an wasn't out out crazy how tough those guys are yeah i mean but i think a factor a giant factor in especially nick's early success was cardio the cardio yeah and he's known for doing a lot of like long runs and it does those triathlons and they do i know even just recently a guy uh this kid justin that i trained with did exterra he did an exterra race with him what is it so it's more like um mountain biking trail running as opposed to you know the tt bike out on on a highway type you know the the waters are a little bit more rugged it'll be a little bit colder crazier areas that you're

racing in so it's a little more like wilderness type racing but it's still triathlon still swim bike run but the you know you'll be up and down you'll be running through trails and like through trees and over stuff like that running from bears swimming away from sharks yeah don't don't talk about i was just in rio and i was swimming in the ocean every day. And I know everybody's like, oh, there's no sharks there. Are there no sharks there? You can't help it. When you're swimming in the open water, you kind of – I had like a can of soda brushed by me at one point.

And I almost pooped myself, I swear to God. My friend Peter Atiyah, he swam all the Hawaiian islands. He did this crazy swim. And he was training for this in san diego and i think the week he was training some guy got eaten by a great white shark so he's out there in the very waters where a guy got bit in half yeah and apparently they were all training for a triathlon these people that were doing it yeah so there was like a run of them there was like you know like 10 15 guys swimming and just one of them my first race this year is in oceanside so where's oceanside it's like outside of san diego oh jesus oh jesus oh yeah april april 1st oh my goodness first it's ocean ocean. Fuck all that. I was in Maui last November, and a buddy of mine was just there this past, like, Duncan was there, like, when?

Like, two months ago? And some lady was snorkeling with her husband, and the guy pops his head up, and they're screaming at him from the shore. Get back in shore. And he looks over, and there's all this blood in the water and thrashing. He gets to the shore, and he realizes it's his wife oh they never even found her yeah well because she's gone yeah dry oh god diver decapitated by 19 foot great white shark in the gulf of california report says local divers have been warned about the presence of sharks in the area fuck that does this just happen yeah uh, January 5th.

Oh. They paid him extra money to go down because no one would go get the mollusks. So he went and didn't make it back out. Oh, my. Mollusks. Like, what kind of mollusks? And also, I guess they're 20 meters down or so. 10 to 20 meters down.

So he was down a pretty specific amount. So he was down really low and a 19-foot shark decapitated him? 36 to 59 feet, actually. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Crazy. Fuck that, Paul Felder. What are you doing?

Can't wait for that swim. And the best part is we wear black wetsuits that make us look like big old seals flopping around. Do you have to wear a black one? Can't you wear like a neon green one? If you can find a bright, I don't know, do sharks see? Do they see color though? They probably don't see shit. Black and white.

So that pink one is white, I guess, to them. Yeah, it's like the underbelly of something delicious. Well, there's thousands of us out there, so you just got to be lucky. Oh, boy. You just got to be lucky. Fuck, man. oh boy you just gotta be lucky fuck man well I was I did a race in Florida and there was 100% a gator off on the side

that somebody sent me a picture thank god after the race they're like oh by the way this was sitting on the side

of the lake that you guys were swimming in just waiting for us to finish if you're in Florida virtually any body of water

could have an alligator 100% which is so weird it could be like in a development and there's like a little pond and they might just be like oh oh, I'm just going to go take a splash in here. Oh, yeah. I remember like a year ago, some old lady who was walking in this beautiful gated community in North Carolina and she got snatched up.

Yeah. They'll eat dogs and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. I used to live in Gainesville. And when I lived there, back then, alligators were endangered. So you couldn't kill them. So they were everywhere. And people would feed them marshmallows.

There's a place called Lake Alice. We'd go to Lake Alice and throw marshmallows in the water. I wonder why marshmallows of all things. People just found out they would eat them, so they'd throw them in. Throw some graham crackers at them. They eat chicken, too. They eat meat, whatever the fuck you want to feed them. That's what I would think.

I would think protein. But they're fucking monsters. I hate those things. They really drive me crazy. I mean, they're truly a dinosaur, basically, that still lives. Yeah, just a heartless fucking reptile. Just wants to rip your leg off and roll. There's a video that I put up on my Instagram

from one of those Nature is Brutal or Nature's Metal pages. And it's a crocodile grabs this wild pig and snaps it in half. And it's got it by the jaws. And it just swish. Yeah, just rips it straight off. Just with like a flick of it's neck I've seen one of those and dude you see them

these guys still have the they're so stupid to oh I'm gonna put my hand in there oh yeah all the time it's going to shred everything off of you if it can yeah there's like side shows that they do where guys like touch the inside of the crocodile's mouth they screw up right

because i think that's what happens if you touch their their tongue or something like that because otherwise i don't think it even knows what you're doing it's just waiting yeah and the guy's not paying attention slips up oh see ya yeah look at this guy florida man oh god he lost his arm share survival story after alligator rips off arm. He gets lost in a swamp for three days. Oh, I saw that guy. Now, let's be fair. He doesn't look like he's got much else going on.

Yeah, that mess kept him alive through that entire journey. Three days lost in a swamp with no arm. Florida, man. That might be just a cover story for some fucking crazy meth explosion. Yeah. Man, a gator got me. I swear to God, I don't fucking even touch meth. It was a goddamn gator. Goddamn gators.

It's just any sport that involves maybe getting eaten. Yeah. You're not going to get eaten inside of the octagon. I mean, it's definitely a safe environment as far as MMA. You just got to deal with the other maniac in there that's trying to kill you what what was the catalyst for you deciding to retire because you retired in like prime age like you were like how old were you when you first decided i guess when when i first said it after the hooker fight i was i guess Yeah, so it's like at the end. Yeah, but I started late too.

I didn't turn professional until I was 28, I think. Wow. When was your first amateur fight? I think I was like 26. Really? Yeah. So when did you start training? Well, so I did taekwondo since I was a little kid.

Started at 12 years old doing that and competed Junior Olympics, Olympics, you know, wearing the hokus and all that kind of stuff. Did all the traditional Taekwondo tournaments. And I used to get kicked out of some of these things because I'd throw punches or I'd throw too hard. Like I remember one time my mom ended up getting into this huge argument with this guy because i was hitting her son too hard in a martial arts competition oh god parents oh dude and my mom is like the sweetest woman in the world but as soon as somebody talks ill of me or steps to me my mom's ready to throw down she's the one taught me how to fight man wow yeah i got i got stories about mom but i did that all the way through until i was in college and you were then i went to acting school yeah you were a theater major i went to school for theater yeah and i kind of stopped training

hardcore but still taught karate at the school that i got my black belt at when i was a kid while while going to school in philly for acting, I was still teaching the little kids. And then I was working professionally in like the Philadelphia theater scene, which isn't anything major, but there's some good professional theater companies there. I was doing that for a little while. And in the summers, the theaters, they're, they're dark. There's not much going on. And a buddy of mine that I used to train with took an amateur fight and I used to kind of get the better of him. And he went and did well on this amateur fight down in, uh, down in Atlantic city, new breed fighting was what it was called. And I was like, I could, I could do that. So I waited a whole year, did the next summer signed up for one of

those fights. And dude, that was it. That walkout, the crowd, like all your friends and family being there, you're walking out to fight somebody else. I remember having migraines. I remember like vomiting afterwards. I was so anxious, so nervous. And I won. And I remember telling all my acting friends at the time we were, we were drinking in like the back of somebody's, uh, like South Philly row home. And they're like, that was crazy, man. Are you done? And I was like, fuck no. I was like, I have to do that again.

And I have to do it better than I did that time. And so a year later, I signed up for another one following summer. New breed. But I knew what to do now. So I trained properly. I went to a Muay Thai school to train for it. I did jujitsu for it. And I beat the crap out of this kid in my second fight.

Leg kicked the dog shit out of him. And it was a decision, but I was like, all right. That was cleaner. Then I did another one. And now I thought I was too cool for school. And I got choked out in my third amateur fight. I got triangle choked by this kid, Max Bohannon, who was like a prodigy. He was from Ricardo Almemeida school and trained with

him and he choked the shit out of me and then i was like okay now i gotta start doing real grappling and real jiu-jitsu and i started training with jiu-jitsu schools and stuff like that and i did one more amateur fight spinning back kick to the liver i knocked this kid out in my fourth amateur fight and then i went pro because the rules in PA, shin guards, big, huge puffy gloves, two-minute rounds. The hell are you supposed to do as a striker with two minutes? You're a wrestler. You get one takedown, you won the round. That's it.

So when I turned pro, I was like, okay, I'll do one pro fight just to say I was a pro athlete, just to say that I did it. Honest to God, that's why I did it. I was like, I'm going to go back to acting and I was a pro athlete you know just to say that I did it honest to god that's why I did it I was like I'm gonna go back to acting and I was still doing professional shows in between getting ready for fights won the fight flying me TKO the dude they took him out on a stretcher it was for CFFC they had to stop the show because they only had one ambulance oh wow so the ambulance had to take the guy and shout out to one ambulance. Oh, wow. So the ambulance had to take the guy, and shout out to M. Toomey Goodrum.

You're still the man. But they took him out, and they had to wait for the ambulance to come back. So I'd stopped the show in my first pro fight. One ambulance? Yeah, they took him out on a stretcher. No, but I mean one ambulance. One ambulance. Yeah, and they never did that again.

Yeah. They never did that again. Yeah. They never did that again. You know, if anything, I show them you need to have two ambulances at these things. So you get some fights in some small organizations. Yeah. And then how old? Mainly Cage Fury, who, you know, thank God that's kind of who I stumbled upon. So I was already kind of with one of the better regional promotions to begin with.

I lucked out with that. I fought in Pittsburgh, I think, once or twice. And then, yeah, I fought for CFFC. And how many fights did you have before you got into the UFC? I was 8-0. I was 8-0 when I got signed. I think I had like six knockouts, a bunch in the first round, and that's when I started putting the acting way on the back burner. I was like, wow, I might actually be able to get into the UFC.

That was never the goal, was to get in the UFC from the beginning. never the goal was was to get in the ufc from the beginning but then once i started winning i always trained my ass off you know just like i am with triathlon or with whether it be acting whether it be fighting commentary like i'm trying to put myself into it and uh the wind started coming and then i remember i knocked out um this kid in in um atlantic city my last fight with CFFC, a spinning hook kick. Yeah, this is it. Bam. Oh.

I got more damage from the ref throwing me into the cage than I did in that whole fight. What did you weigh here? That's 155. I was just smaller. You know, years, dude, think about, like, you know how it is. The years and years of you doing strength and conditioning and you building up those muscles and your bones get denser and stuff like that.

So, I mean, by the time I got to the UFC, plus the lightweights were so big, I remember thinking, like, I have to be bigger than these guys. And I had this complex that I had to weigh so much so I'd go and get so fat in between fights. That's one regret i have looking back i would have stayed leaner and in better shape all year round and not done the drastic weight cuts that i did um is that like the thing that you worry the most about we were talking about that earlier well i know for sure that i've hurt my kidneys uh to the point where even after fights like i've had rhabdo after the Dan Hooker fight.

I was like peeing Coca-Cola. And they made me stay in the hospital for like an extra day or two to monitor my kidneys. I almost had compartment syndrome from that fight. They were going to have to slice my calf open. I've obviously lost a piece of my lung in the James Vick fight. How'd that happen? The end of the fight, he knees me and it pushed in my rib cage. A lot of people thought my rib cage broke. It didn't. Nothing broke. But I had a, they call it like a bleb on your lung that you

would know, you would only know about if somebody went in there or something happened to it. So it's like a bubble that naturally forms on your lungs and it's okay unless something hits it. Well, that knee just so happened to hit right on that spot and it just so happened that I had this thing on my lung and it burst. Whoa. So it collapsed my lung.

And since it collapsed, that part of my lung was then damaged and it wouldn't normally if you like fall really hard doing snowboarding or something like that or you know if you're rock climbing you fall and you land on your your ribs you can you can puncture them by breaking your ribs or you can just the impact can kind of almost like blow it out and a lot of times they'll go back on their own like they'll they'll reinflate your your lungs will kind of heal themselves or they put they call it like a pigtail or something they inserted this this tube down into my lung which was like a vacuum it would suck the air around my lung and my chest wall out, forcing the lung to go back around

where it was supposed to. And that wouldn't work. So like three days went by. They did that for a couple of days, wouldn't work. And then finally the surgeons came in. They're like, we're going to have to go in, find where the bleb was,

cut it out, staple your lung shut, and then adhere your lung to your chest wall. So my left lung is attached to the inside of my chest wall. Like an elephant. Apparently elephants, their lungs are actually attached to the inside of their chest wall. So this lung, like if you stab me here, it would never fully collapse again. Wow. I'm like a superhero on the side does it change the way except for the inch that i'm missing from

it does it change the way your body moves you feel it no i i will get a cramp every now and then in the surgery area that they have i still have a scar it goes right across like like jesus like where they it's like right along here wow that was miserable dude that and that was what that's one of the many things i know we kind of went on a tangent but retirement was like i can't you broke your forearm in the mike perry broke my forearm now when you guys called that one nice you could tell by the way i was i was holding my hand funny and i remember in between rounds going like this and I could feel the bones crunching together on the side. And I told Duke, I was like, he's like, I know, baby, I know.

It's so common with those spinning back fists. Yeah. So common. And then you know what's dumber is throwing it like eight more times in the same fight. And I remember you and Dom, I think it was you and Dom, like, oh, God. Stop throwing that arm. But it's instinctual.

So many people have shattered their forearm. Dom had done that in training. Really? Which is why when he's calling with you, he's going, oh. Because he knows exactly what it feels like. Yeah. Stupid, man. Yeah, spinning back fist and catching that forearm to the forehead.

Right on the forearm. So common. Just snaps it in half. I mean, it's such a, obviously. Your forehead is freaking dense. Yeah, you get that. You get a lot of breaks from checking kicks incorrectly or blocking kicks incorrectly. I love that.

You know what I regret never getting injury-wise? I know it sounds silly to say, but the slices on the shin that you see all these guys getting from checking kicks and your shin Is just like pouring blood bro whose shins are harder than Jan Boho vage? That ankle I a fight and he's just like going shin to shin with him. Yeah, like holy fuck man Polish guys, man But it's him. I don't know if it's all Polish guys, but that mother made out of wood. Yeah, he's different Yeah, he met me. He just went chin to shin with him He doesn't care. Yeah, I mean that that was very very impressive because we were like this is crazy that hurts man Yeah, you've done you've gone. Yeah, horrible and he's just cracking them. Yeah, just getting in there with it

It's like, you know baseball two baseball bats just Yeah, and people I it's like like when you see people kind of criticize, oh, the leg kicks are not that bad. It's like... Oh, you don't know. Bro, you have no idea. Anybody who says that, let me kick you. Just one time.

Just let me kick you one time. One time. I won't even do it all the way. No. I'll kick you 50%. Yeah, not even 20. Give somebody 20%. They deserve 50.

Imagine the calf kick. Give them just 20% of a calf kick. It's like, do you like walking? I've only been calf kick fucking around. I never never calf kicked either in training or in a fight because there was no calf kicks back then like bisping told me when his entire career without getting no of course yeah which is crazy the first time that i had actually the first time i ever experienced it was when i fought um you you remember Mark Stevens from The Ultimate Fighter? No.

Way back in the day. He was on Team Koscheck. I fought him outside of the UFC before I got in. And he was training down at ATT. And those guys have been throwing that calf kick for a long time. And he probably landed about four or five. And I remember thinking, like, what is is he doing he's missing my thigh right but then i remember like kind of moving around in the second round like holy shit this is cramping up really bad and luckily luckily i got him out of there but

that was the first and then dan hooker was the other time that i had really been very good at it he's very good because he just places it. He just touches you. And you're like, oh, that wasn't that hard. Benson Henderson was the first. Yeah. He was the first guy that I ever saw use it in the UFC. He also would punch you in the thigh.

I don't know how effective that one was. Anderson used to do that, too, for fucking around. But Benson was the first guy that I ever saw that regularly threw calf kicks. But for whatever reason reason it didn't have the kind of effect that you're seeing with guys now where you I don't know what it is I don't know if it's if they're placing it more effectively on because where it really hurts is

like right next to your shin bone like that just all that meat and the nerves that goes right along your the bone so it looks like a lot of times you'll hear guys, oh, nice check. It's like he didn't check that. Because it just has to touch that muscle on the side of your shin bone. So it looks like you checked it.

Yeah. Well, I think the casuals got woken up to it in the Dustin Poirier-Conor McGregor fight. Yeah. In that fight where you just see how he's just so compromised. And even fights where you don't think that a guy's compromised, like Adesanya and Pejera. Israel said after the fight, he's like, you fucked my leg up. My leg was useless.

Yeah, you watch it in the replay. I didn't notice it even because I was upstairs watching it. And then when they started showing the highlights later on, I was like, well, he went down from the one check too. So he checked it really weird and he got cat kicked. Well, he kind of tripped over his foot and then went down. So we said too. So he checked it really weird and he got cat kicked. Well, he kind of like tripped over his foot and then went down. So we said, oh, he just stumbled. But it was really because his leg wasn't working well.

Already. Yeah. It was the first round. I went and I've watched that fight several times. Apparently so has Alex Padea. Made Glover watch it every time he comes over. Apparently he puts it on. I watched it again and it's that first round.

That first round, he fucking really chops at it. He's got a very strange style. It's very uniquely his. Pareda? Yeah. The stand-up style, it's very different. Like his hands, he stands like this. He's just freakishly long and big for that weight class and his power

is preposterous you can you ever see some of those guys like when you look at certain skinny guys and i'm not calling him he's not like he's lean but he's lean and you tall and lean those guys are the guys i worry about because it's those guys that hit freakishly hard that it's the the big muscle guys you know that guy's gonna hit you hard, but it's these sneaky tall lean guys Tommy Hearns looking Yeah, and they just they when they turn into those hooks his left hook so much torque and leverage His fucking left hook is a thing of beauty man. It really is I mean his Everything is fucking sick scary. He's such a scary guy and the the high level kickboxing experience that he has, like coming over from glory. I'm, you know, I'm very interested to see what Israel does different in the second fight.

But I'm really interested in seeing him against someone who can wrestle. That's what I'm really interested in. I was just going to say, it's kind of working out perfectly for Alex where you get another shot. Yeah. You know, you get to go and face Israel again. That's the best matchup for you. You've got a guy that is probably going to stand with you for as long as the fight lasts. Yeah.

When he's really going to get challenged is when he has somebody that's going to say that. Marvin Vittori. Yeah. I'm going to grapple your ass. I'm going to pressure you up against the fence. And for guys like Vittori, it's got to be like, all right. They want him to stay the champ. Yeah.

Because Izzy already had their number, and he's been there. But as long as Paredes is in there, another kickboxer, but with a different style, maybe not as much experience in the grappling department, they're chomping at the bit to get in there. Well, I don't know how chomping at the bit to get in there. Well, not necessarily chomping at the bit. He's fucking scary. Robert Whitaker, you know, Whitaker's very well-rounded.

He's an interesting matchup for him. There's very good matchups in that 185-pound division, but in my opinion, what's interesting is he's a specialist. He's like a pure specialist. I mean, he can grapple a little bit, but that's not what he wants a specialist. He's like a pure specialist. Yeah. I mean, he's, he can grapple a little bit, but that's not what he wants to do. He wants to knock your fucking head into the bleachers. Yeah.

And you know it going in. You know, that's what he wants to do to you. We just try to, I mean, is he was winning that fight and he still got him out of there. Yep. I couldn't believe it.

I remember even saying that people were watching it up in the ESPN desk. We're like, man, could you imagine if he pulls it off here in the end and he fucking did it yeah he did it Izzy was probably ahead three well what how many rounds do you think he was ahead going into that fifth round that was the fifth and I think even that round was was that who I don't remember now well Izzy definitely won the first and almost knocked him out. I think he had probably two or three rounds. Yeah. It's hard to say.

I'd have to go back and try to score it. Which I'm terrible at, man. People are always like, what did you think? I'm like, I'm calling the fight. Yeah, you can't call and score at the same time. They don't get it. When you're scoring a fight, you should shut your mouth. Okay, here we go. same time. They don't get it. When you're scoring a fight, you should shut your mouth. Okay, here we go.

So, Izzy had three rounds on Eric Colen's card. On Sal D'Amato's card, he had three rounds. And he also had three rounds on Mike Bell's. All the same, too. All he had to do was move around. Yep. And not get caught.

Not get caught, and he wins that fight. Wow. I'm very interested in the rematch. Because you've got to think, Izzy almost had him out in the first round, man. He almost had him out. If he could avoid getting that leg compromised like he did in the first round of that fight, and so he's got his movement, and he also had some great moments grappling which surprised a lot of people

when he had Pajero's back if there's a time that you're going to pull out some grappling it's in that matchup and he's been at it longer than Pajero so it's like that's the time to show and he did both guys did both guys I think scored takedowns at one point or another in that fight

I remember being like oh now they're wrestlers in here you get two guys that know they can knock the crap out of each other and suddenly everybody knows how to do a little bit of wrestling well just you know the mixing it up just keeping someone guessing overload overload their brain yeah 25 minutes of avoiding that left hook scary proposition it's everything man everything he hits you with is hard. That's what I'm talking about. Those lean guys like that, you know those shins hurt.

You know if he lands an elbow on you. Same as Izzy. They're similar build, but Alexa has more muscle on him. He's quite a bit bigger. I mean, I think Pejeta, when he actually weighed into the fight, was above 220. Yeah.

When he was inside the octagon for the fight was above 220, whereas you got to remember when Izzy fought Jan Bohovic for the light heavyweight title, he was only 194. Yeah. Izzy is one of those guys that... He's not cutting that much weight. He's not cutting any weight. And even when he wanted to go up to light heavyweight,

he's like, I'm not cutting any weight. I'm going to fight as I fight. Which makes sense, especially if you're not planning on making that transition permanently. You don't want to go and add on all that size and the other thing that drives me nuts about when i hear these fighters and i think it's really the strength and conditioning coaches feeding bullshit more than it is the fighters they're just listening to what they're being told but you don't put on 20 pounds of muscle in a month you ever hear these guys in fighter meetings we'll be talking to them be like well

You know I put on about 10 pounds of lean muscle mass for this camp like this particular camp in so you've put on 10 pounds 10 pounds of muscle mass. How are you gonna pass your piss test? What do you? What supplements are you taking for that hair quotes air quotes supplements? I get the fuck you didn't put on 10 pounds of muscle Yeah, that's a lot of weight. You're out of your mind. Yeah. Yeah, you probably gained some water weight.

It's also, it's like- You got stronger. What kind of scanning are they doing of their body composition before they say these things? It's the coach doing the eyeball scan saying that you put on 10 pounds of muscle for this one. Well, you know, I always go back to the Roy Jones Jr. Ruiz fight when he fought John Ruiz. He went up to heavyweight, remember? Yeah. And he got very muscular.

He was real big. He was about, I mean, he wasn't too heavy for a heavyweight. I want to say Roy weighed like 200 pounds, just a little over 200 pounds maybe. See what he weighed for that John Ruiz fight. Does it say? 193. Oh, was he really? That's all he weighed?

Well, the heavyweight for boxing is different, right? I think that's now. They're saying now he weighs 193. But what did he weigh when he fought John Ruiz? Does it say there? Oh, he said he weighed 193, and Ruiz was 226. Oh, he's 226, yeah. Interesting.

But, you know, Roy was so fucking talented. But when Roy went down in weight and then fought Tarver in his next fight, he looked deflated. Yeah. He looked like he had just really drained himself to make that weight cut. Yeah, that's why you see these guys drop down, man. Looked terrible, and then got knocked out. Very few people can do it.

Jose Aldo somehow. I don't know. Came down and looked great. Still look good. I think what happened with Aldo is he never really had a serious nutritionist. Yeah. Where someone was like planning his meals,

breaking down by calories. He was just cutting all that weight. Yeah. For the 45. And it's like, well, you could have been a lot smaller way before you even got to that weight cut because remember i remember when he was at the top of the heap at 145 he was heavy man yeah he was walking around struggling to make those weight cuts so and when he said he was going down to bantamweight it's like well how are you going to go down to bantamweight? You used to struggle to make 145 pounds.

Lifestyle changes. Yeah, lifestyle changes. And some guys, that's the move. And some guys, you know, it just ruins them because they drain so much out of their body. They're not durable anymore. Yeah. I joked about, I've talked to like Nixick and Brian Butler, my manager. I'm like, maybe I'll come back on 145.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I talked to Ian Larios, who does all my weight cuts. He's like, are you out of your fucking mind, dude? He's like, just because you're skinnier now doesn't mean you can drop a whole weight class and have no trouble making that weight. Were you thinking about it at one point in time, doing one more fight? Oh, man, I've thought about it many, many times. Did you think about it at one point in time doing one more fight oh man i've thought about it many many times did you think about it after olivera became the champ because

when you beat olivera he was not yeah he um you know not really because we're on such different trajectories it's like just because i at the time i had a win which i loved having over him i loved being the last guy that had beaten the champion which is no longer the case but like for me to come back and think i'm going to even come close to getting that match up it's like well that's not going to happen i'm going to have to win and beat all these insane hungry contenders before i even get to sniff at that that belt so he was an interesting case he still is an interesting case because he was a guy who was kind of known as a guy who fell apart. A quitter a little bit.

Cubs once and knocked him out. A bunch of guys had beat him. Max Holloway had that weird neck thing going on. What happened to Max Holloway fight? Remember? He had a weird stinger almost in his neck, I think. And he kind of just crumbled in the corner and like tapped out. I think it was a legit thing with his neck.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I remember that. It was kind of scary. I forgot about that. Yeah. But then everybody was calling him a quitter. And it's like.

And he just turned a corner and then became the baddest motherfucker in the weight class. Yeah. Not just the baddest motherfucker in the weight class, but one of the best motherfuckers in the weight class yeah not just the baddest in the weight class but one of the best in the sport when he was not when he knocked out chandler and he beat the out of gaethje when he when he was putting it on people you got to go god damn he's good i'm curious to see if he comes back and gets back to that islam fight because he seems to want it at first it didn't seem like, like after you've been there with Islam, I think a lot of people go,

oh, I don't know if I want to get back in there right away. He's on such another level. And then you think about it for a while. What's it say here?

Olivera suffered a micro tear in his esophagus. Wow. And you know what that was probably due to? He said he's injured his neck in training

but did physical therapy and thought everything was fine. What do you think it's due to? Probably all of the weight cuts that he had been doing to make 145 pounds back in the day. That's right, the 45 pounds. Now, he probably hurt it in training legit, but when you're constantly dehydrating yourself camp after camp after camp,

and I remember when he fought me, he was still trying to go back down to 145 pounds, which is why he wasn't as big. I mean, I must have been 20 pounds heavier than him when I fought him back then. And so then he made a conscious decision to stay at 55. He said, I'm going to stay here because they told him you have no choice. So, like, you're either going to fight in this weight class or you're going to keep missing and screwing yourself over at 45. It's crazy because his power developed. Like, when he hit G gage he gage he said no one ever hit him that hard before he said he felt in his teeth i mean even back in the day when he was still mr skinny charles

olivera and he kicked me a few times i remember being like god damn i thought i was gonna buzz saw through this guy on the feet and he lands lands a few shots. And you could see where that strength was there. That, again, another one of those just wiry guys where you kind of underestimate their power. And then they hit you and you're like, Jesus Christ. Long lean. It's a great build for fighting. You look at some of the great fighters of our time. Like the long lean guys.

It's the best build, in my opinion. Because you have the reach advantage. The reach. J reach jujitsu you can wrap everybody up you can sneak your arms in through your your you're not as bulky which maybe you don't have as much of that brunt kind of power that some of the guys that are shorter in stock you would have in the division but i think that long lean muscle for mma is is the way to be and i was just short and stumpy. I had no reach.

None of those benefits, unfortunately. Yeah, but then look at Mighty Mouse. He's short and stumpy too, and he's the greatest of all time. Yeah. If not the greatest. He's in the conversation. I mean, I don't think there's one real greatest of all time. Khabib is most certainly in the conversation.

Jon Jones. Jon Jones, for sure. Jon Jones has got the perfect build. Perfect build. How is that going to translate to heavyweight? It's very interesting because everybody else has the perfect build up there, too. Yeah. It's a different world when you're dealing with natural 245s, natural 260s.

I was really looking forward to him and Francis. I think everybody was, man. I got real bummed out when they didn't make that happen. Yeah. I think Francis just sees that pot of gold at the end of the boxing rainbow and is like, you know what? I'm going to make some fucking money. And my hope is, here's my hope. Here's the perfect world.

The perfect world is he goes over, has some big money heavyweight boxing fight. Jon Jones and Cyril Ghosn have a fight. Jon wins, Cyril wins. whoever wins is the UFC champion, and then they have- Comes back. And then Francis comes back. Yeah. I'd like to see him come back. He can totally come back.

Francis, if you're listening, sir, please- You can come back. Don't sign an exclusive contract. Just go make some money. No, there's no way, right? Who knows? If someone comes along and offers him a shit ton of money. Yeah.

Look, I mean, he should. If someone says, hey, I'll give you $100 million. He'd do whatever. He'd do whatever. He'd say, okay, what do I got to do? Fight Jake Paul? What the fuck do I have to do? You know what I mean?

Like, if they're going to offer him big money. But I think they're trying to do a Tyson Fury fight. I know Tyson Fury was saying a bunch of crazy shit. Like, we'll fight in a cage. We'll do it on a fucking four-ounce clubs. With boxing rules, boxing rules mike tyson is the referee he's yeah why is that could mean that would be more people would buy it i mean that's that's just getting a bunch of people to buy it you make as much money as they humanly can i, Tyson, people need to understand the levels of boxing, though. You got to understand.

I mean, listen, Francis Ngannou could knock out any human being on earth if he can hit them clean on the chin. But good luck hitting Tyson Fury clean on the chin. Bro. Did you see Floyd Mayweather sparring yesterday? He made that kid. I don't know who that kid is. Well, the kid is like a decent boxer. Yeah. Decent boxer. And that just shows you right there. I mean, he was, I don't know who that kid is. Well, the kid is like a decent boxer. Yeah.

Decent boxer. And that just shows you right there. I mean, he was, I just saw it yesterday. I was watching. And he was just, and he was talking. Playing with him. Bang, bang. Playing with him.

And moving away from him. You know, and the kid, whoever this guy is, I guess he's a YouTuber. Yeah. Oh, really? Do you know who he is, Jamie? The kid had an excellent account of himself because even though floyd was tagging him he didn't shy away he kept moving forward he was just and you can't get frustrated like the worst thing you can do when floyd's talking shit to you like

that is rush him right because we're gonna you're gonna walk into a right hand and you're gonna look like an you're gonna look like an idiot so he's's still, I mean, he's like 50 years old. I mean it's amazing. His understanding of where the punches are coming. Look at that fucking counter. His understanding of, is that the dude he boxed? Yeah, he's talking about the video. Oh let's hear him say it. What he's saying. Oh my god, I didn't even see that any touched you with that yeah just touched oh that's funny that if you

wanted to take you down with that that liver shot he would have taken you down yeah easily he's just tapping him up but. But that guy's got a great sense of humor about it. It's very funny how he's laughing about it. But, you know, I mean, you've got to think this guy is 50 years old. I mean, how old is Floyd now? He's got to be close to 50. He's got to be late 40s, 48. Late 40s.

Kid was 21. And at this point in time, 45. Sorry, Floyd But I mean Past his prime and still Just making millions of dollars Fighting people that have no business He's really brilliant What he's doing is brilliant

Because he gets these guys to fight him They have no business fighting him He's making millions of dollars He puts on a show. Do you see the one he did, I guess it was in Dubai? Where he took the ring card and he was walking around

in between rounds holding the ring card. He took it from the ring card girl. He was just having a blast. I saw the one a while back. He fought that kickboxer kid. That was the first time he had done one of those big Tenshin Asakawa. Yeah, one of those like big exhibitions.

It's just like, he's just going to make you look sick. But Tenshin fought 126. Tenshin's a tiny guy. Yeah. He's a brilliant kickboxer. But without kicking. Yeah, without the kicking.

You've got no chance. I know. You might not even have a chance. He has a chance of kicking. Imagine if they let him leg kick Floyd. That's the only way I'm getting in there.

Can I elbow? How about this? Can I knee you? I get 10 leg kicks around. Give me one. Right. Give me one. Yeah. If I land, you know, I don't want to. Oh, you get those juices flowing again. Let's go.

I do, man. It's hard. It's a, especially since we do commentary right so i'm around these elite fighters all the time and i try to be respect but you can tell sometimes somebody will get sassy or have a comment about what i said and it's like man don't don't forget that i've been in there too man like I know everything that's going on there. I've had my ass beat. I've beaten some good dudes. I've never was champion.

That's the only thing. Sometimes I feel a little bit of, what's the word where you, like you feel like you're. Imposter syndrome? Yeah. Like I don't deserve to be there sometimes because you got Dom next to me. He's champ. WEC champ. I got DC's double champ next to me, he's a champ, WEC champ. I got DC's double champ next to me.

Well, what about me? I never even fought MMA. Yeah, but you're there day one. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, but you do a great job. You shouldn't have imposter syndrome. And you are absolutely a legitimate, like top flight professional fighter. It's just that sport is always going to have sensitive people When you dedicate your entire life to this one moment, and then someone's criticizing it and saying, oh, he could have done this, and he could have done that. And they're like, fuck you, Paul Felder.

I've had to take some Joe Rogan lessons on not reading the comments and not doing all that stuff. Everyone should listen to me about that. For the longest time, I would get into these arguments and you you can't win because you've already lost the second you type it in and send it they just won yeah you lost right away and you also really letting it get to you is the first loss there's no there's nothing at stake so you can't win anything no there's no way to win yeah i'll beat you up internet guy i say that but no there's nothing at stake so you can't win anything. No, there's no way to win Yeah, I'll beat you up internet guy I say that but then there's Gordon Ryan who loves to fucking go back and forth with people online

But does he have a learn doing it? He does. Okay. He's a sometimes I legitimate psycho But as long as you can enjoy half. Well, he's a real psycho as long as you can enjoy it. Yeah I started to get mad. He enjoys it. He gets a real psycho. As long as you can enjoy it. Yeah. I started to get mad. He enjoys it. He gets a kick out of it. He doesn't give a fuck. Like, you can't hurt his feelings like that. Well, I mean, you're, like, what are you going to do?

First of all, where's the trash talk even coming from with a guy like that? Right. Like, what are you saying to him? Right. That he's not the best? Oh, you only won 50 in a row? Oh, fucking whoopty shit. You're the greatest of all time.

Whatever. You're a beautiful. You suck, bro. Handsome Oh, fucking whoopty shit. You're the greatest of all time. Whatever. You suck, bro. You're a beautiful, handsome, tall, good-looking guy built like a Greek god. Fuck off. Hate your abs. Yeah. Probably see you can want to suck dick. Yeah, it's an interesting thing, that social media.

Because I've seen it ruin people's lives. I've seen some fighters, they get into it with people on social media and they're going back and forth all the time. And I know that's fucking with their head. I know they're probably thinking about that where they're hitting pads or thinking about some mean thing that someone said to them. Or someone posts a – I remember people used to fuck with Rashad Evans. There was that photo of him when Lyoto Machida knocked him out and it was like his eyeballs were rolled back in his head.

And some guy came up to him at one of them. To sign it? Yes. Yeah. And he crumpled it up and threw it at him. Should have just signed it. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. Like, you got to, you're in there with, you're standing right next to a lion. Yeah. Like, how about you watch your fucking mouth? You think you're cute? Go up to Rashad evans and put a picture of him being knocked down you think that's cute he'll do he'll rip your fucking head off your body how about that he's a much calmer man these days man oh my god he's so chill now psychedelic journey yeah he became a different human it's so funny to see him. Just his energy in the backstage area is just so calm now. And I'm like, dude, I remember hanging out with you.

That's what it doesn't. You turn into a fucking giraffe. That's the one thing I can't. John Gooden, too. I can't. I just can't get on that bandwagon. I don't think it's good for you. I mean, it might be okay for some people,

but I don't believe it's good for you i mean it might be okay for some people but it's not i don't believe it's the optimum diet and this comes from many many many conversations with nutritionists yeah and and vegans too and trying to listen to people that are vegan you can do it and pull it off but you have to really be careful and you have to really mind your macronutrients and really pay attention because what you're taking in. Yeah, because it just seems so easy to take way too much of processed shit. It's not just that. You definitely could do that, but it's also your body's not absorbing. Like when people go, you can't go one-to-one with animal products versus like broccoli. Like if you say like, oh, I got 25 grams of protein from broccoli. No, you didn't.

Because your body's not absorbing it the same. Yeah, with all that fiber, you're just going to be farting the whole time. That's what's going to end up happening. But some people have done it right. They can do it. It can be done right. I just don't think it's the optimal diet. I really believe that red meat

and this is very controversial, but it's backed up by science. It really is. Red meat is one of the most nutrient dense food Yeah, and all of our ideas about what's bad and what's good. We've been hoodwinked. We've been hoodwinked by a bunch of fucked up studies that were conducted by the sugar companies because they paid scientists off to lie about the dangers of Saturated fat and that is just in everyone's consciousness. Yep. And then, you know, there's all these people, what about your cholesterol?

What about that? What about this? What about that? I get my blood work done all the time. I'm healthy as fuck. Yeah. So you know, and you are eating a lot of red meat. I'm eating mostly meat.

All of January, I go on the carnivore diet. I do it every year. Just all January, I eat nothing but meat. I feel fucking great. You don't crave like, oh, I guess you do, yeah. I do cheat. I cheat a couple times. What's your go All January, I eat nothing but meat. I feel fucking great. You don't crave like... I do crave. Oh, I guess you do, yeah. I do cheat.

I cheat a couple times. What's your go-to? I ate sushi. I had some sushi. That was really good. But it's just rice. I cheated with rice. I cheated a little bit.

Rice is my favorite thing on the planet. I had dessert three times this month. Yeah. And I had a piece of bread yesterday. Fuck yeah. I love bread, dude. I do too. I love it.

I had a steak and I was like, one piece of bread's not going to fucking kill me. You know what I want after the steak? What? Some bread. Yes. After the steak? No, I'm just saying. I always want bread now.

I love bread. Bread with butter. It's fucking, God damn it's so good. You know what? Warm, warm bread. Have you ever heard of this? Bread with butter. It's fucking,

God damn it's so good. You know what? Warm, warm bread. Have you ever heard of this? When I was a kid, if we had anything with gravy for dinner, we would do bread and gravy afterwards, right?

Oh yeah. You just, my dad would go to the kitchen, grab the biggest thing of white bread that we had, put a pile on it. Anybody want some bread and gravy? Just sop it up.

And we would just sit there, grab the gravy. Oh yeah. Pour it all over bread. Well, you know, I'm Italian and my grandparents used to live in this very Italian neighborhood in New Jersey that eventually wasn't Italian, but they had these Italian bakeries and we would go, I'd go walk with my grandfather to this bakery. He'd go to the bakery every couple of days and buy a couple of loaves of bread.

Yeah. And it was the freshest bread. And you'd carve into it. And my grandmother would make homemade pasta sauce. And oh my God, the marinara. That's my favorite thing in the world. Dip it in there with butter. While it's still bubbling away.

And you have a side of bread. Slather that with some butter. And right into the pot. Almost scold your whole face off. But it's just whatever. I'm going in. So good. I mean, I know it's terrible for you.

But like, look, you're from Philly. A fucking cheesesteak sub. A real good one. A real good one. Which is fucking hot. And you rip it apart at the middle and take a bite into it, and it's the crunch of the bread on the outside and the juiciness.

It's the bread. It's the bread, man. Even all the hoagies and stuff like that, you get the hard seed it rolls. That's the way to go. Look at that. Jesus, look at that. Eat that, Bilal. Oh, that looks so good. Philly doesn't suck. Chicago sucks. Go, birds. Look how good that looks. God, that looks so good. Philly doesn't suck. Chicago sucks. Go, birds.

Look how good that looks. God, that looks good. That's whiz wit right there. That's whiz wit. It's funny how Philly became known for cheesesteaks. Yeah. That is the food of Philadelphia, right? If you ask someone, I don't think there's another place like that in terms of, like, a sandwich that's completely connected to one city.

Yeah. Where? In another place. No. I can't. I guess. Like, I guess. Chicago's got the.

Deep dish. And what's their. They do, like, they do a beef sandwich, too, in Chicago. Yeah. But it's not. But it's not. Not as famous as a cheesesteak. Philly's synonymous with cheesesteaks.

And Jim's, which was always my favorite spot on South Street, that just burned down not too long ago. I don't even think it's back up and running. And then, obviously, Pat's and Gino's are just like the drunk. They're kind of touristy, right? Yeah. They're still good. Bro, if it's 3 in the morning and you've been out and then you go and get a cheese, it's going to taste amazing.

And you want to see a brawl. If you want to see a fist fight. You're five out of ten. Or be in one. You can go stand in that line. What's the best cheesesteak in Philly? There's got to be like one best place. I mean, I always went to gyms, but everybody would argue there's a spot in theilly. There's got to be like one best place. I mean, I always went to gyms, but everybody would argue

there's a spot in the Northeast. I know the Dawkus brothers would be arguing with me about that and Sean Brady. But you know what? I don't even I don't eat them that often to be honest with you. When you grow up. Once a year?

No, more than that. When I say I don't eat them very often, I mean like every couple months I'll have a cheesesteak. But I'm a pizza guy nowadays. Every time I watch Dave Portnoy test pizza, I wish I was there with him. Yeah. I get so jealous. Like when he's just taking a bite out of a crust. Meanwhile, you're eating a steak and he's just crushing bread.

Yeah. I mean, it's not good for you. It's not the right way for me, just me personally, when I eat and I feel my best is like fruit and meat. Yeah. That's it. And I can eat greens. Greens don't seem to bother me. But the balance for me seems to be fruit and meat.

What is this? Is this Jim's? This is Jim's. This is Jim's? Oh, that looks good. Oh, my God. I got to make a cheesesteak at Jim's for the UFC. Oh, really?

They did a feature when we, the last time they were in Philly, me and my brother, me and my brother Tommy did a, This guy's going off. Hey, Barack. Oh, mama. I mean, everybody's.

Yeah, and that's the thing. The thing I like about Jim's, too, on South Street is you can get beers and stuff there. A lot of them, they don't want you to get beer because it's 3 in the morning and you're already trying to fight somebody outside of that place. It's just funny that how did that happen where that became the known sandwich of Philadelphia? I don't know. I remember I heard how they even got started. I think a guy had some leftover steak and it was like early in the morning or something. And he threw a sandwich together.

And that's, I think that's how they got started making them like that. But I don't know how that became so damn famous with our city that, that we're known for cheese whiz and chopped steak. Yeah, but you think about all the different food, all the different stuff that people could eat, that one sandwich becomes famous for the same reason. We were like one of the founding, the original capital of this nation. And what are we known for now? Cheese days. Cheese whiz on the road.

Well, also known for fights, fighters. I mean, think about how many, Bernard Hopkins, Joe Frazier. I mean, so many great fighters came out of philadelphia there's a kid now um ennis um oh boots and it's cool damn bro god damn he's good he's so good i remember training with him when he was like a teenager and he was just he was just he was just playing around with us and we were just he would just move around i mean we were grown adult mma fighters couldn't even touch this kid and now look at he's just he's so murdering people the way he yeah just like slides he could basically does like a cartwheel and gets out of the way of some of these shots man he's so slick he's so

slick and creative and so entertaining to watch he's so good yeah he's so good at switching stances and and it's i'm so glad to see him movement yeah i see him doing as well as because he was literally helping mma guys out with his dad obviously um bozy who's just training him i don't know if i think that's who he's training with pretty much full-time still is his dad. His dad still gets after it. His dad is 67 years old. He will throw down if need be. I've seen him box like young kids in the gym

who start mouthing off and he's like, you want to throw down? Doesn't throw a headgear on and he'll bust people up. Wow. He's the man. He cornered me for that spinning hook kick fight he was in my corner yeah wow yeah so when you were doing that did you have an mma gym or were you training were you cross training on your own like going to a boxing gym a muay thai gym a jiu-jitsu

gym so back then we at daniel gracie's gym in northilly, we had, if you went into our basement gym, there was a like sliding old school door that went into another basement. And, you know, it was just like all old warehouses that were turned into studios like this or, or a boxing gym. And next door to us was a boxing gym. So we would, we started sharing the space so we would work with uh bozy and all those guys and his sons and his who are you know he's got other sons who didn't make it the way boots is now but they would spar with us help us out hold pads for us so that that was kind of just like a little collab that we had going at the time but wow that's fortunate it was great that's amazing that's amazing and they would i remember

some of the pro boxers there would just jab like you'd you'd be trying to beat their asses and you'd find out after the session that yeah i was just throwing jabs like look think back he's like did i ever hit you with the right hand it's like no you were only jabbing me in the face and i was trying to take your head off for you know know, six rounds or whatever it was. And they were just sharpening up tools on you. They were just working on one thing. Or maybe just defense, not even punching you. Well, that would be a thing that Hicks and Gracie

would always do with people. You know, like he would just go for left arm bars. Yeah. So he would train with everybody and just like. That's the best way to do it. If you're significantly better than somebody. Okay, well, how can I handicap myself? So that I'm still working while you're still working. It's just a good way to do it if you're significantly better than somebody. Okay, well, how can I handicap myself so that I'm still working while you're still working? Yeah.

It's just a good way to train. Yeah, it's hard for a guy who's that much better than everybody else to get real good solid work in. Yeah. Just don't put nobody on that level. So what was the first, was Duke's the first actual MMA gym? I know you did some training with cowboy too right yeah so way back when i was still an amateur he had like the tap out house back then where he had bunk beds in his own house and he would rent it out and you could just come and experience training

with donald and leonard garcia at the time so. So I flew out after sparring with him at a seminar. And he's like, you know what? You don't even have to pay. Just come out and you can train with us. You can live in the house and be a sparring partner. And then after experiencing that mess of living in bunk beds with these other fighter dudes sharing one bathroom, bro, in the back of his house, because the way they had the ranch set up is Leonard had

like this middle area. Cowboy had his own bedroom with a bathroom in the back and then all of us dudes were just in like four bunk beds. How many guys were in the house together? Man we'd have there'd be like ten guys at a time. Oh my god. All taking dumps in the same bathroom. Who was cooking?

Us. For ourselves. Going to Walmart and buying shit. And that's when you realize how back-assed some of these kids are with their diets. It's like, what are you eating? There's Oreos everywhere. It's like little kids. It's like

you realize that none of us knew how to even live on our own and we all started, you started eating cleaner, you started, well, the ones that wanted to be successful would and uh some of these kids would miss weight or they'd be partying and not training and it's like dude you're not here on vacation man right you're here to train and some guy be in there with cowboy get his nose broken he used to spar four ounce gloves no shin guards no headgear just mouthpiece mma gloves in his cage at the ranch and i remember i was always

getting thrown in because he he'd wreck somebody all right felder philly called me back then get philly in here and i'd come in and take my ass beating but i kept coming after him i kept coming after him coming after him and he started flying me out then I started training with those guys and then obviously I got my UFC debut and he definitely he's like get your ass out here I went out there I brought my buddy Jonathan with me and uh I did that for a while and then I was like okay it it was too much and it was it was cowboy it was the cowboy show like i needed to find somewhere where i could kind of have my own little bit of a training camp i could still go and train with him but it wasn't i wasn't going to get that attention that i needed and now being in the ufc that's when i was finally like man i can't i can't just be a sparring partner anymore. And that's when I started doing my own training camps.

And I floated around Daniel Gracie. I worked with Nick Catone and Ricardo and Mark Henry and those guys for a couple of fights. And it just, it didn't, nothing against those guys. I love all those guys. But it didn't seem like it just didn't fit my style. And then my manager at the time, Brian, was like, I want you to go check out Duke. So I flew out there.

When I was getting ready for Gilbert Burns, which ended up not happening, he broke his arm in that fight. But that's the first time I flew out there. I'd lost to Trinaldo in Brazil. And then I flew out to Duke's, and I never left. I stayed there for the entire training camp. Once I met him, once I hit pads with him one time, I was like, that's my guy. Really?

That's my guy. Interesting. Bro, he's like Rain Man of Thai pads and Thai knowledge. He's so damn good. Oh, he's a wealth of knowledge. He'll tell you all about it, too. Yeah, I mean, he knows a lot. If you want to hear about it Duke will

friggin talk to you about it I love that you gotta think of him and his brother I mean they were at the forefront of kickboxing you know when his brother I forget who that Thai guy whose brother fought but when his brother was the king of kings in kickboxing and he fought that Thai guy and that Thai guy chopped

his legs apart and then Duke who was 19 at the time It's like well, I don't think there's any talent and kicking legs and then he's I'm never gonna let that have he that was the moment When he was like, oh, yeah, I guess there is something to this stuff and then he became obsessed with it I remember the first time I found out about Muay Thai. I was training in Boston and I was training with this My I was I was running this Taekwondo school and I was training with this – I was running this Taekwondo school, and I was working with this boxing trainer. And this boxing trainer had this other guy who ran a karate school in Everett, Rich Vassipoli. Great fucking guy.

He died actually doing a triathlon. He got kicked in the head while he was swimming. And he got knocked out, I guess. Yes, this is the fight. Look, he just doesn't even know what to do. Yeah. And also, Rick had him hurt. He had him hurt and dropped him.

Because he could punch, man. Oh, my God. He could do everything. Rick could do everything. And he was so clever. Like, his kicking and everything was so slick But this motherfucker was just chopping him down marching for just chopping him down And he just brutalized his legs and Rick didn't react to it at all. He didn't know oh yeah, it is he hurt him

He hurt him bad When he said was it a high kick He kicked into the left hand. Oh, yeah. So he kicked him and then threw the left hand. Boom, yeah. Almost like a Superman punch. Yeah. With one leg up, caught him on the chin.

Was that blood or his mouth guard? Mouth guard. All right. So he puts his mouth guard back in. I mean, round one. And that's round one. Round one. I mean, very, very interesting moment in striking because, oh, look, you heard him again.

He tags him, drops him a second time in the round. Like, he had him in real fucking trouble. And this dude gets up, and Rick had some fucking hands. I mean, he had amazing kicks above the waist and eventually developed great kicks below the waist. But this Thai guy just kept fucking chopping the legs. And I think this fight was a fight. How do you say his name? Chang Puek Kiet Song Grit.

I don't know. You need Duke to pronounce that one. Or Mark Delagrate could probably do it. So he had this dude in all kinds of trouble. Mark definitely could. Well, Markgrate could probably do it. But so, he had this dude in all kinds of trouble. Oh, Mark definitely could. Mark can actually speak Thai. Yeah. It's wild watching him speak Thai, because he's fucking Boston accent, fucking Italian

guy, you know? And he's speaking Thai. Yeah, look at that. Jump spinning back kick to the head at the end of the first round. So, this dude is getting his ass handed to him in the first round, and then comes back in the second and just starts fucking marching him down and chopping those legs.

Hey, you can go right there. Just go right there. You can get a sense of it. But we got a sense of like, oh, this is crazy. Like he's taking away his ability to move and he's taking away his ability. I mean, he's just thumping those shins into his thigh. You can see it right there. That one right there.

He's already not moving it. Yeah, not liking it. And it opened up a lot of people's eyes. And I want to say, shit, what year was this? Oh, God. I mean, does it say? 88. 88.

Wow. So no one even fucking understood Muay Thai outside of Thailand back then I mean there was a few guys but most people did not know what Muay Thai was about so this is when I first found out about Muay Thai and I had heard about this fight and because I was a giant fan of Rick Rufus and this was was on PKA Karate. It was on ESPN. And I started training, and I started training with guys who were going over to Thailand and fighting. There was this one dude that I knew who went over there for months and months at a time.

And this is in 88, 88 or 89. This guy was going over to Thailand and training and coming back with all these stories and fucking cuts all over his forehead from elbows. Yeah, getting mangled. Yeah. But it was very eye-opening. The elbows were very eye-opening because I hadn't really thought about that as like an in-tight weapon that would work alongside with boxing. And then the leg kicks. And just I remember being stunned at how effective leg kicks are.

Just it's so amazing. Yeah. Like watching that fight. It's like, wow. And I remember being a little kid and I obviously grew up doing martial arts. And I remember a couple of people, even when I was just starting doing taekwondo and karate, people being like, you should do Muay Thai. But even then, I remember, you know, as a kid,

I was born in 84, so I was four when Rick was getting his ass handed, leg kicks like that. That's crazy. But even when I was a kid, people were like, no, you should do Muay Thai. Isn't that crazy? It was like dangerous.

You were four. Yeah. I was 21 I'm so old it's wild it's wild thinking back to those days because I was at a time where martial arts had started

to kind of like that was the first time striking styles merged where you saw like the above the waist kickboxing which is what most of the people did in America. And then Muay Thai. Muay Thai was so much more effective. But if you had those above the waist style kicks and.

And you can kick the legs. Oh, my God. But no one knew what to do with front leg side kicks. I remember that when I was kickboxing. I was like, no one knew what to do with that. It was weird. You would stand sideways and they didn't know how to handle that. Yeah, you can't get in.

If you were really good at it. There was this guy Larry Jones that I used to train with. Larry was six foot two and he was all legs. It was crazy. His legs went up to here. I never saw anybody built like him. He had the torso of a five-foot man and he had these legs that were incredible. Incredible dexterity and he would sidekick the fuck out of everybody and you just couldn't get close to him Yeah, you try to move forward You could have the best hands in the world like a lot of those point fighter guys Like there's a guy named mafia Holloway. Do you know he is? Mm-hmm? He was a guy He was the first guy I fought a couple of those point tournaments just for fuck around

I wasn't a point fighting guy, but I would do it every now and then and I fought him in a point fighting tournament I remember being so baffled like what to do because I I was used to continuous the tag where no fights were continuous and he would just he would just swap tap me and I was like oh wow I was like this is something I need to learn how to do and I remember thinking that when I when MMA started emerging I was like that is an unseen skill the ability to point fight and then venom page came and showed everybody Venom page was the first guy that was like a really good point fighter Yeah, that made his way into MMA. I'm like there's wonder boy as well wonder boys well But Wonder Boy is a kickboxer Wonder Boy did a lot of a you know above the waist kickboxing and he was fucking

Phenomenal with that his records like crazy 57 and 0 or something crazy like that. I mean, Wonderboy is like, that fight with Kevin Holland, that let everybody know, you just want to stand up with Wonderboy. You're in trouble. No threat of the takedown at all.

Wonderboy is a bad man. Yeah. He's a bad man. He's just, and he, he's just going to have fun. Yeah. You know what I mean? Even if you hurt him,

it's like, don't forget this dude came from, he's been hurt before on the feet. Oh, he knows how to handle it. As long as you're not going to have fun. Yeah. You know what I mean? Even if you hurt him, it's like, don't forget this dude came from a – he's been hurt before on the feet. Oh, he knows how to handle it. As long as you're not going to follow it up with a whole bunch of wrestling and stifling, he's standing to do that all day long. And his ego is so healthy. He's such a nice guy. He's the nicest guy. That, like, it's almost like he's congratulating you for hitting him. Yeah.

Like, good job. Got past my defenses there, buddy. Good job. Well, he does some wild shit too like he sneaks that round kick over the shoulder onto the face i think that's the kick that made him i mean that that knockout that he has first ufc fight is that what it was yeah and he just kind of throws it yeah well i remember farasa hobby saying that he was the best striker they had ever seen they brought him in to train with Georges St-Pierre. Yes. And this was when Wonderboy was in his 20s.

Yeah. Wonderboy was a motherfucker. I saw him fight live. Can I get some of this? Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Let me push that down. I saw Wonderboy fight live at Chuck Norris' event. Remember Chuck Norris?

Yes. Yes. Dude, I used to watch that because that was in the prime of, I'm still doing taekwondo and doing all that. And I'm like, that's what I want to do. Yeah. Because it was kickboxing. So you can find some of the Wonder Boy.

What was that called? I think it was World Combat League. I think you're right. I think that's what he called it. But I went to see it. I believe it was in Atlantic City. And it was the first time I met Chuck Norris. I was like, oh, my God, it's Chuck Norris.

I couldn't believe I was meeting Chuck Norris. And he knew who I was. I was like, oh, it's Chuck Norris I couldn't believe us meeting Chuck Norris and he knew who I was I was like oh my god I could die on our it's like Chuck Norris knows my name he came and give me a hug I was like holy shit Chuck Norris gave me a hug but this is Wonder Boy when he was in his fucking prime man like and so there was what we're looking at is for people that are just listening there's a round platform and it and it bevels up on the sides slightly. So instead of having a barrier, there's like an area, the red area, like a yellow area, the danger track, and then the red where it slants up. And so you know to move around it, which I think was a brilliant idea. And so you know to move around it, which I think was a brilliant idea.

And I want to say that Frank Shamrock was one of the first guys to use something similar to that in MMA. He had an organization that he was doing for a while. Yeah. Well, dude, it goes back. Even think of Bloodsport, right? At the final match, they turn up the canvas so that they're forced to the middle. I mean, that's basically the concept. It's a good concept. I like the concept.

The concept of having a curved surface. But the problem with MMA guys is you can't have that because guys will drive people over the side and slam them. You'll be running into that guy with the camera right there. See, there he caught him with that same kick over the shoulder. He was so good at sneaking that front round kick over the shoulder and, like, catching you on the chin. Doc Hamilton. That guy doesn't have any idea

what hit him. No, he has no idea. Doc Hamilton, that referee, he was one of the first guys to develop an alternative scoring system. He had an alternative scoring system to the MMA scoring system. Like, you know scoring system to the MMA scoring system. Like, you know, because we still have

this 10-point must system that I think is very ineffective. Not ineffective, but not comprehensive enough for all the skills. It's like with boxing, you could use, the 10-point system

is great for boxing. Yeah. Because you can, you're just using hands. You can see who won, 10, 9, this guy. Right. But once you start using takedowns and kicks.

That's where it gets so complicated, man. It's so hard. There's too many things. Too many things. Because what do we end up arguing about? Or people in general about the fights. Well, he got the takedown and the control and landed X, Y, and Z. Yeah, but he threw up three submission attempts from his back.

Right. Or he got taken down three times, but the other guy got up three times. So it's like, it's so freaking hard to score. Yeah, and it's very subjective. It's very subjective. And I understand guys will tell you, no, no, we count this, we count that. I understand how you're scoring it. How you're supposed to score it.

But I still don't think that that's comprehensive enough. I don't think we should have a 10-point system. I don't think that that's comprehensive enough. I don't think we should have a 10-point system. I think it should be almost like the amount of strikes landed versus plus the amount of hard strikes landed plus takedown attempts. It should take like five minutes to fucking score each round. It should take time. It should almost be looked at in segments, right?

Well, okay, who won the striking? Right. So-and-so. Who won this? And then you evaluate well maybe that was even and that's the idea right that's what the that's what the judges are now supposed to be trying to do is view it where they start with the striking but that's the problem is that if you win the striking you win the round right and let's done but takedowns like some people score

takedowns very heavily although so takedowns in control and it's not supposed to be that way it's supposed to be just a change in position if you don't do anything with it so if you get it let's say I take you down and I don't throw any strikes but somebody from their back yeah and someone's throwing up some issues I don't have to do it to be to be completely fair that way i would not do well and everybody's like you guys should be doing the judges former fighters i'm like yeah no way i already get enough criticism i certainly don't want to be the guy that's then judging these things we get enough trouble when we say who we think won in a fight but i think at least it would be coming from a place of knowledge

i mean it could be subjective and it could be argued and debated, but at least no one can say you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. Whereas there are problems with judges. They're not martial artists at all. Which is crazy. Yeah. Which is crazy. That's like me judging soccer. How the fuck are you

a martial arts judge and you're not even a martial artist? It would be like me watching a cricket match. I remember there was a moment. I would have no idea. In the middle of a fight in the early days where someone was doing a Kimura and one of the judges asked someone else, what is he doing? And I was like, this is so crazy. That judge just asked, what is he doing?

And this person is responsible for the trajectory of someone's career. Like this person has dedicated their entire life to this moment. What's a Kimura? Well, it's a good thing you go like this. I mean, imagine if you heard that, if you like got a guy in a Kimura and you're like, you're stepping your leg over the head and you're trying to finish it. Like, what is he doing? What is he doing?

What, what, what are you doing? Like you are watching. Why are you here? Mixed martial arts. How'd you get that spot? They don't know. It's kind of, there's parts of it that are kind of Bush League still. And I just don't think we should have that scoring system.

I think someone should sit down and develop a, and that's what Doc Hamilton tried to do. He tried to develop, I believe Doc called it a half-point system. And he and I talked about it. We had a conversation. He explained it to me. And I said, that definitely sounds better than what we're doing.

Yeah. But, you know... Something. Something. Something amazing. I also think they should be fighting on a football field. I know. You still want that fantasy of...

Fuck that cage. Fuck that cage. The cage just gets in the way. And it also- Now guys know how to fight in the cage. Oh, yeah. Completely. They know how to use it.

They know how to put their back against the cage to get back up. Like if the UFC suddenly threw ropes out there, people would be like, what? Right. I don't know how to fight anymore. Because you're so used to takedowns on the fence. Well, if you go to Pride, ropes are not the way either. Because guys will get caught up in the ropes. They're dragging them back.

I'm like, this isn't good either. That's not good either. I think a platform, not even a platform, just like a flat surface. Like a basketball court. Yes. If you can play basketball on a court, why can't you have an MMA fight in a court?

No mats? Or you like the idea of that? Oh, you have to have mats. Because then you're just going to break bones. Yeah, you break bones. And also head kicks. When guys go down, their head bounces off. Yeah.

Yeah. I fought on a lot of basketball courts in the Taekwondo days. Yes. Yeah, me too. The point where they made guys wear pads just in the back of their head. Just because you got head kicked. Yeah. The bounce. That's one of the scariest things is the bounce. Is because you got head kicked. Yeah, the bounce.

That's one of the scariest things is the bounce. Is this the multiple people fighting? Not quite. Oh, is this basketball? MMA and 3.3 basketball. I did see that one. Oh, my God. So they're barefoot and they broke the glass.

Leave it to Russia. Russia will have fat men fighting fit women. They'll have two-on-one. Car fighting? Yes. Car jiu-jitsu? Did you see that? They have car MMA, too.

Russia's so crazy. They're so crazy with the shit they invent. I mean, Habib basically made this up. Yeah. But look at this guy. Why would you do that, bro? Shatters it. Because he's being funny.

That's so dumb. And there's no way that's 10 feet. No, definitely not. Right? No. No, of course not. No, that's not a real. So now the guy gets the ball and the other guy takes him down.

Are they allowed to hit him? It doesn't seem like they're hitting each other. To be honest with you, I don't know if there's many rules to this. But it's in a cage and they're playing basketball? This is dumb. They just taped the glass back together. That's all. So they're scoring points, but they're not.

It's just in an octagon. And I have seen that thing that Khabib and his friends do. That's become almost a sport. I don't know if it's a real sport, but I've seen, like, organized versions of it now. Well, it looks fun when you watch Khabib and his buddies training. They just don't dribble, right? Yeah, they're just running and holding onto the ball. It's like, guys, the whole point of the sport is it's difficult because you've got to dribble the ball.

Yes. Like, NBA is already pushing the boundaries on traveling and walking and all that. But they take each other down on the fucking hardwood floor. Rug ball, they're calling it. I guess that's what it's called. Oh, so this is a different version of it. Oh, my God. This is legit.

Brutal. Brutal. Make it. Oh. It's got Brutal. Not a bad shot. Rugball's a mix of basketball and wrestling. Oh, Jesus Christ. Where? Russia. Russia. Animals. There's some tough-ass fucking

people. If you think right now about the amount of top-flight talent that comes from Eastern Europe and Russia and Dagestan and Chechnya, you know? I mean, fucking A, man. Dude, they're all just waiting to take all the titles at this point, too. I mean, even in boxing. Did you see the Beterbiev fight?

No. Oh, my God. Beterbiev is so fucking tough. 19-0, 19 knockouts knockouts i mean what the fuck man yeah they're they're uh they're definitely a step ahead in in terms of combat sports whatever it is whether it's boxing wrestling mma they've got this is idea of yeah i mean he's such a fucking animal he's from chechnya and he's 38 years old so it's like he's got to get like the big fight he was one of the guys that they were talking about canelo fighting at light heavyweight and i would have loved to see

that because i think his mauling style because he just fucking comes forward and he he forces firefights it's very different than most world champions in that like he gets in slugfest and he gets hit but he's super skillful he lost to Usyk in the Olympics maybe it was the Olympics it was certainly in the amateurs but you know top flight amateur and a destroyer as a professional. 19-0. And Yard, man, credit to Yard because Anthony Yard is a bad man. And he's a fucking tough dude.

He took some horrible shots in this fight. But Beterbiev just never stops, just constantly coming forward. And his technique is fucking flawless. I would have loved to see him versus canelo yeah because they both in that i mean canelo is another one that's just right in there but ready for it better be of so much bigger he's a big guy man canelo is you know started his career i mean fought floyd at 152 fought at 154 i mean he's he's certainly a legit 160 and 168. He's great at it. But this dude is a legit 75.

It's a different world. And better be of 19 and 0 with 19 knockouts. So he's going to fight Dimitri Bivol next, supposedly, hopefully. And that's a really interesting. But again, Bivol, Russian. This guy, Chechnyan. That fucking world over there, dude Hard people different. Yeah, they're not growing up with

Tons of money. These guys are living on cliffs in the middle of like rock villages You know what I mean where they're kicking stones in each other for fun. It's true. That's gonna breed Just and then you take them and it's like oh, hey You could do that you can kick that rock around or you can come in this gym and learn how to fight and it's like

yeah I'm gonna that sounds a lot more you can play basketball where you tackle each other yeah sign me up for that I'd have been good at that sport

just not the not the dribbling part well you think of like war torn Chechnya I mean that's where Hamzak Chmayev comes from that's where Beterbiev comes from.

I mean, it's just... It's an escape to be able to go and box and fight and do MMA. And now he's living in Sweden and stuff like that. Oh, man. Gets to talk trash and be cool. Being around nice people. Nobody's trying to kill me right now.

Yeah, that... I mean, you think about some of our greatest fighters in america grow up in poor neighborhoods yeah these guys grow up in war-torn poor neighborhoods it's even levels to that right i mean our best guys yeah you come from rough neighborhoods i grew up in a rough neighborhood but i didn't grow up in chechnya right do you know what i mean south philly is... Think about what you've got now. Nurmagomedov, he steps down, but then you have Umar. Umar Nurmagomedov.

He looks great, man. Fucking phenomenal. Completely different style. Yep. Like evil striker. Just accidentally knocked out a guy now, too. Oh, my God. Sick.

And then he felt bad about it. He was holding his head. I'm like, well... Such a good guy, right? It's awesome to see, but... Chaos him, and then after follow-up shot, he's like, oh, you're out. Oh, shit, sorry about that, man. I didn't know you were sleeping.

And then you have Islam, who, I mean, how the fuck does that guy make 155? When you stand next to him, he's so big. He looks like he's 200-plus pounds. Yeah. He was knocking on my door when I was fighting for the longest time, too. And I was like, these guys are all coming man they're all coming Rachmanov at 170

oh Shavkat and he's fighting Jeff Neal which is very interesting that's a good fight I hope they stand if you let Jeff Neal have fun on the feet that guy can kickbox, man.

He's so accurate. That Mike Perry fight. That high kick. That left high kick. Mike Perry's a maniac. He is a maniac. Do you know he's the backup for Jake Paul? Yeah, I saw that. Good for you, Mike Perry.

Yeah, good for him. Here's Shofcott. He can do it all, man. Such a good grappler and elite striker. He can do it all, man. He can do it all. He's such a good grappler and elite striker. Throws a lot of spinning kicks. I called a couple of his early fights, and even then it was like, this guy's going to be contending for the belt.

The thing about Shovkat is he's not getting the shine that he deserves. I don't think people understand how good he is right now in terms of his overall popularity. Yeah. That's the problem with a lot of these guys. That's why they get slow played the way they do. It's not talent. I mean, these guys are the future of the UFC, no doubt about it. But you've got to realize that the UFC is, I mean, they're trying to promote things, right?

It's hard to promote when a guy is just stoic like that. And it's like, listen, I'm not telling you to change anything, but you can see why. You can see both sides. I'm like, okay. Once they get to be a champion, though, then it's okay. Yeah, because it's just like, good luck. Like Khabib. Yeah.

Good luck trying to beat this guy. Now the story is, who the hell is going to beat this guy? To this day, one of my favorite moments at a weigh-in is Khabib before the Conor fight, where he says to the audience, I'm going to smash your boy. And he did. And he did.

But it was just, that was like Khabib trash talking, which you never heard. You never heard. But Conor brought it out of him. And that's all he needed, that little bit. Yeah. Alhamdulillah, I'm going to smash your boy. And all the Irish people are like, no, no, no.

Yeah, there's not enough proper 12 in the world to stop that dude from smashing you. Yeah. It's such an exciting time in terms of, like, the possibilities, the matchups. I was very surprised that they decided to do Islam Makachev versus Volkanovski. Right away, too. Right away. Yeah. Very surprised.

To the point where Volk is facing off with him that night. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's a big fight, though. We're going to do a fight companion for that. So that's on the 11th. What else is on the card? Yaya Richie. Yaya Richie.

Josh Emmett. Dude, Jack Della Maddalena, that kid. That kid is fucking crap. He's unbelievable, bro. He's good. And by the way, rude boy Randy Brown is a test, too. That's great. That's a great fight.

Yeah. That's a great fight. Randy Brown is long and tall and very, very talented. That's a true, he's got a true test on his hands now. I like that fight a lot. And that's good for Randy, too, because especially going down there, if he goes down there and he beats Jack, shit man. Then he can be like, alright

next fight I want something big at home, you know what I mean? But you almost have to do that in UFC these young guys gotta realize that sometimes like, you want X, Y, and Z, you want the big fights, you want these matchups, sometimes you gotta suck it up and say,

all right, who do you got to give me? Where do I got to go? Because it's not always going to be sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes you've got to go fight in Brazil against a Brazilian. Sometimes you'll have to go down to New Zealand or go over. I remember fighting all over the place. I didn't give a shit as long as it was going to put me in a position to move up the rankings and you know get more money as well

if you went to fight in brazil how much time would you give yourself to adapt well i would do it all i would do it all different than what i did when i did do it because i only went i think i went down like it left on like a tuesday to fight on a saturday oh no and uh it was uh not good To fight on a Saturday. Oh, no. And it was not good. It's so hard just to adapt to the jet lag. Yeah, I was a mess for that one.

I was a mess for when I fought Edson the second time in Abu Dhabi. I left on Monday to go fight on Saturday night. And I don't think I slept more than three hours every night. And I had the worst weight cut in my life because of it I remember calling my mom then like after I had made weight and I don't remember much of that conversation with my mom that's when she was like you need to I want you to seriously consider not doing this anymore oh my god you imagine that's your boy you're talking to your son your son's about to fight in a cage fight, and he can barely talk. Yeah. Because he's cutting weight.

There's a couple of those situations with the weight cuts, man. The five-day notice fight with RDA was, yeah. I remember calling Christine, who's, you know, we're married now, but at the time we were, I don't even think we were engaged. And I remember making her, can you go in the fridge and get a can of coke and pour it over ice for me just to watch it that's how thirsty i was i wanted to watch her pour a can of coke this is not granted this is like 12 30 in vegas so it's like three in the morning back home i wake her up to pour soda over ice for me. She must feel like you're kind of fucking maniac.

What am I getting involved with? The whole night I found ASMR videos of people drinking sodas. You could probably pull that up. Oh, God. Chugging ice cold sodas. So they have the microphone like right on their throat. So you can hear them gulping these ice cold sodas. Now you got to realize i cut like

18 pounds or something crazy and i'm dry heaving in the bathtub and just watching all night because butler my manager for a while was you know they're making sure i was okay is this yep this video is 10 million views it's 10 million views oh dude so you can imagine you're thirsty you're so thirsty. I just want to be this guy. Oh, he's going to drink it out of the bowl. He's pouring Fanta into a bowl filled with ice. It just sounds.

He's going to chug it. He's going to slurp it all down. Is that blueberry Fanta? I don't know. I didn't even know there was a blueberry Fanta. Blue raspberry. Oh, wow. I was going to slurp it.

How weird is that that that's a thing, that people love ASMR? I didn't know. And I still don't watch any ASMR. But at the time, I couldn't stop watching it. I didn't sleep one hour the night that i i'm so friday or no thursday into friday we did the whole weight cut i still had like a pound that i was hoping to float which i did end up doing but the whole night i was 156 and a half or whatever i was and the whole entire night i had a severe headache was dry heaving and

watching stuff like that so insane that fighters will literally get to death's door the day before you fight crazy 25 minutes if there's a thing that I could take away from fighting to to eliminate that would be the thing because I feel like it's sanctioned cheating. I feel like that's what it is. It's 100%. I mean, it's what you're doing. It's 100%. You know that you have to weigh 155.

I mean, I would walk into the cage 182 pounds. That's so nuts. So nuts. But you pay a price for that. Yeah. And if out of all the things that you've done, that's the one thing that you think you can do differently? And the reason that I keep talking,

I've thought about a comeback, and we've kind of teased it, and everybody, even the coaches around me, the reason they'd be interested is because we want to see what I'd be capable of being a healthy fit. If I could mix now how I've learned to train my my system with the triathlon training and having my triathlon coach this guy David Tilbury Davis who I work he's super science on everything right breaking things down the mitochondria and how you got to do zone one works versus this if I could mix that in with my MMA training

and start applying that to grappling and sparring days because you start thinking about athletes, the best athletes in the world and how they prepare and then how they go and fight. We're so ass backwards in fighting, it makes no fucking sense. We're just beating the shit out of each other and then showing up and hoping for the

best on fight day there needs to be much you're seeing more of it now where people are being a little more scientific yeah with their approach but i mean i would just for me when i was go hard all the time five five minute rounds then five five minute rounds in the bag then five five minute rounds of jumping rope go to bed eat 200 calories wake up do it all over again and it's like oh no wonder by four weeks in the training camp i wanted to you know i didn't want to fight anymore yeah it's like well now if you know what do you think you would try to weigh now to to get down to 55 like right around where I'm at now, like 170 something. Yeah. I mean, I think I could easily be walking around as I am now all the time

well below 180 pounds. Well, look at Frankie. Yeah. When Frankie won the title. Frankie was basically cutting no weight when he beat BJ Penn. He was probably eating to even weigh 155 pounds back then. I mean, look, he ends his career at 35,

which is pretty wild. You think that he was the champion at 55. And fighting guys like Ben Henderson, who was— Gray Maynard. And he was just solid, man. Gray Maynard was a big fella. He was big back then. He was a big fella.

I mean, now, but even think now, like, compared to the lightweights now, he's not even that big. No, no. Some of the light— Imagine Makachev. I mean— Makachev is so big well says a nice lightweight fucking squeeze I mean, what is his squeeze like you see his back? Yeah, when he got that arm triangle on Charles just the traps and all that

Yeah, you can tell when a guy like Charles Taps the as fast as he did that you know that guy's got just a gorilla grip Well crazy his squeeze was evident in the drew dober fight too cuz drew know that guy's got just a gorilla grip. Like, crazy. His squeeze was evident in the Drew Dober fight, too. Because Drew Dober's fucking... He's a gorilla, too. And he's as tough as they come. Look at some of these comeback fights

that he's had recently. That fight with Bobby Green. Holy shit. Holy shit. He was styling on him. Yeah, Bobby Green was... You can't sleep on Drew for a second, though. Nope, Drew caught him. That was one of the fights I always thought sleep on Drew for a second though. Nope. Nope. Drew caught him.

That was one of the fights I always thought I was gonna have and it never turned out. His chin is like a fucking fire hydrant. He's such a gigachad. The way he's built. His fucking giant head. He's the guy in college. If we were in college together, I would have hated that dude. Look at this pretty boy. He's so handsome.

I hate him. He's got abs. Beautiful hair. Strong. Great hair. Seems like a nice guy. Fuck. Yeah, right? Got everything going for him. He must be a piece of shit. Well, I think he's, you know, I think that Makachev fight ignited something in him as well. Yeah.

I think when you get the rub, when you fight someone who's that good and you realize, okay, everything I'm doing. There's another level. I got to ramp it up. Sometimes people don't realize what those levels are, which is why being around elite fighters is so critical for a fighter's early day because you mirror the people that you're training with. You know, if you are in a gym filled with elite assassins,

like you are forced to be at that level. Or you go home and you don't come back. You know what I mean? You just stop. But if you keep showing up. that level. Or you go home and you don't come back. You know what I mean? You just stop. But if you keep showing up. Bilal's depiction of what it was like to train

with Khabib and be in that camp with them and what those guys do. They're crazy. But that's why they're so good. He'd be like, we'd get done these, you know, he told you, these epic sessions and then Khabib would be like, alright. And then he takes them for another like 25 minutes just grinding on them after the fact.

He was like the warm-up sometimes. He's like, we got a workout. That's not the workout? Yeah. Burnout push-ups and stuff at the end. Planks. Two squats and planks. Yeah.

But that's what it takes. It was interesting talking to, we talked to Dan Ige before his last fight. And he loves strength and conditioning, right? And I did too when I was a fighter. And he felt very conflicted because you've got a guy like Habib who's telling him, you don't need that stuff.

You need to just do what he's doing. But what Dan realized, and I think if you saw his last fight, something clicked in him. I think he's starting to trust himself. You can't always just emulate just because somebody's the greatest ever and you what works for habib is not necessarily going to always work for you and he was like i needed to do strength and conditioning i needed to do this stuff because he was trying to just do what other people were telling him to do yeah for the longest time and he was kind of falling short well george

came to that conclusion too george saint, George came to that conclusion too. George St. Pierre came to that conclusion. He decided at some point in time that strength and conditioning wasn't important. And what was really important was efficiency and just technical proficiency, strategy, and efficiency in movements and his martial arts movements. But obviously you're talking about a guy like George who's already an Adonis. He's already very strong. So he had this physical strength already. And to enhance that and make himself even stronger is not really going to improve his fighting. What really was improving

his fighting was just technique and efficiency. Yeah, and getting better at fighting stuff. Yeah. And you're going to gain strength specific for fighting by grappling. Right. I mean, you can't get some of those muscle groups, the way that you need to get them to fire, the only way to do that is to just freaking get that squeeze. And you can do that all day. You know, you can pull on the bands and you can simulate a lot of that stuff. But there's nothing that's ever going to replace trying to control somebody with your legs and their upper body.

And at the same time, control your breathing and heart rate and try to then squeeze. It's just, it's, it's unlike, it's unlike anything else. Eddie Bravo used to always explain it like tying your shoes. He's like,

you got to get a technique down to the point where you do it automatically. When you tie your shoes, you don't think about tying your shoes. You just go and you tie your shoes. He's like, you got to get a technique down to the point where you do it automatically. You don't even think about it. Because when you tie your shoes, you don't think about tying your shoes. No. You just go, and you tie your shoes. He's like, that has to be how your technique comes out. You can't be like consciously thinking about it while you're applying it. Yep.

And if you can get it to that point, and then it's obviously when you're drilling it and executing constantly over and over again. You know how some guys just have a tech? You remember Paul Sass? Yeah. He had a triangle from hell. That motherfucker triangled everybody, and everybody knew. Stay out of his triangle.

Didn't matter. Doesn't matter. Yeah. He just had this in that movement. He had that movement down so tight and so fluid. No matter what. That if you were in his guard, he would just slap that motherfucker on you. I mean, look at Habib and

Islam. You know they're going to try to take you down. Good luck. And they don't hide it. I'm going to take you down and I'm going to smash you and I'm going to choke you up. Smash. And he did it over and over and over again. He's going to do it.

Who's been more dominant in their career because like he arguably lost a round versus connor and he had that difficult fight with glace and t-bow early in his career yeah that was a close fight other than that just a smash fest yeah smash fest and. And you know a guy's dominant when you talk about, wow, so-and-so lasted five rounds with him. I know, right? Yeah, he got crushed. Yeah.

But he lasted. Ally Quinta. Tough as shit. Talked about that. Ally Quinta gave a great account of himself. Got that fight over me. Yeah. Oh, that's right.

I remember that. That was one of those weird ones where they told max holloway to stop cutting weight yeah that was new york yeah dude they had they had all kinds of stuff going on to make him make weight they had that room turned into like a furnace i swear to god they were bringing up like butane heaters and shit into the room the hotel they're just trying to hide it all in the from the hotel lobby in new york but they're just trying to hide it all From the hotel lobby in New York But they're bringing up all this stuff All these heated blankets all this stuff

And I remember talking to those guys back then I think he was gonna make weight But the doctor once he saw all that He's like I can't I can't allow this anymore The doctors if they saw That doctor saw everyone make weight They'd stop it

This is what hamzat said hamzat said he would have made weight and by the way that was in new york as well right yeah they just once they see it yeah they're gonna because of course it's yeah bad for our health like it's fucking horrible go go cut four pounds it's bad for your health imagine what these guys are doing especially especially Max in that particular situation. I remember thinking it was a joke. Do you remember? It was like April 1st when the news came out

that Max was stepping in. Who was originally? Tony Ferguson. He tore his fucking knee because he was wearing sunglasses. He wasn't. I said that and I apologized to Tony because everybody thought that because Tony wore sunglasses a lot. But no, he just tripped over some fucking loose wires.

God damn it. That's so crazy. He was probably wearing sunglasses. I don't think he was. I don't think he was. They said he wasn't. He tripped over some fucking wires. He was probably kicking a pole right before that.

But how crazy is that? He tore his fucking knee tripping over some wires. And it was April 1st when the news came out about that. And everybody's like, no, I swear to God, it's not an April Fool's joke. I remember sitting in the basement at Duke's thinking it was an April Fool's joke. To this day, I wish Tony fought Khabib when Tony was in his prime. Because Tony in his prime, you know, people see him get knocked out by Michael Chandler, and they see him lose to Nate.

They see these fights. It's a damn shame, man. That's a long road of a battered body from war. 100%. And if Tony Ferguson, when he was at the top of the heap, was a fucking boogeyman. Yeah. He was the boogeyman, man. He really was.

He wasn't wearing my, I wasn't wearing my shades. I actually had my prescription sunglasses on. Oh, well, that's still sunglasses. That's still sunglasses, Tony. Tony Ferguson's the type of guy to not be wearing sunglasses while wearing sunglasses. Those Tony Ferguson is the type of guy memes are amazing. I hope he takes that and enjoys it and isn't mad about it. But I feel like Tony Ferguson's the type of guy to get mad about it.

He got mad because I called him a brilliant weirdo. You are, bro. But he's so unusual. I mean, just his style of moving, and he would catch you with these weird punches, and he would train on a wing chung dummy. Yep. Eddie Bravo was working with him,

and they were in Big Bear, and he said, Tony was in such fucking insane shape that everybody else in camp would be running sprints. Tony would lap them. He would run these hills, run back down while these guys were still running and lap them going up the hills. I forget who it was. Maybe Jeremy Stevens went and trained with him for a little bit

and hung out with him, and he would say that Tony would wake up. I think it was Jeremy Stevens who said it. But he would be would be like man he'd just wake you up like two in the morning like we're going we're running and he would just go and do that's floyd mayweather yeah floyd mayweather would do that too he would go to a club drink water hang out with everybody and then run 10 miles home yeah but like that's what it takes to be elite i just don't think tony got his chance i mean tony beat uh kevin lee and he chance. I mean, Tony beat Kevin Lee and he you know, he beat some really good guys and he won the interim title. That's definitely

the fight that got away from I mean. Got away. Got away. That would have been a really amazing fight. John Jones and and Gano is another one now where we're all like. That might still happen. Could happen. That could still happen. But will it happen? I hope so. When they're when we all want it to happen?

You know what I mean? If it happens in four years from now. But it doesn't have to happen in four years. Here's my thing. Again, Mr. Ingano, please hear me out. I mean, just for legacy and just for also money. I think the big money is if he has an account. What if he knocks out Dillian White?

Right? What if they set him up with some boxer who's an elite boxer, not Tyson Fury? And he goes and wins a big fight. You got to remember, Ngannou is 265 ripped natural. Cutting weight to probably be at 265. With canned hams for fists. Just giant, just he's a fucking specimen, and the power is extraordinary. And if he's just punching and not worrying about takedowns, if one of those, look at Wilder.

Wilder, who's the greatest knockout artist ever. Crazy. Greatest. He's a one-punch knockout artist. I would say, I mean, you have your George Foremans and Mike Tyson are the most beautiful combinations we've ever seen in the heavyweight division but Wilder just, BLAP!

Did you see his last fight? Moving away! Moving away! He hits this guy, this guy's stiff. He has, Ortiz, when he hit Ortiz in the forehead pull that up. Pull up, Wilder knocks out Ortiz. Because he hit him and Ortiz is when he hit Ortiz in the forehead, pull that up. Pull up. Wilder knocks out Ortiz. Because he hit him, and Ortiz is an adorable guy, a tough guy.

And he had Wilder in some trouble in that fight. And Wilder just blap. Hit him. Blap. Right in the forehead. Yeah, you can tell, man. Head snaps back, and Ortiz's eyes are all back. He's like, what the fuck just hit me?

Those are the things you can't train. That is God's gift to you. And again, it's that long frame like you were talking about. Yeah, look at another lean. Look at that. Oh, my goodness. Look at this. Watch this.

Here it goes again. Bam! I mean, look at Ortiz. Ortiz is like, what? He's like, what the fuck? He's just like trying to put his mouthpiece back in. His mouthpiece is in. He's still trying to find it.

His legs aren't moving. He's like, wait a minute. He's like, what the fuck? Look at his face face he's like upset about it he's confused wilder preposterous power but it just goes to show you like there's levels look at the chin of tyson fury tyson fury the 12th round that first fight drops dead right hand left hook and even does this like it's over like i got I got him. I got him. Nope. He rises from the dead. I remember watching that one live, and I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh, that's it.

He's done. Alone in my bedroom screaming. Alone in my bedroom screaming, oh, my God, he's winning the 12th round. My wife was in the other room like, what the fuck are you yelling at? I'm like, he's winning the fucking 12th round. This is insane. He almost gets killed. He gets back up and he wins.

Plan B option if Usyk fight fails to happen is Nganou. Oh, wow. Wow. Well, the Usyk fight's going to happen. It's the most important fight in boxing. I think that fight is gigantic because you got Usyk who's, you know, beats Joshua twice and the best movement and

boxing and skillful he's a heavy weight Lomachenko and was the cruiser weight champion is an undersized heavyweight and you got Tyson who's as big a heavyweight as you're ever going to see 6'9 long as fuck agile with back fat

that picture right there I couldn't tell that picture pants were falling down or back to that picture Jamie the picture just showed the Usyk the backup fight that he's a backup fighter the one that you just had up if you look the rolls of fat off his back yeah look at there that back fat is insane peak peak male performance the bodybuilder so you beat the bodybuilder you haven you beat the bodybuilder. You haven't fought the Gypsy King. You're crazy, dude.

He's the fucking best. His dad's out of his mind, too. I love him. I love that guy. Tyson Fury versus Alexander Usyk headed to Wembley in April. Huge boost to British boxing fans. What a fucking fight that's going to be. My God, that's going to be amazing.

I just don't know if Usyk has the size to deal with that guy. It's going to be interesting to see what strategy he employs, whether or not he can avoid the big bombs and the reach and the length. So long. But not the long lean type that we're talking about. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. A little different. A little different.

I mean, he doesn't give a fuck what his body looks like. He's just a fighter. Is he still sober? No. Is he not sober? He's back on the sauce now? He just doesn't drink in camp. Yeah, okay. I mean, I don't know if he's sober.

I don't think he's sober. He's always, well, that's what I mean. That's why I'm asking. I know he goes back and forth on, you know, he's right in the head, and then he's not, and then you'll see him in a clip, and he's had, you know, 14 he's right in the head and then he's not and then you'll see him in a clip and he's had you know 14 well you know he's an inspirational story i mean he really is i mean the guy was like he he beats vladimir uh klitschko he he becomes a heavyweight champion and loses his fucking mind yeah he's drinking constantly almost committed suicide was driving his ferrari thinking about just fucking driving off a cliff,

and then gets it together and becomes a heavyweight champion again. And then wasn't fully all the way back when he fought Wilder. And then fights Wilder in the rematch, and then now he's fucking tuned up and ready, beats the brakes off of Wilder, and then the third fight, Wilder catches

him with a bomb! That bomb that he caught him where you see the fat ripple all the way down to his body. Any other human, any other human that Wilder catches. He's not getting back up. Any other human. Nobody punches like Wilder. Nobody. Because like we talked about, it's just, it's in him.

It's not, he's not doing something in the gym with a trainer to get that kind of power. No. You were born with that gift. It's also being a gypsy and being around that fucking rough tumble brawling world his whole life. His dad's a fighter. His brother's a fighter. Everyone's a fighter around him. Just fucking savages.

Just in the bones. In the bones. Gypsy people, man. Whenever he talks about retiring, I'm like, not yet. Don't do it. I think that if he does beat Usyk, it's still possible. Because they're going to fight in April, right? Unless Ngannou decides to take a big money boxing fight before that, which I don't blame him for doing.

But God damn it, if he beats U Usyk that's really the only compelling interesting thing for him in that division I mean what else would be compelling the Joshua fight not really not after the Usyk fights I mean unless Joshua comes back because they're talking about Joshua fighting Wilder right isn't that the talk no they're talking about Ortiz fighting Wilder right no Ruiz Andy Ruiz right that's what they're talking about so Andy Ruiz they're talking about Ortiz fighting Wilder right no Ruiz Andy Ruiz right that's what they're talking about so Andy Ruiz they're talking about him fighting Wilder if that's look Wilder versus Ngannou would be crazy that would be crazy how about that fight I just think as long as he gets something yeah I just want to get that you going to leave that contract on the table, I hope you get some big fights, man.

Because that was a big payday to leave behind. Yeah. They offered more money than any heavyweight before. But I think the sticking point, and I'm talking out of school here because I don't know just what I've read. The sticking point, I think, was that he wanted to be able to go off and do boxing. Yeah. To his credit, he's like, hey, Conor mcgregor did it why can't i do it yeah and i get it yeah i get it i get it but if i'm getting yeah hundreds of million dollars a

fight right on the table it's hard to a hundred million dollars in the floyd mayweather fight yeah and that's generational wealth yeah how do you but you fucking see that? But he locked out where the UFC wanted to partner with that and make that happen, right? That's where that whole situation really. And that's what Ngannou, I guess, wanted too. And it's just like, man, they probably did that one time and we're like, all right, you know what? Yeah. That was a whole lot. So if the boxer beats up the UFC fighter.

Yeah. How many times do you want to sign up for that? You can't get the boxer to fight UFC. Yeah, no. The thing is, no one wants to do that. No one wants to do that. Which I, you know what drives me nuts, though, is these, they still will go and talk all this trash, a lot of these boxers.

It's like, you guys know that given a street fight rules, you're getting your ass, I mean, you're getting your ass kicked. I don't care who you are. An amateur fighter will kill you. Yeah, they're just going to take you down. You're getting choked out. Yeah, you'll get you are. An amateur fighter will kill you. Yeah, they're just going to take you down. You're getting choked out. Yeah, you'll get leg kicked. You won't be able to stop a takedown.

They can sit there and just do this to you for 25 minutes if they want. Any elite, imagine any elite wrestler that gets in there with a boxer. The boxer has zero chance of not being taken down. Literally zero. Unless that boxer's like Crawford. Terrence Crawford has a background in wrestling. Yeah, then... That's fucking interesting. And if you don't know that, and you're like,

I'm just going to take this guy down. He sprawls on you that one time and cracks you. Oh, no. Can you imagine the panic that would set in? You're like, oh, shit. Oh, my God. I can't take him down. I'm fucked. Oh, my God. Am I going to box this guy? That's a fight that we're missing out to. Him and Earl Spence. That's a fight we're missing out on.

That bums me out. I hope they can still do that. I mean, we have so many fights now with the UFC that it's even hard for me to keep track of all the boxing stuff that's going on. We have fights every weekend.

I keep track of that. I keep track of Jiu Jitsu. I keep track of all the elite kickboxers. That's why I was so excited when Pajero fought in the UFC. Because you've been following him for a while. Well I was telling Dana a while ago. I was like this guy just fought. He just fought MMA. I remember watching Izzy back when he was still kickboxing.

So when that debut came up I was excited about that. A friend of mine had been telling me about him for a while. He said you gotta got to watch this guy's style. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yo, I contacted Izzy way before he fought in the UFC and I asked him about it and Izzy played it real smart. He was like, they give me a lot of money to fight in China. He's getting a lot of money. And he's like, I want to do this the right way and get really prepared. And to his credit, he did it perfectly. Then what's the point? Congratulations. You got offered a UFC contract and you just got wrestled to death. Exactly.

Exactly. There's no point because he turned it down a few times, I think. Yes. They were trying to get him even earlier. Yes. He did it the right way. He did it the right way. You know what these guys are going to try to do.

If you come in with that kind of kickboxing pedigree, they're going to take you down. What do you think he does in the rematch? What do you think he does differently? Obviously, it was that calf kick. Yeah. He was doing really well, and he had hurt him really bad. Almost had him stop in the first round. Right away, I couldn't believe it.

I was like, oh, my God. Right hand, left hook at the bell. Yeah. But Pejeta came back in that second round like it never happened. Yeah. He's so big, dude. Do you see when he's standing next to Jamal Hill? Yeah.

He's like staring down Jamal Hill. Melting his face. As soon as I saw that, and as I was there, I didn't know what, it hadn't been translated yet. I didn't know what Glover was saying. And he kept pointing back at Alex, and I'm like, oh, shit, he's setting up this fight now. He's going to retire, and he's setting up this fight. And it wasn't what he was saying. He was saying he was going to focus on training.

Oh, training, yeah. Potato. Potato. But at was going to focus on training. Oh, training him. Palletta. Yeah. At first, I thought, Jamal's open to it. Oh, man. I love that fight. I love Jamal, man.

Dude, that guy So good. has a lot of potential. And getting better all the time. And he took that fight. I mean, he didn't have a full training camp. Right. And he still fought five hard, long rounds

against one of the most extreme pace. adorable sons of bitches that the UFC has ever seen. And he still fought five hard, long rounds at an extreme pace. Against one of the most adorable sons of bitches that the UFC has ever seen. And showed grappling talent. Jamal showed grappling. And he's been saying that since the beginning. Even when he was on Contender Series and we were talking to him, he's like, I know I'm known for these knockouts, but he was telling everybody, listen, I got really good jiu-jitsu.

Finally got to show it. I mean, if you can escape those positions in a title fight against somebody like Glover Teixeira in Brazil and get out and do what you did, man. Yes, yes. And did you see the Yuri Prohaska thing? Oh, my God. So find the Yuri Prohaska reaction

and Jamal's reaction to Yuri. Where you at, though? Jamal's so funny. Jamal, I don't want to say it because you need to see it Jamal's so funny he's funny on Instagram he's low key funny too the way he

it's just that subtle that subtle funny because I saw him we were upstairs at the hotel because all our flights were leaving like crazy late

from Brazil and he had seen that video and he's like where is he getting the internet out there he's like is he watching the fight out in the woods was he watching it or did he watch it and then go he getting the internet out there? He's like, is he watching the fight out in the woods?

Was he watching it? Or did he watch it and then go out into the woods? I'm like, yeah, I'm not sure. Yeah. See, fine. Yeah, that's it. Play this live so we can hear it. Play it.

No, redo it so we can hear the whole thing. Okay. Congratulations. He's got to... Okay. Congratulations. He's out in the snow. I'm coming. I'm coming! No, but then Jamal's response to that, they have it back to back.

Here it goes. Where you at, though? Where you at, though? Where you at, though? By the way, that's what she said. That's what she said! But where you at, though? He's the man. He's the man.

And, you know, you talk about a guy who's got crazy power, too. And just intelligence of how to get that fucking power to your chin. I think that's what was underrated. And now I think after this last fight, people are a little more aware of that. But he's very calculated. Very, very. He's a calculated striker. Even though it looks like it's coming from unorthodox angles,

when I talked to him afterwards, the head kick was planned. They knew in order to switch Southpaw seamlessly without kind of giving everything away, that was their plan. It was like, all right, when we switch, Glover's going to see we're switching. So what are we going to do to kind of stifle him for a second so that we can transition into that? Left high kick.

Best thing you can do, man, is just throw a bomb. Because you have to address the head kick. You throw a body kick, a guy like glover what's he gonna do catch it he's gonna catch he's gonna take down even if you hurt him he's gonna drive through and potentially get the takedown you throw it to the head you're not catching head kicks yeah unless you get lucky it bounces off and they they you know tree top you but chances are they're gonna go like this yeah it was interesting because he caught him a couple times that head kick and wobbled Glover He's got like a size 16 foot

So think about it Glover's blocking it the big old foot is just wrapping around the side of his head You know better than anybody even if you block it just the impact It rattles you, rattles everything and I was even saying on the broadcast that it's a good idea Even if it doesn't hit his head for people at home We were talking about the leg kicks go ahead like this and let me take a baseball bat Yeah, block this baseball bat right? It's gonna hurt even on your forearm by the way He he kicks harder than you can swing a baseball bat to yeah people need to know that Yes, it's coming from down here and your leg is bigger than a baseball bat

Yeah, and especially if someone has like real power in their hips and knows how to really swing it. I think he needs to keep developing that. Oh my God, yeah. If he can keep developing that left kick and get a little more flexible, because you can tell he's just hammering it up there. Yeah. It's like if he starts working that and gets sneaky behind maybe setting it up with kind

of like Leon did against Kamara where you set it up with that that uh that cross kind of pump so many good fights in that weight class right you have yuri who's coming back gets the shoulder surgery which hopefully not too soon though man right because apparently that was a pretty devastating injury that he had i don't know what he all tore in there but but tell the story what happened because it's kind of crazy you know you know the story with yuri no his shoulder gets out of socket in training camp right which is dangerous enough right like so his camp they try to put the shoulder back oh i heard they were yank on and they tear it to shreds so the doctor the ufc doctor said it was the worst shoulder injury he'd ever seen that's what i heard that's That's not good. I forgot that they said that.

Yeah, people trying to put it back in place. Everybody just sees a video of a doctor doing that, and it's like. Well, you have to also recognize, too, and I hope Yuri knows this, and if he doesn't, maybe he's listening. Your muscle tissue will heal faster than your connective tissue, your tendons and your ligaments. You feel good, but it's not ready. That's why guys blow out their ACL again after doing it. They get their surgery. I'm good to go. It's like, no, man,

not good to go. Ed Herman did that. He gets the ACL surgery, recovering from ACL surgery, feeling pretty good, blows it out again. That's really common because the ligaments, even though they feel ready, the tissue around them is strong. The actual ligaments themselves are not. They take a long time. The blood supply is very weak. That's one of those injuries that, I mean. Shoulders are rough.

Shoulders and ACLs. I mean, I had minor injuries throughout fighting to my knee, thank God, like meniscus stuff, that they go in and cut that out. Yeah, but even that, your knee's kind of compromised after that. To this day, because I'm missing the whole inside part of it, basically. If I'm just standing around, I can kind of like shake it. I can feel that it's... Yeah, it wobbles. I'm missing that on my inside of my left leg, too.

Yeah, it wobbles. There's no cushion there. Yeah, I got an insufficiency fracture from skiing because I fell and my knees clashed into each other because there's no ligament, there's no meniscus on that side. It was a crack. I was like, something's wrong.

Yeah, that makes sense. Even if you run too much with no meniscus, which is probably what I'm doing to myself at the moment. Oh, I'm sure you're doing that. And my hip, something, you know like your hip bone what runs across that is that part of your it man that runs across like literally across your i don't know do you get it worked on do you get it looked at i'm so bad at all that stuff are you you just try to like ignore it i'm just gonna i'm good to go you're saying that about blood work like if I don't want to look at it.

Oh, man. Like, Christine is, she's like, you need to go get your kidneys looked at. And I'm like, I don't. Does it bother you? No, no, no. Do they bother you? They hurt? Sometimes I got a little twinge back on the right side here.

And I think it's. Did you ever get kidney stones? Never had kidney stones, but I did have, like, I had rhabdo um after the hooker fight and i was that's scary i was peeing coca-cola and that's how i knew and i mean i several times i pee blood what did they do to fix the rhabdo flush the shit out of me with ivs basically and made me wait in the hospital until my levels in the blood they kept just taking little samples of blood rhabdo is something that a lot of crossfit people get yeah you just work your you work your muscles so bad they start to break apart and and like a like a i forget what starts to go

poisons your blood basically yeah basically rhabdomyelosis right myelosis right rhabdomyelosis something like that but it's very sketchy stuff. Yeah, it looks like you're peeing straight cola. Well, that's when people say, oh, there's no such thing as overtraining. No, there fucking most certainly is. You can literally destroy your kidneys from doing it. Yeah, you could die. And you could die.

And I think a lot of it for me was because of the damage to my actual muscles which was causing it and because it wasn't the weight cut for that one that one i was dialed in for that one so i know it wasn't putting too much strain that but 25 minutes of a dude hammering your calf calf starts to break it was probably starting to break apart it almost had compartments this is the hooker fight this is the hooker fight yeah and i broke my orbital Jesus. That's a lot of stuff going on. Oh, dude, for the longest time, I was seeing, like, I was getting double vision. Since retiring, it's finally going away. But if I look to my right, even now, like, if I was looking at you, this eye would start to kind of do its own thing a little bit.

Not anymore, though. It's been good. When Bilal was telling me about getting his surgery. When he got poked? Yeah, and then he fucked up the other eye as well. It's like you realize these guys. You know about that guy, that Russian cat that's fighting? The UFC just signed him.

He has one eye. Oh, I saw that, yeah. I didn't know he had one eye, though. I thought it was just discolored. No, no, no. It's useless. It's gone. Yeah, his right eye. And I guess

they're going to let him fight. Which I always thought that Bisping gamed the system. Which I think he did. Yeah, he kind of like, you know. Well, Bisping would pretend that he could see out of it. So he would memorize the eye chart. And so, how tough is that guy? He's a G, bro.

How tough is that guy? If a guy fought 11 fights in the UFC, including winning the world title and defending the world title with one eye. With one eye. Fucking animal. Fucking animal. It's so crazy. You'll be sitting on, which side is it? Which side is it?

It's his right eye. It's his right eye. And man, he'll bump in. I mean, it's legit. Yeah, can't see. For anybody that's doubting Michael. No, he literally can't see out of that eye. Yeah. And I remember when it went bad, the Vitor fight. Yeah. Vitor head kicked him. Like for anybody that's doubting Michael. No, he literally can't see out of that eye.

And I remember when it went bad, the Vitor fight. Yeah. Vitor head kicked him. And worse for wearers. That was super sauce stuff, Vitor, right? Saucy Vitor. Saucy Vitor. That was back in the days where they allowed them to do testosterone replacement therapy,

which is so crazy. It's like, oh, I need some testosterone. It's like, you don't need that much. Well, that was what was crazy about MMA is that, you know, it's such a new sport is that there was so much shenanigans that was allowed. Yeah. Like, look, if they started the UFC today, if the sport started from scratch, you'd think they'd allow extreme weight cutting?

No. If you were going to start it from the beginning. There'd be hydration testing. Yes, they would do it. I don't know how 1FC is doing it because apparently on one of the most recent 1FC cards, nine people failed their weight cut.

Because they're trying to, yeah, they're trying. They didn't make weight. So like, I don't know, what the fuck do you do with that? And when I'm looking at those guys in 1FC, I'm like, I don't go to your drug test

because they don't work very good. Well, that's where it's like, wait a minute. We're worried about them cutting weight. Meanwhile, these guys are taking every supplement known to mankind. It's like, I don't know if we should be worried about the weight cutting before we're worried about it. Including probably diuretics. Yeah. Well, maybe not if they're doing a hydration test.

Well, yeah. I don't know. Maybe not if they're doing a hydration test. Well, yeah. I was talking to Eddie a while ago about it when he was fighting for 1FC, and he was kind of talking about how he had to do the weight cut thing and how much he had to weigh. But I don't remember all the specifics, but I know it's – you have to have a certain level in your urine or something like that so that they know, but there's got to be ways around it. How about that fucking cat that he fought in his first one fight?

What's his name? Nastyukin? Is that his name? Oh, I don't even remember. I think it's Timothy. I think literally the first letters of his name are nasty. Is that Eddie Alvarez? He fought this fucking animal.

It's like you need to know. Oh, yeah. Look at it at nasty yukin where's he from oh russia yep russia of course fucking tank so big he was so big and you know when you look at the size of that motherfucker that's natural ruthless striker ruthless fucking striker but it's like oh is he was we see the one that was crushing Eddie's legs too? He stopped Eddie. He stopped Eddie in Eddie's first fight back. First fight there.

Eddie's tough, dude. I've trained with him. Tough as shit. Tough as shit. Fucking animal. But, you know, I mean, look how big Nastyukin is. Look, he's taller than him, thicker than him. He's a big motherfucker.

I mean, look, Eddie, you know, fought 55 in the UFC. That guy looks like a big 170. Yeah. I mean, he's a big motherfucker. I mean, look, Eddie fought 55 in the UFC. That guy looks like a big 170. Yeah. I mean, he's a big fucking fella. But that's my point, is that there's talent all over the world now. Yeah. There's not, like,

the world-class talent is not limited to the UFC. We're getting these guys that enter into the UFC, and they're elite already. They already have the 20-0, some of these guys. Or 19-2, some crazy records like that. Yes. That fucking cat that just fought, that just knocked out Terrence McKinney in Brazil.

Bon Fim. Bon Fim. Holy shit, is he good. You want to talk about a guy that showed up and just had done his homework for that fight, bro. And McKinney's a bad motherfucker, dude. McKinney, when he put it on Drew Dober and almost had Drew Dober out in that fight and showed how durable Drew Dober is and Drew Dober recovered and survived and wound up

winning the fight, I was like, damn, McKinney's a future champion. But this fucking guy, this guy, Bonfim is a monster. And his brother. He's so talented. Savage as well. You see his brother was watching back there. Look this guy flying knee bonfim is a monster and his brother so savage as well you see his brother was watching back there look at that flying right on the neck i talked to terrence after that and i was like he's like bro thank god that hit me here he's like my teeth would have been gone yeah because he didn't have his mouthpiece at that time which i was wondering why the referee didn't put the mouthpiece back in because there was a lot of time there between the mouthpiece falling out. Yeah, I think we said it.

We're like, why wouldn't you put this in here? What a brilliant flying knee, though. I mean, the way he set it up shows him the right switch knee. And, you know, that was what Firas Ahabi was talking about when he justified the stoppage with Israel versus Pajero. He was like, nobody has a better switch knee than Pajero. If you're lingering your head in front of that dude, stop the fight now. Please.

You're not going to come back the same person after a knockout like that because you're already messed up. Yes. And then you let Pajero smash you in the face with a flying knee. One of the most powerful moves in all of MMA. Yeah, no. If you watch his fight with Jason Willness in Glory, where he stops Willness with that flying knee, his fucking, and the first fight he had in the UFC where he knocked that cat out with flying knee.

And that guy taking him down a bunch, and then it just all takes one of those, and it's a game changer. Yeah, but these guys like Bonfim and his brother, his brother, the other Bonfim, it's Israel and what's his? Ishmael. Ishmael and Gabriel. Gabriel Gabriel and Gabriel won by guillotine both those guys fucking talented and both against legit dudes

yes Gabriel fought Mounir Lezez yes he's a good good fighter very good fighter he made him

shoot he made him panic shoot he pressured the shit out of him and he he made him, and that's his thing. He's like, God. Yeah. And it's funny. They're both so well-rounded. But you can tell Gabriel forces guys into these grappling exchanges, whereas Ishmael,

you can tell that dude just wants to take your head off. But both, they can both do either one. Both either one. And also, like, the movement and management of distance is fucking phenomenal. Like elite world class. That's what I said when you watch that fight. You're watching these guys in their debut fight in the UFC. Because they've been tested against legit talent.

If you look at the records of the guys they fought, they fought some legit dudes. Whereas back in the day, you could be 10-0 getting to the UFC. dudes whereas back in the day you know you could be 10 and 0 getting to the ufc and you didn't fight you might have fought one or two guys at the end there to get joe silva's attention back in the day because i remember when you were trying to get in he'd be like can you you got to go beat somebody right for me to sign you you could be 15 and 0 but if you've beaten a bunch of guys that are all 0 and 10 what we're you're going to get here with a great record and then get murdered. Joe Silva was so brutal. He was so brutal. He sent my ass to Brazil

because we begged for a guy that was in the top 15. He's like, sure, here you go. You got to go fight Masa Nduba down in... I was like, anybody else? He's like, that fight or no fight? Yeah. Okay. But I guess you kind of have to be like that.

But then if you got hurt though, and I had a good relationship with Joe, but one time when I hurt my knee, I had to pull out. He's like, unbelievable. You're hurt? You got to pull out? Great. It's like, bro, I hurt my knee.

I tore my meniscus. What do you want me to do? I had a bucket handle tear. That's the worst. I was at Cowboys Ranch doing this. I was wheeling around in a chair because I couldn't stand up. Yeah, the bucket handle tear is what I had. It locked up a chair because I couldn't stand up. Yeah, those are the bucket handle tears what I had. It locked up. It locks up.

That's horrible. Terrible feeling. I tried to rehabilitate mine. I actually got it stitched up. Yeah. Because it was the same knee that I tore my ACL and I got it stitched up, but you just can't. The meniscus just goes, man. It's just wear and tear, man. Do you know they're doing meniscus replacements

now? Yeah, back when I had it done, they were just cutting that shit out. They're using cadaver meniscus now. But apparently, as you get older, it's less and less effective. Yeah, because it probably won't take. Yeah, blood flow. It's just a blood flow thing. But I always wonder, when they say blood flow, are they talking about that for elite athletes? How much blood flow are we talking about?

Are they talking about that for elite athletes? Like how much blood flow are we talking about? If you're talking about for a regular person, maybe because they're not training and they're not going to rehabilitate it to the extent that like a guy like you would do. My mom getting a meniscus versus us getting one who are going to go and work out every day. It's going to be a different situation. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. But just what – I mean I always just thank God for medical science because just think about, I have both my ACLs reconstructed.

I would be a hobbling mess of a man if I lived at any other time. Yeah. My friend Steve. You'd be broken. I'd be broken. I wouldn't be able to do it. And I could do everything. It's crazy.

I mean, I'm 55 and my body works as good as it worked when I was 30, which is nuts with hormone replacement and stem cells and peptides and all this shit it's amazing what you can do now when i was a kid i thought of a 55 year old man like that's a dead man oh yeah that's not a guy with a six-pack who's throwing kettlebells around like that that's it's a totally different world it is it is different i mean i i thought the same thing like if you thought of somebody that was even over 45 i'd be like oh man oh, man, time to settle in and get old. When I was a kid, when I was 19 years old, I used to work at an athletic club. I worked at the Boston Athletic Club, and Bobby Orr used to come in and work out.

And Bobby Orr, who's one of the greatest hockey players that's ever lived, Bobby Orr can barely walk. He's a poor guy because he's had those old school surgeries where they would cut your leg open like a fish. Yeah, you're screwed. And just bolt things down and staple it together. Well, Bobby would get on the VersaClimber machine and we would have to help him get on this machine because his legs would go, this is the range of motion. It goes from this to this.

Yeah. I mean, never fully extended. Look, that's his knee. Oh. Bro, when you see it in real life it's like a brain yeah it's horrible and again he i'm sure he probably has knee replacements now but like when they worked on his knee back then look it's black and white photos look at his knees there that photo there with the two of them with the see the big scar the the color one down there don't make me

bust out the fucking i don't think that's him that's not him no it just says old guy hockey uh old guy hockey knee replacement yeah that's but those big slices like that well they do knee replacements now um you know kelly starrett who's a uh very famous strengthening and interesting coach he blew his knee out and eventually got a a knee replacement and he says it's amazing he said he could do everything with it. And Michael Bisping, both of his knees. Yeah, he's got two of them. Yeah. Old guy hockey.

I think for me, it's just going to be my hip someday. It's going to go. No doubt. Well, have you got any stem cells in there? No. Oh, you should. You'd be amazed. You'd be amazed at what they can do. Take a trip down to Columbia, my friend.

I see everybody doing these things now. Yeah. Well, you know, Aljamain's doing that right now. Aljamain, there was an article I read this morning. Aljamain is trying to avoid bicep surgery. He has a torn biceps and he's going down to Columbia right now to get it shut up because they're trying to get him to fight. They're trying to get him to fight Henry Cejudo in April. Sooner than he wants. Yeah. Right. So here we are right fight. They're trying to get him to fight Henry Cejudo in April. Sooner than he wants. Yeah. Right. So here we are right now and we're in February. So you got March, April. Yeah. I don't like it. What does it say? Next week, I'm off to Medellin, Colombia for bio-accelerator stem cell

treatment program. Very optimistic. This will get me back and ready to compete sooner than later. Well, this is where I'm a big fan of the Conor McGregor approach to avoiding the USADA testing pool. Yeah. You know? Just to heal up. I don't know what Conor did. I don't know what's happening when he's outside of that pool, but I've never seen a guy get that big before. That big and just recover from a broken shin like it was no big deal i mean look at chris weidman yeah he was

having all kinds of complications with that thing it's not an easy surgery to come back from and infections and stuff like that can start to happen look at luke rockhold who couldn't even get over a staff infection that is still he still puts on sleeves on that shin that's yeah it's crazy but that is better than the break. The break is very, it's very rare that someone comes, I mean, Anderson is the only guy that's really come back. Widen still hasn't come back. No.

He hasn't had a fight since that fight with Uriah. I mean, it's a devastating, and also Tyrone Spong, when he fought Gokhan Saki, same thing. It's like nightmare fuel breaking your shin like that. As a fighter you have

nightmares about that. The first time that happened in the UFC was Corey Hill and I remember screaming at the referee, stop the fight. Because the referee, I don't think he recognized it yet. He recognized it eventually. Didn't he step back on it too? That, they always do.

That's the worst they always do because it's your instinct. You don't even know. Well, you don't know it's broken yet. You just know it hurts. I mean, how many times does it hurt and not break? That's the thing about shins. I'm surprised it hasn't popped. They haven't had any crazy, what is it called when it pops through the skin?

Compound fractures. I'm surprised we haven't seen it. Wideman did. Did it? Wideman did, yeahound fractures. That's Weidman who did. Weidman's popped out the back of his leg. Yeah, popped out the back of his calf. I mean, Chris has been how many years out now? Is it two? That's been a while, man.

When was the Uriah Hall fight? I want to say it was 20. I want to say it was 2020. It might be more than two years. 2020 or 2021. I mean, first it was 2020. It might be more than two years. 2020 or 2021. I mean, first kick he throws. Full blast. Just snap.

Oh, God. 21. 21. April of 2021. So, yeah, we're closing it on two years now. And still hasn't been able to come back. Fuck, man. Chris Weidman, that's another guy, man.

When he was in his prime, he was such a motherfucker, dude. I mean, to take out... Everybody. When he beat Silva, though, that was when we were all like, man, nobody's going to beat this guy. Can't beat this guy. Can't beat this guy. And he was beating Luke Rockhold, and he throws a wheel kick.

Isn't that wild? That one kick, which, by the way, not a good kick either. He wild that that one kick which by the way not a good kick either he's not good at it it's not you're a wrestler chris yeah i mean why did he decide to do that and then he gets taken down and smacked and luke rockhold's top came crushed him oh his top game is fucking nasty yeah what he did to leoto machida yeah i was i was in the stands for that one i was watching that one. Look, Chris Weidman was a bad motherfucker. Here it is.

Yeah. Chris Weidman was such a bad motherfucker. Look, he throws that. That was so bad. So bad. And then he gets wrestled down. He gets taken down and just destroyed. I mean, it's such a bad kick. And Luke Rockhold, when he gets on top of you,

he's one of the worst guys to ever have on top of you. The David Branch fight when he got on top of you he's one of the worst guys to ever have on top of you the David Branch fight when he got on top of him and smashed him I mean Luke was so fucking good at top game his his fucking jiu-jitsu is so underrated I mean I don't even say it's underrated yeah he's good man he if he had just completely concentrated only on jiu-jitsu I think Luke could have been a world-class jiu-jitsu competitor. He's so fucking strong. And he came up with that camp with DC. He came Velasquez. So he's in there with these elite heavyweight wrestlers all the time.

He just loves that left kick as well. Isn't it crazy, though, that one fight like that with Weidman just changes the trajectory of his career? Before that, he's this destroyer. The Lyoto Machida fight, I said. Remember that fight? He gets Lyoto down and just smashes him. And you're like, Jesus Christ.

Chris was so mentally tough and so fucking good at everything. Great striker, great wrestling, tough as fucking nails. It's almost like you get this one moment where things don't go right, and then you can't, I don't know if it's the competition around you sees a weakness in you, and then they aren't as intimidated by you,

and then starts to, I think it also is just this game is so young, and people are getting so good so in fast man like nowadays these kids it's it's unbelievable junior 19 years old he's not even 18 years old fighting in the UFC and my fighting he's got a good fight he's fighting Christian Christian Rodriguez yeah I trained with at Rufusport for years. Very good fight. That's going to be a good fight. Very good fight.

That kid is. He had a little stumble on the contender series where he didn't make weight, didn't get signed on that. And then he lost his debut up at 45 to Jonathan Pierce. Right? Jonathan JSP. But his last fight, he looked unbelievable. The kid can grapple. The kid's got unbelievable kickboxing.

I think he's training with Henry Sudo and those guys now out in Arizona. When you're that good at 18, they're throwing you right to the wolves. It's just like, what? The sky's the limit for these guys. And then, you know, there's a bunch of guys like that out there that are fighting in LFA, that are fighting in this organization. Just go into these gyms, go into these mega gyms. And just if you watch a practice, the mats are filled with these. You're like beating up some UFC pros and stuff.

And nobody knows who they are yet because they've grown up. That's all they know. They don't know. Oh, yeah, I did Taekwondo as a kid. And then I did some boxing. And then I did X, Y and Z. know, oh, yeah, I did Taekwondo as a kid, and then I did some boxing, and then I did X, Y, and Z. It's like, no, I do MMA. And they get to watch all the best fighters ever.

If you go back to the early days of the UFC, what are they basing their style on? Yeah. I mean, they basically were— Figuring it out. Yeah, they were figuring it out as they went along. And it's also a thing with fighters where when you're operating at like fucking redlining at this you only have a certain amount of years like i think there's like a principle that a lot of people try to apply i don't think it's universal but it's a nine-year thing that as an elite mma fighter you

really only have like nine years yeah nine years where you just at the top and then eventually like tony ferguson we were talking about. Or Fedor. Fedor's another great example of that. Yeah, where you're the GOAT. You're one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. And then it's just like you're getting beat up. The wheels fall off. Yeah.

I feel like if you go back to those days, the early days of Pride, the Fedor that was dominating people in Pride was one of the most impressive fighters that has ever fucking lived. God damn, he could do it all. He could catch you with armbars off of his back. He would recover from being taken down and immediately roll into Kimura like the Randleman fight.

Yeah, get smashed on his neck. Yes. Look like you're going to. Yeah. Look like the person should be dead. Should be looking at a dead body and then armbar. And, you know, again, it's like you only have so many years that you can operate at that level how many training camps can you get through? How many how many times can your body take that kind of punishment?

You got to get out you got to get out even when maybe you think oh I got a few more fights like there's no doubt in my mind. I have Five more fights that I could have done how old are you now 38 38 so you still it seems like the back of your fucking head so out a little bit a little bit of an ember back there no it's i mean it's it's always but it's always going to be listen i'm trying to start an acting career i'm trying to do a triathlon career. I'm trying to be a commentator. Yeah. I got to,

well, you know what? I'm, I'm lucky though, man, because you, you can see why guys overstay their welcome. Yes.

You gotta make fucking, you gotta make money. It's your job. Yes. Yes. You didn't know anything else anymore. Yeah. And then suddenly everybody's like retire. And it's like,

screw you. What do you mean? I'm 38. I'm 37 or 40. It's like you what do you mean i'm 38 i'm 37 or 40 it's like what do you mean retire what am i going to do now right so you see why guys have to fight past that i was super super lucky and blessed to get the commentary job where i can think okay do i want to keep fighting why am i still fighting And I just didn't see a picture for the belt anymore. And if I don't see a picture for the belt, I always told everyone around me,

my mom, my loved ones, I said, if I don't think that I can fight and win the championship, I'll retire. And that day came. There's fights where guys take that one too many fights and it's just like you see it coming. Like with Frankie, it was Chris Gutierrez. I was like, Chris Gutierrez is so slick. He's so good. I it coming like with Frankie it was Chris Gutierrez yep I was like

Chris Gutierrez is so slick he's so good I did not like that fight I love watching Chris fight Chris is so fucking smooth and technical I just love his style man he's like his movement style and all the the jukes and fakes and just oh and And you're talking about a guy who has unbelievable knees. And that's been in his career. And you match him up with Frankie. Yeah, and he catches him with the perfect knee and flatlines him with his kids in the audience. And that's the other thing.

A lot of people are like, why don't you come back and do a retirement fight? I'm like, why? So I can get knocked out in front of everybody. I like what you're doing. I like that you found a new thing to never been knocked out that's amazing never been knocked out you got an amazing chin the only stoppage was due to uh the cut it's the only time i've been trinaldo oh peeled my whole face dude you could see the whole yeah the Yeah, the skull.

Yeah, well, that's an amazing accomplishment to fight the guys that you fought. I got to fight Edson Barboza twice. Barboza's switch kick to this day, when he was in his prime, Barboza had the craziest switch kick I think I've ever seen in my life. It would be like you were watching a video and frames were removed or something.

Like, how is he that fast? And that's exactly how it feels when you're fighting him. He would just move along. But it was interesting that like his hands never really matched the level of his kicks. No. Really wild, right? Yeah. I mean, he punched me a couple times.

I mean, as square on the jaw as you can hit somebody. It's like I was never worried about on the jaw as you can hit somebody. It's like, I was never worried about his punches. It was just his kicks and his knees. Yeah, everything. Even against the fence, if you're grappling for position and you just kind of dig a few in,

you're like, fuck. Yeah. Well, that was one of the times that I knew how special Khabib truly was, was when Khabib got a hold of him and you saw this look on edson's face like this thousand yard stare yep like what the fuck i i thought the

same thing that's when i was like okay uh i tried to do that and that ain't easy to do to that guy and i've trained with edson after the fact that i fought him the first time. And he's not an easy guy to, like, hold down. I mean, he's strong as shit. Yeah. And then you see Habib's just like... Boom. Just sitting there. Just smashing him. Just had so much control and power.

What do you think happens to Jon Jones? When Jon Jones gets up to heavyweight, we've never seen him fight a... I've heard all the training room stories about him ragdolling heavyweights john at heavyweight's going to be even better because he's not diminished by making that cut 205 and john's always i mean he definitely has a frame for a heavyweight and he looks good now he's 254 253 big as fuck i'm i'm excited about it because towards the end of his light heavyweight reign

you know he's kind of playing with his food a little bit out there. And had that fight where a lot of people think he lost. But really, I think a lot of it was just him being lazy, to be honest with you. Now at heavyweight, I think we're going to see him come out and try to make some freaking statements. Well, it's also, he has been out for all these years. He's been how many years now? It's been two plus years since he's fought. And, you know, you wonder, does he have ring rust?

Does he come back hungrier? I definitely don't think he has ring rust. But he's dealing with the most mobile and agile heavyweight in the business. Three years. Wow. February 2020. Wow. And the Dominic Reyes fight, the last fight that he had,

arguably lost that decision. I mean, many people. In the moment, I thought he lost it. You know, John is famous for doing just enough in training with some of those guys. That's what I'm saying. I think at heavyweight, hopefully. Well, he's training with Sohudo which i really like yeah at least he's doing some of his camp with sohudo which i really henry sohudo is a goddamn genius he is a fight genius well i

mean you got a guy who olympic champion then double champion it's clearly the man understands combat sports on another level he knows how to win and he knows how to win and mighty mouse told me when he went to train with him he said he was so impressed by how systematic he was and the the game plan and strategy and how he he puts everything together he said i've never seen anybody that's so meticulous in their preparation yeah and you see you see that even in the fighters that he's training now and that's why i'm excited to see him come back i mean put all the cringe stuff and all that, whatever. That's kind of funny. Right?

Yeah, that's his whole thing. But his skills? Oh, undeniable. Undeniable. I mean, the way he chopped down Dominic Cruz, I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. The way he beat the fucking brakes off of TJ Dillashaw. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. I mean, he's a monster. And the fact that he comes back from Mighty Miles beating him in the first fight quick stopping him early with knees to the body

and you know and then comes back and beats him in the second fight after getting his calf kicked out from under him remember he got that drop foot that was one of the first times

where we saw that where I was like what the hell is that looks like his ankle's broken and then he yeah came back and won the decision he knows how to win.

I love him and Al Jermaine. That is a very fascinating fight because Al Jermaine's strength is his grappling. You know, Al Jermaine, when he gets your back, dude, there's not a better fucking person in any division. Al Jermaine, that backpack, whoo. Yeah, it's unbelievable how he does that, man. And the way he looked against TJ, he looked against TJ like, obviously, TJ had a fucked up shoulder in that fight. But Al Jermaine looked like a dominant champion. Yeah. He looked like TJ like obviously TJ had a fucked up shoulder in that fight but Aljamain looked like a dominant champion. He looked like

he's coming into his own. I mean he's the perfect bill for 35. Fucking shredded. Shredded at 35. So muscular and strong and so fucking talented and also just confident. Everything's together. Yeah and he's from the distance which is

he's so good with his kicks, right? And that's something he works on constantly because when you think about it, if you're a really strong grappler and you're a guy who you wanted to get to the ground, you've got a great wrestling base, why wouldn't you work on having those kind of weapons, those long-range weapons?

Like, come on, you try to close the distance on me because if you don't, I'm just going to sit out here and I'm going to kick the shit out of you, literally, with my kicks. Front kick the fuck out of your body. I'm going to front kick you. I'm going to roundhouse kick you. I'm going to learn some spinning kicks. He was working. I saw him doing a little bit of traditional martial arts at the apex.

But that's genius. Yeah. Because you're forcing your opponents to have to close the distance, and you're a freaking wrestler. Well, Cowboy was always so good at that. Cowboy would throw high kicks because his guard was so good people forget in the early days of cowboy he wanted you to yeah he wanted he was triangling the fuck out of people cowboys grappling is so underappreciated for all the amount of times that i have been choked by donald serroni those legs i also and you go at his ranch, and he's up at freaking elevation

in Edgewood, New Mexico. So you're training at like 7,500 feet above sea level, coming from Philly. And then this dude's wrapping triangles and body triangles around you and just talking shit to you the whole time. You're like,

God damn, I hate him. Isn't the size of him now? He's yoked up right now. He's so big. I commented on his thing. I was like, do you even lift, dude? Like, what are you doing? He comments on all my shit. He's like, nope, nope, that's where we're different.

I ain't doing any of that shit. He's not lifting? No, of course he's, yeah, he's definitely lifting. That's why I made a joke. He's gigantic now. He's got to be 200 pounds now. He's fucking gigantic. Yeah.

That photo of him was wearing a tank top. He's massive. And he was never like that. He couldn't gain weight to save his life back in the day. Now you get older, man. Mexican supplements, bro. And some proper beef. Look at the fucking neck on him.

Look at his neck. That's preposterous. Coach Ray. Look at that. Yeah. It's an neck. That's preposterous. Coach Ray. Look at that. Yeah. It's an interesting time, man. It's an interesting time to be a commentator. It's an interesting time to be a fan.

You know, there's just so much talent and so much going on. And this is the only sport, really, in our lifetime where you can go back 20 years and it's almost unrecognizable. Yeah. The difference in the talent level between 2000 and 2023 is so extreme it's so different to watch how good guys have gotten and how everywhere yeah they're good everywhere everywhere from the kids can do a flying knee flying triangle and then hit you with just a beautiful double leg and transition seamlessly in their wrestling and they know how to do it on the fence they know it and

Then you hate it. It's it's such an it's amazing It's really and you got a wonder like what are we looking at ten years from now? I mean when you got these bonfim dudes coming in that are you know one fight in the UFC He looks like a world champion. It's going to be, it's going to, you're going to see some crazy good fights and some crazy finishes, man. Yeah. Because as long as the competition

keeps getting up like that, you know, I mean, sometimes you're going to catch, but like McKinney, to do that to... Yes. I know, do that to McKinney and to catch him like that. And, you know, McKinney, to his credit, that and you know McKinney to his credit like what a What a class act he is like after the fight join shots with them and then posts it

You know and and post a photo of the two of them together good for him. Yeah, he's got great character. He's a good kid He's just he's so young. I mean these guys they take losses now It's like they're just you just don't want to see too many of those kind of knockouts early in a kid's career, too. It's like, God. Pull up that card, that March card, please, the one in Vegas, because that whole fucking card is crazy stacked. Is this March 4th? Yeah. The whole card is so fucking stacked.

I'll be in Vegas for that one. Not working, but I'll be doing a triathlon camp out there. Valentina Shevchenko versus Alexa Grasso. That's a great fight. Jalen Turner. Yeah, taking on Dan Hooker, dude. Jalen Turner is a motherfucker, dude. You talk about a guy coming into his own.

Jalen Turner. And he is as big as you can get at 155. Yeah, he's like 6'4", I think. Bo Nickel and Jamie Pickett. Oh, I love that. I love that. There you go. Derek Brunson versus Drekas Duplessis.

Yes. Ian Gary. He's a bad motherfucker, too. I'm not a... Son Kinnan. Is that a debut? No, no. He's had a few fights.

I don't think I've commented on his fights. I've seen him, but I think I called one of his fights. Ian Gary's a bad motherfucker, too. And you know what? Ian had that one standout knockout, but I feel like his ceiling still hasn't been reached. He hasn't really shown what he's going to do in the UFC yet. No, I don't think so either.

I still think he's got a lot to show in a good way. Oh, yeah. Well, he's so young. How old's he and Gary? He's got to be in his mid-20s. He's young as fuck, man. He's got massive, massive potential. 25 years old.

25. Woo! Yeah, and tall, too, for the weight class. Tall and slick. Cody Garbrandt versus Julio Arce. I think that might have changed. I think Julio is out. Oh, really?

I mean, it's not changed on there yet, but I think I just saw a post saying that he was out of that fight. I don't know who Cody's going to fight. Tough road for Cody. There's another one, man. Yeah, another guy. The leader of the elite at one point in time. And then just a couple.

And I know Cody's had trouble with, I think he was knocked out really bad when he was young and up and coming too. Someone KO'd him very early on in his career real bad. Yeah. And so RSA injured, bounced from Cody Garver in a fight. Well, still enough time towards ACL. Oh, yeah, there's tons of, oh, that's a sad. That's a bummer. That's a bad one.

So who do they get? No word. No word where the promotion plans to keep Garbrandt on the fight card. You know, with Cody Garbrandt, after all those KOs, you gotta wonder, like, how many more does he have left? You know, when a guy gets KO'd a gang of times... Like, there's a lot of people that... It gets to a certain point in time, you're like, someone needs to step in and stop this from happening.

Yeah. It was like four in a row or something for him. Yeah. You're a young guy. You just... This sport's rough on our heads to begin with. Yeah. But when you've been put out that many, that's when you really gotta think, hey,

maybe it's time. I mean, if he goes and gets on another win streak but well sugar sean o'malley was talking about this uh what's that gentleman he works with dan gardner um the guy they're working on a concussion protocol and like to rehabilitate people from concussions and that there's things you can do to help yourself recover and heal. Yeah, you think there's got to be, right? Because it's got to be something with the fluids and what causes some people to have brain damage and other people don't. That's the real issue too,

is I've talked to the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic. I've been part of a study that they offer everybody in the UFC and a lot of NFL guys and all that. Every year, you go back and you do the same series of tests and they run the same exact scans. And I went because I was having some headaches when I fought twice in a row. I fought Ross right after I fought Edson the first time. And for like a month, I had a headache. And I was like, this is not normal. And it turns out I just had a really bad concussion

that I wasn't knocked out, but it doesn't mean you don't have a concussion. And I was having all these symptoms. So I went and had all that testing done. And I just recently, last year, I went back. And it's amazing. I mean, I aced everything that I failed the first time I had went, I,

my scans all came back clear and I was talking to the doctor and I was like, some of these guys will fight only a few times and have severe brain damage and all this kind of stuff. Why am I showing no signs of any of that? He's like, a lot of it's genetic and how you just, you just, yeah. Mark Hunt. Like, you know, he jokes around about it. He's like, a lot of it's genetic and how you're- Look at Mark Hunt. You just, yeah. Mark Hunt,

he jokes around about it. He's like, mate, I'm Polynesian. Yeah. I can fucking take it. It's true, man. It's true. Did you see Mark Hunt knock that fucking

undefeated boxer out? Did you see that? No. Bro. Pull that up. I love Mark Hunt. They bring him in. He fights his cat in Australia.

This guy is this undefeated, up-and-coming heavyweight boxer. Young, good-looking guy. And Mark Hunt puts it on him and flatlines him in front of everybody. Crazy. Huge, huge underdog. 40-plus years old. Been through wars. Former K-1 Grand Prix champion.

Don't let him touch your chin. Oh, my God. Mark Hunt. The king of the walk-away KO. So, he's fighting this guy Sonny Bill Williams. Jacked out of his mind. Jack, big, tall. Look at him. Mark looking

like he's suffering through it. And it's a boxing match too, by the way. He doesn't even get to kick you with those fucking tree trunks. And Mark Hunt stopped him. And it was crazy. Mark Hunt was brought in. He caught him with that right hand mark hunt was brought in to be the big name look at that left hook boom right hand drops him dude that's a huge win a huge win and i don't know if mark hunt's gonna fight again and that might be the end of it but this dude gets back up and mark hunt puts it

on him oh yeah one of the last guys oh look at that right hand oh my goodness oh my goodness look at that left foot oh oh that's it he can't even argue mark motherfucking hunt what a savage what a savage he is what a fucking savage yeah that dude is you know and he had that crazy lawsuit i don't know what happened i know yeah i don't know what happened either but these legends man you know it's uh it's such an honor to be around these guys just to get to see oh dude i've gotten to call a couple of his fight and every time i interviewed and i'm just like bro I'm happy to just yeah just be calling your fight dude yeah man you're yeah I was I've been watching him do pride fights kickboxing fights just you know

doing shit like that for the longest time crow cop high kick he took a crow cop high kick right on the fucking dome and just got up. Who does that? No one else. No. Crow Cop cracks you. I mean. That was another one, man, that I loved him back in the day. And then he comes over to the UFC and it just doesn't.

It didn't pan out. I was so excited when he was coming over. Because I'm coming from a striking background. That left kick. I'm like, hell yeah. And just. Remember when he was coming over because I'm coming from a striking background. That left kick, I'm like, hell yeah. Remember when he fought Heath Herring? And his shin disappeared in Herring's body. Yeah.

His left shin just went so deep in his body. There's a photo of Crow Cop landing that left body kick. And it's just like folded over. It's literally like inside his rib cage it's so deep into his body and that's the left kick man oh my god look at this photo look at that look at that oh yeah dude are you fucking kidding me you're peeing a lot of blood after that one dude crow cops power kick that left kick you know he would say right kick hospital left kick, you know, he would say right kick, hospital, left kick, cemetery. Yep. My God.

That kick was so insane. When you see that image of that thing. Remember when he knocked out Vanderlei? He lands that high kick on Vanderlei and flatlines him. He split him open too, didn't he? Oh, my God. Yeah, giant. Yeah, here's like.

Oh, I mean, you know, what are you doing? The dude with the mask on. With the mask with a fucking those carols? Yeah, that that was very unnecessary you but that's also pride. Yeah fucking ball right off Bounce it off. Skip it right off the top of your head. We get it over your gloves, man I mean Mirko cro-cop I mean he was he had such a perfect style to transition from kickboxing to MMA because he was so explosive. Whereas some guys, they were more technical and they would set things up more.

I don't know if a guy like Ernesto Hoost would have been the best guy or a guy like Peter Ernst would have been the best guy to come over to MMA. But he was the best guy to show what an elite level, top of the food chain kickboxer would look like fighting in MMA there it is that's a bad one I remember that one Emilianenko yeah it's Fedor's brother Fedor's brother Alexander but the the Vandele Silva one was my favorite dude he was so good so there it is man it's another one that skips off it skips off the top of your freaking head he was so so clever in how he set it up. Boom. See ya. Oh, my God. Good night.

And that was the Pride days. The Pride days were fucking amazing, man. Dude, it was just like calling Shogun's retirement fight. Speaking of another case where calling your last fight, saying I'm going to... It's just never going to work out. Well, Shogun, you could see all all the wars are like you could see it on him He's only I think he's

41 now or something like that, but he's 41 in you know Valitudo years that's what I'm do just think just think about the fights in the gym Oh my god that that guy went through. Oh my oh my god yeah I mean they the those old days with the shoot the box academy they would go to war they were trying to knock each other out every day every day yeah and that's not good for longevity of the career no but I mean that's even even when I was coming up there was still a lot of that going on man well yeah you know guys just I would I would get into fist fights. We were just trying to knock each other out.

And I'd look back. I'm like, that's so stupid. So stupid. So stupid. But, I mean, what do you think is the balance, though? Because I think there has to be some hard sparring just to prepare you. 100%. So I think you have to pick moments to do it.

I think you have to pick moments to do it. And I think you have to kind of really have that be the day that you're doing those rounds, right? And also have people that you're sparring with that are kind of trying to simulate the fight. Whereas if you're just going around the room and sparring everybody in the room that day, like most gyms do now where it's like you just, oh, let me grab this partner. Let me grab that partner. You're not getting the look for your fight you're getting pissed off somebody hits you with something you end up going to battle with them whereas if it's more secured kind of like how pro boxers do everything where you have your sparring partners that day is set up you're greased up you have somebody in the ring i think it needs to be very

formalized like that when you're going to have your hard days so that you're not just off in the corner getting into a slug fest with some dude that's having you know a dick measuring contest with you basically isn't that that's the hard conversation too about what kind of camp do you go to if you're an up-and-coming fighter do you go to att where you got like 15 dudes just flew in from russia and they're staying in the dorms and they're fucking assassins you get you you get spinning back fisted to death or do you start out a small gym I had this conversation with Joaquin Buckley where he's talking about he likes smaller gyms because he gets individualized training and he gets a coach is really looking at his development yeah and setting up his camp like this you're gonna spar with this guy because this guy's gonna emulate

this for you and we're even gonna bring in guys because there's not enough guys here and you're going to spar with this guy because this guy's going to emulate this for you. Yeah, or we're even going to bring in guys because there's not enough guys here, and you're probably the best guy in the room. Right. I think that is the way to go, and I think being able to bring people in to work with you as well and keep a good relationship with other fighters and other camps to kind of share sparring partners and bringing people in so that you need to get the look that you want for that fight. And I didn't, like in hindsight, that's so overlooked, I think. You just fight anybody.

It's like, well, you know, on the day somebody can get hurt, you might be stepping in. It's like, yeah, but. Is that optimal though? I mean, sometimes it is because sometimes that makes your career. Sometimes you get that last minute fight, you step up, you win the fight, and then it rockets your career forward. You take that chance.

You have that, I mean, Jamal Hill, right? I mean, that five-round fight. Oh, yeah. Fighting for the title. You definitely have to be ready. What a crazy move the UFC does, right? Ankalaya Vimbovovich have this fight, goes to a a draw which is just unheard of right everyone's like what and then Danny gets pissed fuck it you guys are gonna fight for the title out and like what now

Glover and him are fighting in Brazil for the title what a great fight man what an amazing fight and for Jamal that's the perfect opportunity like what an opportunity he goes in there and fights in Glover's hometown and wins a title. Yeah, and Anthony Smith gets kind of cast to the side. Well, Anthony didn't make weight either, which is worse, because Anthony was the substitute. Yeah, he was talking to me, too, and he really felt like it was uh going to going to plan but there's no motivation man that's where those things are tricky too right it's like what are you really

what are you pushing yourself in that sauna for it's like you know you're not fighting glover's never gonna fall out of a fight no and jamal's not exactly it's not yes his opportunity right now and he was all he was dialed in the whole week and anthony knows that right so that's i feel like it was just a little bit of lack of motivation unfortunately although perhaps it's free money it's free money but it's also like god damn man what a brutal thing to do to your body for no reason and then not i and i don't i don't know but does he get anything but the day of the fight the day of the weigh-ins, rather, they should know. Like, Jamal, like, he should know. Like, I don't have to make the weight.

Don't make the weight. Yeah. Like, if you're going to be the—I mean, what's going to happen? What could happen between the weigh-in and the fight? It's so rare. It would have to be a stomach issue. Yeah. Pretty much.

You know what I mean? Or someone is so fucked up from the weight cut. That they just don't come back from it. They start fainting. And Glover, at this point in his career, come back from it. They start fainting. And Glover, at this point in his career, is not that guy. He's dialed in. No.

Jamal was dialed in. Dialed in. Jamal doesn't lose a lot of weight either. No. Jamal's pretty light. And he brought in Ian, and he had him cooking for him the whole day. He was not going to miss weight. Yeah.

He was not going to miss weight for that opportunity. Yeah, it's hard. I've never been the backup for anything like that i've never had to go through that when did they start doing that i'm trying to think uh fairly recently right like within the last five or six years i know like the when habib and tony that when that kept falling out i think that's when they were like you know what we should probably start having some backups for these types of situations and there's been another time where somebody missed really bad we were talking about you know what, we should probably start having some backups for these types of situations. And there's been another time where somebody missed really bad. We were talking about how, oh, my God, I'm going to blank on his name.

What weight class? Welterweight. Vicente Luque took a backup spot on, like, super short notice. I think he missed by, like, 12 pounds or something. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, no. Well, some of those guys are so fucking big. They're so big and they're like, it's a hard opportunity to turn down, right?

It's like, hey, listen, you might fight, but chances are you're not, but we're going to pay you to fight. Well, I mean, there's guys like Pejeta that can't make weight unless you give him three months, which is so bonkers. And I think Vicente probably was in that department where it was like, I'm not going to make this on,

I think it was super short notice that he took it. I could be also talking out of my ass right now. Where Hamzat was talking about he wants to fight Pajeda, and Pajeda's like, good, let's fight a light heavyweight in Brazil. 72 hours? Oh, 72 hours ago that he was in that position. Didn't feel that. Hmm.

Interesting. Just chill, son. I'm explaining. The backup fighter, I was trying to find the history of it. And as you were talking about that. Oh, hmm. They were talking about that. Interesting.

Interesting. Yeah, that's crazy. Facente Lugia, backup fighter. Coming in at 100. Oh. No, not that bad. He only came in at 172. Who told me 12 pounds?

Maybe he had to lose 12 pounds in a day or something like that. I'm going to have to find that source and get mad at him now. What do you think of Kamaru Usman rematching Leon Edwards in London? I love that it's in London for Leon. For Leon, yeah. I just, based on how that fight was going the first time, I think Kamaru's going to go in there and be much more dialed in

and not allow a moment like that to happen again. And I think he's going to be able to pull it off and win. Well, it's hard to say, man, because when you watch a guy like Leon Edwards realize that he could KO Kamara with one shot and then he pulls it off and did it and also took him down in the first round, I, like Leon Edwards, realized that he could KO Kamara with one shot. Yeah. And then he pulls it off and did it.

And it also took him down in the first round. Now he's the champion. He's got that championship confidence, that championship rub. Yeah. You know, who knows? And he's in London. I agree. I think he's going to have a lot more confidence coming into this one. And the London crowd is a real thing.

I mean, the last few that I've worked there, man, they make Brazil seem quiet anymore. I mean, that crowd there is just crazy. And then you also have to realize that one of the beautiful things that Leon's done is he did it all from home. He really didn't join American Top Team or TriStar. He didn't join a big camp. No, he tried, and he hated it. He didn't join a big camp. No, he tried and he hated it. He didn't want to be away from home. We've

talked to him a lot about this. He realized that he can be at home working with good wrestlers and doing all that kind of stuff and focused on himself and not going away to America just to work his wrestling. He's like, how about you develop everything else and become a better fighter for the style that you're going to bring to the table

as opposed to trying to put yourself into this American-style wrestling camp and just not working on yourself. And you go to these big gyms, especially early on in his career, and you're just getting, okay, yeah, go over here and work with so-and-so. You're not getting that attention. You stay back home in England, and you're the star pupil. You got everybody working around you. Yeah, the amount of hype that's going to be on that.

And then there's the other thing is with Kamaru. Kamaru is famous for having knee problems. He has horrendous knees. Yeah, he can't even walk down steps, right? He walks down steps backwards, yeah, which is crazy. When he fights, he puts that all out the window. But when Leon took him down,

he tripped him on his bad knee. Both his knees are fucked, but one of his knees is worse. And he trips him on his bad knee and his knee folds over and he goes back down. And Kamara's been pretty open about it, saying, I don't know how much longer my body's going to hold up.

He's also been pretty open about the fact that when his career is done he's probably gonna get his knees replaced he's probably gonna have to I mean his knees are chewed up man yeah real bad yeah I remember being at um we did a thing the UFC when they were getting ready to start the PI at XXOS I think out in Arizona which is like a kind of like the performance institute for NFL players trying to get back into the big league. Players in their offseason are rehabbing. And it was me, him, and Max Holloway and Kelvin Gastelum, actually, that were all part of the group, and they used to send a bunch of us to kind of test it out and give feedback on all that.

And, yeah, it's amazing that he's dominated the way he has with those knees oh my god it's just mental strength because it's his mind he just pushes through and you know um will harris who has done an amazing job of uh documenting you know the dagestan chronicles and will's the best he's the best when it it comes to MMA, like, documentaries and covering these guys, like, he's such a good guy that everybody, like, lets him in. They trust him. And then, you know, he gets all this behind-the-scenes footage. Oh, yeah.

You know, he's got footage of Kamara where Kamara was, like, openly talking about it. Like, I don't know how much longer my body's going to hold up. Yeah. It's all the wrestling for years and years and years and just genetics right might just yeah once those knees go early and you just pound on them and just wrestling in general man especially freestyle like that brutal brutal brutal so many guys have blown out knees by the time their career is over yeah that necks they're just next oh yeah. Yeah, necks. Oh, yeah.

Even just anybody that's ever done any kind of grappling. How about Aljamain? Aljamain has a fake disc in his neck. And you see a lot of guys have that kind of injury. He has that. Yeah, man. Even an old coach of mine, I remember him having his neck fused together back then. That's scary, man.

Boss Rootin, that's the beginning of his problems. He got his neck fused and back that's scary man boss rootin that's the beginning of his problems he got his neck fused and now his hand and then you have like no range you start losing yeah you start losing feeling in in your arms yeah yeah thanks it's a it's a wild way to live your life to decide that for the glory and the challenge and just the just the overwhelming difficulty of becoming a world-class fighter or a world champion fighter that you put yourself through so much. It's funny that you bring that kind of up because it's hard to talk to people about why you do it if you don't understand it, right? to people about why you do it if you don't understand it right like if you've never done combat sports or ever have that desire to fight and just be one of the best it looks crazy to

anybody on the outside we look like we're absolutely lunatics but it's it's competition to us i don't look at a fight and think i'm gonna kill that person because i just want to be violent it's like i want to be better than that person i want to be and i want you know you want to achieve something that's seems crazy to other people and i think that's what obsesses a lot of us about it is that you want to do something that 99 of the people in this world are terrified of doing and walking to that cage is definitely one of the scary things aside from like anybody of active military and does all that kind of stuff that's another that's where that's what i can't imagine yeah and any of my friends that have served and done that i'm like they're like man

i don't know how you fight and do this i'm like what bro crazy you fought in wars right what are you talking about that's the highest level that's those guys, it's the same sort of situation. They oftentimes want to go back. Yeah. It's like the thrill of that. Yep. I can't imagine because I know what it's like to want that fight feeling, to want that desire to get your hand raised, whether good, bad, or ugly. And you have like a depression when it's done, man.

And I'm sure you've heard other fighters talk about this. Whether you win or lose, you build up to this moment, this fight camp. I'm fighting this guy. I'm going to get to the octagon. And then it's done. Yeah. You're like, ah. Well, that, I mean, times 10 with most people at the end of their career.

Yeah. Because now what? Yeah, now the big now what? Yeah, what do you do? And that's one of the things that i think is beautiful about what you've done you've found something that's a challenge that can occupy your mind and your will and and learn things and but it's and it's the same feeling though when those when that race is done and i cross that fish as soon as it's done you're like oh

and everybody around is like you fucking got your PR. That's great. You had your best run. You did this or your swim was really good. And it's like, now what? I want to go faster. It's not fast enough. Well, the guys are the real wild ones. Like I've always wondered, like, how does Jon Jones deal with retirement?

Like is Jon so wild? Like what is Jon going to do when it's all done? I mean, for the last three years, John has been thinking, okay, I'm going to build up to become a heavyweight. He goes in this extensive weightlifting program, obviously put in all this work to get so big and really built himself up to be a legitimate heavyweight. And now, I mean, and also John is what, 36 now?

How old is John now? I don't know. How old is John now? I don't know. How old is John Jones? I mean, you go back to John Jones' first fight with Shogun, fighting for the world title. I always say this. One of the wildest things I've ever seen. The guy's fighting for the world title, youngest guy, 35,

youngest guy ever to win the title. He opens up against a legend with a flying knee. Yeah. I mean, it's just wild. Yeah, you can't. John was just wild. And with a flying knee. Yeah. I mean, it's just wild. Yeah, you can't. John was just wild. And doing that on like an hour of sleep. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Dude, I can remember even back at Jackson's when we'd be there, he'd come rolling in and you could, you know, I didn't know him personally then, so I don't know what he was doing, but you could tell. Partying. He was probably partying and he'd come in and just beat everybody's ass clean the room man talent just just no issue talent is not fair and it's distribution it's just not no not at all

he and that's why so many people get so pissed it's like i did everything right and yeah this guy rolls in and kicks your ass yeah i'm very curious to see how he handles cyril gone because cyril gone is so fucking smooth and fast on the feet that the ko of tai tuivasa for all the kicks that he was showing in that one my god the body work. My God. Crazy. But then you have to think, Francis out-wrestled him and took him down. That's the big. Yeah, and if Francis can take him down and out-wrestle him.

What the hell is Jon Jones going to do with him? What is Jon Jones going to do with him? Or is Jon Jones as effective as a heavyweight? Because of the size. That's the thing. It's like, well, Francis might not be the strongest wrestler, but he's humongous right so even though he might not have the technical skills that john does just just physical strength and that's what i keep saying everybody that asked

me any questions about that one i'm like we're gonna we're gonna find out oh this is truly one more we don't know we have nothing to base it on because we can hear Jim's stories about how he handled heavyweights, but what's that like in the octagon on fight night? Also, Cyril Gans had ample opportunity to prepare for that kind of wrestling strategy, whereas I bet with Francis Ngannou, he didn't think Francis was going to try to take it down. No, not like that. He probably didn't prepare for a grappling match at all. He probably prepared for movement and tried to outpoint him. And then suddenly you find yourself

getting put on your back. And then you got to think like athleticism. Cyril Ghosn is so athletic and he's such a good striker. When was the last time John fought a guy who was that athletic and a good striker? Well, that's Dominic Reyes. Yeah.

And he gave him a lot of trouble. Gave him a lot of trouble. And Dominic Reyes is another one, right? Like at the top of the heap and then all of a sudden, boom, he just keeps getting flatlined. And he's still talking about his next fight and coming back, I'll be back. Bro, Ryan Spann is a motherfucker, dude.

There's a guy that's super talented, and when he's training and in shape. Yeah, well, he said he's not even been training. Yeah, he wasn't even training. Bro, he knocked him out with like a kind of a jab hook. Yep. But it's just the speed and precision. Yeah, he's a freak. He's a freak.

You get these guys that are just like super fucking talented that just find their place. It's funny to see when they realize, oh, I can be a lot better if I train. It's like, yeah, no shit, dude. I can't believe it took you this long. Oh, I never even trained.

I'm like. Yeah, and you know, you talk to Saif Saoud, and he'll tell you, like, you ain't even seen the best of this guy yet. Yeah. Like, he's fucking good. It's just like, what a wild time. So wild time for this sport. Yeah, it's good. So exciting.

It's very exciting. All right, Paul Felder, I'm glad we did this, man. We've been talking about doing this for a while. It was a lot of fun. I know, man. And, you and you know it was the thing i never wanted to be that guy that was going to bug you about it i'm like i get to see joe i talk to joe i work with him when the time is right he'll he'll eventually ask me to do this thing and here we are and we did it we did it thank you very much for being on man um so uh when are we working together again do you know i don't know um do you know when you're, the next one you're calling?

Well, I mean, I know I'm doing the, I'm doing San Hagen and Vera. Oh. Is the next one I'm working. I was actually thinking of flying in for that. Oh, if you're going to. I want, not even, I want to go to watch. Just go watch. Yeah.

Yeah. That's on February 18th. Yeah. It's at the apex. Yes. That, I fucking love that fight. I fucking love. Oh my God.

Krylov and Spann, February 25th. Ooh, that's also at the Apex. Yeah. Ooh, I like that fight. And Krylov is a bad man. Krylov is a bad man. I like that dude, man. I was so surprised he stopped Gustafsson like that.

Just stormed the gates and just came out guns blazing and put Gustafsson away. He's powerful, man. San Hagen and Vera is a fight. That is a fucking intriguing contest. It's going to be bloody. That was the one where I was like, man, I might fly in for that one. And Talia Santos versus Erin Blanchfield. Blanchfield, man.

She's tough. She's fucking good, dude. Very exciting. And Benoit Santany, that kid's good too, man. This French special forces guy. He's talented. Yes, he is. It's a great time to be a fan, my brother.

Yes, sir. Thank you very much for being here. Appreciate you. Great working with you always. Thank you, sir. Fun hanging out. All right. Bye, everybody. you